This is Twis this week in science episode number 607 recorded on Wednesday February 22nd 2017 Goldilocks and the seven Belgian monks I'm gonna say that over again. There was some loud noise there Goldilocks and the seven Belgian monks Hey everybody, I am dr. Kiki and tonight we are going to fill your heads with new hair cells cute lemurs and a bunch of penguins but first Disclaimer disclaimer disclaimer Just this week in the solar system not so far far away as far as other solar systems go Seven planets rocky in nature and all within the zone of habitability Sparked the imagination of NASA Imagine a solar system so tightly wound that from the surface of any planet You can see the others with the naked eye so close that if it were ours we could colonize them all as They may all be wet with water Yes, an astronomers wet dream and I'm contained cornucopia of science fiction scenarios and what better way to begin the day Then with the knowledge that there are seven more planets in our galaxy that may hold the potential for life to flourish But before you pack your bags and hit your wagon to this star There are a few things you ought to be prepared for upon arrival all this and more on this week in science Coming up next To find the knowledge I seek Science to kick in Blair And a good science to you Justin Blair and everyone out there Welcome to another episode of this week in science so thrilled to be here this week Really so much science going on yet again a cornucopia and a big announcement today, which Justin talked a bit about in the disclaimer and we will be getting to later in the show, but You guys ready for a great show today Alright then today on the show we have lots of science news We have an interview about penguin noses of sorts And I have some new stories about healing hearing how gut bacteria need nerves and some new exoplanets Justin, what did you bring? I've got unlocking your creativity by using your brain and linguists tackle early American colon colonization And Blair, what is the animal corner holding in store for us? I have new technologies that will save the wilderness and Toxoplasmosis Yeah, well you have worked at zoos with you know lots of cats and animals I'm not really surprised that you've got a toxo so many cats and frogs and carrots and ferrets and You've taken care of carrots and parents and ferrets. Yes. All right Okay, everybody you ready for it. I'm ready for it First up before we go into the science stories. We are going to speak with our guests We have an interview today like I said our interview is with dr. Gregory Cunningham He's an associate professor at st. John's Fisher College where he studies behavior ecology and physiology of birds Much of his research is focused on how and what birds smell specifically Antarctic sea birds who have to locate food over vast stretches of open ocean But in 2015 there before but in 2015 he went to live with penguins for a month And he's here to talk with us about that about what he found what he's been publishing about it Basically what it was like out there Greg welcome to the show Thank you very much. Good to be here. It is wonderful to have you here and as we get started I just want to let our listening audience know because the YouTube audience the live audience right now are well aware that you've got a bright colored beard and Shock of hair very rock-star-ish. I'd like to say that maybe I'm in breeding plumage right now We are coming into spring breeding season. Exactly Makes sense. All right. Well, it's very fancy So, okay penguins Antarctica Wow, what was it like going to Antarctica to study penguins? So that so I'll this was my third time down there. I did two years or two field seasons down there for part of my dissertation and The last time I had been down there was 2012 so it was pretty exciting to go back because a lot of it was trying to see how the actual experience lived up to my memories of it because It's a pretty impactful space. It's kind of hard to let go of to let go of it so You know the for this particular research trip you start off on reunion island, which is off the coast of Madagascar you jump on a 360-foot long research vessel and Steam south for about eight or ten days give or take To get down to the island so it's a it's a great way to start a Research trip starting the tropics before heading down to the Antarctic. Do you get seasick? Not at all. Oh, that's good No, there are certainly some people who the moment boat pulls out they turn like literally the opposite of this beard they turn green and And then they they look miserable pretty much for the entire time and on the boat on the boat ride back we were On the boat ride back you're still alive with us Okay, did something happen? What's going on? So I've been on I've been on fishing trips before where leaving leaving the Berkeley marina Before where we headed out past the Golden Gate Bridge to go do some little bit of deep-sea fishing and and like within a hundred yards of Leaving the dock There were people who were laid out. Yeah, and the boat doesn't turn around and like, okay We'll start over we'll we'll try tomorrow when you your drama mean really kicks in and then like the whole day They were they were laid out and there was nothing they could do. Everybody else was enjoying the trip having fun fishing What have you and they just just had miserable experience the whole time So I can I can imagine if you were if you know, it's for the whole day. That's gotta be Terrible, but if it's you're out for eight to ten days. Oh boy, that's that's misery That's got to be just pure misery Yeah, so fortunately for me that doesn't happen I'm just totally fine the entire time. I actually like it better when it's rocky. Yeah And so so eight to ten days you you you travel from where you are on the east coast of the United States and then travel to Madagascar and the tropics eight to ten days by steamer boat down to Kyrgyzstan Island is and that's your final destination Can you describe the island for us because I think when people think of and the Antarctic they're just thinking vast stretches of ice sure it's Kyrgyzstan is a volcanic island and so It's I'm only there during their their summertime and so it's it's grass actually there's a lot of grass there and There is snow on the top of the mountains and such but it's always windy and that Sometimes it can be strong enough to to knock you over the wind can be so strong Which is really difficult to do olfactory experiments in those sorts of windy conditions Yeah, and okay, we're still a little bit on the logistics of it having I spent a few weeks in Greenland once and And I picture that it's probably a similar setup because there is no plumbing For instance, so how is that portion of the people's being there and having to function like human beings? How has that dealt with? Well the actual life on the on the research base is quite comfortable. There is electricity. There's plumbing. There's There's street lamps there There's actually a radio station that they have there that I suspect is just someone with an mp3 player Just goes in in the morning and plugs it in lets it go all day long But it actually feels remarkably normal when you're on the base There's as of now there's actually very slow internet that you can get and so It's comfortable It certainly feels different, but it's comfortable I Think that's fun.   And then what were you doing once you got there? sorry, I'm the Lag just caught me in there for a second. Um, so to get to the station where they the penguins where it's about an eight-hour walk to from the main base to the to the penguin beach and Your supplies are dropped off. So you don't have to carry out a month worth of gear along with you But it's it's an interesting walk because you get to this they drop you off in the car and There's no roads. There's just you just sort of walk in one direction And you keep this one mountain on the right-hand side to keep another mountain on the left-hand side and you just sort of walk and There are these really big lakes. Well, maybe not that big But big enough that you there, you know, maybe 10 minutes to walk around And so you just sort of repeatedly get up to these lakes and you get to the edge and you look to the right and you look to the left and You decide which way is quicker or shorter and then you walk around the lake and you get to the other side And then sometimes you end up walking through bogs and you submerge up to your shins and then sometimes you're just walking on volcanic rock And then sometimes on mossy surfaces and then eventually you get to the edge of the ocean and You turn left and you just keep walking until you get to the colony essentially Can you tell us like when you get to the colony of these birds? How big isn't it? How big is it? What's the first your first? Reaction to coming across this large group of animals. So the the the location of the ratman off colony is It's around a corner so it's really great because you're sort of walking up the beach and If you haven't been there in 10 years like I have been you sort of forget exactly where you are but so you come around this corner and It just is sort of laying out in front of you The colony I was with was about 120,000 penguins and so Being being or living in Rochester, New York, and there's a lot of Buffalo Bills fans here I usually like to tell people if you've ever been to a Buffalo Bills game You imagine Ralph Wilson Stadium and then double it because that's about the number of penguins that are That are in on the beach with you and and so when you walk out of the When you walk out of the cabin The then the number of bird like you just are sort of what the picture you're showing right now You can just sort of constantly see that for about a good 10 or 15 minute walk It's just it's just non-stop penguins on your left-hand side And are they are they hesitant about there being humans around or they just don't even care? The the chicks are a lot more curious than the adults so most most of the work I did on this most recent trip was with King penguins and the the chicks if you stop they'll walk up to you and Sort of and check you out the adults will definitely walk away from you But usually if you just sort of sit down on the beach the both You know they'll come and check you out. It's it's it's pretty fun to Just sort of take that pause and Absolutely, I'm just imagining the coming across all these animals And I remember talking with you about about it after you you had gone I think your first or second maybe second time that you Know it was probably your first time out and how the first time you'd come across all the birds It was the smell that was also not just visually but the smell of the animals was overpowering Sure, you can you can smell the colony Often before you hear it often before you hear it and before you see it And I remember like when you're because our cabin was really close to the southern edge of the colony and the winds were coming from The north and so there were times where someone would come into the Like you've been sleeping and someone would come into the hut and then open the door and you'd get like a waft of the colony into the door and such so yeah, it certainly was It's a pretty overpowering smell, which is good probably for the penguins But now your job is to is to then see how well they would how well their sense of smell is and it would seem like this was like Be the first obstacle Which is the whatever sense of smell you're trying to judge has to be something that's Overcoming this you know the scent that's everywhere Well, yes and no right because for us it smells one way But we don't really know what it smells like to a penguin, right? So we sort of feel that it's overpowering and just sort of feel like you're hit by a wall of penguin smell But to them it might smell very different and they may be able to tease apart some of those some of those differences so once you were there and you were looking at this massive amount of penguins 120,000 penguins you've got this You know the the human sense of smell that you're dealing with and how do you go about? Trying to Find out what they can smell and how they smell. How did you how did you start your experimenting? so I've done work with African penguins before and Had some rough ideas But no one has ever done anything with King penguins before so the first couple days I just got on the beach and just walked around and looked at them and thought about them Just tried to get to know the species sort of in just Just straight up just seeing how they moved where they moved where they walked What they did kind of thing and then I started to try to come up with experiments and you know you have to Submit your off your ideas beforehand. So I had some rough ideas about what I was going to do and so the first thing I tried to do was I put an odor in a space where the penguins seemed to walk a lot and Just thought if I had an interesting odor out there maybe and then I've video recorded their responses and maybe they would check out the smell or You know if I could record their behaviors, maybe they would Walk slower or walk more quickly or things like that Through those areas and so I tried that for like three days and that experiment didn't work at all It was impossible to track their movements and such there was just too many birds So then the next idea I had was they actually had a remote control car in The in the hut that they were using because a lot of the the penguins they had like chipped And so they could put a recorder or a recording unit on the remote control car And they could drive it around and then they could use that to ID all the penguins in the area and So I thought well wonder what would happen if I just put a GoPro camera on the remote control car and Drove the remote control car sort of into the edge of the colony to see what what happens And so I did that for a Few afternoons of trying to do that and I learned that penguins do not like remote control cars Probably the most valuable thing that came out of that which was a shame because I had all these great visions of of Interviews of with me and my remote control car experiments, but that just didn't work So in this video that we're saying they do not seem very plust And you know like if you're looking at this video it looks like I'm driving like a jerk But in fact it's really difficult because there's rocks and you're trying to move around everything So you're just trying to get the car in there as quickly as you can with as minimal disturbance as possible It seems like scuas though are actually quite attracted to The remote control vehicle Yeah, now that's cool He's gonna pick at that quite a lot There he goes. Oh What a cutie All right And so that was about the first like nine days of being on the beach and I was only there for 30 days and I was getting really frustrated because everything I was trying to do wasn't working and so If you recall I have that one technique that I do where if you take a baby bird that's like Right out of the egg and you hold a light bulb up to it you can it'll fall asleep and then you can puff smells on to it and I Was sitting in the kitchen one afternoon and I was like I'm really upset that I wasn't here when The chicks just hatch because that experimental technique only works when they're like two days old And he could have just taken taken babies and kind of gotten them to go to sleep And by a warm light make them go to sleep and then puff little bits of air and odor over their faces and see See if they shake their head, right? Yeah, right and and so I was in the kitchen lamenting over the timing of it and I thought I looked at the window and I said well hold on right now I can look at the window and I can see 30 or 40 adult birds sleeping naturally on the beach right now So I was like I wonder what would happen if I snuck up behind these birds with a scented stick and held it beneath their beak while they were asleep and I Went out and started trying to do that. I know it's ridiculous But it worked. It worked really nice and I was able to I Was able to test them with a variety of odors that they were responsive to so it looks like I think you're showing that video right now of You with a GoPro strap to you so Yeah, how does someone sneak up on a sleeping penguin actually he's doing a great job I'm watching the video right now and then I can I can now pick out a sleeping penguin Which I would have I thought that they were grooming from a distance. Yeah, the one thing was actually fall down over Do penguins fall over when they sleep now they stand I'm just wondering if they do fall over Now they fall over when you kind of approach them too quickly, but this guy is about to raise his head and That's science ladies and gentlemen right there So what we saw in the video is It's is you approaching a sleeping penguin the penguin is standing on the beach with its head slumped over toward its wing And you approach it with a stick with some odor tacked on to the end of the stick put the stick wave the stick or hold the stick under its nose and then if the bird detects the odor they're more likely to Wake up or shake their heads or respond in some physical way. Yeah So the experiment was done.  Yeah That's a good control I had this sort of scale in my head that you know zero was no response three was them waking up and then one and two were somewhere in between kind of thing and And so I tested them with a bunch of different odors the The first odor I tested them with was dimethyl sulfide the the odor associated with algae that a lot of marine predators use to find prey over the ocean and That one the fact that they were responsive to that wasn't that surprising because you know I've published on African penguins that have done that or that are sensitive to that We know that lots of seabirds other seabirds are sensitive to dimethyl sulfide. So that was sort of I I expected them to respond To DMS and sure enough they did so once I once I used the sleeping technique to With DMS and knew that it worked I tried the next round of experiments where I tested them with the scent of feathers and the scent of feces and So I had to wait on the beach for a penguin to take a poop and then once a penguin took a nice fresh poop I'd roll walk over to with it with a stick and roll some Some duct tape with the sticky side out in the poop and then snuck up on the penguins with the scent of poop and And they responded to poop and they responded to the also to the scent of feathers as well But we don't know exactly what it would be in the in the poop in the feces that they would necessarily be responding to It's just they're responding to something in it. Yeah Here's this is I got an experiment now. Are you going back? Okay So so one of the things that's always boggled me about penguins I don't know if these penguins have the same behavior if it's a different type of penguin is that they the The mating couple as they're raising an egg, right? They go out and shifts to go and forage and Then they go out and then they come back to the city of a hundred and ten thousand To me identical-looking sounding smelling penguins And they find after a bit of searching they find their mate They share the food and then the other one goes out and hunts Well the the one that came back stays with it Is it has anybody done this where they've they've taken The poo surrounding because they stay in one kind of spot Don't they when they're when they're or in a relatively small area when they're when they're rearing and waiting for the Other to come back if you took that poop and moved it somewhere else With the returning one go to the sound of the other one call in response Or would they go back to the scent of the poop that came from their mate? Yeah, so I suspect that it's probably they're probably using multiple layers of sensory cues to find each other Because with king penguins we know for example that they use both vocalizations to find each other on the beach, but the The the problem is is that they're only able to to Hear each other's voice from about eight to ten meters because everyone's vocalizing and so there's just a lot of signal to noise kind of Problems going on there And so one of the things that we think they might be doing is using maybe the smells of the penguins in the area Which you can smell before you've even seen or heard them Right. Yeah, the the the smell would travel further than the Than the the acoustic cues So maybe you're using smell to get close to them and then used to sing and then their chicks That their chicks would hear you and such Yeah, but I don't really want to be the guy that has to transport poop up and down that beach. So That's it. That's it. You've already been doing it.  I suspect Yeah, yeah, you'd have to be transporting a bunch of yes Quadrants to mark out the beach and quadrants collect it and redistribute it Definitely would need a wheelbarrow for that so In figuring out what the birds are responding to now we know that the dimethyl sulfide is important, um, but When the adults come back and feed the chicks when they're young They're probably gathering information from this that odor or the smell of the fish On the adult as they're regurgitating that meal up Um for the young and so there's probably some learning happening there But would they be I mean they hunt Under the water most of the time. I mean do they they're not flying out over open ocean like other seabird seabirds Like scuas and petrol's and and and many others. So do you think do you think there would be a difference based on how they hunt? so I certainly think that on some levels, um, what they need to do is similar to other seabirds because They you know using d dms being a surface cue is sort of giving us glimpses into what's going on under the ocean So it doesn't really matter whether you're hunting fish or krill or Or squids right you just need to be able to find those areas And then probably what they're doing is switching over to visual cues when they actually start to dive But there's also, you know, you mentioned the talk about the the fish scent Some work when I I tried this in with african penguins When I was there years ago and they seem to be completely unresponsive to the scent of fish And some other south african researchers a few years after I did my work there Went out at sea and just deployed some dms at sea and the penguins recruited But then they also tried recruiting using cod liver oil and the penguins didn't recruit at all to cod liver oil Right because if these birds are taking their prey at depth, they actually probably don't really know Other than that brief period where they're getting fed by their parents They don't probably ever actually experience what their food actually smells like right So the the fish scent itself might not be that meaningful to a penguin Oh, that's really interesting Yeah, and um and the dms since it is like a plume up above evaporating from the krill Into the into the air above the ocean and if the birds and if I'm just one second if the birds are Gathering that information they're going to be Tuning in on the smell of the krill which is indicative of fish that might be under the water eating the krill And what is dms? Dimethyl sulfide, but why is that how is that connected to? I Dimethyl sulfide is is an odor that's associated with algae that is released by algae particularly when they're being zoo Prayed upon by zooplankton. Okay. And so where there's lots of zooplankton There's going to be lots of fish and other things eating the zooplankton. It's all a big cascade Yeah And if you've seen the movie happy feet this you see what happens on top of and below the water and this Tap dancing When he tap dancing With the ghetto blaster and play in your eyes and uh, there was no response at all So, okay penguins don't start dancing to the ghetto blaster Not orica darn movies making things up again. Yeah, who knew not that good So we've talked a lot. I mean Greg and I went to graduate school together So this is how I originally know greg and know of his work and his graduate advisor gabriel nevitt working on dimethyl sulfide and the and how these seabirds Smell and what when they learn what they what they do about the odor of the food sources they're going to eat later in their lives, but um How how have you like have you have you Been finding out anything new and exciting about other bird species. You've looked at the king penguins the african penguins um graduate work you did petrels Is there any other olfak avian olfaction we need to know about that you've been working on So I think part of the you know, I st. John Fisher college is a small teaching focused school And so we don't have any graduate students or anything like that And so it it's kind of changed the way that I've been uh, you know my productivity in terms of doing research and such so You know, I've been doing a lot of chicken research lately actually One of the things we're trying to do right now is do aromatherapy for chickens to see if we can manipulate corticosterone levels with With a certain particular scent. So we're working on that right now Because student because students can work with chickens quite easily and they don't have to take come down to an article and things like that. So Um, so we've been doing a lot of stuff like that That's neat. And if you could calm chickens down then, you know, happier eggs Exactly happier eggs, maybe bigger eggs also And also what I'm really interested in uh for it is that you know since Reproductive hormones are suppressed by corticosterone and such That maybe if we could use this odor in captivity and puff it out Then maybe we could manipulate this the reproduction productivity of birds and captivity and then we could have More baby birds being born and all that kind of stuff and for species in peril that could be really helpful for them It could be useful on a zoo setting too Yeah, exactly just like sort of you know, when you go into the bathroom And there's like one of those annoying puffy things that makes the bathroom smell nice Imagine one of those but it makes the birds less stressed And then they want to mate It's better than very white. I love it Nothing makes me want to want to mate more than the scent of a urinal cake Well, it's and in this case it might be that the scent of 120 000 penguins Is what comes them down Oh in that case, yeah Yeah, so it's and that's that's interesting, you know, I think about the the zoo here in san francisco. It's a really Really successful Magellanic penguin colony and it's also the largest And i'm wondering if now if that's related if it's because there's 54 penguins pooping on that island all day every day That in terms of the Old factory input it makes them feel calm because there's there's more of them Yeah, it could be right there could just be some sort of amount that they need to have Uh, I don't want to say confidence, but yeah, there's enough Order input that it makes them. Yeah, safer numbers. Exactly. Yeah Yeah, fascinating. I'll have to come out and find out. Yeah And we've talked and we've talked a little bit about it on this show But all faction in general for for birds This is a relatively new area of study like only several decades Yeah, yeah, I've been told birds don't have a sense of smell at all Yeah, I remember when I was in my undergrad class in ornithology that my professor was like birds don't have a sense of smell We move on kind of such and when I started my phd in 1999 there was really only a few of us who were doing it But since then it's a lot more people are Are doing this kind of research, which is cool because it's really starting to to be flushed out with A variety of studies so I was saying something recently that the the dodo bird Actually probably had a pretty decent sense of smell I did not read that And there was I think there was another study as well that uh more recently that Keep talking about kiwi olfaction They probably have a really interesting sense of smell with their long Like what or I didn't hear that the kiwi. Oh, yeah No, there's definitely been some work with kiwis that shows that they They have They have the largest olfactory bulbs of any bird So at least they have the hard wire or the hardware to do it And there's been a very few studies that that are showing that kiwis Can smell Yeah, and just a couple weeks ago We did that study on birds of prey and using peppermint as a cue to food to then engineer enrichment Oh, really? Yeah, it was fascinating peppermint I should talk to you about that because i'm kind of curious about that Yeah, it's it's in our show notes and I will send it to you. I'll track it down Yeah, very it's there's some really interesting work and I think you know the idea that birds are, you know More they are very visual and like you made the joke about your breeding plumage colors That's the way we think of birds is making breeding calls And singing to each other and showing off their beautiful plumage in the springtime But there are You know four seasons to a year birds are not always Squawking loudly and showing off their feathers. They are immersed in their environment And so being able to understand all of the senses that a bird is using to do that. I think it's Sure, I think that's one of the Great part about where we're at with sort of understanding bird behaviors that we're starting to finally understand that It's going to be multiple senses all working together because it's what we do too, right? We don't we don't rely on just one sense and we're not even that like sensey of a of a species so Um We would expect that it's it's a layered sort of approach that these animals are using To be successful Yeah Well, this is so this is so fantastic that the work that you're doing I hope you do go back to Antarctica with a wheelbarrow Right now i'm trying to get down to Patagonia. So that might be the The next project but uh, you know, it would be fine too If you're looking for for a blare to help you study penguins, you just let me know Okay, would you mind registering as a student at my college so I can get myself so I can say I'm taking a student along with me because that's That could be arranged Just just take a few more classes continuing education credits. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. No prom Uh, what is next on your list? What do you work? I mean you're working on chickens. You've been doing the Pango in olfaction. What's in Patagonia? Where are you going? Can you talk about it? Yeah, I think I mean other than the chicken work right now.  I sort of need to lock down my next ideas Awesome. And if there's um, if there's one thing that you want people to to take home about uh, your studies On these penguins, what would it be? I guess that for me like obviously You know bird olfaction is really cool But uh, one of the things I like to give this talk, uh, I've done a lot this talk a lot at in grade schools and high schools and such Is that I think people get so bogged down with this idea that You know like we have 10,000 20,000 100,000 dollar pieces of equipment out there um for doing these various experiments and It's nice to be reminded that sometimes science can be as easy as putting a smelly thing on the end of a stick And sneaking up on an animal right that's still very valuable science And science doesn't have to be expensive and it doesn't have to be complicated It can be you know Young children could do this sort of experiment and I think that's sort of nice to have to be reminded that science can be Science can be very approachable and it doesn't have to be these really complicated methodologies that you don't really understand That's great. And if people do want to uh, find you online and connect with your research, uh, where can they do that? Uh, so I am at st. John fischer college in rochester new york and my uh, if you do a search for greg cunningham at st. John fischer college then Then you can track me down fantastic And I I hear right there. That's a horrible picture though. Oh my god. No red beard on that one Or wait, would you pervert? This one We're now looking at a picture not a university or a college profile picture This is from kerglyn islands with uh, with the the cotton balls up your nose Yeah, that's so I had no idea the odor that I was uh, what I was testing the birds with That's the picture of good science. That's what that is. This is science in action Doing it blind, but an osmic I guess would be the approach Yeah, if you're working on odors and you want to control for that you want and you want to make sure that everyone's Fairly approached. You got to make sure that you don't know what you're smelling I do have one last follow-up question. All right. How many showers To get rid of the penguin poop smell when you got home well, so on um On the island or on the on the beach with the penguins. There wasn't not actually a shower So I went 30 days of lotus shower So that's my personal record. Yeah, uh, yeah This would be blairs living hell No, no, no, just blairs cancelled her subscription No, I do it. I do it for the penguins. I would okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, so, um So on the last day you sort of walk back that seven or eight hours and you get it was actually a really warm day The day we walked back to and so I took three showers the afternoon I got back to to the main base when I could finally take a shower again. So That's how many showers it takes three apparently to wipe off the smell. Yeah, I think that's minimum I think that that's right on par with what I would have thought All right, Greg, thank you so much for joining us today really appreciate your time you guys that was a lot of fun It's wonderful to hear about your time there and the work that you've been doing. It's just really interesting Great. Thanks so much. Have a wonderful have a wonderful evening You're welcome to join us for the rest of the show if you like, but I also understand it's late where you are So, yeah, I think I'm gonna I think I'm gonna close it out because I got to get up early for class So thank you very much for the opportunity to chat with y'all. Yeah. Thanks for coming. Bye All right. Good night. Have a great night Ciao All right, everybody. This is this week in science. That was a fantastic interview Seriously science. It can be as simple as poop on a stick That's right Great We are going to take a very short break right now and when we come back We will discuss science news stories from the last week that caught our attention So you don't want to miss that because we've talked about the penguins But we still have to talk about planets and we have to talk about brains and we have to talk about lemurs There's so much more coming Don't miss it. Stay tuned You hear me right now?  That was wow. You had a delay the whole time That was a little there was the Part in the beginning where it was a bit off and then yeah, it never stopped for me the whole time We were interviewing I was having to like hear two voice. I was talking And it's still doing it actually so wow, okay. I'm glad it was good I'm sorry about that. That is so that's okay. I was just it was it was a remarkable amount of concentration required to I've done I've I've yeah, it's probably just Just the right amount of time to make it incredibly hard to concentrate on what you're saying. Yeah I'm sorry about that I'm gonna hang up now and you guys have a good rest of your show and thanks again You too. Thank you so much. Okay. Ciao. Bye That's that's terrible Okay Time for time for the break stuff I don't know what I'm gonna say right now Hey, everybody. Thanks for listening to twis It's really wonderful to have you as part of our Listening audience part of our viewing audience. Thank you. 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Thank you for your support For us the mistake some months from now you folks will not be missed What is the moral that we all must learn Especially those of us with money to burn Before your eyes widened with the book on the shelf Is he helping you? Is he helping you? You can't believe what a skeptic I am And we're back with more this weekend science what you got kiki I am back. Well, I was going to mention that song coming out of the The the song that we just heard is by george harab And he has a podcast the geologic podcast I think he had somewhere close to 500 episodes recently So if you haven't heard of george harab, he's a skeptic has a great podcast and might be fun to check out as well Um, what story am I going to jump into right now? Hmm.  It's a trap. It's a tarp Yeah, it's a star It is it is a star trappist one is a red dwarf star and This star has uh, it turns out been On the that nasa has had its eyes on trappist one now the uh Findings that were announced today is that this single star system This is not a multiple star system not double stars or anything, but this single star this red dwarf that's Not too hot has seven not six not eight seven rocky planets orbiting I love I love it how also whenever nasa's about to announce something and announce that they're going to announce something Oh, yeah, the buzz around the speculation is like they've discovered aliens. This is it They're finally going to announce life somewhere else and they've got aliens Yes, that's not how that's going to go at all. Yeah, that's how that's going to go It's not going to be there's an asteroid about to hit earth, but we want to we want to embargo it for like Four days. So there we have our press release. Yeah announcement like that one.  But what is big? Yeah, it's not even it's not and i'm going to say this It's not even rocky planets with water. They have not found water holding planetary bodies I mean it's all in the Averable where water could be liquid zones. Yes. So there are three of the seven Planets three of them are within the goldilocks or habitable zone and if they Could have water if they have water then it would be liquid because they would be in the habitable zone We don't know if they have the right atmospheric conditions to do this One of the things that uh, it's very possible for these planets is that they are tidally locked Entitled locked means that they don't rotate around their own axis They would constantly be basically facing The same way around the planet and if that is the case then they Will not they would not have any centripetal forces or Coriolis forces from their own rotation To really move and mix an atmosphere however these seven planets are very very close to their their parent star and The what is it the sixth planet? Trappist 1f Orbits the planet in about nine days That's a star in about It's very quick. That's speedy these these things these planets and there is an uh, there's an image something years Earth years Yeah her year Uh, but and they might not be they might be they might not be tidally locked They could not be but they but they could we don't we don't know that all we have seen all they have seen are uh, these blips from uh, the Transiting of the planets the occultation of the star By the planets as they move past the star and dim its light and then move past each other As they orbit about and dim each other's light and so that's how they kind of know Where each of each of the stars are in relation to the others now um, one of the fascinating things about uh, where these Where these stars are located where these stars where the planets are located is that In comparison to our own solar system where uh, we are you know You know the distance from The sun to the earth we call it one astronomical unit These are Not even close to that the distance from From the star the trappist one star and these planets they would they would fit very neatly into the Yeah, into the interior of our solar system right next to our sun And they wouldn't even come close to hitting mercury the closest They're all they're all with like yeah, they're all within Uh closer than mercury. So they're all like pretty tight the habitable zone if it's so close because the the sun itself Doesn't put off as much heat as ours. Yeah, the red this the trappist star is uh, is very dim So it doesn't put out as much heat as ours or light as ours And trappist one e which is the fourth planet Uh in the system the first of the habitable ones Receives approximately as much light as earth But it's very very close to its parent star Um one f Receive is a little bit larger than uh one e probably more similar to the size of the earth But receives approximately the amount of light as would mars and then one g Receives even less light and it's it's probably more like the asteroid belt amount of Amount of light. So we're talking about uh, we're talking it's it's just very interesting now The distance from the star how much energy that star is putting out and then how much energy each of these planets are receiving I mean, seriously nine days orbiting Is a very short period of time to orbit a parent star And so if we're thinking about oh is life existing there, this is going to be incredibly different forces on these rocky bodies than the forces that are influencing or have influenced the formation of our own solar system and so People jumping on the who is their life in the trappist system Bandwagon you're getting way ahead of the gun Because we don't know if there's water anywhere, right? We don't know How much we don't know about their atmospheric conditions whether they have atmospheres have their How long has has this system been evolving and so do Did they once have atmospheres have they been burned off over the life cycle of the star? Because they are so close. How much radiation have these planets received from their star and how would that influence life? especially if they don't have dense atmospheres to or magnet or if they're not rotating about their own axis a magnetic field to protect themselves From the bombardment of this From the trappist system This is our neck. I mean, this is the most exciting The object out there or our system out there right now To study further because they could have all of these elements. They could be rotating. They could have water Uh, and they're in with within zones that would allow them to somewhat mimic What the earth is experienced and not not that life necessarily depends on an exact earth-like situation No, we just have one example where it worked. So of course, that's why we're intrigued And it definitely could be, you know, maybe there's it's a microbial system Maybe something, you know, maybe the what we're looking forward to I think as you know humans or humanity. It's the excitement of uh of complex life We want to find a planet just dominated by dinosaurs or at least I do you do it's like dinosaurs and maybe a giant ape And and some giant ape. Yeah It's it's we want to find the king kong island On a planet, right somewhere. That's what we're really looking for. Yeah, some of the exciting things about this particular system though are that these These different planetary bodies in the trape system, it would be a very red light from the star because it's a dim star um, the planets are close enough to each other that they would be visible in the in the sky very often and you and um, the closer planets would be about the same size as the moon and so you would be able to see multiple planets Looking like the moon does in our own sky in the night in the sky And with our current technology applied to that solar system, it means we could visit Other planets if we had a solar system, which I mean we have right you could jump you could potentially This particular star is 40 light years away. So just getting there in the first place Is it a little while? Let's take a little 40 light years traveling at light speed. Yeah But you're right if we could get there it the planet hopping idea. NASA's already there and has Vacation posters that have been made up For the space tourists among us Which are just they're fantastic and then there's some really neat really neat Things that nasa has come up with there's a desk desktop app that you can download which is Called eyes on exoplanets where you from your desktop computer can fly to any planet that you want to to be able to Uh to be able to look at about a thousand exoplanets that we know to orbit distant stars Based on artists renditions and what we know about them from observations so far and there is a mobile app That uh that allows With the as nasa says the touch of a screen or the click of a mouse You can visit the newly discovered trappist one system in the exoplanet atlas the new world's atlas contains every exoplanet discovery Powered by nasa's exoplanet archive the official database used by professional astronomers engaged in exploring new worlds there are all sorts of resources that have been made available by nasa Um for people to get excited about this nasa with their press release today. They're obviously very excited about the the discovery of this exoplanet system and what it can tell us um Someone there was a a diagram today also that if you want to think of it, it's more of a laboratory in space That we can use it to study solar different solar system Uh formation we can use it also Some people have compared it not not so much to our own solar system, but maybe more similar to the setup of the moons around jupiter In the way that they are close in and how many of them and Yeah, and the just that got from nasa was in a way like this is beyond the pale of Of what they could hope to find it in terms of things that are in the habitable region You got three within the same solar system and then that even the outliers aren't that far out of it Which means that they even would have potential and and this isn't so it's sort of like this isn't something that Was off the charts in terms of what could possibly happen or could possibly exist but the The fact that we've got one within uh within sight Of our advanced, you know ability to use deep space Technology and all this sort of thing um it is close enough to do A number of layers of investigation that Is really what's got them excited that this is this is one of those things That's an outlier possibility that nobody really expected to be able to to stumble across There it is And now we have the ability to to investigate further within this system. This is going to be something I think we're going to be talking about Uh quite a bit in the next year or two Absolutely, and I think especially that once the james webspace telescope gets online 2018 that's that space telescope should be launching and It's going to be an infrared camera that will be giving us a lot of different information about All these systems that we have logged and that we want to find out more about and so it'll give us new and different eyes Onto that and so Hubble's going to be looking at this trapeze system There are other systems that as as telescopes come online or as people think of using them They're gonna this is a system. They are curious about they want to know Already have already already have these on the have it on the radar for for uh investigation follow-up studies More studies to come It's so exciting so very exciting. So uh those headlines about life in and yeah, no That's not what this is but rocky planets that are potentially earth like Uh, you know very different system setup, but that's cool Differences can and very revealing and could be could be life. I mean, that's the thing That's what's so intriguing is this is where we would this is This is the scientist in me going we don't have that evidence. No, we don't have that evidence, but we have three planets in one system In a crazy system where they're orbiting it But there's three of them in one system that we can study That have that the the basic what we consider to be the basic qualifications for have Well, and I feel like I always have to have a A quick mention at this point in the conversation that what we think the habitable zone is And what we think you need for life like water and all these sorts of things that's based on how we know life works here So that also is a lot of assumption saying that you can't have life without those things on these other In these other spaces We don't know that either. No, but we're basing it on result oriented science Which is we have a result on a planet like this and and and result oriented science is is very important because this is This is how paleontologists Rely on say geology, you know, you don't go digging through 10,000 year old earth mounds hoping to find dinosaur bones, right? you you have You have uh, you you base your search on Places where what that fit parameters that you already know and you're absolutely right Blair and you're absolutely right kiki and I'm absolutely speculating That um because you're both right. This is a great place to look. Thank you for saying that Great. Is that the first time? No, no, it's okay All right. Yeah, so so I I do think it's important to say that you know Who knows maybe we'll find new life in something that we didn't even think was a habitable space That could be giant dinosaurs. We just don't know Don't we don't know it's true. We won't know until we find it We can make evidence-based best guesses And you know my best guess for what they're going to name these planets. I hope they are named after belgian beers I was gonna say the seven dwarfs monks. Yeah, so there's a couple of things here my goldilocks and the seven belgian monks And I would so I was making a play off of the goldilocks zone snow white in the seven dwarfs And belgian monks in belgian beer. You got it. I like it. Boom. You got a lot in there The title of this show just it's I think it's my epic My my opus Well, you better start tweeting then All right, Justin. Let's move on from these amazing extreme exo exoplanets that are exciting us so much What do you have, Justin? We live in a world that at times seems deeply divided We're told the left thinks this way the right thinks that way one side is creative while the other is not But what if it's all a myth What if the world we live in and by world? Of course, I'm speaking of the brain in which you are living What if the brain isn't as left right oriented as we once thought New study suggests in the case of creative people It's not which side of the brain is relied upon But how well the two brain hemispheres communicate that counts for the study statisticians David Dunson of Duke University and Daniel Durant of the University of padova analyzed the network of white matter connections from among 68 separate brain regions in healthy college age volunteers What's college age does that mean? It's like 18 to 21 22 Nobody else can go to college that doesn't seem like right. Anyway, the brain's white matter Lies underneath the outer gray matter can composed of the bundles of wires and axons Connects billions of neurons and carries electrical signals between them Team led by nurse scientist Rex Young University of New Mexico collected the data using MRI technique called diffusion tensor imaging It allows researchers to peer through the skull of a living person Trace the paths of all the axons by following the movement of water in the brain Computers then compiled each gigabag scan and converted them to three dimensional maps like looking at a wiring diagram of the brain at work Young's team used a combination of tests to assess creativity Some measured divergent thinking problem solving highlighting The individual's ability to come up with many answers to a single question They were tasked with drawing as many geometric designs as they could in five minutes They had to list as many new uses as they could for everyday objects such as a brick or a paper clip The participants also filled out a questionnaire about their achievements in 10 areas including visual arts music creative writing dance cooking and science The responses were then put into computer Calculated a composite creativity score for each person They found no statistical differences in connectivity within the hemispheres or between men and women I would hope not between men and women. I mean that would be kind of weird with the neurons Between the people's no many differences between connectivity This is so this is not something this connectivity is not something that Is one of the things that is different between men and women. Yes Well, when they yes, uh, we I think those other things should be well defined by now Well, when they compared people who scored in the top 15 percent on the creativity tests With those in the bottom 15 percent of the creativity test high scoring people Had significantly more connections between the right and the left hemispheres The biggest differences were mainly in the brain's frontal lobe Dungeons said their approach could also be used to predict the probability that a person will be highly creative Simply based on his or her brain network structure Maybe Maybe cody voice maybe by scanning a person's brain We could tell what they're likely to be good at dunce and said so in the future in the future The stress of deciding which educational major direction to pursue could be counseled by a brain scan and No, and so this is this is another thing where it's like, you know, you this is not a causal thing necessarily We don't know whether it's like people who are more into all these different activities and being creative or whatever the creativity is that they're measuring whether that Leads to the formation of more connections between the hemispheres or whether the people have more connections between their hemispheres And so they're more drawn to these creative these creative endeavors So like so so choosing to ski in someone's brain and saying they have lots of connectivity and this No, no, that was it. That was that quote that that that researcher just needs to go sit in the bed by himself bad scientist I disagree here a little bit. I mean I don't think I don't think you could drill down and say okay based on your scan You're going to be an accountant that works with corporate law like no, like I don't I don't think that but But I do think that uh, if if it you could get a scan that says you need to be in something that's going to keep you engaged Uh, and a lot of different directions and it could be a huge Correlation of things that can do that and then you pick what you're more interested in and and if you don't score highly in this Then you are automatically sent to a vocational school and to work in a labor camp This isn't that doesn't that make sense. I'm not the brave new world Right, right brave new world. Look at this and say that we definitively understand the brain well enough To designate what you should do for the rest of your life.  We are nowhere near understanding the brain that well and even finding that so yes, there's that so what they what this study has found is that there is increased connectivity between the hemispheres of the brains Of creative what we define as creative individuals That's all this study can say That's what the study looked at and that's what the study That I mean that that's what it found and that's what you can say you can't jump to Okay, I'm going to defend dunson Who I do not know and say dunson's quote is maybe by scanning Maybe Let's see. This is this is another case I'm saying now by scanning a person's brain. We can dictate their future. It was a quote taken out of context I'm sure and it was probably pro You know asking for implications from the study. I understand all that but this is also another situation Just like he was saying of correlation versus causation No, okay audience audience. I'm talking directly to you right now. These are these are these are people in college Who have already had years of doing things which by the way their brains aren't even done transforming until at least age Their brain connectivity tested Especially the frontal areas of the brain that they were looking at Not have done developing my co-hosts are afraid that their brains Connectivity won't back up their career choices. Uh, so there's there's also I would say more that my brain at age 22 Would in no way reflect what I am doing now Absolutely What if it did predict it You don't know well the study doesn't either because it wasn't a long-term study But it will be eventually. Uh, so this is also they're also talking about, you know By studying the patterns of interconnections and healthy versus disease brains They and other researchers also hope to better understand dementia Uh dementia epilepsy schizophrenia and other neurological conditions Such as traumatic brain injury or coma. So there are going to be potential medical benefits to being able to study what the brain is looking like in a Very healthy connected creative functioning person versus somebody who's not Yeah, okay. Well that I can understand we look at healthy and healthy functioning versus disease functioning and Start looking at ways that we can use it to help people and They're also developing statistical methods to find out whether brain connectivity varies with IQ About the relationship between IQ and creativity.  Um There's also There's you could have a you can have a separate creativity IQ Which you could score very high on even if you stunk at the regular IQ test And you know, I think I think there is a degree to which If if you were a university selecting people to enter fields and wanting to hopefully recruit people who would excel at them Uh that you could look to whether somebody's brain seems to be wired to creativity to say enter an art department or a um a writing department or I mean creativity can be across the the fields that it doesn't have to be limited to the arts um, but you might you might uh preference A score of creativity Knowing that somebody can do this lateral hemispherical thinking better As opposed to simply an IQ And certainly not in your emotional IQ test So I I I think it's fascinating. I think it's uh things that are brain based and and actually and physically based Could be better predictors of performance could be better predictors of performance than um Question and answer multiple choice type IQ tests that we currently and an emotional creativity test Various things that we currently have because very often people Test differently and behavior of the test is output as opposed to what's actually going on Inside so and and this is also just a personal acts. I have to grind for for my own testing Which has always been my my spelling scores on when I did like this is high school This is like forever ago, but I would get like 23 24 percent on the spelling test Which means I'm a complete idiot, but I'd get like 99 percent on comprehension But they all those numbers go in I'm like you should be able to like get rid of an outlier Like in any good site get rid of the outlier, right? Which would actually I guess get rid of both of those So then I'd be left. I'd still have been I'd been in trouble You're in trouble no matter what oh Moving forward. Let's keep this show moving so we can finish it in under two hours Let's keep it moving the goal. Yes. It's the goal. We got to finish the show. I am going to finish the show Blair what's in the animal corner the be the what it is. It's time for the animal corner Oh, there's a whole segment you're rushing through Oh, I have a couple studies this week looking at ways that technology can help us save animals out in the wilderness which sound like Two ideas that often cannot jive however One of my favorite studies I've seen in technology helping wild animals comes out of Madagascar from michigan state university looking at lemurs and they were looking at Seeing if they could create something called lemur face ID So they took facial recognition software that already existed and they tried to tweak it to identify lemur faces They found that they could correctly identify more than a hundred individual lemurs with 98.7 accuracy Yeah, they have unique facial characteristics just like humans and Once they've optimized this lemur face ID They could do long-term research studies with lemurs out in the wild in Madagascar without having to catch them and color them Without having to use IDs that could change like If somebody lost part of their tail and their tail was their identifier before then you lose that speed that animal ID completely the lemur mug shots as it were In theory never changed despite their their fur being thicker in certain times of the year or scarring or anything like that For the most part facial recognition would still work So they used 462 images of 80 red bellied lemurs, which are actually my favorite species of lemur And 190 images of other lemur species and they created this data set for facial recognition most of them were taken out in the wild and they relied on this data to help them make lemur face ID They do think that this can help replace capture and color which as I mentioned can affect your study because you're actually catching the animals that can That can affect your data But it also means that you're reliant on things like batteries And whether they slip out of the collar and all these sorts of things So what I find interesting here is this idea that um, there is that there are these individual Individually identifying facial features that there are things like distance between the eyes length of the nose There are various features that can be used that we use to identify people So we're a primate, right? Why not use the same thing to identify another primate? This is fascinating And it we you know we we so often we Because we aren't the animals that we're studying. We aren't sensitive to the traits that other individuals of whatever species might be sensitive to And so we always base things on oh the bird with the big breast patch or the bright colors or You know, there's you know just body size in general. It's the bigger individuals, but maybe there are much more subtle Facial individual facial cues. Yeah the cute lemurs the handsome lemurs. Yeah, so so this is so interesting I was thinking about this when I was a zookeeper and I worked with 18 different squirrel monkeys When I was learning the 18 squirrel monkeys apart because that was part of being cleared to work in that space You had to be able to identify if somebody Fell and needed medical attention if somebody was acting weird if somebody didn't take food I would have to be able to know who that was right and so as I was learning I would be told things like oh Che has uh, he he usually hangs out in this space and Mack Has has big biceps and stuff like that, right? But I started to notice the more I worked with them These Things I couldn't quite put my finger on but I would be able to just look at individual monkeys and go that's Orlando And I can't really it would always it would usually be in the face I couldn't I had such a hard time putting it into words. I would try to say oh well Well ticker always looks like this Right So It's something that I couldn't I couldn't put into words super well But that's essentially what was happening because I was spending every day with them I was learning to recognize faces and the second that I stopped working in that space I came back later and I couldn't tell who is who anymore interesting And it's because we are so used to looking at signifiers on humans that our facial recognition of humans is fantastic But you can train yourself to do facial recognition on other animals If you think about seeing a room full I have a yellow lab at home and if I saw a room full of yellow labs. I am confident I could pick out my dog Why isn't that? Yeah, it's because I spend so much time with her right and so this Takes that that basic data and it applies it to lemurs They also think that they can use this this lemur face ID to help with conservation Not just in research, but if they ever see a trapped animal an animal trying to be traded illegally They can identify which animal it is And if it's an animal that continually keeps getting trapped, maybe that animal can't live in the wild anymore and need some assistance Maybe that animal needs protection They also think that they could apply this this lemur face ID with some slight adjustments to identify other primates, of course And non primate species with variable facial hair and skin patterns like bears red pandas raccoons or sloths This could be Huge because I do wonder a lot about things like collaring It's what we have the collars and so we're using them and I'm all about it But if there are other ways for us to identify these individuals less invasive, yeah Less invasive, but it's also I can't help but wonder especially when we're doing social studies With animals, especially primates. Is that animal with a collar on being treated the same as everyone else? Yeah Is it a confounding variable? We don't know Because we need it to track our data so It could be pretty interesting and along those same lines instead of facial recognition Before you move on I just want to make this statement though that it's it's fascinating that Facial recognition technology is being used in this way I mean if we can track ourselves and if we can you know make ourselves out of a Facebook picture lineup, you know, or if google can pick us out of images Why not be able to use it for various different purposes? I mean identify everybody on the planet Let's do it Yeah, absolutely. That's I mean it's a little creepy When when facebook knows who I am based on my face But it could be helping the leavers. So, you know silver lining silver lining Um, yeah, so then a similar Adaptation of technology using actually microsoft research looked at identifying mosquitoes and just like the facial recognition of lemurs identified individual lemurs This could identify species of bugs and even down to the species of mosquito And this is a new smart trap that the way it would work It would actually in real time Make a choice about what species of insect flew into the trap Closing its door or not and then recording Data about the surrounding environment so that it knows when specific species come around So, yeah, so there's 64 smart cells They're all compartments outfitted with infrared light and when an insect crosses the beam The shadow changes the light intensity in a way that makes essentially a the species fingerprint based on that information the The door will snap close if it is for example 80s a gypti the mosquito that carries zika And and then it can send all of that other information like temperature humidity And uh the time of day other environmental conditions of your choosing all of that gets sent in real time And they they did a trial of this smart trap in harris county, texas in late july and august And it was more than 90 percent accurate in identifying Which insects were coming through? Yeah, this is crazy. Um, it's a lot more than a bug zapper here 90 percent accurate. Well, it is a bug zapper, but it's a very smart bug zapper. Yes. Yes, and so This could be huge in keeping an eye on particular Uh mosquito-borne illnesses such as zika and making sure that we know its movement The other thing that this smart trap can do is it actually Can see if the individual mosquito it caught is carrying anything What? Yeah, um So That is the part that's really Fascinating is that it takes it a step further by seeing what Diseases those mosquitoes have so basically doing a A dna test of the of the blood smashing the mosquito Doing a dna test So that could be amazing if it works. Yeah potential application for this which would be as an agriculture You have pollinators versus pest And if you use a pesticide it kills pretty much everything Here here's if this got to that really Uh applicable put it out in the ag fields and you know get a few thousand of these out there You you could be catching the the pests and And leaving the pollinators the the otherwise harmless bugs Alone Yeah, absolutely, and we've talked recently on the show about how mosquitoes we used to say who needs them But we've actually we found now From recent research that some mosquitoes are pollinators. So So much for that mosquito. He fly high old mosquito. He fly low. Yeah, this trap hands on me He ain't gonna fly no more This trap can do the blood check for hermo path harmful pathogens and it can even I forgot about this Tell what animal the mosquito had been biting recently Wow So this can be used to stop emerging diseases, but also predict emerging diseases Also a quick side note if you if you've ever considered getting a bug zapper to eliminate bugs Near your property Don't do it. They attract greater numbers of insects than they actually kill So if you want to divert insects from your property give one as a gift to your neighbor interest Yeah, so this is um This is from a microsoft led research team, which um I think is interesting especially knowing the gait's family's connection to mosquito-borne illnesses in africa and that kind of stuff I'm I I didn't do any intense research on that But I am not surprised at all to see that link and I hope that the big Question here towards the end of the article is about keeping these smart traps cheap enough to actually Put out and use in full force to help prevent outbreaks and traits outbreaks So yeah, well if scientists can get a hold of them to be able to biologists can put them out in the field and be able to find out whether or not Zika carrying mosquitoes are prevalent or whether or not different kinds of mosquitoes or other insects are You know biting flies are the are the insects that come out morning noon or night on Various times of the year. I mean that's gonna it's gonna help so much yeah, absolutely, and um, they're The research team also says that they are working to keep the microprocessor cost down as they go And they are also planning to test to see if they can use drones to place them in remote areas Drones drones drones it always comes back to drone I think any excuse young researchers get to work with drones they they work it in or a remote control car or Sticks with poo All right Moving on i'm gonna jump to uh an interesting story that uh was sent to me by david eckard this morning Uh, and I noticed it noticed it this morning as well reported on stat That there is a report in cell reports this week of researchers who have Used a small molecule chemical cocktail to Basically cause progenitor populations of hair cells to to expand in the inner ear or the cochlea Of mice and uh that this has promise also They tested it on one person to see if this in a dish would work to expand this population of basically hair cells stem cells And it works it worked Yeah, so they're they're moving on to trying uh human trials They've they've started a startup and they're moving on to human trials, but the hair cell Is this is the cell it's like a little cell that's encased in the gelatinous goo in the inside of your inner ear And when sound vibrations come along they go And the little there's this little cilia these hairs on the hair cell and they they bend one way or another to turn on or off and they Send the signal of the sound to the nerves and the nerves go into the brain And that's how you hear these hair cells are the things that get damaged when you listen to your music too loud wearing earbud headphones These hair cells are the things that are damaged by loud rock concerts These hair cells are the things that get damaged and lead to a large amount of degenerative hearing loss. I mean hearing aids are a big money making business because of Hair cells, you know, I I think that uh drummers everywhere would like excuse me I think drummers everywhere should pay attention to this story And so the yeah the exciting thing here is you know, this is this is worked in these mice and I've got um this little this little image from the study that uh Kind of can give you an idea of where in the where in the ear in the deep in the spirally cochlea inside your ear they've uh taken these these cells and kind of hair cell support cells and now In humans once your hair cells die are damaged. They die and they do not come back There is nothing that will bring them back, but they found that there are these kind of they used research based on the uh epithelium of the intestine Actually stuff they'd learned about signaling molecules in the epithelium of the intestine to get cells Cilia cells in the intestine to reproduce themselves and to keep growing Um, they used information that they found there to kind of go I wonder if we can make this work with these hair cells because inside this this what we're looking at these cells This is an epithelium. This is the same kind of lining And so maybe we can send some instructions there that are just missing and what they found is they could Send the right instructions to kind of get these supporting cells to turn into progenitors for hair cells and then the environment inside the inner ear in the cochlea Naturally allowed those progenitor cells to then grow into and become hair cells And so they didn't have to do anything extra. They kind of got the process started Got these support cells to kind of shift over into oh, maybe we want to be into hair in hair cell mode And then the inner ear just did it on its own and what they'll be able to do with this Which is exciting because it's just kind of a drug cocktail Is potentially what they're going to be testing down the road Is that it would be something as simple as um putting drops in your ear for an ear infection That it could be wow just a drop-like delivery to the inner ear That would then just start the process on its own That's what they're hoping for Yeah, five to ten years That's great. I don't know how soon it'll be so I can start going to rock concerts again And I can stop using your plugs. It sounds like that's not what I'm saying. Oh, okay But you never let me have any fun anymore I work with somebody who who's been a lifelong drummer and as in some scenarios as comical as it can be Uh to have somebody whose hearing is degraded that you work with Um, it's also like makes things very difficult for them. Um And and hearing aids are like you said expensive And they're not like as cutting-edge as we would like to think You know a high-end hearing aid can be in the 20 30 thousand dollar range for for the cutting-edge technology of this thing Uh, so it's uh, you know this this is this is awesome This is getting people back at sense. This is kind of like I put this up there with curing blindness Uh, it's right there with it Those are those two things like if you those that that's that uh That that false question that you're always confronted with if you could lose your sense of sight or your sense of hearing Which would you choose and it's a real struggle for people to go? Which one do I really? Am I that much more attached to or really think is that important and and it's easier to get rid of Maybe touch or smell or even taste for some of us But to get rid of sight versus hearing such a huge thing you lose all music versus this visual art stuff but The fact that they could cure it with an with an eardrop potentially, yeah, so with it within 18 months, they're going to hopefully start testing this on people and That's so awesome. Yeah My favorite this actually with everything that we've done. This is my favorite story of the year right here So far. This is it. That's really incredible This could this could be very life changing for Many people if it pans out, you know, we're still very early in the process We're not there yet, but this is one of those exciting things. Yeah, this is my most This is the most exciting that we're turning a sense because again I believe that we are where we are is in our brain and our only access to the world is through these senses So we're turning a sense that was turned off Gives a huge access to being in the world again to people. Yep Yep. Yes. How did this end up so far down the list? We got to do this. We'll do this story No, I mean we got to follow up on it again Okay, I'm moving on to my next story because I am trying to finish this show up I have two more stories to go and Blair has a story to go um really neat story out in public library of science biology In which researchers, uh, it took zebra fish these little little tiny fish and uh, they They were fish that lacked an enteric nervous system and the enteric nervous system are the Nerves that are inside the gut. They can truck they control your gut motility Whether or not you're you know, if you humans we have peristaltic activity once every 15 minute, I don't know every every once in a while You have a peristaltic wave that pushes through your intestines to push a bolus of food from the stomach all the way out and That's controlled by your enteric nervous system so they took the zebra fish that lacked an enteric nervous system and they looked at their microbiota in the gut And they found that the fish that lacked a nervous system in their gut suffered from inflammation in their gut they had more inflammatory bacteria in their gut than they had not inflammatory bacteria They turned the enteric nervous system on by either putting it back in or by using chemicals to stimulate gut contraction and peristalsis The bacterial makeup changed and inflammation went away So question here What they are positing what they're demonstrating is that the enteric nervous system the nerves in the gut actually modulate the microbial community That lives in the gut to maintain intestinal health They're like the bouncer of the gut is what you're saying Like the bouncer of the urine you're out and so it doesn't necessarily I mean peristalsis is the largest obvious effect of an enteric nervous system But it doesn't necessarily have to be the the physical activity of peristalsis the enteric gut the enteric nervous system also Delivers all sorts of stimulation for various reasons and so there could be a lot of communication Going on within the gut between the the gut nervous system and the gut bacteria And the gut nervous system could be very very important in monitoring and managing your gut health so More interesting twists and turns to the microbial gut story that we have come to know and love and then I'm going to round out my uh I started the show talking about exoplanets and now I'm going to end my part of the show We're talking about again nasa researchers finding life microbial life inside a deep old Mine locked in minerals nasa researchers mined the nike mined in chihuahua, mexico Meters long gypsum crystals are the kinds of crystals that you would find in this in this cave, but uh The researchers found microbes they took them they took samples back to the lab Some of the microbes were 60 000 years old in a state of suspended animation Like a mosquito and amber Like a mosquito and amber, but in this case they were able to revive Many of the microbes that they found In this in these uh in this cave So some of them they couldn't find the researcher told uh the one of the researchers told the telegraph much to my surprise We got things to grow it was laborious. We lost some of them. That's just the game They've got needs we can't fulfill That part of it was really like zoo keeping Okay But uh the the idea here is that this uh The suspended animation and the fact that they found they can age some of these microbes at up to 60 000 years old suggests that panspermia Really is possible and we talked last week about uh about fungus was a fun fungus or algae That was from norway that survived on the exterior of the international space station by going into a suspended animated state And we and and so this week we find that some microbes Have been maybe they've been they've been suspended animation for 60 000 years. I mean, maybe they've been around for A very long time and how long Could you potentially be on a rock? in space in suspended animation Shot off of some planet rock going through space until you land on another one, right? So this this uh the dating of this in this study This is a very interesting finding toward the possibilities of panspermia and life throughout the universe The question is who sent them Uh, and there's like uh, there was some story that I didn't bring this week that was talking about how the uh Earth has more heavy iron isotopes than light isotopes as compared to our Solar system around us. It's an unresolved question in the earth's formation. Perhaps why our iron composition is slightly different than our surrounding solar system And we happen to be the only one with life and so it could have been like, you know, panspermia Uh inter solar thing. He hit us probably not though Probably you're probably not And in the showroom fad is telling us a story about some cats that survived the ice but Blair, didn't you have a cat story? Meow meow right meow right meow. May I tell you about it meow? Yes, um, it turns out That despite what you may believe uh previous comments about how Cat ownership might contribute to mental disorders because of toxoplasmosis New study a new study published in psychological medicine suggests that cat ownership in pregnancy and childhood Does not play a role in developing psychotic symptoms during adolescence They looked at nearly 5 000 people born in 1991 or 1992 They were followed until the age of 18 And they had data on whether the household had cats while the mother was pregnant and when the children were growing up And they found a very clear Lack of correlation. There is no evidence that cats pose a risk to children's mental health And they did initially have an analysis that suggested a link between cat ownership and psychotic symptoms at age 13 But that turned out to be due to other factors. So when they zeroed out other variables When they adjusted for other variables that link was gone previous studies, it looks like the problem with previous research is that they Would ask people who currently have normal or abnormal psychological statuses About their childhood and the problem with that is that obviously human recollection not always super accurate Um, but this study is the first one to actually follow people throughout their Lives growing up seeing whether or not they have Cats at home and they saw no link the big disclaimer on this is that it is still A good idea for pregnant women to stay far away from cat litter And I'll forego doing my next the last story I had I'll bring that next week just to follow up on this one We have said it before I know where you're going with this. What? There's they don't they did not they were not able to test in any of these households Whether the cats had toxoplasmus Had toxoplasmosis They they could not test for t gondii In this and they followed 5,000 people until they turned 18 and then walked away from them as though This isn't something that can be embedded in your brain and reoccur reemerge later in life They left out all the factors of the disease and they left out those parts that um That looked like they contributed because they found other factors to Yeah, give them reason to pull it out. So that's called science though I get no I get that this group of of psychologists who are probably all cat owners Wanted wanted to make it okay for other people to have cats You're okay. I'm okay But there's probably a reason that they're studying psychology The reason they got into psychology is because there were psychological problems at home and because probably they had cats This is this is this is fitting the formula For why cats should be kept away from people who want to have sane healthy lives. That's all I'm saying Wow, there's a whole lot of non science in what you just said There was a whole lot of non science in this study. Let me just um, I would beg to differ That's why I reported on it. It seemed like good science to me. Um, but So, so here's what you do. Here's what you actually do Here's how to you go with the results first You start with an actual evidence-based result and you look at people who are infected with t gandhi And you look at what those effects have as a percentage of that population What if there are manifestations Compared compared to people who are not infected with t gandhi ibe who also have cats So you have to have a proper control group. Yeah, right? And that's when they say, okay If you have t gandhi, you have higher rates now. What is the vector for t gandhi? How do you get t gandhi? It only replicates in cats. So it pretty much is a cat vectored disease the parasite so We can have this debate at some other time But we have to get more than we look to 5 000 people who at the age of 18 hadn't shown signs of psychosis and therefore Cat's fine is not a study that's really looking at the issue Nice undergrad paper Yeah, and we have gone through all of our stories. This is amazing An interview a whole bunch of amazing science stories some debate even some ranting We've had all sorts of fun here tonight Um this week in science. I hope everybody's had a whole lot of fun. Did you guys have fun? I did and I left my favorite story this week till next week. Oh, you're making it. Okay, you didn't have fun You had no fun. You're about to go like not bathed for 30 days. I know You're not having fun. You signed up to yeah, not bathed so that you could have penguin fun. So worth it Worth it. All right, everybody You still can't brush your teeth though, I think I think it's about time to give our shout outs and I want to say thank you To our patreon sponsors Here comes the crawl. Here comes the crawl Thank you patreon sponsors. I'd like to thank chris kark Paul disney chieprin latinmore john ratmaswamy richard onamus firenly eo jared lysette kevin parochan andy grow keith corsel jake jones field serels illycy lakins eric nickle david friedel james randall erics wall bob calder marquess I was at retire trying to for brian hedrick layla marshal clark charlene henry daryl carcia marty randy mozuga tony steele general yanda onyago steve debelxenia volcova Daryl hruin serang melissa mozley alex wilson jason schreinerman greg guthman david neighbor jason dosier jermath He lit one eric nap jason robert's wrist reporter rodney david wiley robert astin or warley bill kersey ben rothick darwin hannon Rida garcia nick vabasi Felix alvarez cosmic gypsy brian hone orly radio brian kondren marked nathan greco hexatour debor smith Much knieves frying out john crocker christopher drier sylvan wesby rtm shawada david wilkinson steve michinsky rick rama scarry swindsberg filled nadoe braxton howard selgott sam matt setter 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for more great science news and if you have learned anything from the show remember it's all in your head so i'm setting up the shop got my banner unfurled it says the scientist is in i'm gonna sell my advice show them how to stop the robots with a simple device i'll reverse the overwhelming with a wave of my hands and all it'll cost you is a couple of grand science is coming your way so everybody listen to what i say i use the scientific method for all that is worth and i'll broadcast my all over the earth it's this week in science this week in science this week in science science science this week in science this week in science this week in science science science i've got one disclaimer and it shouldn't be news that what i say may not represent your views but i've done the calculations and i've got a plan if you listen to the science you may just better understand that we're not trying to threaten your philosophy we're just trying to save the world from jeopardy week in science is coming away so everybody listen to everything we say and if you use our methods to roll and i die we may rid the world of toxoplasma got the eye this week in science this week in science this week in science this week in science this week in science this week in science science science the 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 got the help can i ever see the changes i see when i can only set up shop to what we say this week in science this week in science this week in science this week in science this week in science this week and that does it for our show the animal corners over yeah i didn't want to have to do it again i'm tired we've done our show a wonderful two hour show tonight interview and the science so much good stuff to discuss it's 61 degrees in my room why is your room so cold i just turned on my space so all the pictures i was just showing uh as the ending credits came out those were all taken by greg during his trip to kurgelen island near antartica it's in the antarctic i don't know if he actually made it to the art antarctic mainland somebody had asked that at one point i'm not sure the lemur in the middle groucho ass you're funny that's right where's waldo it was a lemur where's waldo lemur my nose is sniffly i'm waiting for it to be done being sniffly i'm glad my room is not 61 degrees why are you so cold why why is your house so cold do you have a heater what's going on do you have a blanket there are some funny comments in the chat room tonight you guys i'm sorry i couldn't i wanted to reply to things but then i wanted to keep the show rolling and i couldn't focus on everything tonight multi tasks so easily now my headphones look like earmuffs maybe they should be earmuffs earmuff headphones those exist fada i contacted him and he's not available for a while so maybe at some point down the road i'm not sure i might try uh there are some other people i know who are doing similar stuff so i might try them but i did contact him and he was very gracious but uh not able at this point in time so we'll see we'll see sniffle nose sniffle nose yeah ed so um he did go to uc davis for grad school and i knew him in grad school we were kind of in we're in we weren't i mean he was in animal behavior and i did physiology but we were in kind of connected labs so we hung out all the time we taught and we taught together too which class we taught did he take fish teach physiology you know maybe we both taught physiology together i don't remember i'm not remembering anymore yeah things changed fada things changed he couldn't do it he couldn't do it um there you go bluetooth earmuff headphones did you see that no i didn't yet vex found you stuff bluetooth earmuff headphones for smartphones somebody's texting me who texts me on wednesday night at this little indeed my husband going are you ready to go good be done yet oh it's you i did it i texted you nice i remember to text you out things that i wanted to text you about before when you're in front of me so then i just do it it makes sense it does make sense um i sent both of you guys an email with the maryland stem festival oh yeah i looked at we made the uh yeah we made the picture opening day picture yeah that's great so we're in their summary that'll go on for this next year's and help them with their fundraising for the next year and all that kind of stuff and um they were very happy to have us and he said maybe they'll be able to get us back again someday that would be awesome all right so i got an email this week where did that go i hit it somewhere here we go we have been uh would we potentially be interested in is it about the same time as was the baltimore trip this last year um going and doing a twist show a live tape of the show to the 2017 entomological society of america meeting i did see that email well you guys know how i feel about it i think you would say yes yeah yeah so i just i just needed to ask before i could get back to everybody and yeah where is it uh denver colorado can we do it on our way to or from baltimore right just we'll stop in denver and have an interest to her right that would be fun a little layover denver one even was baltimore october oh november it was the beginning of november it was basically the same exact dates it's basically the same date that this potential trip would be what is time so so i was talking to my son today about the exoplanets and the fact that they're 40 light years away and how justin can i say yes to this before you move on to the next subject i really it's the same subject it's the same subject as i just went and ejected um uh and i was like so you know i signed this up uh it's going to be a multi-generational thing he needs like well why don't we just do what they did in uh future rama and find a way to change the speed of light so that we can alter it speed of light becomes like 10 times faster and therefore we could travel at the old speed of light and that's how they get everywhere in future rama apparently so that's the bending of time thing that we could do both shows at once um got it i love the idea of going to this yeah cool great i'm down awesome okay i'll get back to her and let her know that uh i'll email back and say very possibly let's talk that sounds cool denver would be awesome yeah we have to let them know this week down to hang out that's like arthur pod bros yeah i was like well we have the show so i'll be able to talk to you guys and we can decide if we can do it but yeah entomological society and it's denver which is awesome it'd be cool we could see dav fridel where's dave he's not in the chat room he doesn't hang out in the chat room anymore we could go to the celestial seasonings factory is he watching us on facebook we could go i i would enjoy that i really do like my what is it a peach passion and or we could go to the institute and boulder uh the jack carowak uh for the uh what is it the jack carowak society for disembodied poets what happened i want to go to the denver zoo shocking go to the denver zoo it's a really good zoo supposedly i could see some insects yeah it sounds fun um could live tape a show and tell some of the stories behind lesser known entomologists and or entomology fields yeah that'd be some fun interviews i bet there's some invertebrate sex to be had oh my goodness it could be you know what stays in denver or happens whatever um this is the beauty of me being on the ground floor of my new spot as i can do this i hear not bothering anybody bouncing over their heads yeah things do bounce a little bit though they do that's okay it adds to the effect whiz mike says i tell my sister to stay away from biologists what how dare you she should be a biologist yeah or an astrobiologist how about an astrobiologist yeah what what then whiz mike huh huh yes space denity four that is it's gonna be beginning of november well i'm we will give plenty of warning november fifth through eighth is when this meeting is taking place so oh this year uh oh wow oh i get it how it could overlap now with the other things that we want to do and that's why she if we get it now if we get invited again to baltimore but this will be cool this is a shorter flight that it is it's a shorter flight it would be or it could be a stopover on the way to or from baltimore it could be wouldn't that be crazy like i'm saying it was two or 2017 right there i'm interested where we could get a van and then everyone all of the families can come we could drive to colorado all of us in a van in a giant bus in a giant tour bus keep us at a hotel baby baby take the train all of us take the train actually the train would be really nice that would be a very fun train right yeah absolutely and then everyone could come these kids can pull your kids out of school for like three weeks right yeah oh totally totally school all right road trip it'd be fun actually i'd have art that my kids i have tried to pull my kids out of school just for a day they won't have it yeah my kids are so brainwashed into educating themselves at school that uh like none of them will ever take a day off of school even my three-year-old is like no i gotta go i got important i got an important hangout meeting uh on the slide with uh my compatriots like none of them will skip school to even go see like a movie with me yeah totally weird thing yeah i looked for i was i prayed every morning that there'd be a reason to pull me out of school that day which is you know explains a lot of what's happened since my i went to school so sick that multiple times i went to school so sick that i fainted wow cool because i was afraid of missing tests or stuff like that all in high school that's how my kids are no even like an earlier school that's how my kids are they they like my my daughter uh was sick from school the other day and we had to go to school anyway at the end to get all of her assignments yeah we had to go and like get her like what did you what did we do today what you covered today what's the homework i gotta have it so i can be on top of it like wow yeah yeah kids today yeah but in the meantime um just so you guys know i already have 130 hours of vacation time accrued so so you have yes 30 hours yeah great already this early in the year uh it rolls over you have roll over i have no roll over roll over they roll back at my work roll they're like oh you didn't use it say goodbye yeah yeah that's the worst yeah i mean mine on top they give you they give you a cash uh uh they give you the money the payout ah i wouldn't mind that actually that sounds great but then you're going to zero vacation means that you don't get to go anywhere doing yeah it means that you have to stay there all the time yeah 18 years you only miss two six sick days hot rod wow that's amazing i'm sick all the time yeah but you can't call it sick at your job yeah no i don't get to call in sick so like everybody do appreciate the non-symmetrical nature of this cup oh yeah did it go through the dishwasher when it wasn't supposed to acrylic glasses don't do so well on the hot setting yeah so the dishwasher it's now it is now like there's kind of like different i like this side for drinking out of now it's pouring is it safe to drink out of now sure we'll find out it's science hot dishwashers man acrylic cups they just can't handle the heat can't take it it is modern art glass now exactly it is i like it i'm marshal was like we should throw these out they're they're all warped and i was like i know i love them and i was like i'm keeping these i'm gonna put more glasses in the in the dishwasher now i'm gonna put it on the hot setting do it more see what kind of sculptures come out have fun oh you guys look what i want from a claw machine this week it's a rainbow alligator wow actually more impressive than the alligator is the fact that you actually got something out of a claw machine i did on the first try i did that once where i bragged that i could i could get i that i always you know win at those things and then i put into coins and i actually got something and it was the first time and i think the last time this is the only time i ever had ever worked but because i bragged about it right before i tried it it made me look like a boss and i've i've tried the same maneuver multiple times now it always ends in failure but at one time it was a real stunning event that's impressive i was watching all these not really dudes putting money into the key master trying to get the ipad and they were just failing and failing and i was like i'm gonna use this claw machine that's awesome i got my sparkly alligator um and meanwhile they each spent at least eight bucks on the stupid key master and didn't get the ipad and then i went home and youtube did it turns out it's rigged huh so there's that it's rigged but i got my sparkly alligator yeah oh my goodness all right you guys is there anything else we need to go over show wise business wise no if you want to respond to my text i will respond to your text read oh my goodness that's it i spent too much time on the internets today i need to take some time off the internet and just kind of read these books and things i was reading the internets yesterday and then saw this oh endangered species act might go bye bye and i went time to close the laptop it's like i look and i'm like and i'm upset about that and i'm upset about that and i'm upset i'm gonna tell people how i think about that and i gotta talk about that and i'm upset i'm like wow okay i i i need to yep like yeah today the endangered species acts thing i i tried to actually find a quote that said that the endangered species act would go away that said that somebody wanted to abolish the endangered species act i couldn't find it because if i could find it that's something i would talk about on the show but what happened was there have been conversations about species that were considered nuisance animals at one time like the mexican gray wolf and then were put on the endangered species act that are now there's conversations about taking them back off which is bad but their conversations they're not even proposed like bills or anything amendments nothing this has actually happened just conversations have happened which is not good but it's still nothing that i feel like i can you know yell from rooftops about at this point but so then that happened and that caused people to go the endangered species act is going to go away and i'm really upset yeah and i was very mad but i couldn't actually find a source and so i decided okay step away close the computer okay but think about like i spent a half an hour trying to find a source couldn't find one think about how many people are reading these articles so they're aren't looking okay so there here's an article washington post yes that was one of the ones i was looking at yeah it is not um that they are going to repeal it but they just had a hearing to quote modernize the endangered species act and part of this uh was led by senator john borosso his focus in a bid to change the act would be quote eliminating a lot of the red tape and the bureaucratic burdens that have been impacting our ability to create jobs yes so that's that's not great because that then that that's pretty clearly what it's clear what that means but there's not you know specific verbiage saying what that means yet yeah um house natural resources committee chairman rob bishop of utah said the endangered species act has never been used for the rehabilitation of species it's been used to control the land we've missed the entire surface of the endangered species act it has been hijacked okay good good good good good good talk about alternative facts they're well done but the take home is that the conservatives who are against it say its regulations prevent people from doing business and making a living yes um that is the the main it's like are we putting animals first or people and that's going to be the the discussion right which is kind of silly because uh it's not an either or you need healthy ecosystems for healthy humans and to pretend you don't is it's silly okay so okay here's the legend listen to this listen to this private article this okay the logic is escaping me here okay so i'm gonna i'm gonna read this to you and just let me know if you're thinking what i'm thinking after you hear it okay in a comment to a former us fish and wildlife service director who testified at the hearing senator james inhofe repeated a point made by borosso that of more than 1600 species listed as threatened or endangered since the axe inception fewer than 50 have been removed that's about three percent of the total the chairman said as a doctor if i admit 100 patients to the hospital and only three recover enough to be discharged i would deserve to lose my medical license that's not how that works come on with this so basically because not enough animals have been taken off the endangered species act the whole thing's not working and more people need to do enough is also the same who said the internet is this series oh oh i know i know he's brilliant this is so dumb uh that's that's that's like saying okay then we just won't put any sick people in the hospital if i'm gonna follow your logic okay so we should just leave them all to die outside of the hospital not being treated that's what you're saying yeah the logic there is just like this is just another case of removing what we have without replacing it with something new with the health care with everything else it's let's let's mess with what exists without offering some an alternative or a replacement so let me let me give uh i think i already did this rant last week but federal federal laws and all these things are are largely minimums they're not actually technically the maximum of regulation they're minimums of regulation and then each uh state puts its layer of regulation upon that where they can yeah which is of course enforcing it higher have a higher standard have have more protection and then you can run into a county and the state's protection for a particular species or particular regulation the control on emissions or water or whatever it is and then in a city you can even do a hire you can think of building codes right the federal government might say everybody can build their house out of straw and then and then one state must say uh actually we're gonna make sure everybody this is the three little pigs but everybody has to build sticks straws and a good enough standard and then and then your county might say no it sticks is good for the state maybe but here locally it has to be bricks and then it's the city of san francisco and they go yeah okay can be bricks but it has to be earthquake reinforced so that it can withstand drama like so so all of these all this fear that we have at this dismantling of federal regulation is gonna mostly affect states in which uh a particular hue of color on an electoral map might be represented uh you're largely gonna see everything being unchanged in california one of the things i thought that was very interesting is they're they're talking about again it's just the conversation but that's what leads to legislation and really quickly in this administration or the attempts to create legislation through it of dialing back requirements for the auto industry now one of them even if they do this even if this exceeds the state of california which has a higher than the federal uh requirements for emissions and is immediately adopted by i think it's 13 other states and in fact it's going to be very difficult for the auto industry to make that change when california who is the biggest dealer or buyer of automobiles doesn't subscribe to it and there was an age where we had already where the federal uh where actually the car industry itself had sort of stepped up to california standards over time anyway because that's it made it easier just to build the cars one way for the california standard and then some ever because i've i've experienced it where somebody who had bought a car that was delivered to colorado actually uh had moved to california and their car could not be smog the cars could not legally be on the road in california so what do you do now you're out your vehicle you can't drive your vehicle you can't register your vehicle in the state uh you have to get rid of you have to change vehicles just for the and it is such a mess that the auto industry largely is going to adapt what california does anyway because we're such and and the other 13 states are pretty you know new york is one of them very high population large amounts of cars being purchased it actually probably costs the money to reduce the standards now in terms of the the goals of of efficiency if california takes up that percentage of cars that if if california just takes up the mantle of what was being presented in terms of what the industry has to produce in terms of efficient vehicles we see that reflected uh nationally because it you you cannot disregard california's requirements and emissions and and still have a healthy functioning auto industry in the united states it's impossible things that there are checks there are big checks one of the big checks on these is california you know if if for instance uh one of these one of these states that has state regulation that's been wanting say lower agricultural standards uh actually initiates this state like california state like new york could say okay you no longer meet the standards that we require for for the for our food supply and therefore well you can't sell your goods here i mean there's there's a lot of stuff that can be done at the state level yeah to actually control and impact these these attempts dining back federal well unfortunately the endangered species act is not one so if because animals don't necessarily stay in one place many animals cross mind so you have animals that you know traverse through wyoming montana colorado all of a sudden you have something that either needs multiple states to work together and multiple state agencies to work together or hey let's have this federal regulation that kind of manages the whole thing from the outset so they're for animals there in california if it can get shot down when it flies over nevada yeah right yeah so i mean it's the state's rights things is at some stages it it doesn't make sense you know it doesn't work um yeah i mean there's something to keep forgetting regulation yeah absolutely and nowhere i think i just think it's so ridiculous because these people who are very into like their identity as americans and the symbols of america and all this kind of stuff right the bald eagle is one of the animals that was taken off of the endangered species list because it worked and because federal funding helped bald eagle breeding programs and paid for research that found out what was wrong with bald eagles and made hunting birds of prey illegal that's why our national bird is not extinct yeah there's um one of the previous directors uh what is it what's hold on one second let me make sure i know who she is a recent director of fish and wildlife uh or this is a man daniel ash he's now the associate association of zoos and aquariums chief executive was at one point a director of fish and wildlife yeah i saw him speak this year yeah he said to this panel the endangered species act is the world's gold standard for government conservation it's not perfect it can be better your goal is to make it stronger and better and then another um what was it uh and then um additionally so this is a gold standard for that basically the world for government conservation um and then another director said in the years that states were less engaged previously in in managing their own animal numbers the total number of mammals birds reptiles and amphibians among others have declined by half so the the federal regulation of the endangered species act makes a difference absolutely and other countries have actually modeled their endangered species programs on ours so it's something that's been around for around a hundred years now i think and well okay and maybe the idea of modernization you know maybe it does need modernization maybe there are you know as it's changed maybe there are species specific concerns maybe there are new concerns because of encroaching urbanization maybe there are you know various things that need to be brought into the Endangered Species Act that are not currently considered maybe there's certain tweaking that needs to happen nobody's saying that doesn't need to happen but but i would say it it would be in the side of more protection not less more yeah so yeah the the endangered species act itself i think it was 75 or 76 1975 1976 somewhere in there um was founded but um Theodore Roosevelt i think was one of the very first to talk about protecting species and government protections of species and species space um and talking about you know in what endangered means and that kind of stuff so it's definitely it's not a new idea um it's been working perhaps it could work better but again it's it's saved species it has literally saved species to throw that away seems very silly and especially when they're outright going to say it's about job creation well how about the fact that um i have several friends that work in um environmental impact surveys because of endangered species and their jobs would go away if they don't go the right way so it doesn't right but there's still jobs but there are the right jobs that's not what matters there's politics this isn't logic of course not but i just want to battle it with some of my logic because that's all i have yeah that's all i got logic logic logic is logic in fact logic those are if history has taught us anything and and it may not it history does not repeat itself but it often rhymes as uh as mark tween once said um you're gonna see a rollback of regulation under this administration and you're gonna see pain inflicted uh on the environment and on people and and and there'll be a backlash from that and then we'll go the other way and the adults will take over again and put the house back in order and and then after some level of complacency like hey why is all this stuff like like why don't we just cut through this mess of all these rules that we have and just try to do things like the old west what and then it'll be a severe amount of pain and play that this is like this is a cycle and this is old too like there's that experiment i can't remember it's uh what it's called but it's with the prisoners and the stanford prison experiment and again the more like sort of lax and friendly they were to the prisoners the more the prisoners sort of took advantage of the laxness and then there was almost always in every version of this experiment a very authoritative blowback on that that the the consensus to how to fix things was to become very authoritarian again and after a while of that people got sick of it and went back through that i mean uh somebody was saying like oh gosh you know oh under the obama eight years we lost 60s the democrats lost 60 seats and 13 governorships and everything's got us so this is like the worst leadership of but actually over the last 10 administrations he's right in the middle because after every administration has had control for a while there's a blowback the other direction that says no we got to do things completely different because there's always a large percentage of our population that is in need of change there's always a large percentage and it's i i think this has largely to do with the wealth inequality um but but there's a large portion of our population that isn't seeing the advantages or it doesn't feel that they're part of the advantages of being in this society as it's as it's moving forward and seeks change in hopes that that will bring forth some more advantage or something i think largely could you could probably put that towards the wealth inequality of our country and how drastic it is that there's so many of us that are always seeking a change to better our lives because we feel like we don't have a comfortable situation but but this is why i think this this cycle always happens whoever's in charge didn't fix it so let's go on and try something else try something new yeah throw it all out try something new speaking of not being comfortable and trying something new there are reports of some guy in uc berkeley depositing body lice in buildings across the campus disposing of body lice i mean disposing disposing of body lice planting or disposing spreading or passing out into a bin like see good question um disposing sounds like get away with here's disposing of them yes he was he will take a handful of paper towels and trash bin into a restroom stall and then there he will wipe off countless body lice depositing the towels and live insects in the bin he's taking advantage of changing the situation it's like he's like putting his toe in the water of a doctor evil like yeah you guys want to see a no no i can't i can't i'm sorry i'll leave right now if you start playing that i am too squeamish i won't sleep at all you don't want to see a video of lice no i do not i feel like no there's some things i can handle and some things that are just beyond oh my goodness like somewhat sort of less sinister fantasies uh of what this guy is actuated like he's probably just a guy yeah i had this fantasy of creating like a massive ladybug farm and just like dedicating an entire backyard to like farming and raising ladybugs just just you know that would be cool like a pretty cool one of course i've also heard that if in large quantities they bite and can actually but i've never experienced ladybugs yeah i've heard this but i've never i've had ladybugs crawling on me i've never been bitten so i don't understand what that but and they don't stay which is also part of the thing about ladybugs like you can raise ladybugs but they're gonna leave you they have like a wherever they're born they're programmed to leave there they're programmed to go seek out somewhere else to to forage so you can't like create a ladybug community no because they want to go someplace else yes they're programmed to take off and try they're explorers by nature so you can't and then so maybe it's uh maybe it would be all for now but you know maybe sort of a fun project we have i got one of those i've actually now i've done the ladybug farm thing twice once we raised him and we released him it was fine and the other time right as they were becoming ladybugs the thing got knocked over and then there was like ladybugs in the house you guys are itchy ladybugs made you itchy what no i'm scratching all over now because if you're going to use uc Berkeley maybe don't sit in any of the chairs just kind of be careful about where you place yourself i don't know Mount Blair is scratching that's you're scratching your hair that's hairline so it's different than the body like body like the same difference neither is all having a party on my scalp they're like hey body lies come up and party with us let's have a party we're gonna head to the top uh you guys go to google go to google and plant a little uh google movie it's super cute oh yeah it's about the exoplanets it's really cute yeah they do some cute things every once in a while i do enjoy the google doodle i certainly do all right friends is it time for bed it is we got on another i was going to go to bed and then we got on a a jag which was good oh which reminds everyone in the show notes at the end of the show notes i put a link in there but you're going to put it in the next week's show all right no no no uh but i want you both to take a look at it and maybe we can talk about it in the after of next week's show it's actually a scientist writing about how to deal with fake news in science oh um strategies for dealing with uh see it it's it's at the end of the end of the show after the end of the show oh i see it okay yep scroll down okay got it yeah um peruse that tell me what you think um if we could adopt some of this idea or if it's uh love it um i also found an awesome invertebrate sex story right before the show so i'm gonna use that next week like that oh good teasers you guys all right everybody out there thank you so much for joining us thank you for watching tonight thank you for hanging out we'll see y'all in march yeah next week is next week march already yep march already oh it's a it's the little one very that's right it was a cute little one it was a cute little one you're a cute little month baby you're a cute little month oh what is the time what even is time time time makes fools of us all time heals all boons and it also wounds all youth is time relative or just nothing at all time is not my relative i mean i know my cousins what it's not my relative is time all right i'm tripping out okay yeah good night see you next week and um oh blare all right everybody good night thank you so much good night kiki good night blare we hope you all join us again next week thank you