 Early. Cremature. Exactly. Oh, I think my laptop battery is starting to expand. What? I don't know. My mouse isn't working appropriately, which is a bad sign. It's also like a five million year old computer. Yes. All right, everybody. We're ready to begin. It's time to begin the show. Three, two, this is TWIS. This Week in Science, episode number 621, recorded on Wednesday, May 31, 2017. Perfectly natural cannibals. I'm Dr. Kiki, and tonight we are going to fill your heads with a massive fail. Mummies and cannibals, but first. Oh, that's me. Disclaimer, disclaimer, disclaimer. Control. Sometimes you have it. Sometimes you don't. Sometimes things happen as a direct result of your actions. Sometimes things happen despite you. Like you are the wind. Sometimes you are a leaf blowing at its mercy. Sometimes people make decisions that you disagree with. Sometimes those decisions won't affect you, but will affect your children and theirs. Sometimes, for a moment, you feel powerless. But I'd like to remind you that you do have control. You make choices for yourself. You choose the path you follow. You choose your own adventure. You choose who to follow. You choose to elect people you think will make the right choices for your grandchildren. You choose evidence over fear. And you choose to be here for This Week in Science coming up next. I've got the kind of mind that can't get enough. I want to learn everything. I want to fill it all up with new discoveries that happen every day of the week. There's only one place to go to find the knowledge I seek. I want to know what's happening. What's happening. What's happening. This Week in Science. What's happening. What's happening. What's happening. This Week in Science. Good science to you, Kiki. And good science to you, Blair. And Justin's not here. Oh no, there's no, well, Justin will be with us in a little bit. But we are here. This Week in Science is here. And we are going to be talking all about the science that, I don't know, you might have missed at other places, but you're here to get it tonight or whatever day in the future you happen to be time shifting your science into. Welcome everyone to this week's episode of This Week in Science. As usual, we have a fantastic show ahead. Lots of science news. I've got new stories about planets and moons, tasting water, and we have an interview about cannibalism. Blair, what does the animal corner hold in store? Oh, I've got the usual gems. I have pizza fish and arboreal goats. So I think we're all set. Yeah, absolutely. I'm really glad you brought the pizza fish, especially. That ought to come in handy. Nice mozzarella pizza fish. Anyway, Justin's stories tonight. I know he's got at least one story about mummies. So hopefully he'll get here in a while. He was delayed tonight. I wonder if Tom Cruise is involved. I don't know. Oh, OK. We'll find out. We'll find out with these questions and more. We'll be answering when he joins the show. But let's get into it. We can't stop because Justin's not here. Science continually moves forward onward. So let's do our weekly segment this week. And what has science done for me lately? Minion Dan writes in to say, I have always been in awe of early societies and how they figured out solutions to problems that made their lives better, such as how to manipulate materials to be used in a manner that gave them shelter, protection and tools. I've been working with leather for 30 years and the science behind the tanning of the skin of an animal to be used for shelter and clothing makes me proud to be part of the family. Tanning was a huge jump that allowed our species to live in colder climates. My distant family used all the sciences, physics, chemistry, engineering, and probably good old fashioned, let monkey try it. He'll eat anything, trial and error, methods of testing. Science has given me a living and here I am. Cheers. Dan, thanks so much for writing in with your story of what science has done for you lately. Anyone else we want to keep going, you can send us messages on Facebook. You can send me an email at kirsten at thisweekinscience.com. Tell me what science has done for you lately, whether it's something very simple and small or something grand and life changing, we want to know. We want to read one of these stories every week and we've been lucky to do so far because of people who have shared their stories and I want to hear yours. Send them in everybody. Send them in. Without any further ado, I would like to introduce our guest for the evening. Our interview tonight is going to be, oh, it's a macabre, the tales of the macabre. Our guest tonight is Bill Shutt. He's a biology professor at LIU Post and a research associate in residence at the American Museum of Natural History. Shutt has published over two dozen peer-reviewed articles on topics ranging from terrestrial locomotion and vampire bats to the precarious arboreal copulatory behavior of a marsupial mouse. Now that's a mouthful. His research has been featured in Natural History magazine as well as the New York Times, Newsday, The Economist, Discover Magazine, and he currently serves on the board of directors of the North American Society for bat research. We all love bats. His first book, Dark Banquet, Blood and the Curious Lives of Blood-Feeding Creatures, and after not too many years, I think it's not been that long, has it? We are pleased to welcome him back to the show to discuss his latest non-fiction work, Cannibalism, a perfectly natural history. Bill, welcome to the show. Great to be here, Kiki. Hey, Blair. Oh, thanks so much for joining us today. It's my pleasure. All right. So seriously, first blood meals and now cannibalism. I mean, this theme is so macabre. What led you into this book after your first? I just think it seemed like a logical progression to go from blood-feeding to cannibalism with Dark Banquet. I think I found a neat niche, and that was between the sensationalized material that was out there and the academic material, and I'm a teacher. So I think one of the best ways to educate is to entertain. So I pulled back on the jargon, and I tried to inject some humor where necessary and there are certain things you can't joke about. You don't want to force the issue. You're talking about cannibalism. There's certainly been a lot of human suffering, but I think you could make it the types of stories that people haven't heard before. There's a knee-jerk reaction to both of these, to blood-feeding and to cannibalism that I wanted to get around. I also wanted to figure out why we have those reactions to it. So exploring that taboo was interesting to me. But nobody was really surprised. I started out as a PhD student studying vampire vats and I talked to people 20 years later and they're like, well, what are you doing now? I just wrote a book about cannibalism. Nobody is really surprised. Nobody bad at an eye. Yeah, so it's unintended. The cannibalism, so how much of it was you studying why animals do it and how much of it was studying the stigma because I've always thought that to animals it's just another food source. Sure. Well, as a zoologist, I started out with the animal kingdom and I was surprised because up until recently the party line among scientists has been that, except for a couple of well-known examples, Black Widow Spiders, Prane Mantises, that when you saw cannibalism in the animal kingdom it was going to be because of a lack of food or because of cramped conditions due to captivity. And so I was really surprised to find that cannibalism occurred for all sorts of other reasons like parental care, for example. That blew me away as a reproductive strategy. So I got to explore those types of neat creatures that one doesn't really think about when you think about cannibalism. Then when I got into human cannibalism we can talk about this probably in a bit but I was really surprised at a couple of things. But one thing that I wanted to get into was this whole concept of where this taboo came from when you say the word cannibalism, you have a knee-jerk reaction to it. You think about Jeffrey Dahmer, you think about the Donner Party or the rugby players and I wanted to know why we think this way. Why do you have that immediate reaction when you mention that word? Yeah, I'd love to know that. Looking at it, since we have such cultural taboos you can't just look at humans as in the same way that you would other animal species necessarily. Yeah, I mean in the West we have had this cannibalism taboo. So I'll tell you, the chapter used to be called Blame It on the Greeks and that's because I think that this whole thing started with Homer, Polyphemus then moved into the Romans, William Shakespeare. When you look at Titus Andronicus Shakespeare was saying that this is the worst thing that you could do is to cannibalize and then it moved from there into the brother's grim so children were taught that if you're not good you're going to get eaten. I know, yes. Baba Yaga in the Russian history and then I guess it was like a Baba Yaga character who was in the candy house, right? Yeah, so I mean it goes on and on. Through, as I said, the brother's grim and the early anthropologists James Frazier, when anthropologists went out they had it set in their minds that they were going to find cannibals so they expected to find them whether they were cannibals or not. So I think that's where it came from and it was a snowball type of an effect to the point where in the West we have this knee-jerk reaction as soon as you say the word you think the worst and in other cultures that wasn't necessarily the case. I think a main theme in this book is that culture is king and if you're rituals and rites did not dictate that cannibalism was a horror that it was perhaps a way to honor your dead then there was a whole other take on it that I wanted to look at as well and that got a lot of people into some real trouble and the explorers came across went into the Caribbean and they were able to use that term cannibalism in a sense as a weapon to dehumanize the groups that they came in contact with enslave them, murder them completely destroy their cultures this happened in the Caribbean in Mexico, Central America South America, Africa so to me that was another the use of cannibalism as a weapon, the word to me was really interesting that's fascinating in your book you have one chapter on cannibalism and dinosaurs and we've read studies of the T-Rex, the scavenger who would feast upon the other dead probably dead members of its species and you have a story with someone named Raymond Rogers in the end about how he was talking to the media and said, I took this story of dinosaur cannibalism to the society of vertebrate paleontology meetings and I called it conspecific scavenging which is what I think it is it's an interesting kind of the scientific terminology and the language plays such a part in it the follow up to that is that nobody really paid attention to him but when he decided to change the term from that to conspecific scavenging to cannibalism then he wound up on the cover of whatever it was, Omni Magazine and Discover and the media just jumps all over it that's something else that I thought was really interesting the fact that the media is so interested whenever they hear it but unfortunately a lot of times they leave out the facts because they're so enamored with this sensationalistic aspect of it that the real story gets lost and that's happened on a number of occasions the Donner party these guys that got stuck up in the Andes there are all sorts of examples of that polar bear cannibalism polar bear cannibalism global climate change is turning polar bears into cannibals in reality polar bears have probably been cannibalizing their young for thousands and thousands of years so you think that they have been cannibalizing their young do you think it's been when their young don't make it if their young die prematurely then it's a food source and they eat them are they actively killing their young more and more often because it's harder and harder to find food I think what females do at least polar bears is that when they have their cubs they move away from the males as far away as they can and they have their own territory so the males will hunt and in most instances they don't encounter the females in their cubs now what we think might be happening is that because of changes that the bears are moving the male bears are moving into territories where they've never hunted before and now they're running into females and their cubs so that the incidences of cannibalism may be increasing but the media sort of left that part out about the fact that male polar bears have always been cannibals and young hunters and they really do it to terminate maternal investment and this isn't just polar bears the brown bears lions sea lions many males often kill the young especially in a territorial or in a competition sense very often chimpanzees but the media left out the middle part of the story about the fact that this has always taken place and they just made the connection between the fact that global warming is causing cannibalism and other people were quick to jump on that and said this is just another example where you're scientists are trying to foist something on the public when in reality that wasn't the case it was a matter of the media not telling the whole story because some of it wasn't as sexy as the rest of it Misconstruing the science for sexy emotionalism just cutting a couple of steps in the process out can really mess up the point absolutely you mentioned spiders and on Blair's Animal Corner we talk very often about female spiders who will kill their mate and black widows are one of the famous examples but there are many spiders that do this are there any any ideas we've asked before what the are on whether or not this is to get the nutrition from the male so that they have the energy to lay the eggs and have healthy baby spiders whether it's something related to that or whether or not it's something related to competition that if you kill the male then that male is not going to run off and mate with another female I haven't heard that one usually when you think of the male they're not going to get around a lot if they find one female they're pretty lucky yeah they're lucky so there's an investment that's being made researchers believe that this is a part of it is that not only is he passing on his genetic material to the next generation but he's also providing her with a meal and there's been some research that shows that females that consume the males will lay more eggs, more of the eggs will hatch and she'll be in better shape it's really the same with spiders and with mantises although those initial studies where everybody thought well it's praying mantises and it's black widows they were done in captive conditions and there were a lot of instances where the males are not consumed so that was sort of an exaggeration right and so it's always the question of there's been that question of when the female does not consume the male why? what's wrong with the system in your book also you've attempted to debunk various cannibalism myths so can you speak to what you've found to be some of the most prevalent myths in western culture about cannibalism? oh boy I think anthropologists now when they look back at history probably most of them believe that there's less cannibalism that took place in indigenous groups than was first thought and this is because a lot of the early anthropologists went out looking for cannibals and so any type of manipulation of say skeletal remains if these remains had cut marks on them for example then immediately then you were dealing with cannibals that's not really the case anymore and so there are other reasons why there are cultures that will take a body after it's been around a while and move it around and these are funerary rights that really have nothing to do with cannibalism so I think that was one of the real myths that I ran into the fact that overall there may have been less cannibalism if this was 50 years ago we probably would think that a lot more of these indigenous groups that were encountered were cannibals than really are that was certainly one there was a slew of them and it was fun looking at those types of things what were your own experiences been going out into the field and adventuring into this world of cannibalism what were some of the most exciting adventures for you well when I first started this book I thought well the Donner Party when I wrote the book about blood feeding creatures that I was going to avoid mosquitoes because they had been so well covered in other books and so I didn't think I'd be doing much with the Donner Party and that was a real surprise because I got in touch with some Donner Party researchers and I found out I got really lucky because there was a media blitz that had just hit and basically what was being said was that scientific research has now shown that the Donners did not cannibalize I remember when that story came out it was really a big deal everybody was talking about it scientists crashed Donner Party big headlines so I contacted some of these folks and I said is that true and they literally shook their heads no what happened was that a public relations department of a school that had a researcher working on a site and she was working on the remains of a cook fire and of course they were able to dig out about 1600 pieces of bone and they'd all been cooked and processed and reprocessed which is the reason why they survived for 1847 so they did an analysis of these bones and it took six years and what they came out with was there were no human remains and so at that point the public relations department jumped the gun and put out a statement saying that their researcher had found proof that the Donners did not cannibalize it was probably a story based on racism and religious differences that they ate their pets they ate their animals but there was no proof that humans were consumed so I said is that true and once again they just looked at me and they went no so how it turns out is that when the Donners had cannibalism when cannibalism took place in the Donner party it took place in four different sites there was never any doubt that it happened at this particular site which was a place called Older Creek when cannibalism occurred it didn't happen until late late late in the game so for months and months while they were up in the wilderness they processed and reprocessed they collected mice they ate everything their belts, their shoes their hides and they reprocessed and recooked and cooked and cooked all of these bones to get the last bit of nutrients out of them and then when cannibalism occurred there was plenty of meat so they did not it wasn't their first go it wasn't their first choice that they adjusted speaking of racism and religious bias my first memory of encountering cannibalism was I believe in an Abbott and Costello story one of these running from the natives in Africa and afraid of getting put into the pot and boiled alive and there was something there was something of that myth that was this is the danger of traveling abroad that occurred like this is what happens when you leave the comfort of your home and go exploring into the world and there was something sort of intriguing about that that's very separate from like the Jeffrey Dahmer stories or even the Donner party of a survivalist necessity thing that it was just sort of the one of those things that you could encounter while walking the earth I think more than what you're saying is a type of prejudice because if you could label someone as the other as not you as a cannibal and these were horrific acts that these people were performing then you didn't have to treat them like humans absolutely but again this would have been I was a youth not 50 years ago but this would have been even longer ago because Abbott and Costello of course this was really a long time early Hollywood racist and make up myths about other cultures yep little rascals yum yum eat them up oh my goodness so in talking about the the anthropological aspects of cannibalism a question from the chat room Fada is asking he says he learned in social anthropology way back in college that most tribal cannibalism is to show power over a defeated enemy not for lack of food is this considered true? I mean I wouldn't consider that that is necessarily the main type of cannibalism that happened ritually I would think that there'd be more of it concerned with funerary rights dealing with the dead instead of when anthropologists went into Brazil and they encountered this tribe the Warae were just as mortified to learn that the anthropologists were burying their dead as the anthropologists were that the Warae were consuming theirs so once again it's just a matter of culture as king it's what you're taught now there may certainly have been instances where cannibalism is used to exert power or to take possession of the strength of your slain foe but I mean it was probably just as likely used for medicinal purposes or in funerary rights and I think that would be the kind of cannibalism I could get behind you know I'm gonna pack on a little extra fat this winter just in case this is the winter I go I want my family to have a not too lean of a meal I want there to be a little sizzle on the pan help him out a little bit I've always thought too rather than being burned or something like this plant me under a tree the nutrients but it makes sense like right to the family right to the circle that matters most all these nutrients should go to yeah and so speaking of nutrients can I ask a question about the placenta so is this cannibalism because the reason I asked this question is because I was just in the family farm at the zoo and I was talking to one of the zookeepers chickens and she mentioned that one of the chickens favorite foods is hard boiled eggs and everyone cringe at that why? I wouldn't consider that cannibalism I would consider them trying to take back nutrients that has left their body that they can then reabsorb yeah but specifically if you're dealing with the same species then technically that is cannibalism at least in my book cannibalism consuming your placenta which was another field trip that I went on field trip people who eat their cuticles who bite their nails but bite a little bit of skin around them they're basically cannibals right I'm a cannibal I mean there's some stuff that's sort of like a gray area I didn't really get look if you're making out with somebody is that cannibalism you could keep going on this yeah if I eat my own burgers is that cannibalism? yeah right well or if you have a cut and you suck on it to clean it oh no cannibalism but I want to hear about your placenta field trip okay so I've been on a number of book related trips during the summer and my semester had just started so I figured that's it I'm not going to be doing much more traveling and I got into this idea of writing about people who consume their placentas and maybe we can talk about this later but that was one of the major surprises to me was this whole idea of medicinal cannibalism that took place in Europe and really the last vestiges of it are these small amount of people who believe that consuming their placenta after they give birth will ease the baby blues so it sort of smooths out the hormonal ups and downs that you might encounter so there are people whose job it is is to go into hospitals to get the placenta which is a hazardous waste so mother can't take it home and she will prepare it in any number of ways from tinctures to a smoothie to powdered form yeah powdery it yeah freeze dry it powder it and put it into capsules that's what we did so I'm on the phone with this woman and I thought it would be maybe an email Skype interview and she goes well that's too bad because I just gave birth and if you came down here you can have my placenta and I remember sitting there going did she just invite me to Texas to eat her placenta so I'm thinking to myself if it's 10 years down the road and I've written a book about cannibalism and I had a chance to go down to Dallas, Texas to consume this woman's placenta and I didn't do it I had taken myself in the behind so 10 minutes after I got off the phone with her I had tickets, went down there and it turned into it was memorable things were going on down at that time that were for example you can't make this stuff up about two blocks from where my hotel was the first Ebola patient was and everybody in that apartment complex nobody could leave so there was a really weird vibe I was in the Dallas airport when that happened there was a there was a storm the night before with these 80 mile per hour straight line winds there's no power and here I'm going into this woman's house her husband's a chef so she goes we could make it any way you wanted we could put it in a taco or also you pick you pick and she goes I was right that was the hiccup I was running into in the story it was like it does one you've got a chef there that's right so being half Italian I said I'll go with the placenta he cooked it up so he's chopping up all of these vegetables and he's putting it together These these vegetables are organic and I remember going well. Thank God because I'm never eating placenta unless the vegetables are So I've gone into a liquor store and I and you know, I'm I'm not from Texas I don't know if you pick that up from my accent, but but I but I found the most Texas looking person I could find and I said well, you know, I'm looking for a bottle of wine to pair dinner tonight Can I help you and I said I'm we're having placenta and and she literally ran away kind of like Justin just So to make a long story short She had 10 home school kids and and it was an adventure and and It came it was basically was delicious. I cleaned my plate So is there any actual science on the benefits of placenta? Yeah, I don't think so And and she admitted it when when we were talking, I mean she basically admitted that what you were looking at was the placebo effect Because if you're cooking this thing and you're looking to To have hormones being replaced now you're denaturing those those hormones as soon as you cook them So I think a lot of it is the placebo effect, but these people feel better and she feels better and and so Um, you know that I was surprised that at at how intelligently they were dealing with us Because I walked away from there with a with a real respect for what they did, but Not saying that I would ever do it again Also 10 kids in 10 kids I'd a little bit Yeah 10 in well, they had a nice supply at placentas. I guess Yeah, but I imagine at 10 kids you can't really tell what is baby blues and what is just the fact that you have Is Oh wow All right, so moving on from placenta adventures What you've got a whole chapter in here on weird. What is the weirdest? Story, what is the weirdest incidents of cannibalism that you can think of? Okay, I'll give you one animal and then you'll have to remind me of one human. Um There are there's a small group of legless amphibians called Sicilians and I I've always got to tell people That's what the sea not with a mess my Italian relatives are like billy. What are you talking about? I'm like no, but grandma. It's a sea. These are different. Um, and so They're they burrow um and they're sort of subterranean and and and one group of them lay eggs and the and the other group have Live young well the ones that lay eggs Reports came in that when the eggs hatch The the the hatchlings squirm around their mother's body for several weeks And nobody really took a hard look at it until fairly recently and what they found out was that They weren't necessarily just squirming around her body They were peeling her skin like a grape and eating it So well, you think well, this is kind of a there you go There's a Sicilian and you think this is kind of a barren behavior But but it's not this is highly evolved the skin of the pregnant female Is is thick and richly laden with fat and nutrients if you look at a non pregnant female, it's not So and this is their sole source of nutrition for several weeks The the mothers do lose some weight as you would imagine But the skin grows back quickly and then they'll peel it again and eat it now the the um The live bears are to me are almost as interesting. There they are So They looked at some young that had just been born and they And and they found that they've got this weird little tooth and they were going well These guys kind of eat algae Maybe that's and before they could figure out what the tooth was the tooth the teeth fell out So they said well So they they took a couple of females that were just given birth and they dissected them and they looked in the Reproductive tracks and they found that inside the obeducts where the where the babies had been developing The lining of the obeduct had been eaten away And yeah, so yeah Well, if you think about it from from an evolutionary perspective if the We believe the live bearers evolved from the from from the the egg bearers The live bearers were already pre adapted with that tooth To deal with feeding Before they were born So to me that was the most fascinating and weird of of all of the You know all of the animals when you when you get into human cannibalism By far and away the weirdest thing that that that I encountered was Given this western taboo and it is extremely strong um The fact that for hundreds of years in europe In a in a in a bunch of countries medicinal cannibalism From the middle ages through the renaissance Right up until the beginning of the 20th century Every type of body part from bones to to you know guts and fat to blood Was used to treat just about any type of malady you can think of for example And and the more violent the death the better that they're supposedly more nutritional value because the life essence hadn't escaped yet Now these are people who what what blew me away was you know These are folks who were who were persecuting and destroying civilizations because they were being accused of cannibalism Yet back at home from kings to commoners Body parts were used body, you know ground up mummies were were listed in the murk index until 1908 so You'd have epileptics lined up with cups at at executions to To gather to gather blood to treat their seizures And you know that to me was the weirdest thing and then they made it disappear because you never hear anything about that People never did that we never did that. Yes, you did. Those are the other guys Oh my goodness So moving from moving continuing along the vein of uh human cannibalism we've talked before on the show about kuru kuru the brain disease that comes from cannibalizing infected individuals and it's and it's it's usually passed along through cannibalism and and related to that is another disease scrappy or mad cow disease that has been prevalent in england and we've had we have um uh, crucifilte jacob's disease here in the united states very it's all these prion disorders. Sure. Um Is is it just unusual that humans are passing this prion disorder on um because of the cannibalism or is it potentially A is this potentially a big problem for all animals that cannibalize? Well, you know, it does move now So back up a second I'm not You know, I went into this going oh well two guys won Nobel prizes for their research on prions And and when I came out of the research on this book I went, you know, I wasn't sure at all that prions were the cause of Of kuru and mad cow and scrappy and and Laura manuelitas who's a wonderful biologist out of um out of yale I mean she basically had me convinced that it is that it's viral And that they're and that the prions are actually a response the body's Overblown response to this virus Um, and and and she has an extremely compelling case now whether it's prions which are in theory self replicating proteins and and the the neatest model that I ever heard about them was when you When you you Have crystals form in a In a cup and you know for kids and you super saturate the water and all of a sudden boom you get all these crystals That in a sense is what their hypothesizing takes place with these With these prions that they that that they act as templates for the production of more and more and more of them until they foul up the nervous system Um, that being said whether it's prions or whether it's a virus It has been shown to jump species which became problematic when The the british beef industry started to feed chopped up cows to other cows And and this is when you got mad cow disease now The the the problem was is that they took a look at it and said well, we have the same thing in sheep and we've never seen it Transmitted from sheep to humans. So we're okay And that was not really the case here with uh with mad cow because it jumped into humans and and wound up killing hundreds of people Yeah, yeah, I mean it became a really big deal where it was shutting down People the companies sending their meat across overseas Japan at one point the united states was or the i think it was japan not taking meat from the united states or something as a result so Interesting I like that the the new the new twist on it possibly being a virus. Mm-hmm. Yeah Yeah, these were all I mean this was these were the kinds of things that that I found and I wrote about that you know we're so far away from Are what we usually think about when we think about cannibalism that you know I the book could have been a lot longer of if I had more time to write it, but But um, you know, I think I packed enough neat information in there that you know, and I really tried it sounds funny But you know, I did try to stay away from sensationalism and then people will go. Yeah, but you ate someone's placenta Cannibalism there's got to be some you got to grow some people out But um, you know, I didn't go into criminal cannibalism I avoided that and I you know, I'm not a criminologist and and I was not at all interested in sort of perpetrating the hero worship or or or or hurting the The families of people who were victims of crimes that involve cannibalism Yeah, I think that's fair enough. I mean that's not necessarily the purpose of the book either the purpose of the book is to tell these stories that you know, as you said Cannibal is cannibalism is something that just about all species have been found to practice and it's human Human morals in our our social social our our cultural mores That have led to these taboos in the way that we Treat the word Yeah So cannibalism though, this is your most recent non-fiction book But you've been busy also writing fiction Yeah, I'm really lucky. Um and so I've Next Tuesday, I will have had three books come out in one year and my first the first one was The first one was was cannibalism and then And then I had this book hell's gate come out which was Which is a world war two sort of techno thriller crypto zoological Drama about a an american Soldier who's who's a who's a zoologist the indiana jones of zoology is how they're describing him He's sent into central brazil to to investigate the fact that they found A japanese submarine 750 miles in london and it's and and it's empty and so Um The story that takes place at the same time the parallel story is a is a german rocketeer Who gets pulled out of the penamunda rocket camp that gets bombed by the raf and he's sent on a mission on a submarine and where these two Plots collide is underneath that plateau that you see there in central brazil And and in that plateau are the last hundred does modus dracule the lord prehistoric vampire bats And they're not happy about anyone being there So it's really this that where those three stories come together is is really um hell's gate And then I followed it up And that's coming out on on tuesday is is the himalayan codex And that that takes the characters from the that that survived hell's gate and and sends them off into into to bet To supposedly to investigate the findings of some Some bones that were found of a of a miniature sized mammoth that apparently had two trunks But the real reason that they're being sent in And this is this guy rj mccready and a brazilian woman who he's now with um Is because the they found a A codex that that was written by plenty the elder that detailed his trip His journey up into the same region Of the himalayan mountains in 67 ad and what he found there So that's half of the story because it shifts back and forth from from these romans and and and and mac and his group that go up into the himalayan's and It's about what they find up there That sounds that sounds like a really fun read and I love also we were talking earlier how You mentioned that uh that science is this is all based on scientific findings that you've actually done scientific Referencing for these fictional books. And so you've got a reference section Yeah, that's like 20 or 30 pages at the the reality check at the end of these books is is uh Explaining the science behind what you know what we've just sometimes stretch, but we're not making anything up so whether it was Nazi weaponry or or it was um These vampire bats which which actually existed until fairly recently You know, we had a really good time with that and the other thing about setting that during world war two or we're just after world war two Um, is that you can bring into all these great historical characters that that that I that I sort of fell in love with growing up Like alfred hitchcock for example He's got a couple of scenes in in in the himalayan codex and charles r night the the um The artist at the museum of natural history and elsewhere. He's a major player in both of the books So it's kind of fun I've only ever written one book And I had a cameo with alfred hitchcock Massive fan of his yeah, I've got hitchcock and bernard herman in a scene where and that's where they're talking about a theraman concert that's going on The theraman plays a big role in the book And i'm glad you're paying attention to the to the sciences you write to your your fiction Because there it's always sort of to me like when i'm i'm following along and then something just Sincerely non scientific is thrown in It's sort of like watching a period piece documentary and having them play modern music Behind it like it's it's like i'm no longer in now. I've just jumped completely outside of it Are you talking trash about a night's tale right now? That is a classic that one I didn't even know I was uh targeting specifically But uh Yeah, we try we try to really um to to stamp that out It's funny because we got a we saw a review the other day and the person said this book was great But uh camels didn't have filters back in 1946 and and we looked at each other and we went We didn't write anything about camels with filters and we went through every page. We searched We searched camel cigarette filter couldn't find it and we're going we didn't write that Because you know that would have bugged us Yeah, yeah If it bugs you it'll bug your readers as well Well, good luck next Tuesday. I hope that I hope you're getting Pre-orders and pre-sales and that next Tuesday. It will be a great book launch for the himalayan codex Otherwise if you want non-fiction for people out there cannibalism a perfectly natural history is available now If you are in, uh, europe in the uk. I believe the title is eat me Yeah It's for real that the europe in in uh in the uk. They kept the snarky title But they cut out all the snark from the book and in the united states. They wouldn't go with eat me But they left in all the snark. So who knows So really you have to get the cover from the european one And the book from america and like frankenstein them together. Yeah, it's a great I must say i'm a little proud of being snarkier than the british That's that's yeah Well, they said well, you know, those are american jokes americans will will get that we won't i'm like Whatever, okay Yeah, so are you gonna do all of your book signings eat me? No, um It's a great cover though. I mean, um, they they they put together the the title with bones with human bones So it's kind of neat looking Yeah, yeah, it's beautiful So bill if you do make it over i'm in portland oregon Powell's books is here if you're coming anytime soon for a reading or a book signing. Let me know Sure, i'd love to say hi. Yeah In the meantime everyone cannibalism like i said or eat me depending on which side of the pond you're on Is out now and The himalayan codex will be coming out on tuesday and bill where can people find you if uh, they want to look up More information about you and your books Bill shut comm bil l s ch utt or i'm also on facebook, uh, bill shut author Um pretty easy to find also on twitter bill shut author So yeah, i've i've been talking to a lot of fans and it's it's a tremendous amount of fun And i will respond if uh, if people ask me questions and want to chat about stuff. I love talking about the craft. It's uh Writing is uh, it is interesting, you know To i'm glad i have another career And that's usually what i tell people It's good to have it's good to have your teaching career your research career and the writing career and to be able to probably go back and forth between them Yeah, i'm extremely lucky and i'm very grateful Multimodal it's wonderful Or what is that i'm blanking on a word, so i'll just say confefe Okay, thank you so much for joining us this evening. We will my pleasure later. I know it's late where you are I hope you have a wonderful night. Thank you. Thank you very much. Take care You too. Bye everybody. Bye blare. Bye And that was biologist zoologist bill shut who has written some fabulous books It was so great to have him back on the show again We are going to take a break right now for a couple of moments for our usuals Spate of announcements We do hope that you will stay tuned because you know what the science is coming up This is as we can science stay tuned for more All right, everyone. I hope that you are enjoying the show in A little bit more than a week. We're gonna be in philadelphia. I hope if you're in the philadelphia new jersey I don't know that whole area over there. 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It should be But uh, if you click on most recent posts at the top there, maybe you'll see it Let's see. We've got products Uh, I'm gonna I'm just looking I'm looking there's some really neat really neat things you guys we have got We've got items that have We have got items like Blair's animal corner art items we have got Uh, let's see. I'm gonna try and find let's see go in clothing Got some great clothing. Maybe that would include hats. No, that's not where hats are Let's see if I can find go ahead and be a product new products here we go Nope, we have we have Polo shirts for those of you who don't want big logos all over your shirt We have a nice polo shirt that you can wear with the twist logo on it. You can also Get wonderful toad hip new toad twist Art from Blair's animal corner normal twist shirt all those wonderful things I'm gonna just search for hats right now Nope Can't find it Blair's been working on a hat and that's what I was excited to show you guys Blair has been working on a hat And it's all in your head hat and so we'll hopefully get it featured off screen share It's it should be posted soon But you can at least see what I'm trying for right here. So there's the back of it has the twist logo the front of it It says it's all on your head Yep, and it's orange with black writing, but there's some reason it hasn't posted the story yet All I'll tweet as soon as it does Yeah, all right Blair will tweet And then it'll be hopefully all on your head as well. 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I like science Juno science All right, there are results the first science results are back from the Juno Jupiter mission remember last summer we were talking about Juno heading over to To jupiter and then it would get there and it would take all these pictures and things and then You know, eventually we would get data back Well the data came back And there are papers out there's a couple of papers out in In one journal and then like 44 papers in another journal. It's kind of crazy There are many papers being published all over the place. Let me see where yeah No, I don't know. Anyway Papers galore and this is just the beginning of the data that jupiter. Uh, Juno is giving us from jupiter because Juno is going to jupiter is at jupiter and it's diving around the planet diving into that Magnetosphere or the outer atmosphere to be able to really take some amazing pictures Once every 53 days and so when it does its dive it takes a picture from the north pole click Click like like like it goes all the way down to the south pole And gives us beautiful images like the one that I'm showing on the screen right now Which shows these twirling whirling Storms Oh, that's gorgeous in the atmosphere. It's beautiful. It's like the most beautiful like weird swirly easter egg coloring I don't know how to describe it visually, but they're Brownish hues and there are blue hues and there are just so many different gradations and some of the most interesting stuff that's going on with What they're finding are uh, how the north and the south poles are very different They're not exactly the same and there are places throughout where there's these massive jets of energetic winds that are Flying through the ammonia the upper ammonia atmosphere That surrounds jupiter They're also looking at the magnetic field of jupiter They found instead of kind of being consistent north north pole south pole just like the earth's magnetic field that there are Jets of magnetic energy that just like come out of the planet at these random places And so it's like got this sporadic magnetosphere, which was not at all and very strong so a lot of variation and really interesting, um Uh finding as far as the magnetosphere is concerned Additionally the ammonia part of the atmosphere this upper part of the atmosphere That we visually see it goes much deeper Into the interior of the planet than they thought so it goes way down deep and Looking at the north and the south poles. They're also able to look at the aurora for the planet Amazing energetic aurora here on the earth our aurora come from the impacts of electrons from outside The earth into The earth's atmosphere and magnetosphere On jupiter these electrons are coming from inside the planet So there's some kind of forces inside the planet that are just shooting electrons Up and out and they're interacting with the atmosphere So there's a lot of really interesting stuff going on scientists are saying that this is just so exciting And uh, this is a lot, uh, there are a lot of things that they did not expect So Juno additionally one of the fun things if you guys are not following along with it Juno cam Juno cam is the camera on Juno that is taking pictures And nasa is making them publicly available every time Juno sends back the pictures and so you Can get access to these pictures And color process that process them create peace, uh, basically artistic images Of your own interpretation of Of jupiter and the and the colors and the The close-ups that you might find of these swirling storms all of the images are available to you as as a citizen As someone who is interested in space And jupiter and what's going on there You too can get into this compendium of images and Start processing them and sending them back And making and sharing images of jupiter with other people. There's some just gorgeous images that are coming out of this um Of this citizen science effort So some very exciting stuff going on there And then moving from jupiter Let's move out to saturn Saturn Is our wonderful ringed planet with the kassini mission that's been sending us really fascinating Information for what like a decade now. I don't know kassini's been I don't know doing amazing work for several years and giving us a whole new view of the ringed planet And it's moons and so some recent analysis has Of of the planets, but not the planet. I say the planet of the moon in celadus and The cracks in its surface and also of kind of the north and the south pole How they're oriented and where the cracks are and also how the north pole and the south pole Are dissimilar to one another because one of the poles is heavily cratered and the other one is not so they But based on how they're oriented now Maybe that shouldn't be the case and so what based on just looking at these surface features of in celadus They're now thinking that in celadus was smacked by something really big A long time ago that set off and and and it's north and south pole used to be oriented differently And that getting smacked by something tipped it About 55 degrees away from its original axis and they say that Being being hit by a massive asteroid possibly would have initiated a mechanism called true polar wander And so this is basically the process of the of the of the physics of the rotation of in celadus Reestablishing stability so something comes in and wax it goes off kilter and then it's like a top kind of settles back down into A new rotation influenced by Saturn's massive gravity so They say that in celadus is topographical and geological features can be explained through geophysical processes But the moons north and south poles are really different The south is active and geologically young while the north is covered in craters appears much older One of the researchers says the differences Cassini has observed between the north and south poles remains peculiar Originally the poles of in celadus would have been the same more or less before true polar wander occurred The true polar wander hypothesis seems very plausible when we take a combined look at the patterns of highs and lows Across the moon's surface the physical appearance of surface features and the differences between the current poles And then you know, we're way way out there far away and then why don't we head into Mars come in let's come into mars. We like it on mars nice red planet that Another analysis of surface features, which is great in gale crater by The curiosity rover Has discovered evidence in these halos these kind of light patches around Revenes where water was thought to once have flowed these light these halos that they found Suggest that ground water that running water was on the surface of Gale crater that area for much longer So it stayed on the surface later or I guess until more recently Then was previously believed and so this what it does is it expands The possible window for the development of life on the red planet If in fact that happened Yeah more time with water the higher the possibilities This awesome news It's very awesome news. So I guess, you know, that's a point for more study right there And then okay, my final spacey story for this intro to the science is Really interesting. We love black holes, right black holes. How do they normally form? What do we think of when we think of a black hole for me? Imploding star is the is the first right massive super massive sun that implodes and then and then grabs others in there and it Keeps gobbling stuff up as it gets bigger and bigger and bigger Great. So you're thinking a big explosion like a supernova Maybe right? All right energy that's visible Well a new study That is out of columbus, ohio at ohio state university has astronomers have potentially using the large binocular telescope potentially discovered Failed massive failure massive failed supernova That turned into a black hole Yeah, this is like a this is a space failure We have failure to ignite And what they were doing is they were looking at this area They were looking at this area of space They like watching this one galaxy the fireworks galaxy NGC 6946 it's about 22 million light years away and supernova happened there quite often It's just that's why they call it the fireworks galaxy so In 2009 One star named n 6 9 4 6 bh 1 Started to brighten and they're like yeah supernova and then It just disappeared Gone and they're like, okay. Wait. What happened? We saw the star it was going the supernova route and then it did not it like there's like this bright This this weak brightening What happened there? So they look took the Hubble space telescope and they're like, okay, maybe it just Dimmed right maybe we just aren't seeing it well anymore because our telescope's not strong enough so Hubble And then they're like, ah spitzer. Let's look at infrared radiation to see if there's any heat coming out of the area because there should be Heat right if there's a big explosion well Nothing Nothing there at all no star and so step by step They eliminated every probability aside from The star becoming a black hole I thought you were gonna say death star. Yeah, no um researcher uh A former ohio state student scott adams Uh who was working on this project But has since moved on he says n 6 9 4 6 bh 1 is the only likely failed Likely failed supernova that we found in the first seven years of our survey During this period six normal supernova have occurred within the galaxies. We've been monitoring suggesting that 10 to 30 percent of massive stars Die as failed supernova This is just the fraction that would explain the very problem that motivated us to start the survey which is that They weren't seeing as many supernova as they thought they should so Failed supernovae may explain this and so Uh, what they think is that there's this possibility that there could be a process of a supernova Which blows off a lot of the outer layers, but there's still enough mass that's left over at the end To form a black hole and so the black hole sucks it all back in So then you don't have then that the light just goes out anyway, very interesting Failed big massive failure in outer space What And that does it for my spacey news Justin Are you my mummy? Um, no, but my next story might be an international team of scientists got together recently to do the sort of thing international scientists do science mostly Uh, and before they were through they had recovered and analyzed dna From egyptian mummies often coveted for their medicinal properties as we learned from the previous segment Uh in egypt actually is typically a terrible place to go searching for ancient human dna Yes, there are plenty of wrapped human corpses that you might think this would be like an easy task, right But the tombs in which the mummies were often put uh have high humidity The chemicals that were used to mummify them in the first place Contribute to dna degradation plus egypt is egypt is hot. It's really hot. It's like africa hot So once a mummy is removed from its dark damp place How and where the mummy is stored how many people come into contact with it over the years Contamination is such a danger that they kind of thought this is This is too tough of a task. They've done some Dna testing in the past, but they it's always they've been very skeptical of any result that they've gotten Uh, but uh yet researchers at the university of to bingen And the max plank institute for the science of human history and jenna were successful The team sampled 151 mummified individuals from the archaeological site of a booster elm malik along the nile river and middle egypt From two anthropological collections there The mummies dated from about 3400 years ago to the more recent ones about 1500 years ago results included mitochondrial genomes from 90 individuals and The first genome wide nuclear data from three of the individuals There will use the data gathered to test previous hypotheses drawn from archaeological and historical data And from studies of the modern dna of the people's air team looked at the genetic left for at the genetic level for clues Of foreign conquest domination during the time period study They compared these populations to modern egyptians comparative populations and the study found that ancient egyptians Were most closely related To ancient popular populations in the levant And they were also closely related to neolithic populations from the anatolyan peninsula and europe No major shifts were found during the time span That was covered in this study All right, the data shows that modern egyptians uh in contrast share approximately eight percent more ancestor in the nuclear level With sub-saharan african populations than with the ancient egyptians Suggesting that there was more gene flow from the south to the north in the last 1500 years Uh study counters prior skepticism about the possibility of recovering a reliable ancient dna from egyptian mummies despite the potential issue of degradation and contamination caused by climate and mummification methods Authors were able to use a high throughput dna sequencing and robust authentication methods to ensure the ancient origin and reliability of the Data new methods new tools were employed study of the shows Egyptian mummies can be reliable source of ancient dna and can greatly contribute to a more accurate and refined understanding of the history of the region And and no alien dna was found Yeah, so this is more in the maybe the egyptians really did, you know, make their pyramids all on their own Of course, that's also been one of those or that's what the aliens want us to believe right Well, I think it would be it's interesting to think about the culture of the area and how the culture itself has changed historically as um you know as agriculture is waxed and waned and how And and how that would affect The the gene flow, you know, where are individuals coming from to join them? And we've got the history of the romans and the egyptians being very tightly bonded and then um You know more recently, that's maybe not not such a strong bond Yeah, yeah, I mean the gene flow the gene flow of you know, when we when we think of We think of the out of africa Uh aspect of it. I mean that's been going back and forth in that region You know for for for really really really long time. There there's no simple human migration people migrate in every direction Wherever they are so People move Yeah We go where there are resources we go where there's food we go there where there's other people On the move It's true I love it new techs neat techniques to go back in history to figure out those human movements just a little bit more More specifically. It's awesome This is this weekend science if you are just tuning in we're talking about science and science Do you know what time it is? What time is it? It's time for Layer's animal corner. Yes, finally. Oh wait. Um, my computer Anyway, uh Okay, Justin do you want to do an old school? Um, so speaking of following resources Perfect segue into my first story Which is about the famous tree climbing goats What? So you haven't heard of them before in morocco. There are tree Climbing goats that I'm going to I got a picture. I'll put it up. You just tell the story So tree climbing goats. So these goats follow the food up Sometimes up to 30 feet into branches to eat fruits The fruits are called argon fruits. Um, they're used in beauty products I use argon oil in my hair There you go And so that this fruit is around the the nut that creates this oil, right? So the fruit feeds the nut as it grows. That's the whole point of Fruits that are around seeds or nuts like stone fruits for example So the goats follow these fruits up into the trees and in fact Farmers that that have these goats will actually help teach goats to climb trees as little kids and They also keep the trees pruned well enough so that they are able to traverse the tree as they climb it So this this helps them keep their goats healthy and It turns out that the goats are actually providing a vital service to the tree as well Can you guess what that might be? It's eating The leaves and the seeds Maybe do they ever leave the tree? They do they they climb down from the tree when they're done eating and A lot of animals that eat seeds or nuts are seed propagators, but have you ever seen goat poop? They're little pellets It's like it's like rabbit poop. It looks a lot like rabbit poop And so actually the likelihood of them being able to propagate seeds through their poop Is unlikely Additionally because they chew cut so they spit up food and process it pretty heavily Before it ever makes it all the way through their digestive system. So how is this possible? How could they possibly be providing an important ecosystem service? Yes Well researchers Found that goats have been spitting out the seeds Oh, they're spitting them out. They're not Not pooping them out. Yes So this may be a brand new method of seed propagation that we haven't really thought about in its function in an environment It's like the opposite. It's like the opposite of sunflower seeds where we spit out the shell, right? So cow sheep deer goats, they all Chew cudd and so when the poop finally comes out it It can't be a seed propagating structure But also a lot of these animals have been Observed spitting and now for the first time ever they've seen these tree climbing goats Spitting out these large argon seeds and so it is highly likely That the trees are benefiting from this behavior and that this is actually an important ecosystem service They're helping spread out these trees propagating the the crop I wonder if it works like this specifically for the argon trees because I mean we talk about how the gut processing of many seeds is really important for The propagation that the digestion of whatever the coatings of the nuts and seeds are That digesting that off actually helps them germinate When they hit the ground, but does does goat spit? Yes, because they're swallowing it and spitting it up and chewing on cudd So it's getting processed in their gut in one of their guts partially sometimes two of their guts before they They might swallow it back down again spit it back up again. Mm delicious this this episode Great dinner listening I would say but Absolutely So this first cannibalism now uh now cudd so I forgot that goat goats are ruminants. Yes. I forgot that. Okay, so They are preprocessing these seeds just like the propagators that our poopers do Poopers and spinners making the world go round turns out. Well, you can just Sit and ruminate on that Room of the house So we had tree climbing goats next I want to talk about pizza fish What so key When you are about to eat a delicious greasy cheesy hot slice of pizza Maybe it's a little too wide How do you keep it from drooping on its way to your mouth? Well, you know a knife and fork of course. No get out of here No, I'm kidding if you pick it up and you fold it in half and you have to make sure you have like Pick it up as a cheese is dripping off and you have to get it in your face hole before The cheese falls off. Yes. So we fold the slice so that it doesn't droop This is exactly what fish do with their fins Let let me explain So if you've ever seen a fish fin, it's pretty floppy Just like that slice of pizza So as you try to drag that through the water, you'd expect it to be pretty floppy to to not be able to stand up to water as it drags its way through trying to Navigate the water right but these floppy thin fins are able to push water to get through How do they do that? Well right now kiki is showing the video which I think is a perfect explanation So these ray fin fishes so they have these two they have these bony appendages inside the fin And so if they are All kind of parallel to one another when you push against them They bend but if you instead have them at an angle like that folded piece of pizza And you stretch a membrane between them. They are very strong and resistant to pressure However, as you're watching this video, hopefully when you then sever that membrane It breaks apart So the combination of the fold and then the stiffness of the membrane in between gives them the structural stability to move water And these fish have the ability to adjust how bendy how much How much bend is in that slice of pizza? Let's call it so that they move more or less water and therefore use more or less force So that's how they can affect their speed as well So we're starting to understand how this very thin skin With some thin flexible bones can create the structural pressure And strength to move through water Which means we can use it to make better swimming robots robots Yes Yes So Yeah, and I was I was thinking while I was reading this about my own swimming experiences and how When you swim and you get kind of tired or when you get really cold I used to swim in the san francisco bay when I was in high school with one of my friends And my fingers would start to go numb And my kind of cupped hands that I was swimming with would start to break apart So I'd have these just fingers because my hands were too cold And all of a sudden I'd be moving a lot less slow, but you could feel kind of this tension of water the water Moving through my fingers What's happened if you had webbing? Do not swim in the san francisco bay. It's fine. San Francisco Bay is fine Okay, so that's a much larger conversation. Let's talk about it in the after show But you can totally swim in the san francisco bay. It's fine but so Then similarly if you put on little fins some people swim with fins It's not quite the same for us as it is with these fish because our Our our rays on our fins our fingers are not structured the same way So in order for us to be structured the same way We kind of have a bent our fingers would all be twisted to oppose one another so that we could make kind of this pizza shape but so structurally very interesting stuff that these very flexible not so strong elements can be combined based on posture and based on position to be able to move something like water that is such a Such a tough medium to move through potentially pizza pizza fish Rape and fish is pizza. Yeah, whenever I see Rape and fish is now. I'll think pizza. You're a pizza fish I'm assuming that each of those bones is individually controlled by a very intricate musculature That allows for this individual Individualized control Yes, absolutely But also you'll be able to see for example that they can spread out the fins when they're pushing and then they They kind of pull them all in When they're moving it forward so that they're not moving the water backwards, right? So they can they can move them they spread them out when they push the water away And they pull their fingers they're they're raised together when they're moving the fin back to the original position So it's just like when you're using an ore, right? You rotate it 90 degrees so you can cut the ore through the air more quickly The flat part of the ore isn't hitting the air particles. It's just like that They're they're reducing the surface area when they pull their fins forward Hmm Some interesting stuff biology physics Technology engineering it's all related It is all related and like you said now It's going to be useful for engineering and the physics of getting really great robot swimmers out there And I'm sure there's a good reason for that. We'll figure that A good reason to have the robots in the water Yeah, so that other things can swim and San Francisco Bay except for me That's why This is this week in science everybody. Hey, justin what you got Oh my goodness, is it my turn again? Okay, uh, here's what I got. I have I have Don't kiss macaques macaques macaques Don't kiss macaques. Uh wildlife tourists Frequently failed to identify apparently aggressive and distressed emotional states and wild monkeys Mistaking animals warnings Uh aggression signs for smiles and kisses Which can lead to awkward situations, uh, dr Marshall from the school of psychology university. Lincoln said there's a growing interest in wildlife tourism And in particular primate tourism people travel to encounter wild animals Many of them attempting to closely interact with monkeys even though this is often prohibited recent reports estimate that monkey bites Are the second leading cause of injury by animals after dogs in southeast asia And these bites are one of the main vectors of disease transmission between humans and animals Our findings indicate that people who are inexperienced she goes on and uh macaque macaque macaque behavior have difficulties in recognizing monkey emotions Which can lead to dangerous situations where they think the monkeys are happy But instead they're threatening them Education guided visits and keeping safe distance with the animals could be implemented as measures to reduce such issues So what they're looking at is saying they want to replace what the conventional sort of warning signs Which are two dimensional signs saying if the monkey looks like this back off If the monkey looks like this you should also back off actually back off the monkeys leave the monkeys alone Stop. Why are you even here? with videos, um One of the sort of interesting things too that they notice is that it it's not just It's not just those without experience. We're seeing these monkeys for the first time But it's even people who have some sort of education Uh with or or more used to being around monkeys that often misread the signs That seems weird Yeah, so uh, we're they must be drunk Yeah, but i'm also just wondering here So how much of this is because people project human expressions onto animals which is all of it So that's a huge part of my day job, right is telling people oh the polar bear is not depressed. It's asleep because it sleeps a lot Right because it's a polar bear stuff like this, right? So this is something that just getting better at Recognizing that animals aren't humans and animal emotions don't look like human emotions and happy animals look like different than happy humans And animals need different things than humans need It's even though we are animals We are a different species than these other things, right? And so every way that we can we can educate people about animals and start to recognize that we're different Yeah, and I think it's I get why it's tougher with monkeys You look at a monkey face And I mean as much as humans anthropomorphize every living thing on the planet This one kind of looks like yeah Right, but you know what the number one most aggressive thing you can do to a monkey is What? smile at it Oh, it wants to eat me, right? That's what it's yeah, and a monkey's smiling at you going look at these sharp teeth I'm about to bite you They found that all participants regardless of their levels of experience made some mistakes confusing aggressive faces with non-threatening faces such as neutral or friendly faces experts In monkeys made just under seven percent of mistakes. So really overall not so bad Compared to those who were given the 2d images Of monkeys monkey faces that they should be aware of they made a little over 20 percent mistakes Those would never or readily encountered live monkeys Made nearly 40 percent of the mistake. Can we just keep a radius away from the monkeys? Yeah, let's just stay away from why why do people have to be getting so close to the monkeys I know people who have gone to thailand and other places and they go to these old ruins and they They see the monkeys there and the monkeys are know that people have food And so they come and interact with the monkeys and I have pictures of friends with monkeys And I'm like you were one lucky lucky person You can get bitten by that monkey. Dr. Marshall says when I'm sighting Morocco I haven't heard tourists saying That the monkey seemed to be blowing them a kiss when actually they were displaying a threatening face I think I think also like if we think of our uh our cultural idea And the tourists often responded by imitating the monkeys facial expression Which generally ended by either aggression by the monkey towards the tourists or the monkey leaving the interaction because you've just You've just upped the aggression By smiling and blowing kisses back Yeah, and I think our culturally we've also got these images of monkeys like the um organ grinder monkeys Uh the cappichins that have been trained But very often you know in movies and tv shows you see them cappichin monkeys with their little symbols Looking at the camera going You know after they've done something funny Bearing their teeth as if in a big smile after they've done something humorous for the camera And so we have also been trained To think that this is that these monkeys are laughing Right, and they're not that's just a they're they're doing a trained response at that point in time Yeah, I actually just saw um going around the internet recently was a video of Someone quote playing catch with an orangutan at a zoo And I think it was in europe somewhere and that's another situation where Was that orangutan playing catch or is there that orangutan throwing something? because throwing something at an orangutan that They're not predisposed to understand that that means anything but violence Yeah interesting So many questions people when you go to other countries Don't think the monkeys are being nice to you Just don't don't trust the monkey Don't trust the monkey. That is the best here. Nice. Yeah Um moving on from monkeys. Let's talk a little bit about Modification of species Hmm, what's the you know, you hear it all the time now people back and forth about gmo this gmo that gmo stands for genetically modified organism And what happens When a mod is when an organism is genetically modified. What has happened? DNA Right, so you're going in and you're changing modifying genes you're modifying the dna Sometimes you're taking out a gene or silencing a gene and putting a new gene in from another species um But there's modifications that are taking place to the dna Of the species so that those are propagated and perpetuated From uh from generation to generation But we've been learning a lot recently about not just dna, but the marks Around the dna that control how it gets copied The epigenome And in a new study this week researchers at the university of texas Have taken one of the first steps toward a new way of breeding Making Cotton Hardier and more productive And they're doing it through epigenetic modification So instead of going in and uh turning genes uh on and off changing genes themselves now Instead of changing the genes we'll be able to change The marks the methylation around the genes that basically just Expresses them allows them to be expressed or keeps them all tied up In the dna so they can't be expressed The researchers identified more than 500 genes that are epigenetically modified between wild cotton varieties and domesticated cotton Some of them are known to relate to agronomic and domestication traits And so this could kind of aid in the selection of Traits that individuals want to breed. So do you want to breed our Increased fiber yield or if you live in a drought prone location resistance to drought Uh pesticides. Do you want to have a natural resistance to pest or heat? And there are varieties of wild cotton that might harbor genes that help them respond better to drought But have been epigenetically silenced during domestication because we know that You know, there are sometimes not many differences between the different strains Of different of a particular species or a particular particular organism, but they they're different You know, we have differences in how dogs look But the dna is basically the same. So what is Really controlling all these changes that are taking place Epigenetics are being Altered to alter the expression of genes through domestication. And so now they published in genome biology Uh, this methylome what they're calling the methylome Which is a list of genes and genetic elements that have been switched on or off through a natural process called dna methylation And dr. Chen at texas a at texas a and m says Since we know how epigenetic changes affect flowering and stress responses you could reactivate stress responsive genes in domesticated cotton um, and so it's a very exciting Very exciting development knowing how the methylome changed during evolution and domestication will help bring this technology one step closer to reality says chen So the question here is how much More acceptable will epigenetic Modification be then genetic modification or is it just going to be something else that people are going to get freaked out about? so Hmm. I I have a million questions. We don't have time for them all But I will just kind of dig on this dog uh Analogy that you made earlier. So yes dogs mostly genetically pretty much the same But then certain pure bred dogs certain Certain things that we have bred for in dogs Are also linked to health problems So if it is in the dogs themselves, right? So if this is an epigenetic change That is cosmetic that is linked to a health problem Could that health problem also be epigenetic? and therefore There could be healthcare Implications from the methylome Absolutely, absolutely. And there are other researchers who are mapping the human Methylome. In fact, there was a study that came out. I think like a week or two ago Looking at methylation of the dna in stem cells and how that methylation changes in As the stem cells differentiate into specific types of cells So each cell type has its own epigenetic markers That we can map and so researchers are actually starting to look into this. Absolutely. Wow this wow Need to stay I am looking forward to more on this. Yeah, it's complicated It's complicated. It's complicated. Yes. In short, it's complicated, but this does seem like a whole Domino effect of possibilities Absolutely because there are you know through domestication hybridization There are genes that have potentially been that are still there in the chromosomes But have just been silenced because of certain epigenetic instructions. And so if you could just get them to be expressed again Then that would change that particular aspect of whatever the plant or You know human cell is doing so unsilencing or silencing things Through or silencing. Yes. So one of the wonderful things about this could help Could break open healthcare potential. Yeah. Yeah. And it's as soon as it's it's like finding a few edge pieces on a puzzle, right? Every time we learn a new mechanism. It's like, oh Oh, we can tell where this goes We can tell where this goes and so now With a little bit more searching a little bit more science and a lot more work We're going to find the pieces that go within And in each step we make in this direction does get us closer to really unlocking A a completely new world of medicine a new world of being able to apply these things in ways Uh, we can't imagine now Like well, we're imagining so exciting But uh a while ago they couldn't imagine it because they didn't have the edge piece Yeah, and where we sky or the bottom of the sea they didn't have and it and it could be potentially much much easier For uh for medical or agricultural or any, you know, when you're dealing with cells it could be much easier instead of Genetically modifying something instead of actually changing the dna itself even though we've got crisper and cast 9 Even though we can do different things now. It's going to be easier maybe to just Either remove methylation to expose parts of the dna That weren't exposed before or to add methylation to tie things up in knots that you don't want to be expressed anymore and so um, it might yeah, it might be just a really And and then a much more efficient way to approach these these issues right and crisper though Will will be extremely important as the sandbox sandbox tool To to sort of go in and play with things and see okay. Now. We got a result. We like okay. Now. We have an easy way of affecting this The universe we live in um actually has a reality mechanical based Thing the mechanisms are actually there. It's not just And someday we will understand it Someday we'll we'll we'll get much much better at actually working with it and manipulating it and It's very very exciting. You know another hotbed of scientific advances right now. I don't will you tell me? Yeah wastewater treatment plants Oh, I love this in fact in fact the the trade organization The apparently that's in charge of wastewater treatment plants across the united states of america Wants to change their name to water resource recovery facility. Oh, I love it So this is uh, this is a story as they tell it wastewater from our sinks toilets showers and washing machines can be turned into valuable products with the help of science And bacteria a new superstar of the resource recovery world is anamox bacteria subject of a new study led by Daniel nigua and katharine mcban professors of civil and environmental engineering university of wisconsin madison uh this bacterium Anamox as uh, its name reflects its function basically it turns ammonium into nitrogen gas under anaerobic conditions So no oxygen necessary researchers and treatment plant operators like are super excited about these microbes Because they have the potential to make a whole lot of money Out of an otherwise costly operation or save money depends on who the account is So being able to remove ammonium anaerobically is pretty important because about 50 percent of the sewage plants operating cost Is pumping oxygen into the wastewater nigua says some of this oxygen Is needed to remove ammonium with the conventional method But this bacteria Does not do its job in isolation They are part of a community a complex like the microbiome in our guts. This is this is the way microbes work people There are no superstars. Well, there's some superstars But they have a supporting cast otherwise they'd be delivering the lines to themselves on stage and very soon everybody would get bored Uh, so they knew very little about the uh the supporting cast Uh until they they did this study They found the partners are called heterotrophs Since they rely on anamox bacteria, which are the primary producers Like plants capable of photosynthesis to turn atmospheric carbon dioxide into organic carbon One of the most intriguing results the new study Our hypotheses for these exchange of biochemical materials between these two groups of microbes So basically though what they're saying here, I'm gonna I'm gonna condense it 10 years from now They're saying a typical treatment plant will probably look pretty different from today Recovered resources may not only include the clean water and energy, but also a variety of chemicals We may be getting fertilizers precursors for plastics and other fibers And part of this evolution anamox reactors Reactors will soon become conventional That's cool Want it to happen now You need how much stuff we just throw away Well, it's also like also part of this the the cleaning of this is a lot of wastewater is actually returned to waterways so being able to uh Remove ammonium and turn it into natural gas and nitrate And then that's released into the the atmosphere like if we can actually collect these resources and not return them back And utilize them in places where we would want to collect this resource and apply um fascinating powerful stuff, especially because There's a lot of people on the planet. I don't know if either of you have noticed Oh, yeah, there's more all the time, but there's something that uh humans do with great consistency Uh, or or a little sometimes a little less regular than others, but we we all produced waste abundant I'm out. So so really this is this is a frontline uh For recapturing resources and you talk about recycling I I think all the time about the fresh water that goes into our toilet And what we do to it and what a waste of fresh water it is I don't understand why yeah, why don't we have most houses set up with the gray water system for our toilets, you know for that stuff For even watering your plants Yeah for the lawn, it's they're like there's all sorts of things that and and part of it is part of it really is there are health regulations that prevent this currently currently we have health regulations that prevent your your um clothes washer Your your dishwasher your kitchen sink to go run out to the lawn And and and it's the fear that you yourself are going to have a virus or an illness that Will go out through your wastewater into your lawn and then the whole neighborhood will get sick So we need better better laws better education And and typically we can there's there's things that they've created to circumvent this which is if you have shutouts Shutoff valves that can reroute it back to the sewer if you get the flu, I guess um But currently yeah, we have a very primitive water control system absolutely Current world population seven billion five hundred eight million four hundred eighty seven thousand six hundred seventy two three four five six seven eight nine eight. Oh, I still going up Well, I gotta turn that off I gotta close that you gotta look at that All right, everybody moving for bacteria. I'm gonna go through my last stories fairly quickly. Um Senses of taste Can you guys name them sweet and sour? um Yeah, I was gonna say sweet and bitter Okay, we've got sweet salty Sour umami umami bitter umami there we go So there's our five tastes But wait What about raspberry? It's now six. There are six taste senses researchers just published in uh Where did they publish a little this uh there? Um Neuroscientists the california institute of technology in Pasadena published in nature neuroscience this last week a study looking for Water-sensing taste receptor cells So there's been previous research that suggests that uh, you know, even though people have said Water has no flavor Aristotle said it was tasteless You know, we've got there's Insects and amphibians have water-sensing nerve cells. There's been evidence. There's similar cells in mammals There was a study out of university of california san francisco Um finding distinct populations of neurons in the hypothalamus that can trigger thirst and signal the start and stop of drinking activity But what is it that actually tells an animal that they are they are drinking that they're tasting water So that's what these researchers Wanted to figure out and so they used genetic knockout mice and they found Different taste receptor cells knock turning genes on and off and then flushing the mouths of the The rodents the mice with water And they found that one taste-recepting cell a well-known acid-sensing sour taste receptor Fired when exposed to water Hmm Yeah, and do you think this is so we can tell good water from bad water? I don't know. This is that this is a very interesting question. I mean one of the questions still is what is the actual Uh, what is the actual sense that the receptor is responding to is it the acidity or change because this is an acid-sensing receptor Is it is it responding to the change in pH and what's what what the researchers are hypothesizing? Is that it's responding to the change in pH when your when you drink the saliva gets Moved away from your tongue away from your receptor cells. And so the pH changes And so maybe it's the the removal of the saliva That is what what triggers it Yeah, because I mean that's Right because this is this is the thing that's always it's that's a little bit Why I always think that water has no flavor is this is sort of the Conductive thing around the taste buds. That's allowing flavors to get there So It's self the conductor. Uh, it has to be neutralized. It sort of has to be filtered out in a way But spit and water are different and spit is more acidic than water But most things that you're eating have a water to them A lot of things not everything a lot of them will have oil to them not necessarily water But this is sort of the conductive thing. This has to be the sort of neutral point But differences in the pH of it How different but then your body's pH has got to be Well, because okay, so so potable water has a different Has a different pH than non potable water Often not I don't know if that's an across the board thing But definitely for example the difference between freshwater and salt water is a pretty big pH difference And so Depending on what is in water if water is contaminated that can definitely affect the pH as well And we and we can taste the difference between soft water and hard water, but that's the mineralization of the water Which may affect the pH Which may affect the pH and so this might be Something so you can taste good water versus bad water water that's going to hurt your body versus water that is going to help it Yeah, the actual methodology that they used past the knockouts Is actually very interesting once they had discovered that these acid sensing Sour sensing receptors were responding to water. They used optogenetics To genetically modify the receptors to respond to blue laser light And so they trained the mice to drink from a spout But instead of actually giving them water They gave them blue light and the mice just Licked and licked and licked that little water spout that gave it blue light because it thought it was getting water but it Wasn't getting water. So it was still kind of thirsty So it kept licking and licking and licking and so these genetically modified mice There's there's an interesting question as to what the signal is that That tells you when you've had water And you're not thirsty anymore. Yeah, so anyway Mice genetically modified think blue laser light is watered Oh Boy, oh science. What have you done? Yes, so the research one of the researchers on this on this study says that Uh, what was the question what they say? Um Yeah, that's it's very exciting and that it's neat When there's a counter example to something like There's only five basic taste groups And you know that there's maybe not maybe you need to investigate it just a little bit more Yeah, um pretty interesting study cannabis has been Has been used as therapy. This is a paper out of the new england journal of medicine children and teenagers with dravet syndrome, which is a pretty devastating form of epilepsy received an oral solution of a CBD cannabidiol cannabidiol not thc, which is the the the active Component but this is a different active component cannabidiol And a control group got a sleep placebo The number of seizures per month number of epileptic seizures per month In the treatment group was just about cut in half With not much of a decline in the placebo group at all But there were side effects so Yeah, so some of the kids actually withdrew from the trial because Uh, they experienced vomiting and elevated liver enzymes and so maybe there's not all good effects on all People and so now that's another question. Why do some individuals respond really well and others don't? Probably because they isolated elements of the marijuana and I should just let the kids smoke it Yeah, I don't think It reduces the vomiting right like obviously like It's like it's like it didn't in this case Right because it wasn't the full the isolated elements. Well, this is a step of their direction They're they'll figure out what it is in it. That's that's making this work. They will find a way to use this To our benefit. This is just add it to the list of things that We're starting to figure out how they work, but we haven't totally figured it out yet My final study for the night is one that's uh very interesting published in the proceedings of the national academy of sciences looking at stereotypes in the sciences and Basically researchers found they gave people pictures of um of Scientists downloaded from faculty pages and One group of people were asked to rate the attractiveness of the portraits and then Kind of say, oh, they look Smart they look trust worthy competent etc. And then another group was asked Whether they thought the person in the image the scientist was a good scientist And what they found Is that The more attractive you are The worse of a scientist people think you're gonna be I I knew it So, you know, if you're like female I've had this argument with Justin several times on the show Yes Oh my gosh, this is crazy What's the sample size? I was yeah, but this is what where is this from who let what the hell is who lit who did look no No, that's just that's just an image thing No, it's from the proceedings of the national academy of sciences, but who did they who did they survey? That's the that's the thing like University I'm gonna guess university students. Don't guess if you're just guessing look if you ask people What does a scientist? A dutch accent duck in a lab coat because they've watched disney movies like Stop it with that. Nobody knows what science like only do this within the scientific community You'll get like this is stupid Do it outside of the scientific community and yeah, you're going to be you're gonna have the idiot parade putting up Justin, I don't know if that's true Oh, okay, let me read you the abstract you guys From this facial appearance effects science communication First impressions based on facial appearance predict many important social outcomes We investigated whether such impressions also influenced the communication of scientific findings to lay audiences A process that shapes public beliefs opinions and policy first We investigated the traits that engender interest in a scientist's work And those that create the impression of a good scientist who does high quality research Apparent competence and morality were positively related to both interest and quality judgments Whereas attractiveness boosted interest but decreased perceived quality Next we had members of the public choose real science news stories to read or watch and found that people were more likely to choose items that were paired with interesting looking scientists Especially when selecting video based communications Finally we had people read real science news items and found that the research was judged to be of higher quality when paired with researchers Who look like good scientists? Our findings offer insights into the social psychology of science and indicate a source of bias In the dissemination of scientific findings to broader society. So you guys, you know what this means We're tabling our job. We're better at radio Yeah I'm gonna give a little bit of my own credence to this study And that and that but although for me, I have to meet a scientist in person and talk to them That the the more socially awkward a scientist is The more that I think their research is probably pretty Pretty legit Like they're probably so deep in it that they don't have time for the outside world of human interaction Right, that's the that's the idea ugly I'm likely to listen to them on any other subject and I think that's probably true Like if somebody they're like it's sort of like you can't be that smart and charming Like no, that's just not fair. You're breaking some kind of fundamental rule of society where you can't be smart and attractive but obviously I have plenty of evidence sitting to my Left and my further left that that's simply not true. You can be that attractive And that intelligent at the same time. Well, I'm glad you're enlightened Justin However, just to give a little bit of a personal spin to this And I know that we have talked about this many times, but as an adolescent Growing up I felt that I had to make a decision Several times I found myself at a fork in the road Do I want to be pretty? Or do I want to be smart? Yep, and maybe it's being female that does it, but yeah, perhaps But this is something that I've experienced several times in my life growing up And we can bring this conversation into the after show But but boys get this in terms of uh intelligence versus athleticism all the time. Are you okay fair enough that too? Fair enough Yep, absolutely. Oh, okay Women and men growing up. It's growing up. It's growing up as hard expectations are tough expectations are tough But you know what we've done it again. 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i've got a laundry list of items i want to address from stopping global hunger to dredging Loch Ness i'm trying to promote more rational thought and i'll try to answer any question you've got the help can i ever see the changes i seek when i can only set up chop one hour a week this week in science is coming your way you better just listen to what we say and if you learn anything from the words that we've said then please week in science this week in science science this week in science is the end of the show we go to post show and blairs odor control unit this is from when i did a tour of the wastewater treatment plant or the what is it water resource water resource reclamation reclamation plant yes i like there we are we're in our visitor caps you're cute you are yay yeah so um it's a fun show long show we did long show yeah here's the here's the cover for the new cover of the new calendar i love it i'm gonna partially color it in to give everyone the idea yeah so blairs idea for the calendar this year which i really like is to make it a coloring book calendar which my son's gonna love i so far i'm a little bit of an aquatic bend though so i have to i have to think of terrestrial animals that um that would be good coloring book items but so far so i have my horned frog as per always how about a pangolin i'm so glad that you mentioned that no that's what that was it's a pangolin yeah man a pangolin did you hear this crazy sad news about um i don't remember where it was but basically making a um uh some authorities making a find at like an airport or a shipping location like it was like seven tons of pangolin scales they found seven tons do you know what this is ridiculous that's a leopard shark it sure is look at me identifying things you know what this is that's a cuttlefish yes it's a flamboyant cuttlefish flamboyant cuttlefish there we go and then oh oh oh what shrimp are you that's a um stabby stabby stabby stabby mantis shrimp mantis shrimp mantis shrimp yep stabby stabby and cavitation cavitation yes and sonic boom sonic boom sonic boom sonic boom sonic boom cavitation sonic boom sonic boom cavitation so that's what i did so far i have the cover and four months so i'm a third through the calendar yeah so those will be available for pre-order hopefully not too long from now actually yeah that would be cool to start selling them a little bit earlier yeah well especially since i have the i'll have the cover done within a couple weeks as soon as i have a cover as you have sample art then yes then we can we can just we can at least make pre-orders yeah i just have to double check our price point and then no identity four that's fantastic thank you so much for recording it for me understood thanks identity for thank you for making fixings twist crayons ten dollars get out of ten dollars for crayons it's a fundraiser that's how the Girl Scouts get away with charging so much for their terrible cookies huh um uh oh neat asked the wastewater treatment plant was that because i was famous oh no it's because uh the zoo that i work at um actually our land technically kind of overlaps with a wastewater treatment plant part of their plant is under us and part of their plant is on top of us so it's kind of yeah so so we have this very interesting relationship um where we're right up against and in some cases on top of one another so um i reached out to them and and saw if if we could do a tour swap and they were very open to that it was pretty cool yeah um and the focus is not necessarily on animals that need saving the mana shrimp is doing okay i think um the leopard sharks definitely doing okay but sharks in general definitely need our help all animals need saving ed how about that save the animals should i look at look should i look up how many people are on the planet again so i can get more depressed um why would why would that depress you first is the first question i think i know the answer just more people to send to mars more people to send to mars that's right no um yeah for me it's the overcrowding and overuse of our limited resources and the idea that uh we are not using our resources appropriately we're getting better at it and we're understanding that how our world works bit by bit you know getting a better handle on how the systems work and how we can potentially manage them better but there is a certain amount of as we manage natural systems they will potentially become less natural and there will be less diversity potentially on the planet as a result and here's the question you know at a certain point is there going to be a population crash because of war and disease but but what's going on but we but here's the question that always pops in my brain frame when when hearing the population number on the planet what are seven plus billion people gonna do oh yeah and then there's and then there's robots and AI they took our germs like we don't need this size of a population but having the fact that we have this population what are these people gonna do oh choreographed dances now that's that's that's north korea straight north korea with that what about how about research gigantic choreograph dancing look that's that's the thing and i totally agree with what you just said but that's the thing if we can get all of these if we can harvest these minds harness this energy and point it in the right direction we can do an amazing thing on this planet which is propel progress to an even imagined in my imagination place but we have to educate everybody so so the one resource that we underfund more than anything the one thing that we we undervalue more than anything is education and we have to get as many of these seven billion plus people educated inspired and excited about contributing to the body of knowledge that is humanity everybody moved to finland you have a pretty planet you can't have a sustainable planet of seven billion uneducated people you just cannot there's nothing good that can come of this and this is the choice we have this choice we're the we're the humans we have we're the species that is this seven billion plus sentient and able minded and if we don't educate each other we're going to end badly we're going to end really badly in fact we're going to be like uh like like shellfish like clams in the bottom of a lake that overpopulate and deoxygenate and eat up all the resources that that's that's one way we could go the other way we could go is to spread human knowledge uh like throughout every human being every aspect of our our our our societies glare and get get to a next level of glare cats okay uh okay step one is get rid of all the cats though no i love them they were doing really great until i said something Fata says but Jackson fly having low information on your kids population seems to be what the government wants right now no it's not what the government wants the government doesn't want things stop thinking that the country that's kitties through the kitty net because that's what the internet's for anyway is cats right can i have them government any government doesn't want things it's the people in control of government that try to make people want things it's a separate issue it's seemingly but um yeah no we got to get rid of the people who don't want people to be educated those people we should see as the biggest threat to all societies and i don't care what country you're in what nation you're in um if if there's anybody within your society that wants to limit access to education that's your enemy that's that's the people who are trying to destroy this planet for their own benefit in every scenario access to education is everything here here now the now the government is not like st green it's not it's not people the government is all of us the government is collective government is collective uh result of everybody's input even in a dictatorship the the going along with the fear that the pressure's on you to comply compliance compliance is people and if you don't comply with the status quo or if you go strongly with the status quo depending on your situation if you look the government i would i would i would suggest that all danes all people of denmark go along with your status quo that's a good status quo it's been freaking fantastic your status quo go along with it if you're in turkey right now do not go along with your status quo your status quo is a dictatorship turkey's the biggest country in crisis on the planet right now they've just converted from democracy to the dictatorship it's yeah yeah then there's syria syria but but it's not that one's not a big change that's been there for a long when i'm talking about crisis i'm talking about change i'm talking about you've you've been a democracy and suddenly now a dictator is taking control of your country that's turkey uh north korea and syria i have been dictatorships for a really long time so it's not crisis it's the unfolding of what dictatorships uh ultimately end up in which is you know danger but not necessarily crisis like i would see turkey but if you're denmark sweden finland great example iceland your status quo is heading in the right direction but it's i picked all scandinavian countries how did that happen go with your status quo everything seems to be heading in the right direction france currently you're doing a good job uh germany uh not too bad your banking industry needs massive regulation but still generally speaking you're heading in the right direction america i'm sorry california you're doing okay you're all right you're on the right track california stay with it stay on your course hold your course hold your course yeah fata not when i'm talking about crisis i'm talking about um i'm talking about the current change i'm current change like if if any country out there had had suddenly switched to a dictatorship i would say that's the one in crisis that we should be paying attention to north korea congo syria in that way for a while yeah that's an ongoing we're witnessing what happens when dictatorships are allowed for far too long um what i'm concerned about politically ago the geo-watch it politically thingy um every the signs the signals coming from turkey are really scary and disturbing for for the turkish people and their neighbors and russia you forgot to put russia on that list of dictatorships uh and potentially where ukraine might end up we'll see where that goes yeah so but humans uh if there's any of you still listening education this is this is the thing this is the thing that frees all humans from the binds of their local current time space situation of their government and their society your education sets you apart from that world you're still of the world but you're in a different world if you're educated you're in a world that can see things completely differently yeah and we there was a major there was a massive uh and i can't believe when you didn't bring this but there's a study done recently showing education of women and its effects on societies and democracy and i think just about yeah i haven't seen specifically that study but i think every time i've seen a study that's come out related to education of women it is a positive massively positive benefit on the economy on um on whatever country they're studying yeah yeah so we we need to keep doing that and thanks for joining nate yeah nate great input throughout the show and the chat room well done well done sir by strengths we're losing people they're dropping like flies because you're about to lose this person i'm tired and i have a very important question to ask in the after show so i'm gonna go ahead and uh try to launch us there now i think say good night blare good night blare say good night justin good night justin good night kiki good night kiki good night everyone thank you for joining us really really appreciate you taking the time to spend the evening with us tonight as we appreciate every week we'll see you next week so we do have a show on wednesday right we have a show on wednesday okay just double checking since we're traveling on thursday three shows next week that's so awesome no we have like 20 shows five million shows and five pounds of ham um uh what was i gonna say about next week yeah normal show next week um let's try and make it not two and a half hours long or 134 minutes like identity four said and was there something else by the way i missed like i missed it i missed part of the show so this was not all on me i wasn't even here for this whole show no it was a good long interview yeah it was the interview it was a good long interview i got in for the interview i was so happy to make it in time yes it was good um i can't remember what i was gonna say so yeah we'll see you next wednesday oh i know what i was gonna say i would like to say thank you to brandon and uh who had terrible trouble with his uh with his isp and he usually is in charge he's in charge of simulcasting us to facebook and so he didn't have internet but i got an email about a half hour before the show where he said he was moving his server to a friend's house so then we would be good to go and so twist was on facebook tonight thanks to brandon yay thank you so much really appreciate that was like going above and beyond to help out so thank you and that's it so good night everybody we'll see you next week