This holds yeah, is that the new show change the title? Hey, we're live everybody it's time for us to change the title of the show it is now going to be called very face holes Oh, wouldn't you like to know what the conversation was before I hit the start button? We are here And we are ready to start this episode in Well, I make sure that I've got my music ready to go of course. I don't of course. I don't hold on There we go, okay, that'll do it and we can start this show in Cancel Apple Apple's being a pain in my booty right now Apple Wow, it really wants me to sign into the iTunes store Oh Remember my password to the Apple store, that's why I never sign in. I just want to use iTunes.  It's Let me This is some compelling video everyone. Oh, this is what I came to do Click this button. Oh It's time for bed young child we're gonna be starting this interview as soon as I can Sign into the iTunes store. Maybe I'll have to play it a different way I'll play it a different way Hold on. Oh My god, and my cat is way all over the place one moment. Oh, one moment Hard drive music Music on my computer All right, I can play this I can do this I think We can do this. Okay. Okay. Okay, everyone. We can make this happen in three two This is Twists this week in science episode number 723 recorded on Wednesday May 29th 2019 The science of sex Hey there, I'm dr. Kiki and tonight on this week in science We are going to fill your head with helpful dirt fish skins and sex but first this Lamer disclaimer disclaimer Sex it's that thing your parents did that made it possible for you to not want to think about your parents having sex But they did it and did it in such a way that made you possible and that is not the only reason you exist But that's the beginning of the story turns out your grandparents also had sex If not for them having sex your parents would not have been able to swap Chromosomal chemistry in the first place which means that at some point your great-grandparents all eight of them Needed to get busy in just the right way to set in motion the sexual behaviors of offspring that again No matter how you choose to or choose not to think about it is how you got here Sex is the reason just about every person you could ever meet is Meetable in the first place and with all of this sex is he coming together of more than just two individuals It is a merging of genetic information of tens of thousands of generations of hominids with inflexing and outmoding of genes with specialization mutation in epigenetic adaptation To put it most bluntly the simple act of parents having sex is the thing upon which most of life Love and the evolution of life on this planet is based that and this weekend science coming up next Define the knowledge I am Steve Keegan Blair and a good science to you to Justin Blair and Everyone out there welcome to another episode of this week in science We are back again to talk about the wonders of the world that are filled with scientific curiosity and information All the things that we have discovered are still discovering the questions We're asking and on this week's show once again. There's a great show up ahead I have stories tonight on what makes us human And what might make us happy? We also have an interview this evening on sex chromosome science. It's going to be very thrilling very sexy What do you have for us Justin? Oh? That's a great question. I have a coral acid trip.  Drop in some coral this evening and Blair what is in the animal corner? I have horn gray bats explain what that means later. I have fish skin and I have Hurtly hungry chimpanzees We always love a good chimpanzee story. Well, you want any more after tonight? All right, I love it. I am I am waiting I'm waiting for that one But before we jump into the stories and all this fun stuff I would love to remind you that if you are not yet subscribed to the this week in science podcast You can find us on iTunes on the Google podcast portal the Apple podcast portal stitchers freakers Spotify Pandora of radio comm tune in all the places that podcasts are found You can also look for us on YouTube and Facebook or just visit twist org And now I would love to introduce our guest for the evening We are joined by Dr. Melissa Wilson and she is an associate faculty in the bio design Center for mechanisms of evolution An assistant professor at the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University Her research interests include sex-based biology She studies the evolution of sex chromosomes the X and the Y chromosomes in mammals Why mutation rates differ between males and females and how changes in population history affect the sex chromosomes? differently than non-sex chromosomes without any further ado Dr. Wilson welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, it's wonderful to to get to speak with you we talk a lot about the biology of sex Blair brings lots of stories to the animal corner about Sex in the animal kingdom. We talk about human evolution. We're always always discussing this topic But it's really good to get someone who is an expert How did you come to study sex-based biology? Oh gosh, it was kind of a twisting path, so I Did my undergraduate in mathematics actually small one go I mean what you were talking about at the beginning. Yeah, I Do have a child and some days she'll have to think about how she got here And I I'll revel in that when that happens So I majored in mathematics as an undergraduate and I did a summer research experience where I learned about some biology and I ended up applying to a bioinformatics so a biology and Computer science program and they let me do rotations and so I did a rotation learning about yeast Genetics and it smelled like baking bread and it was great And then I did a rotation learning about Arabidopsis, which is a mustard weed and then I did a rotation with Dr. Katerina McOva studying sex chromosomes and like it was over Hey, I knew that I would be studying that for the rest of my life And I have been and there's just there's not a point where I don't think about that or relate to things To to get back to your sexy. You can't have sexy without X and Y. So It's kind of where I'm going Bringing it all together so getting interested in the mathematical informatics side of Biology I think it's coming from a biologist perspective like everything in my life was always wet and squishy how How is it to study to study biology from this this other perspective of we're looking at the informational side Yeah, I think That's the thing when When people come into the lab and they asked to take a picture of me doing my lab work Right, they want me to put on the lab coat and go into the wet lab and show them some samples and I'm like no I I do this I work on the keyboard and we sit on the computer and and I think that can Right now I Appreciate you all. Thank you We're all except for Blair. We're all parents here. Yeah, I work with kids It's a very different kind of thinking about how science is done, but it's where science is going in the future, right? All of the genomic testing when we look at genetic ancestry when we look at risk factors when we try to think about Causes of disease, right? We're looking really not any more at a single gene, right? We're looking across If we do the whole genome six billion sites and then we look at multiple individuals So we're looking at maybe ten thousand individuals a hundred thousand individuals across six billion sites And you can't do that by hand So you have to do it on a computer and so we write programs and we look at things and If you come to my lab I'll concatenate a file to the screen and it'll go And it'll look like the matrix and I'll feel really cool and you'll be really impressed, but But I would never really do that on my own other than to just feel Like maybe I'm not so big of a nerd all the time But being a nerd is This is important. We like we like being nerds here On that note In in doing sequencing one of my favorite things is uh, Illumina on their next-era sequencers. Uh, the machine makes a really happy sound when you start to run it's like And like so you get like this moment like ah something's happening. It's it's really exciting. It's like an insta pot for genomics, right?  Oh gosh, uh, uh, not it I in fact in next week I'm going to a whole meeting by the american genetic association on sexual and asexual reproduction because We still don't have great ideas about so we have lots lots of great ideas but we don't have answers to Why has sex evolved so many times and why does asexual reproduction persist?  Can you get out of it? We see whipped-tailed lizards with Completely female populations. So they got out of it.  Um, yeah, I don't know, uh And then you have animals that jump jump in and out like the anaconda at the new england aquarium this past week Who went through parthenogenesis and had a virgin birth? Yeah, or just yeast which you were studying right where yeast can flip back and forth Yeah, no, I think it's fascinating Yeah, it's such a it's such an interesting question because when you think about all of the life on this planet there are so many different strategies and Yeah, but I think it's a fascinating one, you know, evolutionarily a fitness and survival and More generations is the best thing which is better It does seem though that there should be another goal, which is just like, okay, this was it Uh, but now I'm just gonna live forever. Like that's the one that's the goal Like I'm done with this reproduction thing. We're just gonna ensure that we live forever this generation Well jellyfish have kind of figured that out Yeah, yeah We started talking online about hydras Yeah Interesting ocean creatures But we started talking online because I came across interesting facts about platypus reproduction and Their genome not only is as interesting as their exterior But they also have 10 sex chromosomes Right Why So x and y and then what And then x and y and x and y and x and y So x and y Is a term we use that refers to Any species where the males so the sperm producers can make a gamete a sperm with either One kind of chromosome complement or the other so an x or a y but it could be two x's and two y's Or in the case of the platypus Five x's and five y's and um and the platypus gets All of this press right because everyone knows about the platypus and it's Exciting and it's an egg laying mammal and it's adorable, but there are other egg laying mammals the echidnas and so What we think happened is that platypus and echidna in the common ancestor they got one x and y chromosome pair And then they added a second pair and then they added a third pair And then platypus diverged from the echidna and it added a fourth pair and a fifth pair But not to be outdone the echidna added a fourth pair independently It added a fifth pair And it lost one of the y's No So there's nine So female echidnas have 10 x chromosomes and male echidnas only have nine It's their only claim to fame. What else? I mean the platypus gets all the attention and the pork and uh You can just amazing though. They have this little straw the bean. They're like, oh my god And they yeah, they also lay eggs and they uh, yeah, they're they're pretty awesome, but Not that the platypus is not awesome But we don't now about 20 percent of the whole platypus genome is Is wound up in a sex chromosome in one of those 10 sex chromosomes as opposed to us where it's 5 So, um, it's it's pretty exciting So those chromosomes are very important to them for us. Um, I mean when you're looking at the sex chromosomes versus the non sex chromosomes and trying to determine their importance For a species or for evolution of a species. Um, how do you how do you start to figure that out? So we have Some things that we used to think were true. We used to think that if you became a sex chromosome eventually you would Uh, one of the two sex chromosomes would decay over time like our y chromosome is much smaller than our x Um, the the human x chromosome has about 1100 g Y has about 27 unique genes on it All right, this is this is what being a science parent is like, uh, you know small children and small animals and large animals and Uh, and you figure out time management sometimes, uh but One of the things that I think is Maybe most dangerous, uh to people who don't study evolution all the time or don't Think about it is to say What was the purpose of this? So it's Adaptation is a very strong force, right, but many many things happen Because they didn't hurt the species enough, right? So it's not only Evolution of the good enough, right? That's probably what it should be not evolution of the fittest. It's like evolution of the good enough but also those that just We in populations with a small enough size If you were good enough To get some you would have kids, right? Like that's that's it and it doesn't matter if maybe your cardiac output wasn't the best And it doesn't matter if you weren't the most beautiful or you We carry a lot of pieces in our genome that are there For no good reason Especially if it's something that shows up after you've Reproduced right so there's all sorts of things that show up after you've already given your genes the next generation So it's kind of moot. Yeah, then they can't be even harmful, right? So it's not only that there's neutral things floating around so lots of neutral things There's lots of deleterious things that stuck around and things that are trade-offs right something that maybe was really good and helped you be Have a ton of reproductive success when you were younger But that same thing could also be harmful if suddenly now you're living to be 70 or 80 or 90 years old So yeah, so that was not a great answer to your question But that I I sometimes don't think about exactly I think about what's important on the things that have been retained on our very gene poor y chromosome and Are those things critical and it turns out some of them really are there's a few of those genes x and y used to be identical And there's a handful of those genes roughly Let's say roughly 17 of them That have a copy on the x and a copy on the y And and if you don't have a functioning copy of the x and the y linked copy like you don't function as a human like The y lost pretty much everything it could other than this small set of things that we really need except for one Gene which is a phd student Doing some research We looked at how all of the genes are conserved on the y chromosome. And there was one gene amel y amelogen and y that has an excellent copy amelogen and x and the excellent copy is involved in Helping make the enamel on your teeth. And if your excellent copy is broken, then you can get broken enamel on your deciduous teeth But if the y-link copy is broken Nothing happens at all. And in fact some human populations have totally lost the y-linked copy It's deleted. It's completely deleted in some human populations Why you wonder might I care so much about this? I I care so much about it because it's one of the few genes that I think we might lose on the y chromosome and It is Or at least was for almost all of our forensics history uh The marker that people used to try to sex the sample they would say what Why did they not talk to an evolutionary biologist? We could have saved the day, but no The one gene that they chose on the y chromosome as the marker for the forensics kits that we use To say if you have this marker you probably came from an x y individual And if you don't you came from an xx individual Is the one gene that evolutionary biology tells us is gonna be lost or already is lost from the y chromosome You're very missing. It's already missing from some human population. Yeah, I hope you don't have serial killers listening to this Probably do probably do Why is it though? I mean the We've heard where there have been stories through the years that the the y chromosome is Disappearing and you would look at the number of genes that it has compared to the x chromosome and it seems like it but then Then you you see these very well conserved linked genes that seem absolutely important. So then Maybe it's not going to disappear. I mean it what's happening to the y chromosome. Why is it shrinking? So we think we think we know the why it's shrinking, which is that Every other chromosome chromosome one you get a copy from mom and a copy from dad and they can swap dna to fix errors or mutations Uh chromosome two chromosome three But chromosome y and x uh, they can only swap at their tips and they can't swap on the rest of the chromosomes So if there's a mistake on the y you can't fix it in xx individuals They still have two x chromosomes so they can swap. So the x is fine. But the y When it accumulates mutations or deletions or even insertions it can't get rid of them And so we think that that's potentially why Um But when it comes down to it If we lost the y chromosome It wouldn't even be a problem. The y chromosome is not males What determine what we care about is whether individuals are developing testes and making sperm and that can happen If you move sy to an autosome it can happen if you move a chunk of genes. There's been species There's a spiny rat in uh, okinawa that has lost the y chromosome completely males are x not They just have a single x chromosome and they're still fine. The populations are totally fine So when it comes down to it, uh, we're not terribly concerned whether we lose the the y is just a home for genes And and that home those genes can find a new home And we can have neo sex chromosomes. We get brand new sex chromosomes evolving now. So, um yeah When you look at uh, I mean there's you know in in evolution, you know, we have these diversity of alleles and diversity of You know designs like with a platypus. They have 10 chromosomes and you've talked talked about like the echidna now Getting another one and then losing one and you know, it's it's a very dynamic system and I mean how It's just it's it's it's really stunning to me when we think of our our chromosomes as something that makes us Human and makes us who we are the possibility that they could That they could change And that we would still be human It's still we are It's fascinating Yeah, I think we get so we get stuck in this idea That it's genetic determinism that your genes determine who you are and their chromosomes determine who you are and that's Really not true at all if we think even about um sex chromosome copy number variations across humans They're not uncommon. So individuals who develop ovaries and are assigned female at birth But have a single x chromosome are as common as one in 2,500 What on the planet? Right and that's turner syndrome and individuals who are assigned male at birth develop testis Uh and have two x chromosomes and a y is client filter and that's as common as one in 500 humans So these things are not uncommon and that's just the Gross when I mean gross like large not gross because they're super cool Uh Chromosomal variations And then we can have individual genes that are moving around we can have genes that are turned on more than typical genes that are turned or reduced expression Um So I really try to avoid saying something is normal or something like this this makes us human because Right, there's just so much variation. I love that you used alleles also. That's probably one of the things I love Most right a variant of a gene. We have so many variants So many variants and so we did a back of the envelope calculation once about If you took every single site Six billion sites in the human genome and you took the average mutation rate and the number of people alive on the planet Every single site in the human genome would be variable in more than 100 people Across the whole planet if you could sequence everyone on the planet Every single site in the whole human genome would be variable in more than 100 people So what's normal then That's just that's a lot of diversity right there But what you're talking about too is is this is the thing that we really hope the genetic code would be Is an absolute behind the scenes blueprint from which we could Uh solve every mystery cure every disease And predict everything that would come from any individual's code that they had and what we've learned is yeah, this is a it's uh The plasticity is there as well as the sort of cascade effect of of genes working in tandem with each other to Have different effects. Yeah 100. Yeah, I mean we were yeah Human geneticists we lied. Yeah, definitely lied through our teeth Okay, we didn't right? Certainly we thought We were gonna figure it out. We did And when I started so the number of genes in the human genome has changed dramatically throughout my experience in in genetics and and it's still changing and I just hope that we start to do a better job of appreciating all that variation and In exactly how things are interacting So that we we actually can we have made tremendous strides in treating a lot of human diseases we have And I believe that if we start to take a step back from the single gene Single phenotype or single syndrome model will start to solve or at least find treatments For more of these it's just it's gonna It's not just a puzzle anymore, right? It's it's like a multi-dimensional And there's a an interesting correlation I think of when I think of like our understanding of nutrition and health and what we now understand about the microbiome And within genetics, there's a microbiome of mRNA and RNAs and motor proteins and all sorts of other smaller actors that are causing Upstream downstream whichever direction you look effects that that what we hadn't occurred to us are the the motivators For how things actually function So we are As we are just scratching the surface of nutrition when it comes to the microbiome We're just actually scratching the surface of genomics because there's a whole bigger more complicated layer beneath Just the the genes themselves Yeah, and I think uh So one of the things that because we study sex differences broadly One of the first questions I often get is about how do you How do you know that it's sex chromosomes versus hormones, right? So we know especially there's large differences in testosterone in androgens and estrogens and progesterones And so aren't aren't the two just completely linked together if you're xx then you're going to have this set of Hormones and if you're x y you're going to have this and it turns out that's really Not true at all and we see Differences in gene expression on the x and the y during development Before you even have gonads developing So now we have this added layer where we have x and y have their own unique gene expression Then those are modulated just like everything else in the genome by androgens and estrogens And then there's this crosstalk. So it's kind of this wonderful symphony And we just have to pick apart, you know, what's the violin Contributing and what's the cello contributing and where are the tympani drums, right? Like where are all of these things and that's what we're trying to do now like to me? That's I don't think it's that we're not finding the things we just have to listen And try to tease apart those different aspects Do you think with the amount of variation that there is inherent in the human genome that You know that we will eventually get beyond the Single single gene single variant kind of system. Um, do you think with bioinformatics? Are we going to be able to eventually really address? Like the multi multi layered multifactorial aspect of the problem 100 i think that's where we're going now. That's where the leading edge of Bioinformatics and genomics is going is trying to figure out. How do we Look for networks of interacting genes and not even just interacting genes but interacting Isaforms so interacting variants of the genes so not even just alleles So for a gene right you can have different alleles, but then you could have a different sets of Well exons put together. Sorry. I'm getting too complicated, but uh, right, so how do we how do we look at the Variants of the gene. How do we look at the particular mutations in a gene? How do we look at how those are interacting with our hormones with our environment with our nutrition with stress? It's not going to be solved in our lifetime Or or ever i'm gonna say i'm you know what come back to me when I die and tell me if i'm wrong, but uh, but But I think we're making headway on it and we're trying to figure out. Wait. Want that be too late? I mean, it'd be a really one-sided conversation Well, maybe we will perfected the brain in a jar stuff that we were talking about a few weeks ago, and then it'll be fine We have to type it in on a computer. The definition of that But what are we gonna say, but we're trying to figure out You interact was like ah, you're leaving me hanging. No, we're really trying to some of the things we're working on right now is to look at Not only the a mutation being associated with a disease phenotype for example, um, one of the things we're looking at is liver cancer and sex differences in liver cancer, but we're looking at the interaction of that gene that allele with other alleles and then every possible combination of alleles so those sets of combinations get astronomical really fast and it used to just be impossible To do that kind of computing, but we're we're starting to get To be there for example at a meeting a few years ago There was a large project called the human Sorry, the thousand genomes project which eventually ended up sequencing more than 2000 people And it took, you know multiple labs many years and tons of compute time and google Because they could Decided to redo the whole project and like tell us how fast and wonderful they did it in like a month Right, they just redid this decade-long project And the entire presentation right i'm gonna get in trouble, but the entire presentation i'm watching this and it They didn't show a single new thing They were like look we redid this figure from this original paper And then we made this figure and then we made this figure and then we did this and you know what? I did it, you know in my spare computing time because i'm google and i can and and on one hand I had been waiting for like and the next thing we did was This and They may be working on that next thing But the fact that they were able to replicate a decade worth of work in a month Was just mind-blowing right and so we'll be able to we're going to be able to uh, you know if we don't Kill the planet or ourselves first We're gonna work on that Nails yeah, the the the current next next next generation of sequencers can do the human genome project Or the thousand genome project over a weekend Yeah science fair project the nanopore stuff alone is is transforming the amount of data that we can generate Okay, so now we've generated Mountains of data What do we do with it? Mountains of data. Oh my gosh. There's so much data that needs to be then sorted through and uh, and we have humans Who are trying to employ more and more machine learning? But at this point we are way behind the amount of data we can actually generate from this to even understand So which i'm thinking just pause it Hold up. Let's just generate a ton of data Generation from now people will be able to mine that like the google bit and do it in a month Let's not try now. Let's just generate the data now And let somebody else worry about the d apartment complexing it and figuring it out and making it work later So yes, but no, I mean one is where do we Where do we store it right? Yes, who's going to pay for it? So some of these big projects that are publicly available data I haven't been able to get access to because it's just such a large amount of data. It would be like saying I would like to fit a blue whale in my living room Yeah, sure. I'd like to do it But one how on earth am I going to get it here once I get it here? How many small pieces i'm going to chop it into till it fits in here? Is it even going to make sense? how am I going to put it back together and Good lord is going to stink right like it's just going to be awful for everybody And that's almost what it's like dealing with these massive data But we could generate it right well That's one thing is we could generate it but the chemistry and the technology is continuing to get better So Yeah, so how do should we generate it if we should we generate the data? If we don't have the computational approaches to analyze it right now And and so I guess a part of the part of what you're saying too is like this is and we ran into this one we were talking to uh the uh the folks that were studying I think uh black holes Uh or dark matter or whatever. They're generating a tremendous amount of data That is going to be 10 years of analysis after which they've all left the project and moved on to something else Anyway, they they realized we created more data than we can we can digest okay, so so yeah, uh One of the one of the ideas I've at least been hearing about is the idea that you don't have to have the whale in the living room that the whale exists in one place And everybody goes to this sort of cloud base. You need like a public research cloud. That's just ginormous To store all this stuff that people can Look at these things there and never have to have anything local or anything moved Because the NIH yeah, the NIH is working on that as well as other institutes There's the NIH strides initiative where people who are working on the data storage and the data analysis side But some of the challenges still are the cost right so it's there But someone has to pay for it and who's going to pay for it and even Let's say I just make a copy of one of the One of the smaller data sets right now It's going to cost me $10,000 a month and I computed Amazon cost What it would cost my lab to do the kind of work we're doing if I paid Amazon to do it And it'd be about $15,000 a month. So It's not free and I don't It's one of the things I'm actually most concerned about with my lab going forward is the data Are getting so large Where is it going to be? Who's going to be able to access it? Is it just going to be big big labs and And then what does that mean for the future of science? I I think we're coming together to try to find solutions, but It that's where that's a concern right now for pretty much everyone doing genomics But isn't it also amazing That with all the advances in technology and computing power that that's the bottleneck Like that's kind of cool that the bottleneck is actually information storage and handling now I mean that is that's an incredible place to have pushed the bottleneck too and our ability to uh to do the deep dive Yeah, I don't know if it's ironic, but Maybe irony adjacent Yeah, I would say another bottleneck though is is training students So the students in computation Like computer science fields Don't have enough of the biology background to know what the assumptions are and students in biology are still not Traditionally trained in in computing and so it's one of the things we're working on That it's been kind of my my pet project and I'm going to push forward over the next few years Just how do we How do we as a community and there's a lot of people that are working on it, right? I could list a ton of people that are working on that, but how can we integrate better so that It's not black boxes because they can't ever be black boxes I mean they will be to some people but how do we get students and Especially students that have been underrepresented in science who haven't been able to ask their questions, right? That's the one other thing if I could jab it in there is that in sex differences research most of the Questions have been asked By only one sex and that limits the questions that are asked almost all the clinical research that's been done has been done in European males and That limits the kinds of things we can ask and the questions that we can ask And also limits the utility of the results. And so one of the things we're really trying to do ASU I drank the ASU Kool-Aid on It's who we include not who we exclude that we pride ourselves on right and and to do that We actually have to develop this training Because the questions I think about and that I'm interested in are very different than the people who are in my field who I admire but are 30 years My senior and they're very different than the people that I'm training. And so that's That's the thing that I would like to see us as a community work forward To to have more open source free trainings in Computational life sciences and that's a nice thing about the genomics field like we have we have a couple sticklers, but uh, we're we're we're pretty good at Okay, yeah, we have some Real angels we do Everyone has to be done everywhere. Yeah, there's work to be done But we're working on it right like and there's enough of us that are like, you know what I would rather have a great I would rather science be a great place Than not and I'm willing to put in the time and effort and give up some things because of that And so I'm hoping that those voices will continue I wonder how uh, but we we've talked with people in the diy bio that kind of bio hacking community where people are starting wet labs in garages or, you know, creating office spaces that are community communal research spaces And that's happening for biology in general for, you know, people are starting to use crisper in a In their garages and in their kitchens But I wonder if this open training for computational biosciences could also be Implemented some way in this, you know, diy fashion I would love to see that and I mean there are some really great resources already. Um, I just So it's not that the some of the resources don't exist, but how do we convince Middle school and high school and college students that this is the That you will be able to do cool science Using your computer and not just in the wet lab, right? That's right. That's a little bit of it But I think we are getting there. I do I think yeah diy bio is I could crisper my dog like oh, okay. I'm not going to but But you could yeah How We can generate all the data in the world like we can now It's amazing and we can do this cool science and we just want to make sure everybody can't I think I think there's there's there's a lot of potential out there considering that computer literacy is the baseline of Just life now and I think that there was there was a lot of barriers Especially to women participating in computer science in the past felt like a male dominated field not for women I don't feel like that's so much the case anymore Not nearly as much we've talked about it on the show, right that the that the The the scales are getting closer to balance there And I think that you know, we are starting to see a change in science as well I hope it happens fast, but it would be great if both of these areas are starting to see Equal participation not just gender-based, but also socioeconomic economic status ethnicity all these sorts of different things But then the idea that they would work together is Really exciting It is but this guy, I mean, I think here's the other side of this though I mean, uh, is I've seen the lifelong, uh, biologists biology enthusiast who's, uh, turned into a screen time coder Going I love what I do But I'm in front of a screen all day instead of out in nature, which is what I got me into this in the first place And then I've also seen the coders who are like I'm having to learn all of this biological stuff that makes me uncomfortable but Yeah, well computers are a huge part of every job now I mean, I got started because I love animals and I spend most days Most of the time in front of a computer I feel like that's just the way that the world is going and there's very little to change that That's information and bio and bioinformatics. I mean honestly Kids there are jobs there in the future So many jobs there, but I actually I love the point of thinking about our The the number one rule I tell everyone then they come into my lab is that they're they're physical and mental health come before anything else and that's a That is a thing like we have to Also make sure that we're not just sitting all of the time that we do get out that we do interact that we Go outside that we see the biology that we're working on and hopefully preserve it Absolutely Yeah, I don't uh, I'm not very good at that myself. So do I say not as I do but But I think that's also an important thing in science Absolutely For getting back to the we're coming to the end of uh of our time with you here And I would love to know what you think as as from your research and what you're working on. What are the What are the big questions that are outstanding for you in in what you do? So the biggest question that we actually we have a paper coming out in a couple weeks on is uh Why are there consistent sex differences in certain diseases? So why do women get autoimmune diseases at rates much higher than men? So for example rheumatoid arthritis Women are diagnosed with uh r.a. Rheumatoid arthritis eight times more often than men. Oh, wow And nearly all autoimmune diseases show a female bias On the flip side nearly all cancers and all non reproductive cancers nearly all non reproductive cancers show a male bias In incidents that is females get less cancer Uh than than males and we've been we've been working on a theory to try to explain this But we're gonna have to spend the next I mean the rest of my career to try to figure out if this is true thinking about how So if the immune system is so critical for many things for helping us fight diseases We know immunotherapies are becoming really popular um and and beneficial in treating cancers So if for some reason and women the immune system is prone to being overactive and leading to autoimmune diseases it could be that It's not that men are getting more cancer, but that women are getting less Because on average their immune systems are slightly overreacted and so then he would say well, why that explains the autoimmune prevalence also it could but then we're trying to think about so what's What's the evolutionary reason for that? Right? Why is there this? This large difference and one of the things so have you all talked about the hygiene hypothesis? Oh, that's uh coming up later in the show, but it's one of the stories in the second half of the show Yeah Flash it right. So the idea is that between uh for almost all of human history, right? We were exposed to parasites and pathogens and we didn't have antibiotics and we didn't wash our hands and and that in industrialized societies we have access to uh to soap and water and uh, you know, clean Clean lives and sanitation and and so that can explain why nearly everyone Is more prone in industrialized societies to getting asthma and allergies, right? So the immune system is primed for all of human history for everybody To be exposed to parasites of pathogens, but it doesn't explain the sex difference So the other thing that we think is different is that for nearly all of human history, there was no contraception You were pregnant from the time you were reproductively active. You were pregnant or lactating until you couldn't anymore This is our hypothesis and so the immune system in people who could get pregnant Had to be primed because there's this cool thing. So the placenta itself Actually blubs off these little signals It's trying to down-regulate the maternal immune system because the maternal immune system is saying hey, right? Yeah, like not self not self parasites pathogens get rid of it But in xx individuals who have this cool genetic xx mechanism They have to not just down-regulate, but they have to compensate in particular ways because you have to tolerate this genetically distinct individual Trying to down-regulate your immune system and also not die of parasites and pathogens Right, don't die. Like that's the goal. Don't die and now in modern industrialized society You're not pregnant or lactating for your entire reproductive career And so it could be that the immune system is primed to be up-regulated in certain ways Which is why not all autoimmune diseases show the same sex difference But it could be primed to be up-regulated But it's not all bad news because maybe it's leading to those reduced rates of cancer It so if we could explain why there are these big sex differences And if this is it then it could help us nail down the mechanism, right? We're not saying everyone should be barefoot and pregnant your whole life. No, we're saying We should figure out what parts of the immune system Are the ones that are causing the sex differences Then we can target those we can explain why women are responding better to immunotherapies than men We could explain why they're getting less cancer We'd explain why men are getting less autoimmune disease and then we could target therapies So we just got to solve human health. That's all I want to do Just a little bit of a big outstanding question. It's amazing All right. Well, I won't keep you any longer. I would love to know Where people can find you online if they're interested in finding out more about your research or following your social media And science communication work Yeah, yeah, so it's uh sex chr chromosome so sex chromosome lab Uh, uh, wait, is that wait Yeah, yeah lab sex chromosome lab chr lab, uh either at at sex chromosome lab on twitter or sex chromosome lab dot org or uh Those are the probably the two easiest places. I do respond to people. Um, I blog I used to blog all the time before I had that monster that's running around Uh And that's math bio nerd So, oh, yeah, there I am. Look at that. You're so super fast So yeah on the main page it has my twitter handle and email and I'm I'm super happy to talk with people Sometimes I'm very slow responding, but uh But I will Fantastic Thank you so much for joining us tonight. It has been just wonderful to get to talk with you. Oh, this is awesome. Awesome. Uh, I I was gonna hang around, but I'm gonna Wrangle some of some Yeah, some some child energy needs some f1. Yeah Again have a wonderful night and um, I will be in touch later Yeah, thank you very much. Have a great night. You too I hope that we can have her back on the show again at some point because that was an interview that probably could have gone on much longer conversation I told blare before the uh Before the show started as I said, I think she's my new favorite. Oh Careful kiki other guests will hear you. Yeah I know what I don't think I remember an interview that was by itself seeming like an introduction To all of the things we could be talking about the entire way through and it went like an hour So that's that's a lot. That's deep. Yeah, we didn't get to talk about my color blindness We didn't get to talk about the sexling traits. I we didn't get to talk about temperature dependent sex determinants I'm all in activation. Oh Parthenogenesis, I know but we really did there's lots more to discuss There is so maybe we will be able to get her back on the show again another time If you out there liked what you heard and want to hear again Let us know and let us know if we should get in touch with dr. Wilson for another interview Sometime down the road to talk more about sex and biology because this is interesting stuff We have come to the end of the first half of our show We're going to take a short break and we'll be back in the second half with more of that hygiene hypothesis stuff We're going to be talking about that. We've got we're going to be dropping some coral and Then there's we got fish skins because Fish skins. Yeah, this is this week in science. Stay tuned for more coming right up More Thank you for listening to this episode of twist We would love to invite you to santa fey with us come to santa fey Are you in santa fey? Are you in albuquerque, new mexico come to the interplanetary festival which is Organized by the santa fey institute taking place the weekend of june 15th and 16th We will be podcasting live from The santa fey interplanetary festival on june 15th for 15 p.m. To 5 45 p.m In i guess that's central mountain mountain time central times whatever new mexico time is We're going to be there and if you're there come say hi. We would love to meet you in person Additionally, if you enjoy what you hear in this show and you are a subscriber consider supporting what we do so that we are able to do more of it and We have lots of ways that we Make it possible for you to help a little science podcast out One way is to head to twist org, which is our website You can find all sorts of wonderful things at twist org among them A link to our zazzle store at the zazzle store. You will find all the twist goodies. 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Yes, all of you help us do what we do Listening bringing us what has science done for you lately and all sorts of fun giving us recommendations for interviews telling us how it is And you listen and this is for you and it's all about you really we couldn't do it without you Thank you for your support And we're back with more this week in science Yes, we are and it's time now for this week in what has science done for me We That's right everyone channel there. Well, yeah channel your inner Janet Our letter this week comes to us From joysburgers. She writes hi y'all I got turned on to twist in my undergrad as a biochemistry student hearing my professor mention this week in biology I think it was and that's another very good podcast And so I went looking for the broader science version Now nearly six years later through teaching esl in taiwan two years of teachers college and moving to england to teach secondary school science Listening to twists on long walks or trips is the one constant that has stuck with me Listening to a recent episode something clicked into my in my brain as to what twists had done for me this past year The school i'm teaching in has had a large turnover of science teachers over the past couple of years So when I arrived in september most of the science lessons Most of my students had received had been delivered by non-science specialists Who didn't have the same passion for science as their own subjects? This has led had led my students being highly Unenthusiastic about their science lessons and very closed-minded about science potentially being any fun Through september in october getting the students to engage with the lesson was like trying to pull my own teeth out I can't do this. I'm no good at science. Anyway, there's no point of trying were things I would hear every day I could see why a lot of their teachers had left after short periods of time It was taking my excitement for science with it However, I had a half hour walk to school every morning during which I would listen to twists and hear some exciting thing happening in science I had a bit of backing backlog work Backlog to work through so it was never ending stream for me This meant that every day I would have some new cool science thing to hold on to and keep that ember of science joy alive in my soul Just before christmas.  Isn't it? I bet if your head exploded all kinds of science stuff would come out Last last month I had a student tell me boring organic chemistry was fun After being told that a lot of people struggle with it because they find it's less interesting than other topics and finally just today I had a student ask me miss Do you think I could be a person who does science when they grow up? Listening to twist has kept my passion for science alive through some really rough days And it has allowed me to spread it onto a new generation of students Who may otherwise have fallen through the cracks and would never have known all the things science does for them every day Thank you for teaching.  I really appreciate receiving it We're so glad to have you in our audience and listening to twist along with us Thank you And remember everyone if you would like to write in a song A letter a note a sonnet You can send me an email kirsten k i r s t e n at thisweekinscience.com or leave a message on our facebook page That's facebook.com slash this week in science All right, let's get onto that science that we keep talking about speaking of the hygiene hypothesis It's like she it's like she knew researchers Yeah, researchers just published in the journal psychopharmacology and you might be going psychopharmacology And hygiene hypothesis. What do those things have in common? Why do they go together? Well so as Dr. Wilson Explained in the first half of the show the hygiene hypothesis is this idea that we're in this modern sterile Environment and our immune system is looking for something to react to right It wants to keep us safe, but we just don't have anything there. Well There is a researcher at the university of colorado boulder. He and his team have been working on this idea of the hygiene hypothesis and looking at They've they've done work that we've reported on through the years Related to you know finding that people who live in rural environments if they work among livestock or around animals that they seem to have Less allergies and asthma than other people and it backs up this hygiene hypothesis and the other other ideas have also gotten into Even further the idea that there are microbes in the soil that are very involved in This allergic or lack of allergic or asthma response But Dr. Lowry from university of colorado boulder He and his team they're thinking that maybe it shouldn't be called the hygiene hypothesis anymore and that maybe we should refer to these microbes in the soil as old friends and that Perhaps we should be changing the idea to it's not that Our body is constantly looking for the bad bacteria to fight off, but maybe there are also beneficial bacteria That enable us to be healthier that through their own actions and interactions with our physiology They help us be better. And so Lowry Had had previously published a paper in the proceedings of the national academy of sciences Looking at a bacterium called mycobacterium Vaxei and this vakey. Yes. Vakey. Vaxei Vakey Okay, and this is a soil bacteria. It's found in the dirt they found that if they injected this bacterium into mice They could fend off PTSD like Symptoms and a syndrome after a stressful event. So prior to the event they injected the bacterium Into the animals and then stressed them out that the animals were more able to deal with the stressful event And they were less anxious and stressed out and they didn't get the PTSD And so these researchers are like, whoa, this bacterium is blocking this anxiety fear response How is it doing that and this new paper? talks about a novel lipid that they have discovered a fatty acid called 10z hexadecanoic acid and it's used uh And it's inside the cells. It's uh, it acts like a Key in a lock It binds to specific receptors they're called peroxisome proliferator activated receptors ppar and these inhibit inflammatory pathways So they inhibit the body's inflammation response And so the bacteria it seems Lowry says that these bacteria we co-evolved with have the trick up their sleeve when taken up by immune cells They release these lipids that bind to the receptor and shut off the inflammatory inflammation cascade And so what he's thinking is that maybe we could develop a stress vaccine from these bacteria That could be given to people in high stress jobs that would help them to not get things like this PTSD type symptoms So so we wait we would get a stress vaccine from the micro bacterium Bakey which which would make it a double latin route for cows and the cows are not part of the story cows are not part of This bacterium is probably found in the soil where cows live But the researchers also think this is just one species of one type of bacterium that is in the soil But there are all sorts of others millions of other strains And in terms of identifying the mechanisms Through which they have evolved we have evolved with them To be healthy. There are potentially a lot of places that we can be looking for this kind of mental health health so So okay, so just in as we have talked about discovering nutrition has this gigantic microbiome element to it that cognition health To dna expression microbiome plays a role in all of these things Why should it be surprising that the entire rest of our environment externally Is not also contributing interacting playing on and being part of human health For the millions of years that that was our external microbiome I think the idea is not it's not that it's new It's just becoming more nuanced. So the hygiene hypothesis came about in the 80s And but it it's thinking of us responding to the bad environment, right? We're responding to the stressors. We're responding to the bad things that are coming to attack us As opposed to this more nuanced idea that yeah, they're probably there are parasites There are bad things out there that are infecting us and doing damage But there are a lot of good things as well. And so we have to have a much more I think it's maybe not nuanced Maybe that's the wrong route, but more holistic and it our understanding of how the environment Influence our influences our entire physiology. Yeah, so so there's an external probiotics That that has been overlooked as just as the internal probiotic has been overlooked And I think essentially at the end of the day, we will find that Majority I won't say vast majority because there's not very many majorities that aren't vast but the majority of microbial interactions over the evolution Of life on this planet are positive That's why we're live and that's why they're there and that's why this interaction has gone on as long as it has It's the outliers that have the negative affect And and so when you eliminate an internal If you take antibiotics every day, you will die So it shouldn't be too surprising that if you try to over height sterilize your environment You will also encounter negative health effects. It's this is this is where we found a healthy balance In on being on the planet is relying not just not just like tolerating or being able to handle the exposure to But actually relying on input from internal external microbes for our health as resources Yeah, I think it's it's an interest it's just kind of looking at it from a different direction. So You know as opposed to saying that well, some stress is actually good for you Saying it's you know, if you don't have any bacteria to fight your body has bad responses instead You're saying actually there's good stuff going on that's getting missed out of the picture. So Many years ago we talked about a story from Uh, some Scandinavian country. I do not recall which I want to say it was sweden, but they they talked about how how Well, yeah, I guess not Scandinavian, but you know, but anyway It was a country where they they did a study on houses with Dishwashers and they said that houses with dishwashers had higher rates of Allergies and so the the implication there was that by removing the potential allergens In such a perfect kind of hermetically sealed way They were not exposed and therefore they had higher allergies. But what if according to this Instead of just being exposed to the allergens You're actually missing out on an important part of your microbiome that is on those dishes Right And it's possible. Yeah, and so what this guy wants he he prefers Calling it the old friends hypothesis As opposed to the hygiene hypothesis and I think that may they may be Complementary hypotheses not necessarily that they that they cancel each other out, but Yeah, so anyway old friends. We've got our old friends And then my my other cool story had to do again Much much in line with our interview from earlier researchers have been looking at From the donnelly center in toronto have been looking at Jeans and how they are similar across organisms and they found that Dozens of genes that were thought to have similar roles Are in fact unique to humans and might explain our origins or at least, you know, the origins of all of our Amazing abilities like cognition and whatnot. So these genes they're transcription factors they are like code for these Factors that usually are short sequences of RNA that go out and control other genes So turn other genes up turn them off and they're they're these control factors transcription factors these transferent transcription factors when they're coming To a segment of DNA and they're going to bind to it to Turn it on or turn it off or do it regulate it in the way that they will they recognize something that's called a motif It's a little part of the DNA code It's part of a gene and it's this little identification factor And these motifs are used as they're like the landing sites. It's got the This area that the DNA that's like you come in here land Let's do the transcription Researchers had just kind of looked at these motifs and we're like, oh, they're similar They've got they start with the same things and they kind of end with the same things They're similar enough. They probably do the same thing And so these transcription factors all we're going to lump them together and they all do the same thing Well, this study shows that that's not really how it works Publishing in nature genetics the researchers have looked at these transcription motifs From with a new computational method and they have been predicting even more accurately how transcription factors find in different species and what they've they're what they found really that there are Subclasses so you have transcription factors that might do one kind of regulation But there are these parts of the motifs that they are highly sensitive to which make them Yeah, that's like it's having a more specialized lock and key situation. So instead of maybe having Recognizing one particular puzzle piece. It's now it's a different puzzle piece. And so The researchers say even between closely related species. There's a non negligible portion that means it's there's a lot of them Of transcription factors that are likely to bind to new sequences This means they're likely to have novel functions by regulating different genes Which may be important for species differences and so chimps and humans were 99 identical in our genomes, but there are Lots and lots of these transcription factors which vary In what they recognize which motifs they recognize between the two species So even though chimps and humans might have the same transcription factors Apparently from the outside the way that we had been looking at it now with our finer-toothed comb We're realizing that they're not actually regulating the same genes They're not regulating the same and also the bulk of the genetics that when we say that that's 99% Yeah, but so much of genetic code is just like cell function Like basic cell function basic like like so much of it is so much of it is this regulation It's what genes are turned on and which are turned off. And so I think understanding this is like a huge deal Absolutely Yeah, so anyway finer-tuned control of these motifs in these transcription factors is Bind is is important for the binding and the function of which genes get turned on turned off and how Species maybe Find our differences Tell me a story Justin All right Let's see coral reefs a thing that we talk about on this show and if you've been paying attention You already know that half of the planet's oxygen Is produced by the corals And that coral reefs are in serious jeopardy of decline via climate change aka climatea and Things may be much worse than we imagined. Oh, no Yeah New study published in nature climate change finds coral reefs are also under threat from Ocean acidification. Yeah, of course But the results of this suggests some corals and coralline algae coralline algae being uh algae that's Described here is the glue that is holding coral reefs together Cannot survive the expected acid ocean acidification caused by climate change This is quotey voice Steve Komal who is uh now based in Sobrun University CNRS laboratory The oceanographer Is billy francé Somewhere in France. Uh, the results validate previous research on ocean acidification threats to coral reefs Uh, this is uh, also co-author professor Malcolm McCulloch from the University of Western Australia Defects on the calcifying fluid were rapid and persisted for the whole year Basically declines in coralline algae That's the gluey stuff could lead to the loss of important marine species that use the algae as a nursery They did find Uh, a few of their reef, uh corals that could survive an acidification event Uh, but they also discovered that those were already uh, basically Set up to survive. They were already resistant to it. This was not an adaptation of it. They found zero adaptation Uh, to add acidification Which means that We reefs that are even available in and as highly acidified ocean Uh, are going to be extremely limited and may not be Anything close to what we currently consider a reef system So there's a couple things here one is you can take some some things from these coral that we've identified that are already set up to be resistant to acidified waters and you can Use crisper and isolate those things and put them into other coral species or You could just use those coral species and try to breed them and adapt them to different temperatures And try to put them into these other reef ecosystems. Oh, absolutely But ultimately I think the thing about ocean acidification that people get kind of focused on is Is kind of just looking at this one thing But you have ocean acidification happening and you have ocean warming happening And you have sea level rise happening and you have pollution happening And you have reduction of species happening all at once And I think that is the thing that we need to keep in mind is that there's all there's this Perfect storm brewing and if we can reduce any of those factors There's a better chance of a species making it through the other stressors involved. Yeah, although to your point I'm using something like crisper genetic alteration or that sort of scenario. It would then be much easier for us to focus on Genetically injuring the next generation of humans to live without oxygen We just have one species we you might have a tough time with uh with you know, just like basic ATP Might be tough We'll just turn on the gills. You'd really have to start at square one. So that's also oxygen though. Remember It's just Yeah, so so ox oxygenation is still important. We have a couple of steps. That's true Yeah with this though, I think it's very interesting to think, you know, the if if there's no acclimatization Within one year, you know, how many will survive till the second year and will there ever be a Climatization will there be adaptation? Is it within the ability? I mean if you don't see it in one year, does that what does that mean or If it's basically is it suggestive that if it's just not it's not in this species to survive But it's it's more likely to happen if you reduce some of the stress factors Which is kind of what I was talking about before right? So if you if you have everything attacking these reefs all at once There's a lot less chance for them to adapt and grow and be able to survive So that's one of the reasons why for example marine protected areas Are so important because if you can reduce fishing and human disruption in an area There's a better chance they can find solutions to ocean acidification or sea level rise or rising sea temperatures And so so the other thing I would throw out there is uh, is if I if you look back at evolutionary bottlenecks Uh, there is some level of adaptation that we see but much more often we see Uh niche filling after the fact A bottleneck where something expands its range or other things move into a territory that was a niche of resource That was traditionally previously occupied by some other life form um, and and that sort of evolutionary niche filling, uh, that would take place over Millions of years perhaps will come long after all humans are gone Just so you people understand this is there's a there's a pace and a rate of timeframe in which these things take place Uh, that is not beneficial I mean, it's it's like we've discussed before the earth's not going to end. No But it might not be so fun to be here There is not to be a mammal But you know You know why I'm glad here.  What do you think horn grie means? That sounds like you get really irritated because you're too Well, it's not hangry. No, there's no anchor in there. I heard horn Horn okay, so this is uh a story about egyptian fruit bats And a very interesting arrangement That males and females have made So where I thought this story was yes, absolutely This is a story coming from televieve university university looking at Um, the very particular interaction that happens between males and females Um, they looked at three captive back colonies over the course of a year And they looked they watched as males would collect food They would go back into, um, the cave where all the bats were and then The females would stay steal food from the males right out of their mouths But why do the males allow this? Well, it turns out The males are often paid back. How you ask? Oh, I can guess Yeah, yeah with sex you're exactly right And specifically the kind of sex that leads To offspring Yeah, so there was a strong relationship between producer scrounger feeding interactions and reproduction Females bore pups of the males they scrounged food from So, uh, again three bat colonies over the course of the year Um, and so they they kind of watched they had a bunch of different potential hypotheses They thought maybe it was relative related Or that there was just so so high a cost to defending your food resources The ladies would beat them up so badly that it wouldn't be worth it But no, no, no, it looks like it's all about sex So the way they did that is by watching the bats but also determining paternity That were born in the colony females gave birth to young of males from which they had scrounged food Pretty consistently so the not only were they having sex But their babies were from these males that they took food from out of their mouth There was almost no overlap between males preferred by each female also So each female had her food bat was also her boyfriend And so this looks like the females have Specific males that they pick to scrounge from Based on individual preference That next part is the thing we don't know anything about What the individual preference may be if it's luck of the draw if it's just it's easier to go after the same guy all the time Who knows It especially because those personal preferences change from year to year So i'm still i'm still hung up on something that happened in the first two or three sentences of the story Where you pointed out that it was The type of sex that specifically leads to reproduction Yeah, because I didn't know that bats engaged in the type of sex that could not lead to reproduction Well, all animals Have tricky stuff going on okay It could be sperm storage. There could be sperm competition There could be just termination of pregnancy There's so much stuff going on that it doesn't always lead that way Also, it might be possible females are feeding from multiple males and not all of the males ended up fathering offspring right, but in this case they picked one male they went with him and That was the father of their babies I think I find it interesting because there are many species of animals that give food offerings As part of a courtship ritual So as look at what a good provider I am and so in a sense this is a female taking Taking that resource and saying you are a good provider And I you know, we've traded food and now we will have this relationship Yes, it's also amazing because because a bat colony Yeah So like heavily populated and it's just when they fly out It's like tens of thousands of bats and then they all go back and that you're finding the one mate in that crowd Right, that's really well, you know what what what they say bats think all humans look alike. So it's yeah, but So I didn't know there was a monogamy thing well in bats that they come in so big They just seems like they they all fly out. How do you not lose track of somebody? Yeah, it's seasonal monogamy. So it's only for the season So they have a new mate every single year But Yes, there is a consistency there The the next step kind of of this study for this team They want to see how these relationships evolve change and are established over long periods of time So that's kind of Kiki what you were getting to is this a demonstration to say, hey Will you go steady with me? Or is this something that the females just try to steal food from a bunch of different males and they try to They find one finally who concedes What who is the aggressor? How is this being addressed? And does that behavior escalate over time?  Is that a decision that the male makes? There's lots of questions to be explored here Is this male mate selection by whether or not they give up the food in the mouth like Yeah Hawks for example, I love this that hawks Male hawks are way smaller than female hawks, right?  And then if the female likes it, they're like, can I cook? Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Can I come a little bit close? Okay. Okay. How about if I come a little bit? Okay. So they're very They bring a present that's very clearly they're bringing the female a present And they're saying will you tolerate my presence? So do you like my present? Yeah, is this that or is the male tolerating the female stealing the food? So there's this huge Lots and lots of questions to be asked, but in the meantime some very clear food for sex Transactional behavior happening with bats There you go. All right. Yes. What's up with fish skin? Oh my goodness. So this is an anecdotal piece of science news alert alert alert anecdotal No, body of data here a story. This is a story But it leads to a lot of interesting questions and so I thought it was worth discussing So this is from michigan state university veterinary medical center This is a one year old female rottweiler named stella She was caught in a house fire In lansing michigan while her owners were away She escaped the house But not until she acquired burns across her head nose ear hind end and sides of her body They were a lot of them were second and third degree burns 10 percent of her body was covered in second and third degree burns And she had severe smoke inhalation and respiratory problems She also developed ulcers and scarring in both eyes because of fire exposure She died no i'm kidding No, she's all right. Stella's fine and end of story scene so So you could see how this is looking dire for stella, but spoiler alert she did survive So the the michigan state university veterinary medical center jumped into help her And the initial threat was the injuries to her trachea and lungs from smoke inhalation and scarring and burning there So she put was put on an ivy She was given pure oxygen up the nose And once she stabilized they had to address the second and third degree burns soft tissue surgery they could not anesthetize her because of her respiratory injuries you need to be able to put an animal on um On a respirator in order to do anesthesia. And so uh, also slowing her heart rate was a concern for a bunch of reasons So they couldn't put her out. So they couldn't do traditional skin grafts So They tried something new they used islantic descaled codfish skin Yes, and they grafted that to the second and third degree burns on her body The tissue of this codfish skin has high omega 3 fatty acids And so they naturally are anti inflammatory and antibiotic and all this other good stuff So they could do these skin grafts without heavy sedation And this is where it gets absolutely insane The descaled skin is what makes it from other fish grafts, which apparently There are other fish grafts that are done in veterinary medicine, which I didn't even realize like tilapia So they'll use scaled tilapia grafts Um, which during the california wildfires apparently they used on a bunch of pets. They're effective But basically it's just an organic covering. It's like an organic band-aid while the skin underneath heals But the descaled grafts, huh They stimulated the production of cells and ended up becoming functional living tissue In stela's case these grafts um They can change they can change them out But eventually these these grafts were absorbed by her body and new tissue tissue grew into the graft It so it created a scaffold. Yeah. Yes, you could go into yeah, yeah Fish dog have scales. No, it was scaleless No, um So just to give you an update on where stela's at she still has respiratory problems She'll mostly have to be monitored for the rest of her life, but she is otherwise doing great She's resting at home. The skin grafts have taken All of it is sounding good And so this is going to be presented at the society of veterinary soft tissue surgery convention in june So they're going to discuss the applications of these scaleless fish grafts in the veterinary medical field at a larger scale And so that's very interesting But also that I can't help but wonder how come nobody's talked about humans with this That seems like i'm part fish now so neat Yeah, I mean maybe because Maybe we have uh skin donors. Maybe there are other situations available and who knows I mean, maybe we just aren't aware of this scaleless fish skin in use for humans Yeah, where do you think mermaids come from or or this is something that is currently being first tested in animals and then will be Used in humans potentially, but this is pretty cool. Yeah, I think she's very cool Yeah, and I'll just give you this last little uplifting note. This is what the head veterinary surgeon said about stela stela She's a living example that the fire within her burns stronger than the fire That injured her She was a fighter, but that skin graft that fish skin graft really did it. Yeah All right, we are at the quick stories part of the show And I would love to tell you a couple stories about planets planets planets That's right. So uh 18 more Exoplanets have been discovered in the kepler data. This is very exciting researchers said, hey Let's look at this in a different way. And so they've discovered in our in our milky way galaxy 18 more exoplanets one of which is Bigger than the earth but in a habitable zone where it could potentially have liquid water It's called epic 202 2012 3811 0.02, but I'll just call it epic Okay, did a 12 year old boy name that plan? Possibly, okay, 12 year old boy that turned into a scientist. Um, yeah, there you go Touche Yeah, the uh new technique that they have used they will be applying to more of the kepler data They haven't looked at all the kepler data yet. So more exoplanets may be in the findings and then another planet found by a different exoplanet Survey called the next generation Transant survey. This is a This is located at the european southern observatories Paranal observatory at the atacama desert in chile and this observatory. It's ground-based It's not in space like kepler. It's on the ground and so ground-based stuff. We know we're like, hey, what can you actually see but this ground ground-based transit survey looking at Planets transiting their stars has found a neptune sized planet in Very close to the host star. What should be called and researchers are calling it a neptunian desert Like the idea is that you shouldn't find big big hot neptune sized planets Really close into the star, but that's what they found this planet n g ts for b is 20 smaller than neptune It's about only three times the size of earth and it's been nicknamed the forbidden planet because it's not supposed to be where it is It's hotter than mercury a thousand degrees celsius and it orbits its star something like every 1.3 days So it's just zipping around its star. It's a k-type star this um Then the last piece of information about this is that researchers think that this Neptunish planet gassy planet it still has Gas around it and it's close into the star when it should be irradiated and have lost its atmosphere already which suggests It either is for some reason really Really strong and able to withstand solar radiation that would irradiate the atmosphere or it Probably migrated from somewhere further out in its solar system to the place where it is close to the star So uh researchers are looking into why exactly it's there, but they're going to look for more planets in the neptune desert More stories Yeah, I have one more animal story for you It's kind of terrifying chimpanzees have been spotted in a particular space in a long go national park in gabon They have been spotted cracking open tortoises They they crack against they crack the giant tortoises against tree trunks and then just crack them open in half and scoop out the meat Um Tortises and chimpanzees coexist elsewhere and other primates are known to feed on young soft tortoises But nobody's ever seen these animals eating full-grown adult hardshelled tortoises. So this is totally unusual Interestingly the same park also has hardshelled fruit that needs to be whacked against a tree to open it Which means a lot of the researchers who discovered this Think that that was actually the kind of start of this behavior Which means this is a particular chimpanzee society that does this No other chimpanzee groups can do this. So are these are these also the chimpanzees that eat crabs? Because there's a another story. I did not something I brought but they were talking about Chimpanzees that were cracking open and eating crabs. I think so cracking open crabs is Way easier than cracking open a tortoise. These are fused bones So this is way harder Of smacking stuff open to eat that through what's on the inside A crab you could really just If you wanted to you just crap crack it in either hand, but this is really difficult and in fact, um, they even saw weaker chimpanzees passing a tortoise to a stronger adult to Whack it open for them. Um, so this is the idea that there is some sort of particular Culture of chimpanzees that are doing this Which is a reminder that as chimpanzee populations in Africa are disappearing due to habitat destruction and poaching That you can't just take chimps from another area, breed them and put them back in and get the same functional Ecological impact as the original Society of chimpanzees that was there because if they have a particular Skill set that they're passing down that could be lost, which is a good reminder Yeah Justin you want to talk about neanderthos? Yeah, this is uh the university france, uh, and uh Dejaune, I'm just guessing uh published in the open axis journal plus one looked at neanderthals and sort of following up in a hypothesis that Neanderthals got bred out of existence and there is the also the idea that there was a reduction and sort of fertility That's propagated once they started interacting with current modern human out of Africa humans And what they kind of discovered is that they had they created a couple models Basically, they found that if you reduced the neanderthal Fertility rates amongst neanderthal women by 2.7 percent That wouldn't be enough to make them extinct in 10,000 years Which fits within the four to 10,000 year frame in which they were sort of here present and full on neanderthal form And indistinguishable beyond some per small percentage in a 23 and me genetic Uh survey If they if they reduced the fertility by 8 it hit the low end of 4,000 years And we have found uh some evidence within the inheritable traits of modern current humans that Fertility related genetic Markers that that that lead to reduced fertility Are traceable back to neanderthal origins That uh, it's a pretty decent explanation perhaps of how they were out competed Yeah, just normal everyday sex And that That makes us come full circle on our science of sex The episode full closure full circle Thank you for listening. Oh my goodness. Thanks for a great show you guys. That was fun That was a lot of fun. I hope everyone out there. I hope you enjoyed it and I would love to say thank you to Uh identity for who helps record the show to gordon mccloud who helps keep the chat room happy And to fada who helps with social media and show notes and also helps out in the youtube YouTube chat room keeps things keeps things above board up over there Thank you for watching on youtube if you're watching on youtube and thank you for listening to this podcast If you're listening as a podcast, I would also love to say thank you to our patreon sponsors Thank you too Paul disney richard onamus ed dire andy gross jupalik philip schane ken haze harrison prather charlene henry joshua furie steve debel alex wilson tony steele craig landon mark brazaros jack matthew litwin jason roberts bill k bob calder time jumper 319 eric nap richard brian kondren Dave neighbor curin benton adam le joy sarah chavis rodney tiffney boyd john burtrum mountain slots sethah gradney steven alberon john ratna swami dav fridel darrell my shack andrew swanson paul ronovitch sue doster dav wilkinson ben bignell richard porter noodles kevin reardon christof zucanrack ashish pants ulysses adkins rtm rick ramus paul john mckay jason olds brian carrington christopher drier lisa susie jim drapo greg riley shonlam red nrothig steve leesman curt larson rudie garcia marjorie gary s robert greg briggs brendon minnish christopher rappen flying out erin luth and matt sutter mark heston flow kevin parachan biren lee and e o and thank you for your support on patreon on next week's show wait what else did i want to say i'm not reading all the things am i i'm distracted kiki so thank you for your support on patreon if you are interested in supporting us you can find information by clicking the patreon link at twist.org and you can also send your friends who are interested in awesome science podcasts to twist.org on next week's show we will be back once again we have an interview with dr matthew stanley we're going to be talking about his book einstein's war how relativity triumphed amid the vicious nationalism of world war one it's got science politics war intrigue and you'll find out about how how the ladies liked einstein's looks so many so many interesting factors it's got it all we will be broadcasting live once again at eight p.m pacific time on twist.org slash live you can watch live and join the chat room but if you can't make it you can also find our past episodes at our youtube channel and you can also watch live on our youtube channel or at twist.org thank you for enjoying the show twist is also available as a podcast just google this week in science in your itunes directory or if you have a mobile type device you can look for this week in science in anything apple market placey for more information on anything you've heard here today yes anything you've heard here today show notes will be available on our website that's at www.twist.org what yeah it's www.twist.org while you're there you can also make comments on any number of things and start conversations with the host that's us or other listeners yeah or you can contact us directly email kirsten at kirsten at thisweekin science.com just in a twist minion at gmail.com or Blair�baz at twist.org just be sure to put twist www.twist.com somewhere in your subject line and otherwise your email will be spam filtered.com you can also hit us up on the twitter where we are at twist science at Dr. Kiki at Jackson Fly and it Plays Menageary. We love your feedback. If there's a topic you'd like us to cover or address this suggestion for an interview, a haiku that comes to you tonight, please let us know. We'll be back here next week and we hope you'll join us again for more great science news. And if you've learned anything from the show, please remember. It's all in your head. The world, so I'm setting up the shop. Got my banner on pearl. It says the scientist is in. I'm gonna sell my advice. Show them how to stop the robot with a simple device. I'll reverse global warming with a wave of my hand. And all it'll cost you is a couple of grand. Weak science is coming your way. So everybody listen to what I say. I use the scientific method for all that it's worth. And I'll broadcast my opinion all over the air. Because it's this week in science. This week in science, science, science. This week in science. This week in science, science, science. I've got one disclaimer and it shouldn't be news. That's 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 get understand. But we're not trying to threaten your philosophy. We're just trying to save the world from Japanese. And this week in science is coming away. So everybody listen to everything we say. And if you use our methods, instead of rolling a die, we may rid the world of toxic plasma. Got the eye, eye, eye, eye, eye, eye, eye, eye. Because it's this week in science. This week in science, science, science. This week in science, science, science. I've got a laundry list of items I want to address. From stopping global hunger to dredging Loch Ness. I'm trying to promote more rational thought and I'll try to answer any question you've got. The help can I ever see the changes I seek when I can only set up shop one hour a week. This week in science is coming away. You better just listen to what we say. And if you learn anything from the words that we've said, then please just remember it's all in your head. Because it's this week in science. This week in science, science, science. This week in science, science, science. This week in science, science, science. This week in science, science, science. This week in science, this week in science. This week in science, science. Yes. Distract the Kiki. I'm distract the Kiki. I need to take more B12 vitamins, maybe. It's the after show, everyone. Technically, I think that show was under two hours because we started late. I think we actually started the show, what, 10 minutes late? Yeah, just about. I think we're about 10 minutes late and we finished a few minutes around 9.50 ish. So it's a one hour 45 minute long show. Identity four will let me know. If that's the case, we did a great job on getting through the stories in the second half of the show. I'm gonna say, okay, okay, is okay. I'm gonna share a picture with you. I'm gonna share something with you that you may enjoy. I like your sharing. Here, check out this picture of me from 2011. It's playing on a horse. It's one of three times I've been on a horse in my whole life. You were like, what am I doing up here? It was scary, but also really wild animal. Yeah. It's playing on a horse. That's awesome. Yeah. Yep. You're like happy and scared. Yep. That is correct. You got it. Horses are scary. It's true. It's true identity four. I like horses. Some people love horses. They're just kind of scary. They're enormous and they don't know how much power they have when you're on them. And the horses are like big dogs. In some ways. I'm a big animal and they're just power. They're just powerful. Lying out. Oh my goodness. Don't punch your horse in the in the mouth. You don't punch. You just look your gift horse in the mouth. I've heard you're not supposed to do that. Don't forget to. Don't do that. Don't do that. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth. Don't do that.  I keep removing one of the weeks between the present and when we go to the interplanetary festival and I keep planning things and I'm like, wait, there's like, oh, no, there's a whole other week in there. It's good. We're fine. We're just in go. Fantastic. In the YouTube chat has brought up the a cellular fish skin grafts for management of split thickness donor sites and partial thickness burns a case series. Neato. Fantastic. Apparently is aware of the use of the a cellular fish skin grafts for human health, which is kind of awesome. Yeah. Fantastic says Atlantic cod skin has been used for slow healing wounds, which would be kind of like those burns third to fourth degree burns. Yeah. Neat. Yeah. I just think it's insane that a completely different species that skin can be incorporated into the... So it's interesting. Yeah. So the descaling is one side of it, but they when they call it an a cellular graft, so what they're doing is they're getting rid of a lot of those cellular components, but there are the structural scaffold components that remain. And so those allow the body that's injured to have something to grow into and have something that gives its cells structure as the healing occurs. Yeah. It's kind of like in just the field of cellular regeneration when researchers and biological engineers are trying to develop, you know, say a new kidney or a new liver or something, you can't just grow that. You actually have to create a scaffolding for stuff to grow into. Yeah. I guess they didn't say anywhere in the article that it was a cellular. Yeah. That may not have been, it was without scales. This article that Fantastic had brought into the timeline was a cellular. So they might have just omitted that, but that was really the thing that I thought was interesting. I didn't think it was just scaffold. I thought that it was legitimate fish skin. Yeah. Let me see. I don't know. I'll look at your notes. What does it say in the notes? See, they probably give a link to the paper in which they'll give more details. Intact fish skin that is rich in naturally occurring omega three polyunsaturated fatty acids. Oh no, this is being used in humans also. Yeah. Okay. Diabetic wounds. So the fish skin comes from a wild Atlantic cod caught from a sustainable fish stock in Icelandic waters, processed using hydroelectric power. Wait, what? What are you looking at now? I'm looking at the website for the brand of the fish skin that they used. It's called Koresis. Koresis. Intact fish skin technology. Yeah. I didn't feel like doing a product plug. So I omitted that. But let's see. When grafted onto damaged human tissue, the material recruits the body's own cells and is ultimately converted into living tissue. Heavy processing is needed to eliminate risk of disease transmission. It is a harsh antiviral treatment and it removes most of the materials natural components. Yeah, making it dissimilar to human skin. No need for multi layer grafts. It is thick. Enhanced cell proliferation and vascularization. Adjustable rate of absorption into surrounding tissue. Wow. A lot of pluses. Hook me up with that fish skin. Can we film fish skin? How does that work? I want to read more. It's only minimally processed. This story is not listed on their news section yet. Is it the brand new story? Patient stories. It's not there either. It's all humans. The dog, Stella. That's so funny. I know another Rottweiler named Stella. And our cat named Stella. Yeah. What do you say, folks? Is it bedtime? I'm tired. All right. It's take a night, Blair. Sinking. You're sinking. Is there anything that before we say good night? What was that? What's happening to you? Oh, no. Before we go. Is there anything? You sent the newsletter out, Blair? No. You didn't tell me I could. Oh, yeah. And I didn't write anything on it. Is it ready to go? Did you approve it? I wrote my thing on it. It's okay. I'll send it tomorrow. I'll write myself a note and I'll send it tomorrow. Okay. You're ready? You've approved of it? Yeah. If you want to write something else in it, I mean. Okay. But you took out the bios then? I took out the bios. Okay. Yeah. Oh, you're going to have to okay my version. Oh, no. It's letting me in. Oh, good. Yeah. It's only supposed to do that like once a week or something. Yeah. Okay. I knew you got in there because I got the tire but I didn't know. I did do it. That's very funny. Well, let us both be in there at the same time. I think it will. Wait. I hope so. Templates. Wait. Am I in the wrong place? You need to be in campaigns. Campaigns. That's why I'm in the wrong place. Okay. Oh, it might not. There we go. Number one. Yeah. It might not let us be in there at the same time. This might boot you. Let's see. Give me the boot. I still don't know where it is. Well, you're supposed to just send me stuff. Just email it to me and I'll plop it in there. Yeah. You don't have to go enter it in. You don't have to do anything other than just write a thing. All right. I'll write a thing. I won't make it for this month. Yeah. Whatever. Okay. So let's see. Yeah. I've got my thing in there. Yeah. We could. Yeah. Oh, this is funny. This is plenty. It's plenty. Yeah. Delete the last bit about tonight's episode. Huh? Okay. Let's see. And so I'll just edit it to say, don't forget to join us next week on Wednesday, June 5th. Wednesday at 8 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time. June 5th. They're different ones. Yeah. That's right, identity. This is how the sausage is made, everyone. I don't know how sausage is made. I like the fact that I have no idea. I don't want to know either. Okay. Great. So should I send it now or should I send it tomorrow? Maybe it's too late to send it now? Yeah. Do you want me to just send it now? Why would you, you can send it now? Okay. Because I can just hit send and then it's done. Newsletter. Hey, everyone. You're going to get a newsletter. Right now. Right now. Real time. And if you don't get a newsletter, send me a message and send me an email and I will, and let me know that you need to get a newsletter. Check your spam folders. All subscribers. Personalize the to field. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to personalize the to field. I don't like that. That's creepy. So you can personalize it to say like to Justin Jackson. Oh, why wouldn't you? I don't know. It's like vaguely spammy. How about you have it say to my dearest friend? I'll do first name, last name. That's fine. Hey, science friend. Okay. So from this week in science, welcome to the twist newsletter. This is our first issue of muslin newsletter directly from the hosts of this week in science. Okay, great. That's right. Is Washington get rid of daylight savings time? Send. Oh, sending everyone. Yay. Okay. Now I'm going to 219 people. So that was our May one. So, but we'll be able to do one after the planetary festival. Maybe we'll, we'll jot some stuff down when we're hanging out. Yes, hanging out together. How come I didn't get mine? It won't go out shortly. It's I just got my list. I just got it. You might not be on the list. Have you ever signed up? Did you ever sign up the newsletter? No. Well, then you don't get the new one. I don't know where to look at it before it goes out and I don't get it after it goes out. How much, you know what? Actually, now that I've recalibrated my thinking, that's the thing to do. I can put Justin into the, thank you. Oh, yeah. Yeah. How silly. Oh, Blair, I took the twist calendar to work. Uh-huh. People love it. Yes. Not just the pictures, but they love the, all the knowing other holidays that they should be celebrating. Yes. We should have off. That's great. That's awesome. I didn't get it yet. I got it. How weird. Oh, but my email program is saying it's something. Oh, no, there it is. You got it? Nope. When it was saying something was wrong, like it couldn't load other stuff that had nothing to do with. Oh, I did get it. Oh, that's fun. I didn't get it. Oh, do you want me to forward it to you so you can see it? Yeah, this point. Yeah, forward it to him because we're not going to send it again. At this point. There you go. Our 109 minute long show just appeared in my drop box. Thanks, identity four. 109 minutes.  I mean, that was, and again, I don't recall an interview that was more, here's another thing we could talk about. Here's something else we could talk about. Here's something else that we really interesting to talk about. It was like an hour long teaser of stories that could be built. Yeah, it was. It's not a scam email hot rod. It's for real. Put it on here. It's both. It's not a scam. It's our twisty newsletter. It's totally trying to scam you into thinking science, he thinks. No, I wrote a thing. I wrote a thing. Say good night, Blair. Good night, Blair. Say good night, Justin. Good night, Justin. Is that all we needed to do? Is that, is there any other business? No other business. Nothing we need to discuss. Good night, doctor. Good night, Dr. Keith. Good night. Good night, everyone. Thanks for joining us for another episode of this Week in Science. We are so excited that we'll be back again next week. I will be doing my Dr. Kiki conversation on Twitch this Friday at 1 p.m.ish, 1.15 p.m. Pacific time on my Twitch channel. But next Wednesday we'll be back doing another episode of Twist. We got an interview and it's going to be fun. So we hope that you'll join us. Have wonderful science in the meantime. Enjoy your newsletter and we will talk to you soon. Happy scienceing, everyone.