We are here all three for This live broadcast of the twist podcast. We hope you're ready for some science. We have a whole bunch of news ahead Let us know if Justin is lagging because he's on Wi-Fi and we'll see if that works for us It's working right now. He can he can sense me already Making fun of his Wi-Fi anyhow This It's just gonna be the delayed reaction the slow on the uptake Justin today I'll just try to anticipate When you guys say something and I'll start Patient hey, okay All right, everyone as we get started I hope you know that if you're subscribed to this this is the live thing and all the stuff here is happening live no editing There's no magic except for the magic of the internet and StreamYard, which we use for our broadcast But the podcast will be edited for brevity so that we hit our tight 90 And I guess that's it. Let's do this show. Yeah Yeah, let's do this. All right, is everyone ready? We shall begin How did that not go all the way over hold on I'm editing in two places apparently it doesn't like me Alright, dun-dun-dun beginning the show in a three a two this is Twist this week in science episode number 878 recorded on Wednesday, June 1st 2022 how to make a big old science omelette Hey everyone, I'm dr. Kiki and tonight on the show We will fill your head with axolotl's spider and poop, but first Disclaimer disclaimer disclaimer on Memorial Day We were supposed to have been remembering the fallen soldiers those who were called to serve and sacrifice All but instead another massacre of children with an assault rifle has people remembering that the United States is the most violent dangerous place on earth 14 mass shooting events over the Memorial Day weekend another one at a hospital in Oklahoma just today and as the yearly deaths by gun in the United States continue to climb 45,222 and 2020 alone we are far exceeding our fallen soldiers in war Eclipsing the lives lost by our troops in the eight years in Iraq 20 years in Afghanistan and the Korean War combined in a single year Approaching every soldiers life lost in the 20-year Vietnam War every single year and why? Because guns are poorly regulated in the United States States that are well regulated have the fewest gun deaths, but gun deaths are higher in the US than anywhere else in the world We use guns to commit homicide and suicide per capita more often than anywhere else on the planet Guns are the number one cause of death amongst children in the United States Memorial Day is a day to remember our fallen. We should remember who that is Even as we joy another episode of this week in science coming up next Trying to anticipate, but I'm not really sure how soon I should be correcting for the lag I Didn't hear Justin very well on that so give us a good science Justin good And The good science to you too Justin Blair and everyone out there Welcome to another episode of this week in science Hopefully this week will be more full of science than it is of bloopers, but you know It's always good for our twist blooper reel, which I know somebody is putting together There Everyone I hope you really are looking forward to a good show of science because I have brought liver transplants electric evolution and Exercise we're gonna exercise tonight on the show What do you have for us Justin I've got you know just replacing the liver is fine I've got a regenerative model that can replace everything Everything everything as well as a major extinction event in history also a an ancient city that was risen from the waters and An ancient city that was overgrown and discovered by flying lasers Flying lasers ancient cities and flying lasers. This is the next adventures of Justin Jackson Blair, what's in the animal corner? Oh my gosh, I have a Baboon courtship spider courtship and some poop. What else is new? Well, it is definitely stacking up to be a lot of good stories as we jump into the show I do want to remind you that subscribing to twist Fairly easy to do you can find us on all of the Podcast platforms that you can probably think of out there. Just look for this week in science We are on YouTube Facebook and Twitch where we broadcast live every Wednesday at 8 p.m. Pacific time We are twist side twist science TWISC INCE Yeah, Twitch Twitter and Instagram and our website is twist org It's time for the science Let's talk about livers. Well replacing them with transplants and okay, what are the We've talked about transplanting organs before. What is one of the big problems with rejection rejection another big problem Donuts yeah, yeah supply chain gotta they gotta find a living. Oh But not really And then you have to decide who deserves the organ more because there's not enough for everyone right so one way that people have been trying to solve this problem is through The synthetic livers trying to grow livers in Petri dishes trying to grow them in the lab make them De novo out of people's cells to get past the rejection issues But this is still kind of futuristic science a different attempt has been to make the livers that would be coming from potential donors last longer and Also, healthy them up a little bit so that they'll be good healthy basically brand new livers ready for transplantation not on a rushed schedule, but can be planned and Actually transplanted as needed when needed Fewer livers going to waste. How would someone go about doing this? well out of the University of Zurich a team called liver for life has created a perfusion machine and this perfusion machine does everything that the human body does it Gives it oxygen to replace the lungs it pumps to replace the blood It has a dialysis unit to perform the function of the kidneys for filtration It's got all these aspects of hormones and nutrients and all the things that a liver would need To be a nice healthy liver and so when somebody dies or And there is a liver available It could potentially be put in this perfusion machine for a number of days and kept healthy And what they have shown in their new press release and their their Demonstration is that they were able to store a liver for several days outside of the body in their liver for life perfusion machine and then transplant it into a Into a cancer patient who was on the waiting list for a liver transplant But probably would not get a liver in time otherwise They kind of said hey, you're probably not gonna get a liver in time But we've got this other option for you if you want it and it's been except it's been successful I like how you put for that. We've got this other option You mean my only option Yeah, you could take it and it could work or it could not which is the same as not taking the option So but it did work. Yeah, it did work and the liver that they had Put into the perfusion machine was actually not a really healthy liver to begin with but it came out a much healthier liver and was was well accepted by the Organ recipient and they just published in nature biotechnology their work where it shows that by treating livers in the perfusion machine It's possible to alleviate the lack of functioning human organs and save lives They also go on to sit go on to say the interdisciplinary approach of solving complex biomedical challenges embodied in this project is the future of Medicine this will allow us to use new findings even more quickly for treating patients And so this project was actually launched in 2015 and It's yeah, it's a little rolling It's like a little rolling Liver trolley It's a little aquarium, but instead of fish or lobsters. It's you know livers livers and the livers the livers can go on to live Happy and healthy lives in their new recipients but I I I love that this gets rid of the big thing is the time bottleneck because When you when someone dies you have a donor, right? And everyone has to get there at the exact right time collect the organs that will go for donation they have there has to be a patient ready to receive the organs within hours and Very often there are things go wrong livers hearts other or things Things go bad and things get destroyed Accidentally or because there isn't enough time to get from one part of a city to another part of a city or from one city to even another city So this could potentially get past a lot of those bottlenecks Cool problem liver for life Yeah, I'm a fan What do you have Justin? Let me see how quickly my story loads first and I'll tell you if I got Longest takes because the Wi-Fi. Oh, here we go. I'll start with this one This is proteins extracted from fragments of a prehistoric egg shell found in Australia Confirmed that the continent's earliest humans Consumed the eggs of two meter tall Thunderbirds these birds that just went extinct about 47,000 ish years ago This is in the journal proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the eggs came from Jenny Yornis a huge flightless Thunderbird with tiny wings and massive legs that roamed prehistoric Australia and Flops would it be still be flocks if they're flightless could it be herds? And he would be herds if it's a baby it may be herds What would you say for ostrich flair? That's a great quote. I still think it's a flock Block of it's a bird We'll figure it out. Yeah Fossil record show that the Thunderbirds Thunderbird stood over two meters tall weighed between 220 and 240 kilograms Which is that's a lot. That's a big big The laid melon sized eggs there were about one and a half kilograms each And so the earliest day date that we think Australia got populated by current modern humans About 65,000 years ago would have been the maybe the the furthest back uh currently These burnt eggshells date to around 50 to 55,000 years And that's not long before this giant bird went extinct and it was about the time When humans had spread across most of the continent and these eggshells are actually found in locations all across the continent However, there is no sign of Thunderbird butchery anywhere in the archaeological record so They were too big to hunt but these but the But the nest rating of the giant eggs was a productive behavior at least for the humans So you could get away with that although it wasn't sustainable because obviously the giant birds went extinct researchers are pointing out that the geniornous egg exploitation behavior Of the first Australians mirrored very much early human ostrich egg rating activity And that's something that's in the in the archaeological record across Africa dating back at least 100,000 years So the peoples who eventually populated Australia were probably not that far historically removed From the from people who were doing ostrich hunting in Africa but the difference is likely the reproduction rates The ostriches and humans coexisted with this egg stealing Behavior throughout history, but the same level of exploitation with this Thunderbird by the early Australians may have been too much for the reproductive strategy of those birds and uh, that's probably why they went extinct So it was just that the birds weren't reproducing quickly enough So there weren't enough eggs to feed the hunger of the growing population of humans in Australia. That's that's one of the possibilities. Yeah I mean, it's if it was if it's people I'm gonna say well, you know people they're gluttons They like the big eggs are gonna go eat as much as they want not worrying about that kind of thing But I also wonder, you know, is it population balance versus or is it I don't know what they wanted to eat But look at that How could you take how could you take the Thunderbirds birds egg? We're looking at an artist rendering that I think is very very cute Two meter tall Thunderbirds. Yeah, very scary so adorable not adorable scary when you think about that both can be true But I'm surprised that that that they weren't able to to protect their eggs I mean ostriches are very good at protecting their eggs Perhaps that's why ostriches still are here and Thunderbirds are in it. That may that may have been a thing As well, there's also that weird that weird habit that animals have of Of learning to be afraid not what's not weird, but they learn to be afraid of humans to an extent Where when then there's a predator human arrives to a location where the animals haven't seen humans before They may be not as afraid Now it might not still been worth Fighting a Thunderbird or trying to hunt one, but they may have been able to just walk up and take an egg that the strange thing about the Thunderbird and the dodo though is that I understand they didn't know humans before but humans have a lot of telltale signs of predators They have the binocular vision um and so I just It's like, you know, we we learned on the show about how babies have an innate ingrown fear of of snakes and spiders because of evolutionary reasons because of venom and these sorts of things a lot of animals have Instinctual response to anything that acts like a predator. So Why is it that these big beautiful dumb birds did not recognize a predator when they saw one? And they may have like the dodo's though the dodo's The dodo's didn't have predators on the island. There were none Uh, but yeah, but the australian mainland definitely had predators like that. It wasn't predator free zone Sort of interesting some of the ways that they were able to identify that this was the bird that they were looking at Was the shape of the eggs the denser the the thickness of the shells But also they they were able to pull proteins that were preserved within the shells Oh, you know the shell was uh within the layers of the shell itself. There were proteins captured um Although most of their genetic analysis came back as chicken Uh, which they believe is uh is contamination and not a relation. Yeah, most likely relation to a chicken All right blare. Yeah, what do you want to tell us about or are you chicken to tell us a story? No, I I I have poop for you Not chicken poop, but uh polar bear poop from toronto from a zoo And this is a study looking at the accumulation of contaminants In the body and this specifically is looking at polar bears because they are very good bio accumulators They're at the very top of the food chain They have a lot of fat and they are very good at digesting and eating fat And that's where a lot of contaminants hang out. So they were a good study species But this is really generally looking at how to study contaminants in any animal And so looking at this uh in the you know in the past looking at contaminants you would need The animal to be deceased and you would need to check tissue The way to study biomagnification Really the only way historically has been through dead tissue. So you can look at the contaminants in there The method that they developed here was specifically looking at poop Which is something that you can get at any stage of life From lots of different types of animals and learn a lot of things our poop tells a big story No matter how big the poop is Very polar bear. Yay. The poop is quite large but What they were able to tell looking at an animal that they knew was going to have high bio accumulation Of contaminants. So they were able to track the amount of polychlorinated bifenals PCBs They are outlawed In pretty much the whole world, but they they're They have a really long latency. So they hang out for a really long time And so um, they This is something that is important to be looking at at polar bears in other wild animals and in humans Because even though this stuff isn't supposed to be used anymore It's still hanging around in the atmosphere or not in the atmosphere in the environment, excuse me And so the previous studies have linked PCBs in wild polar bears to lower levels of testosterone Which can impact reproduction and these contaminants can have all sorts of impacts on any types of animals But what they were able to find out is that because of the way bio accumulation works the fact that like if a big fish eats a small fish and then a Seal eats a bunch of fish and then a polar bear eats a bunch of seals that is a Exponential growth of the amount of this contaminant into their body and that was passed along into their feces So they you know, they weren't able to make any large scale declarations based on this study about you know, what the PCBs are doing or like what kinds of What individuals had more PCBs than others or why that might be But really this was just a proof of concept that you could accurately test PCBs and potentially dbt through the digestive system So this is something that could help with the study of captive animals wild animals and humans in the future Well, we know that like heavy metals and other things that women who are pregnant are told not to eat too much tuna and You know, it's because of this a bio accumulation and that it would end up accumulating In your tissues, but also being passed along to the fetus and so You know, we've known for a while that we can sample poop to learn a whole lot of things But I think this is yeah, what's interesting here is that They can start actually specifically looking for these really potentially dangerous compounds long lasting compounds in the environment And seeing how they're affecting the food chain Yeah Yeah, so the poop tells the story as per usual Now I'm replacing depeche mode songs with lyrics with poop and okay that needs to stop Or continue Or continue. We'll sing those songs in the aftershow Ha ha I'll keep that one in my head to myself. You can imagine What I'm thinking what I'm imagining Okay, what do we want to talk about next? How about some electric fish because I know this conversation is electrifying so far I'm in a weird mood tonight. I don't know as long as Should I say you're welcome? Just all right, so Not the poop. No, we're trying to do a tight 90 here folks. Uh, do you mind if we Move along to the next story. I know you've got a lot of jokes. You've been trying to work out I'm trying here. I'm really trying Okay. Okay. Okay. Uh electric fish. How'd they get to be electric? Oh, that's They they bit into some wires No, they didn't just plug themselves in That is not the way it happened Um, some sort of uh electrified algae Iron content in their diet No super powers super powers Let's go with adaptation and evolution. Oh Yeah, we're gonna go we're gonna go with with uh mutations in particular segments of dna kind of like an epigenetic control where in control regions of Genes for a sodium ion channel that's normally in the muscle It normally has a couple of copies of these in the muscle and they get turned on the sodium ion channels are really important to make the muscles contract but in certain copies through evolution these Electric fish species Managed to in a couple of different ways. So there's a there's a bit of convergent evolution Happening as well. They they came to the same solution through different pathways along different lineages. But what happens is there's a little 20 or so nucleotide section that is um A control segment and if there get to be mutations in that control segment It turns it off so that that ion channel doesn't make the muscle work anymore But in different cells in the body If that is turned off It leads to electrical ion flow. So the muscles get turned off this ion channel gets turned off in the muscles, but then these electrocytes in the electric fish Get turned on so it's the same gene, but there's one control segment That either gets removed in some lineages or gets Altered so that it basically doesn't work so much anymore But it works for another function So no muscle it doesn't this ion channel doesn't work in the muscle cells But it now starts to work in These electrocytes and the electrocytes allowed the fish then to gain this function it's just adaptation and evolution and That's that's pretty much it and it's pretty exciting That they were able to compare the genetics. They were able to compare a number of different Electric fish to actually determine that they're not all the same. It's not just one solution that led to electrification But there are a couple of different. So it's either remove it completely this little control segment or just Mess it up so it doesn't quite work, right? But in effect it comes to the same solution Right. And so there's there's actually uh, as phenomenal as that seems We also have to remember that the this electrical impulse thing is At least in some of them is used for communication Yes, and so we have we have echolocation and dolphins and bats we have speech communication in current modern games, but we have vocalization and all sorts of vertebrates and birds and everything All sorts of animals that aren't stuck in the water Can use sound What I was going to say is that at least with terrestrial vertebrates my understanding is that the vocal cords have a Have a you have a a shared origin So I think I think that's what's different about this is that they're um And and I guess that's more like the fish you're talking about Justin is the vocal cords of Terrestrial animals versus the clicks that fish make which they don't use vocal cords for that at all So I would say that is a really good comparison in that case But I'm wondering if then like is this thing evolves along and there's this ability to utilize it It becomes a communication thing because I think of electric fish. I think actually all I think of is an electric heel I think of something that zaps its food for paralysis, right? Like it's a weapon Nice thing is the first thing I think of but there's all sorts of Interfishing communication stuff that also is going on with that I don't know. I wonder how They use them for hunting. They use it for defense. They use the electric organ for communication There are all sorts of behavioral uses that came about once they Had the had this new mutation right this new organ that they could then use so Uh, some individuals were able to take advantage of their electrification and use it to their benefit for whichever ways That they could but it's this you know interesting Weird fish genetics that they had two different kinds of sodium ion channels And they had duplicate versions of the same gene so that the muscle cells could do their thing And then it could silence the others and just be like, oh, you're gonna do this other function in other cells over here now But it's just repurposing Evolutionary repurposing it's this just this happens all the time We're gonna take this we're gonna flip it around this way It's like an old t-shirt that you hack up and you make into a cute new You know into a dress or something. I don't know and I mean I was gonna mention fish were the first, you know big group of vertebrates and And so they've been around for a really really long time And they've had the whole ocean to explore for that whole time where adaptive radiation has happened over and over and over again and so it's if you want to talk about a place where Crazy permutations can happen I think fish are some of the best examples of that because they've had the benefit of time and diversity of niches and Yeah Tell me about axolotls So this is actually absolutely Following on that story of the of genes being reutilized in different ways Uh, imagine having the ability to regenerate almost Any body part Throughout your entire body. All right, you a regenerated leg or arm Not a problem new heart new lung. Don't wait for a donor. Just regenerate your kidney Refresh that skin as well and reboot those ovaries if you find the need Spinal cord got you down Just regenerate it and if you don't have a tail now. Well, you can even reversing brain damage Is possible if you're an axolotl The this is a nearly extinct Mexican salamander That has these all of these amazing regenerative Abilities pretty much all that we know of them and study from them is like a hundred I think it's 150 year old sample That was uh taken to to paris And has been built up as a as a research Colony over the years remos that have been genetically engineered It's a very important step in doing much animal research This is this is our cloned mice that have knockouts or have been selected for a specific gene trait. They can be Uh genetically altered to have pariscent tags On some genes which allows them to be able to be studied to see how cells behave That are connected to certain genes So all of this is extremely important for research, but there's been few transgenic axolotls available to use in these studies Despite potentially holding the key to regenerating every body part in the immortality and the fountain of youth Simultaneously, which is important because if you live forever, but just continue to get more Olden and decrepit it it might not be worth it at some point Uh, but that's changing development of these new tools to work with the axolotl They say is as now elevated the level of established research models and positioning the community of scientists who use them To a functional research model with exponential growth potential and following two studies that are just published this month in The the addition of developmental dynamics And this we're only two days into this month. So it's you know, very recent Uh, this is quoting preag Marwala a scientist at the mdi biological laboratory in bar harbor mains and uh with these tools in place We expect to see exponential growth We only need to look at other animal models to get a sense of the variety of topics that can be studied Most axolotl research is now focused on limb or tail regeneration But there's also the opportunity to study regeneration of the brain heart lung spinal cord and more We are not running short on biological questions to investigate Which actually that's the one That's the one thing that made me sort of like like I get I get the body needs to heal damaged tissue But what happens if you regenerate a brain? Are you still you? Do you do you have to fill it all up again? If you have like a really bad brain damage Do you have to start over? Are you the same person? Are you talking about DC's ship right now? I feel like that's what you're talking about about what? DC's ship If you if you if you change every uh plank of the ship Over time as it rots Yeah, is it still the same ship? Yeah, is it the still is it a new ship? Well, no, that's and that's okay.  I gotta lose my hand to get one of those luke cool luke skywalker hands. It's not a problem You know, you know, the heart goes bad put in a monkey Heart with a pacemaker. It's abs. It's just a part you're replacing or it's a part that needs to get healed or whatever But the brain That's what i'm talking about.  So it all works together as a system So if you replace parts and regenerate parts the brain has to learn how to talk to those again if you regenerate the brain The whole brain has to learn stuff all over again It's always gonna have to refigure unless unless we get to the point where we're just like Chew scanning brains and chew Uploading consciousness into brain kind of thing which we definitely are not yet The the sympathies is by the way, I think is a terrible argument Have you ever had a car?  It's a simple question. Oh, yeah Until it is limping and you changed parts and it was still your car And then one day you got rid of that car and you got a different car and guess what that was your car Not a single part from the old car went into the new car, but that was still your car. That's not the argument Enough enough enough already All right, so axolotls they're going to be the key to our regeneration. Yeah, and now we have We have a generation Ability to make models with the proper knockouts with those tools which was lacking which is going to allow research on on one of the most Yeah, what one of I think one of the the greatest potentials for For disease management because as we're as we talk about any disease We're talking about a cascade of negative events that have taken place and it's causing downstream effects from where the disease starts usually and if there's a way to trick your your body Into regenerating the the original factory part And rebuild it That's huge stronger faster better Okay, just as fast just as strong. What is no better than before and it would still be fine But what if you were a clone And they your clone just kept cloning and cloning and cloning until you were one clonal organism that Was 4,500 years old and lived over 180 kilometers under is this a forest? She's talking about the michael keaton film multiplicity, right? I mean like this is like either some pine forest or some fungal spread in No, so not a fungal spread. So we've talked about before the largest organism on the planet It could be an aspen grove. It could be a fungus here in oregon However, australian researchers have located what is now thought to be the largest plant on earth And they estimated at 4,500 years old and it is seagrass It's under about 180 kilometers underwater and all underwater And they have Determined through genetic analysis first. They were like, oh, let's go find out how many different kinds of seagrass They're down here and see how they're evolving above and then they're like, oh my goodness It's just one organism. It's all the same And you've got me and you got me right away because I was immediately when you said plant the first thing I thought was like Where could it be that it has never there's never been a fire? Because like some of the oldest growth trees are you know, you know, because they haven't had a fire in a long time And it's seagrass something like a land blubber They've published their research and proceedings of the royal society b on this single plant a clone of the seagrass post Sedonia Australis and this is in the world heritage area of shark bay in In west western australia So this is fascinating. They have determined however that there are areas within the 180 kilometers that have adaptations and variations and so its genes Do appear to have Resilience and that they are well suited to its local but also variable environmental conditions And that there are these little subtle genetic differences Within the clone that allow it to exist across this range even though it's a clone It still has little tiny differences But now there's more research to go in to determine How the plant survives how it thrives and how it really has lived for so long. What made it special? cloning really but cloning and but also I think uh Going back to my the plant living with that without having to encounter fire Uh a relatively consistent biome You know if the environment that your niche really works in Doesn't change for 4500 years Yeah, but that's the thing it has changed in 4500 years and it's managed to survive And so what they are saying is that it has these subtle genetic variations and also This variability has allowed it to be resilient in the face of change and that's what they are going to investigate further See this is your real ship of thesius because as it clones At what point is it No longer the same individual if it has cloned itself and there's slight genetic changes over time That's what humans are That's our same thing We don't clone ourselves So it's not one individual becoming another one individual. It's two becoming one, which is No, but there's not that far away. It's a huge there's a there's a there's a An almost infinite number of different combinations that you can have in all of your different, you know kind of Matchings of chromosomes and in this case you have it is like 99.9 exactly the same except there is a slight difference so late Well, that's just because we're we're used to thinking that's the complicated way because we're earthlings on omicron perseus three It takes 30 To have one baby 30 have right together to make one offspring and it's a mix of all of those genes So that's isn't there's a novel. Maybe it's vana. Get I don't know, but there's a novel somewhere where There's extra dimensional beings that actually are part of human recombination mating that we don't know about because we can only see No I do I think it might be one anybody else involved in that except, you know the child in the end You're done. Okay. You're go grow be it be a thing all right We have Finished our first set of stories Thank you for joining us for this this issue this weekly episode of this week in science We hope you're enjoying the show so far if you are please tell a friend today to listen to twis All right, let's do a few kovat stories. You want to talk about kovat? Okay, so this one's kind of it's kovat related because of its impact on our health moving forward. So the pandemic has led to People in isolation. We have been wearing masks people have been social distancing We've been washing hands and doing all sorts of things that have Reduced other illnesses flew respiratory sensational virus The cases have gone down down down and then what we've seen is that there's a new study It just published In nature communications on off-season Respiratory sensational virus infections in australia after the easing of kovat 19 Restrictions which led to off season. So if these colds are usually winter colds That's when we normally get these rhino viruses these since it's essential these Sensitial viruses Um They're now in the spring and the summer and not during periods of time when we normally get sick and so The circulation of the viruses are different and in fact with genetic sequencing sequencing They revealed that there was a major reduction in the rsv genetic diversity Following kovat 19 emergence with two genetically distinct clades circulating cryptically So they were like hiding in there um Probably localized in very small regions before an epidemic surge came out after the kovat 19 cases kovat 19 control situation was relaxed They say there also are is the possibility of some Viruses may be going extinct And they're they're yeah, but there are others that are still circulating so of course there's going to be new cold viruses and other things but it just highlights the need for continuing Surveillance and sequencing of these other viruses. We've also seen Um hepatitis that has killed some children in the united states and around the world that we don't know the cause of the hepatitis and it's thought to be related to uh an adenovirus and An adenovirus that would normally not be a problem But that potentially is more dangerous because of the lack of exposure in the previous previous years or because of the immune system kind of losing Its responses over the last couple of years. So there are some very interesting questions now as to how As we get through these pandemic waves to come as we you know slowly over the next Couple of years kind of make our way out of this pandemic. What will be happening with other viruses that? um That we normally see as seasonal will COVID itself becomes seasonal will these others become sporadic and difficult to predict will winter colds come back and just be winter colds again Or and how long is it going to take before the ripples of all of these experiences? End up becoming a still pond again I'm curious if there are people especially Children that did not get their vaccines on time For sure other things absolutely because people were very concerned about going to medical facilities people were told to To um put it off during surges Now it's really difficult to get appointments because everyone's starting to go back I'm really curious to look back at that because I think um It's it's It has to have impacted vaccine schedules for children for yes, it has covid yep Absolutely, so there's going there are going to be some interesting just health uh public health ramifications over the next decade or so not just from Directly related to covet but also these kind of off target effects of the whole pandemic And yeah, and what's happened? Yeah, I just got my t-dap booster after 10 years. I got the Oh, man, really it's been 10 years already I don't know that I've ever gotten it. I don't even know what the t-dap is You probably got a t-dap. You you had a child tetanus diphtheria T-dap they put it all together I don't know um As we are going back through covid waves We know that one of the places or one one one type of place that has been a problem for uh infections has been the gym people going and Breathing very heavily But there's been a question as to exactly how much aerosol is produced by different individuals during the course of exercise and so some researchers decided to throw a bunch of people on Treadmills and measure the aerosols that they produce. Don't tell me the answer. Don't tell me the answer. Okay. Yeah, I have like Ben During this whole pandemic will be out in public and once you're out like in the free open air you take off the mask You're like, I can breathe without a mask Not close to humans and then some jogger comes by And you're like, oh, why did you have to run by me because you're breathing heavily But then I'm also thinking If somebody's doing heavy breathing all the time, haven't they kicked out Enough virus if they had it even like that they would be there would be like, I don't know works that way I don't think it works that way It doesn't work that way. They used it up, right? Well, I just throw it all out I mean, is there like it's not that it would be gone But is it like less than somebody who wasn't going for a jog and breathing on you? Well, what they what they determined that uh For untrained people the uh respiratory volume increases from from five to 15 liters per minute at rest to over 100 liters per minute when exercising and highly trained athletes because they have a higher Volume of oxygen that they take in that actually reaches up to 200 liters per minute Yes, and then uh, and so this is respiratory volume and What they've correlated that to for of course is The amount of aerosols that are expelled during exercise So if it's kind of exercise that really like a little light jog You're not really well trained you're going for a walk or maybe a little jog Doesn't really get you breathing that much It's not a big deal if you're going for it and you're huffing puffing breathing that huff and puff and breathing is producing a lot more aerosols um, and the reason that this in particular is Important is because as we go through waves of increased Uh of increased covet transmission. It's good for gyms to know. Okay People are working out really hard in our gym. So we need to open the doors We need to increase ventilation or we need to take all of this. We do we do hit We do hit training or you know boot camp or whatever go outside and work out outside Where there is a lot more air, um, you know, so it can help protect people if people who are fitter younger fitter And they're in the gym. They can wear a mask To protect others from their increased aerosol expulsion if they are going to be working out at a higher rate um, you know, so just it helps gyms make decisions it helps public health, uh in professionals make decisions and I can give a couple of examples uh Both the treadmill and the exercise bike Are simulations of an activity you can actually do outside outside That's how those started and then somebody said we can't charge for that So they created a way to do it inside So you could have air conditions. There's also places where like Your sneakers would melt if you went for a ride outside outside. So you know, there are certain stands like 120 degrees right now Yeah, yeah, there's certain things that you can't do outside all the time It's true, but These things are important for for public health and to maintain things. Hey Blair. Yeah, did you get a chance to look at the? update for the the covid sniffing dogs. Yeah, I did and uh, they're good at it Which is what we said before Yeah, so this is I think the third time I tried to find the other stories that we reported on before I had to had trouble finding it but um The the latest one was back in december where they found that Uh dogs were better than antigen tests at sniffing out covid This is also the story that I've never believed So in this one, let's talk about that for a second. Yeah, this one was looking at samples from 335 people They trained dog to sniff out um coronavirus cases based on sweat or other bodily fluids that were puts You know into a container and then they smelled a cone that kind of Directed that smell into one place and so they were sniffed out 97 percent of coronavirus cases that had been identified by pcr tests And they found all 31 covid cases among 192 asymptomatic individuals so Wow Yeah, so they were actually very good at detecting asymptomatic individuals Which is exactly where dogs could come in handy in places like airports concerts Sports events because the people who feel well are going to come And so the dogs could sniff them out and they could be pulled aside And so this is part of the thing justin is even though this article is is suggesting that they're actually As or more effective than the tests that we use This could be used to identify an individual to then take a rapid test and then be identified what to do based on that because No matter what the science is telling us people are still very dubious of dogs in this regard now one of the researchers mentioned that People don't think of dogs as high tech the way electronic sensors are But they argue that dogs are one of the highest tech devices we have They're biological sensors instead of electronic sensors And if you if you trust a dog to sniff out bombs or drugs Why would you not Allow a dog to sniff out covet. It's the exact same chemical processes I'd love to know, you know, what subtle shift in our aroma Gives it away like what is it like what changes in our sweat or Just I would that that to me is so fascinating. Yeah, and this is what we don't know Um In part of the the crazy thing is you can use odor from body sites At different locations on a body different types of odors And all of them can give this information So it doesn't appear to be a single hormone or a single chemical It really looks like a pattern of increasing or decreasing certain Smells in a person who is carrying a disease because also remember that like body odor Is completely dependent on genetics what kind of Yeah cleaning solutions you use how often you shower or change your clothes like all sorts of crazy things that can impact your particular flavor, I'll say But the dogs can still tell if your flavor is off And you are there for carrying covet 19. So This really is looking like these dogs are extremely effective And they hope to start using them in these larger arenas some since the um december Research that we reported on have been used at concerts and large outdoor events to great success so far um But the real problem is that there's actually Um a supply chain issue with dogs There's not enough dogs to do what they currently do Detecting explosives and drugs there are so now to get them to detect diseases is a whole extra problem So the the the issue is you know, we have lots of dogs in the United States lots of dogs too many dogs Spend new year pets, but ultimately Um, the problem is in training It takes a lot of time and care to train dogs Not every dog that starts training finishes training Not every dog that is successfully trained in a closed scenario can then perform Yeah in a public space. So because this is this is one of the things too when I when I whenever I look at this is the the drug sniffing dogs I get they can absolutely Do that But then the ones that are being deployed by law enforcement across the united states are worse than a coin flip apparently Like they're actually pretty bad at it and a lot of a lot of their their indicators That we don't see our false hits because the police officer has a bias and wants to And it have a reason to search a car. Yes, and then they don't find anything But it doesn't end up in the report So like they there's always that it's training, but like you said, yeah, even if they got trained Out into the real world how well That's the other piece training the handlers, right? And so if you have dogs that are um, part of a Organization where the handlers are also trained and deployed and part of a specific group Then it can be easier to kind of um do this. So there's actually Uh There's organizations that take rescue dogs for example train them to do a job Like smell out invasive species and then the organization with their rescue dogs are sent out to areas to work So this is this is what the dogs that I was talking about that worked at the outdoor concert Earlier this year. This is how they worked. They were from a company. So it's it's tough It's harder when you include law enforcement because then you have somebody who's their main job is not trained To be a dog trainer. Their main job is in law enforcement. This is another piece of that job But it it it muddies the waters. So this is definitely something where there's a lot of variables just like there's a lot of variables when you have A um a sensor that you could be using or not using correctly, right? So it's it yes It's not a perfect system But these dogs seem to be very effective at smelling COVID I feel like it's also going to be the consistency of the work because I feel like airport sniffer dogs Are probably getting a high volume of traffic and are probably catching three or four people or Are isolating Several probably dozen pieces of luggage A day if not an hour for traces of stuff, right?  I'll give him a bone. Anyway, suddenly the training Consistency of of keeping that training as part of the behavioral reward system Right, which they usually do with these animals They try to All day long And they would do that and that's what you pay them for Yes, you know what? We pay the dogs. No, you know what? This is this week in science. Thank you so much for joining us and You could pay us to do this if you like us that much if you like twist head over to twist.org click on our country on link And You too could be a supporter of twist. We are listener supported So your donations monthly whatever amount through patreon allow us to do this show for you We really appreciate your support. We can't do it without you Let's come on back right now for that lovely part of the show Known as Blair's animal corner With Blair What you got Blair I have baboons Yikes. Yes baboons with special male friendships Yes, uh, so baboons, um specifically guinea baboons live in really interesting, uh, societies called tolerant multi-level societies They have core units consisting of one male and one to six females and they're young so far sounding familiar in terms of many things That we've heard of in the animal kingdom one male many females and the young Several of these core units all form together With some bachelor males that have formed their own party two or three parties team up as a gang and then all The offspring are fathered by male the male the main male representative. That is the core of the unit while bachelor males Hang out but are not sexually active So they have this big society formed of these smaller parties which are formed of smaller core units Confused that's fine. Just to understand there is a male with a bunch of females that are essentially They're his for a mating season They live adjacent to other similar groups and there are bachelor males hanging out in the area Hopefully that makes more sense It's good to be the top baboon male one of them In a yes, there would be a bunch in the area kind of saying hey, so but staying in their own spot, right? um, so What this study is looking at um from the german primate center the dpz, which i'm guessing is the the dutchland primate center I don't know But they uh wanted to look at the bonds between males Because they seem to have a really strong bond with one another With no rank hierarchy when these males form these friendships So why would they do this is does this help their mating success? Does this help their survival? Why do they have these male friendships when ultimately there is going to be one male that is in charge of an entire group of females? So how how is there a benefit here? This is something you don't often see in groups where you have one male and a bunch of So what they found was that There was no Benefit to male reproductive success in having male friends In fact that tracks Sure.  Yeah, right. Yeah, that tracks can relate Although males in their prime maintain some social contact with other males They adjusted their investment of social time According to their life history stage so that they could maximize reproductive success which meant paying attention to the females and their own babies So there's a bunch of theories Do these male friends provide emotional support? Do they help in defense of females against rivals if another core male is trying to come over? If you're friendly with some bachelor males, will they help protect the other females that you have? Difficult to say one thing we know for sure it does not make them more likely to have babies um, so One of the ideas that might be happening Is that this just allows them to hang out near these other animals which allows them Overall fitness success because they don't They're not off on the realm. They're not going to go die by themselves, right? So basically just being friendly with one another Allows them to be part of this larger Looser social group. They looked at the social behavior of 30 males determined the paternity of 50 infants over four years they looked at over 400 individuals in total starting in 2010 And They're Yeah, so there was there was no reproduce. There was no reproductive impact There was no evidence that males with friends had Were more attractive to females. It wasn't that they were getting paid more attention to So really just young and old bachelors have time on their hands They hang out with each other because they don't have females to hang out with So maybe they've got buddies and it keeps them from being in trouble like right Oh, here comes a predator, but now there are more of us or oh, we've got more access to food and yeah Yeah, so it really just feels like I feel like it's more like Females don't want to hang out with me for some reason. Hey, me too. Oh, okay Well, I just have something in common. So it's definitely a function of this strange Society shape that these baboons have is that allows for you know in in Gorillas, for example, a lot of the time you'll see bachelor troops So you'll see just a bunch of males that aren't paired off All together by themselves not near females not near successful males They just hang out and do that for a while until they can find a place to go to take over similar with a lot of hoof stock lots of You know giraffes and antelopes and stuff like that will do this too. They'll have their little bachelor groups But in this case because they have this larger more tolerant social structure They're they're allowed to hang on and because of that It allows them to have this very funny interaction where they have this friendship with other males and then all of a sudden they start to Become the big man on campus and they don't have time for their buddies anymore Yeah, so and the buddies are like, oh he never has time for us anymore He never picks the bugs out of my fur anymore. I really miss him. What's up with that guy? Uh, so next steps maybe when he gets older and he gets ousted Uh, next steps for this study is to look at whether male friendships Help to attract first females earlier or maintain status as a reproductive active male for longer So while as they haven't found statistical significance with the number of offspring or mating success Uh, these are the next measures they want to look at are Does hanging out with men and having friends and social interactions? Does that make them better at interacting with females? Does it help them to hold on to their leadership role for longer? So these are things that they can look at. I'm gonna say if it's anything like humans The answer to whether or not hanging out with their buddies makes them better At attracting women is gonna be a no No You know unless their friends are real allies really evolved individuals, you know involved baboon intuitive Yeah, it's hey. Hey, you know, I heard uh, you know a thing I heard about uh, what the ladies like Oh, what's that? Yeah, apparently they're into uh, uh, when you bathe Oh That's weird Who's ever who's ever heard of a thing like bathing before? Yeah.  Oh, yeah, what's that? Well, it's gonna take four of us Yeah, yeah or Or You could be a wolf spider Oh, yeah So in for wolf spiders Some of the secret of courtship is simply having the most complicated dance This is a study looking at male schizocosa stridulins spiders through a type of wolf spider And what makes a successful dance? So in this study, they deposited a female onto Filter paper of a soundproof chamber a few minutes before they introduced the male Then the team recorded ensuing courtship with the help of a camera and laser Vibrometer That that method is so cool. Yes. Yes. I want to I want to hear I want to see I want to feel By shining the laser down at a piece of reflective tape stuck onto the filter paper They were able to analyze Vibration driven changes in the frequency and other signatures of the reflected beam So that they could capture Every little bit of signal from a male as he danced What they found Was that the more complicated The more vim and vigor in the dance the more successful the performance These could last five minutes or up to 45 minutes Can you imagine watching a spider dance for 45 minutes? I mean I could I definitely could give me the popcorn I think I would be done But I also watched frog videos for several hours at a time. So I've got to do a modern dance concert or performance before which lasted I think for I feel like it lasted like eight hours. Yeah, I'd rather watch a spider. Yeah This sounds like a modern dance That's on point, which is much harder than it was like tap ballet. Yes. How do you lace up eight? Amazing Well, anyway They looked at 44 of these performances Nine of the males are awarded with copulation They also had the most complex courtship signals of the bunch And this was held across three different measures of complexity These measures were previously used yellow sign to characterize binary code Bird song and whale sounds There were no previous models to study The vibratory signals of arachnids and their associated complexity Yes, so they this is a very interesting way to To turn this just like wow that looks like a wild dance into actual like math and numbers and something measurable that you could then Do something with do a science with so They the so there's there's a couple theories as to why more complex signals would be the desired trait We ultimately don't know we're not in the female wolf spiders Glob of neurons that they have it's not quite a fully it's brain whatever brain the glomeruli Yes But one you know the the most common answer based on a lot of darwinian theories would be The more complex signal takes energy and time to produce and therefore That that is a signal that they are more fit They are more doing something harder and something that would actually call attention to predators and not dying Means you are the cream of the crop and you should be allowed to mate. That is the very Very baseline like a lot of the jungle if you can make a lot of noise in the jungle then not die then you're great This is peacocks.  They're so bored of it. They just see the same thing over and over and over and so anything novel Would be something that they would be interested in So, uh, this is yeah increasing complexity, especially through time Is as if the males are changing things to keep their interest the interest So so the females are like yawn store same thing over to what is he doing? This is a very weird Dance and sound he's I've never seen this before So it's you know, the spiders are going to be like mockingbirds and they're going to be making car alarm sounds and You notice thinking about actually was about the fashion industry And how when you see the runway you see the absolutely crazy fashion choices that designers make and you're just like What is this? It's I think it's hot. It's my my mom used to always say to me. I was like, what is with this new she was saying, you know They're just trying to be different like different is eye-catching different is interesting And so just try it is very smart, right? So that's exactly what this is, you know It's it's in humans. We do our own version of peacocking or spider dancing where we're trying to Stand out in the crowd. We're trying to do something different and daring And so maybe that's all this is is they're just trying to move around and look crazy enough to Get lucky somebody notice me Look what I can do Doesn't work out for a lot of kids. Look what I can do All right Moving on What can you do Justin? What stories do you have? There's a couple of stories that I still have to do to talk about by my computer slow There is a 3400 year old city Under the waters of Kurdistan that has been revealed Thanks to climate change At last change climate change is revealing all sorts of stuff There's all sorts of ice patches that are melting and there's artifacts coming out of the flows This one is thanks to a drought major reservoir. So that's water levels drop like a rock due to an extreme drought in iraq and the waters receded Enough to show that an ancient city was underneath It had a palace. There was massive fortifications with walls and towers a multi storied storage building And an extensive urban and industrial complex were attached to this thing as well So a team of german and Kurdish archaeologists raced in To document as much as they possibly could Of this emerging city before the waters returned and that was really their timeline The waters have exposed this city under a water reservoir And it's going to rain again And the reservoir is going to rise again so Here's your timeline now until When the thing fills up again So working under this pressure the researchers mapped out the city And then they actually started getting some pretty insane finds from their excavations. So Uh, there were these amazingly well preserved walls. These were several meters high Which is not bad because these are sun-dried mud bricks that have been underwater for about 40 years now Part of the good preservation is because the tops of these walls had collapsed and covered buildings And there was like this earthquake that happened 3 000 years ago that caused an earthquake for the tops of these buildings of all so that you have these You know these buildings underwater covered by other Structures other other earth The most amazing thing that they found there were ceramic vessels with over 100 Uniform tablets. These are sort of hieroglyphic language tablets These date to the late middle of syrian period shortly after the earthquake. So that's about 1350 bc So you've got written texts over 3 000 years old written hard clay and they were enveloped In a soft clay because apparently that's how you used to send letters You take your hard clay thing that you baked in the sun Then you take soft clay around it to hide what it said And then you'd hand it to the postman or whoever who would deliver And then whoever got it would like peel off all the soft clay to see the letter beneath So they got a hundred of these And then those obviously weren't writing on paper yet They didn't have the paper at least not at least not here in uh in in kyrgyzstan So so then these are in these vessels they got stored in there Then they were in a building that then got buried by a wall that then was under water for four years So it's amazing that they're now in the hands of archaeologists The rising waters have returned The excavated buildings They were they were complete and they were covered with uh this sort of tight fitting plastics They poured gravel on top of that to hold it down And they're now waiting for you know probably not to Too far off in the future time when they're able to get back to the site and do some more digging But they've got hundreds of these tablets that they can now decipher and they're they're likely They're likely very domestic communications Which is is probably going to give a very good Indication of daily life Because these are sort of randomly taken from households And storage areas so they might be they might be business transactions about goods coming in and out They could be interpersonal communications. It's gonna be really fascinating to see what the results of these are And then that'll be wonderful amazing. Thanks for that story Yeah halfway around the the world A network of lost ancient cities in the amazon was discovered by flying lasers this is This is entire cities and networks of cities Under centuries of wild growth hidden by hidden by beneath thick tree canopies in the forests of bolivia These cities built between 500 and 1400 ad Had elaborate intricate structures unlike anything that they've discovered in the amazon today These are five meter high terraces They say it's covering 22 hectares. I have no idea where the hectare is But apparently according to this is equivalent to 30 football pitches Don't know what a football pitch is but if it's anything like a football field Soccer like 30 soccer fields There was also 21 meter tall conical pyramids that were discovered So this is how also how intense the the forest canopy is to hide these things These are extremely difficult areas to access for an archaeological survey by foot This is this is the machete all day long And then you've gone 10 yards into this forest kind of it So they flew lidar detectors, which is basically laser Stuff that shoots through all ignores all of the foliage and shows the hard structures beneath And it showed this amazing intricate There's they found vast networks of reservoirs causeways checkpoints spanning several kilometers And this is let me find it 600 miles Of canals along raised causeways connecting sites to reservoirs and lakes This is this is a much more intricate water delivery system than california currently has Just really amazing research is published in the journal nature The The lidar technology that places in the sky able to peer through the tropical forest canopy and examine the sites Found in the savannah forest in the south amazon. This is an area This is an area at the same time that they say the cities were being built in these networks and all this Water infrastructure was being built the seasonally flooded amazon savannas were being transformed into productive agriculture land In a in a region that is roughly the size of 90 road islands Is we americans will put it or or as the british would say one jolly old england worth of territory dedicated to agriculture in this map So yeah co-author mark robinson university of exeter adds our results put to rest arguments that western amazonia was sparsely populated in pre-hispanic times. Absolutely. It sounds actually like one of the The biggest archaeology excuse me biggest agricultural sites on the planet at that time So how old is this again? This is uh From 500 to about 1500 AD okay, it's when it was when it was Operating so yeah about about 1500 years old Is when it began Yeah, I was just trying to place it in terms of like roman aqueducts and and other You know technology like you're making fun of california right now, but in ancient times We've been we've been pumping water for a while and the romans get all of the get all of the the glory for their For their water systems the other things that they sort of point out in this That the the cities and the way that they were designed constructed and managed was very much with the the natural The natural landscape in mind so they employed there was there was sustainable subsistence strategies there was conserving nature areas within the living areas Of the people who are living in those urban landscapes So that you you know, there was no point anywhere in how they designed their city Where you were completely isolated from access to nature, which is what you used for subsistence Is that very different than Then you know the current modern city design Let's keep nature completely out of the city Despite still relying on it entirely for our subsistence Right, we'll bring it in Bring it in part of what it's part of who we are. Yeah, it's all of it That's so cool And I love also the fact that it probably allowed Much larger populations to survive than we previously considered These kinds of findings make you start thinking so much more deeply The wear and the win and the how and And It's getting late, isn't it? Hey Blair, when do you exercise like what time of day at 5 15 in the morning? 5 15 in the morning. Okay, uh, Justin, do you exercise? Why Just getting out of bed It's that's about all the heavy lifting i'm gonna do Mm-hmm. Yeah, I used to when I was young My exercise was all at night because it was after had to be after school So it was like evening 5 to 8 p.m. Kind of exercise time college was that a lot also It was like the only time in the evening when I could finally make it happen because I'm not a morning person unlike Blair But there is this question about the ideal exercise time of day Is there a best time of day to exercise? Well, according to a new study in frontiers in physiology researchers took a group of Uh, what did they have they? How hard their sample size go? I just looked at their sample size. They took a group that wasn't as big as I think it should have been As is usually the case with human studies Exactly. They started with a total of 140 women and 63 men from Sarasota Springs, New York who responded through emails flyers and local newspapers to advertisements regarding their exercise study Ended up with 59 women and 30 men being screened and finding 30 females and 26 males Who ended up being eligible for participation in this particular study in which? They split the groups in half and they had half the group do morning Workouts and half the group do night time workouts all the workouts were assigned and they were exactly the same All of the people had to be a fairly fit level of baseline fitness so that it wasn't like oh We've got a mix of different fitness levels. It was just let's get that control factor taken care of already and 12 weeks later they had the results of the study what they found is that While both times are good exercises good regardless Morning Waiting for the study. It's like turns out exercise actually bad for you. You should yeah, that hasn't come out Yeah, that's not the one that we're talking about here. Nope, but I love that they still point out every time Any level of exercise is better than not please just get off the couch Pretty much or even if you're on your couch lift your feet if you can do something a couple ankle lifts if you can Yes, move your ankles roll your wrists Stretch stretch morning exercise reduced abdominal fat and blood pressure in women And in the evenings the women who worked in worked out in the evenings had enhanced Muscular performance, but didn't have the same reductions in blood pressure or abdominal fat. So morning is good for Bellies and blood Evenings is good for the muscles according to this study in the men evening exercise increased fat oxidation and reduced systolic blood pressure and fatigue and so uh in this also when uh, there is a particular aspect of benefit to to mood The evening exercise didn't have the same benefit to mood that morning exercise does Well, I guess that makes sense because you go to bed right after You get to do your muscle recovery. So the muscles that you yeah, so the physiology of this might make it all Yeah, except this wasn't seen in men This was not the same. It wasn't the same result in men. So women had this split result Morning morning exercise had a different result than evening men They just found that this evening exercise increased fat fat oxidase oxidation increased systolic blood pressure and Or reduced it and reduced fatigue so The the key to this study is that there were a lot of factors that they couldn't control and that they didn't control and they they know that and it wasn't A really big study So we have a very limited sample size which could also impact the results because you also have Women's menstrual cycles and there were also Perry and post money menopausal women in the study as well You know what I'm gonna ask. Yeah. Yeah. So there's a lot of stuff in there, especially on the the women's side for for that um And there are could be a lot of things to explain the results But what they suggest is that this kind this result could be used to To optimize your individual exercise health benefits. So if you're looking for Reduced blood pressure then, you know or exercise Yeah, or or in the evening for uh for men Or the afternoon and so yeah, so exercise it's good, but The exact time of day might be different for different people and for different reasons And of course, um, I read this story to brian last night and as soon as I was done reading it He goes so what does that mean for me because I work nights. I was like, I don't know It's all messed up with that circadian rhythm. Yeah, it's because who knows if it's that Or if it's about when you know When you're eating out or when you're eating or with it. Yeah, I don't I don't know I don't know but he also like this is also like a whole thing anyway, but like a whole separate thing But like he has a job That is not sit arounding, right Right. So so like there's a like if you have a job where you're on your feet all day You probably don't need to go to the gym to get the cardio What's it stuff happening if you have a job where you sit all day long You probably really need to do one of the treadmill thing one of the two morning or evening Or get one at your desk, I don't understand how come people don't have like Like uh in place unicycle that they can type at. Oh, yeah There's something you're gonna have to sit there all day Yeah, oh, but what about what about what happens when you take antibiotics?  Or is it the antibiotic? Exactly. Well, some researchers just published a study in the journal behavioral processes in which they weren't looking at people Unfortunately, but they decided to look at what happens with gut bacteria In mice after 10 days of antibiotics And so they believed that an animal's collection of gut bacteria It's microbiome would affect digestive processes and muscle function as well as motivation for various behaviors including exercise and The study reinforces their hypothesis So they found uh in their groups of mice they separated them out They one group of mice was bred for high levels of running activity So they were very active mice and some mice were not so they're a little like more Normal sedentary mice Neither had any signs of sickness. So they were all very healthy And then they were given the antibiotic treatment again. No signs of sickness. They seemed all to be fine The athletic mice suddenly stopped well, they didn't stop running But they reduced their activity in the running wheel by 21 percent Just out of nowhere the high runner mice didn't recover They're running behavior for 12 days after the antibiotic treatment was given So there was a sig and in in mice lifetime. That's like two months because Their metabolism is so much faster But the way that they think about this is that a casual exerciser And Additionally the behavior of the normal mice wasn't affected as much during either treatment So normal mice they did reduce their activity a little bit But not to the extent that the athlete mice did the runner mice. And so What they think this implies is that normal People going about their lives if you don't consider yourself an athlete You're probably not going to be affected too much by antibiotics and it the effect on your microbiome But they suggest that potentially world-class athletes might have much larger setbacks from A course of antibiotics for an infection that could really affect their ability to to compete and perform But we don't know because we haven't looked at it in people. It's just in mice Yeah, that makes sense of the difference between competing elite athletes If you're talking two three percent difference even like that it becomes significant whereas You know the difference of three percent and two couch potatoes Is still two couch potatoes It's how it's gonna it's how it's gonna break down because I'm trying to say it's like volume Volume and percentage Things are relatable. Yeah, and in this what they want to do moving forward is pretty much Figure out what the what the metabolic signals are so the microbes are in there What are they doing? What are they breaking down? What metabolites are getting sent into the bloodstream or what nutrients are not making it into the bloodstream? Because the microbes are dead and not in there Uh, you know what aspects Are there and is there the possibility of pinpointing specific bacteria for increasing athletic performance and this is not specifically to enhance athletic performance of athletes Which you would think might be interesting they're suggesting enhancing uh performance of for people who Can't move or if there there are risk factors of you know If you don't exercise risk factors for mental health depression physical health all sorts of other things Um, but if people who are unable to exercise as much But you can get benefits of good bacteria Yeah Yeah That that respiratory rate though of the pro athletes from like I think the first story tonight. Yeah, the 200 200 right leaders to minute. Yeah in that you're also talking about a transport of nutrients. That's going to be Yeah And so and so that that not having the conversion rates taking place in the gut That you usually rely on to feed that transport system to feed muscles and feed energy levels and all this stuff That's going on. Yeah, that can be severely impactful. I still question how much it will affect those Who who are not How it would like like this study said, you know, not much of a difference in people who aren't exercising a lot But I'm not sure that that's the best route to But what I so what it at what it, you know, so for there's the extremes, right? So if you have a bell curve or distribution, then you have people who are The average it's not going to change or affect much but the people on either end Any changes could be very significant to their to their performance So this this also reminds me of another story which I didn't bring tonight So I will I will mention very briefly, but it's related to this It's that in a in a survey of I listed up 551 primary care physician clinicians With a bunch of hypothetical scenarios of when they would or would not administer antibiotics 71 of them In the survey indicated they would prescribe antibiotics to someone Where they have bacteria present in their urine, but there are no symptoms to suggest an infection So 71 of these respondents would give antibiotics To asymptomatic individuals. So this is it's just first line of defense Just kill the bacteria even though that the That is a counter indication. It's like it's not counter it is against the recommendation Of when to prescribe antibiotics not just because of antibiotic resistant bacteria and that's that's its own huge Huge kind of like sort of damocles over us for the future I don't know what's going to happen when our antibiotics don't work anymore, but Aside from that This could have other impacts on on someone's body if you're prescribing antibiotics when they have an infection But there's no bad symptoms. You could put them on antibiotics just in case and cause All sorts of other problems Mm-hmm. We don't want to cause more problems. We want to cause fewer problems. Yes. Yeah, and we want to Give you as many directions to find your answers as possible here on this week in science Have we made it To the end I think we did I think that was all of the stories that I had to talk about anyway I think that's all my stories for tonight too I have what oh, no, I'm kidding. That's it. Oh Blair You always oh they sequence the genome of people in Pompeii They did Well, they did you should look that one up. Yeah, look it up All right, thank you everyone for listening. We hope that you enjoyed the show Let's give some shout outs to fada. Thank you so much for helping with show notes show descriptions over on youtube social media Very helpful over there gourd are and lore others. Thank you for manning the chat rooms and Being there to make sure everything flows nicely and people are kind to each other Identity four. Thank you for recording the show and rachel. Thank you for editing and for your assistance And to our patreon sponsors Thank you For all of your support. Thank you too. 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It says the scientist is in i'm gonna sell my advice Show them how to stop the robots with a simple device I'll reverse all the warming with a wave of my hand And all it'll cost you is a couple of grand This week 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 yet understand Your philosophies Oh It's the aftershock erotic aftershock Bow bow bow bow bow bow Bow bow bow bow bow bow bow Bow bow bow bow bow bow bow bow bow bow bow bow bow Ooh noodles got twist mail from zazzle I hope you'd like it That's awesome Whoa, oh For a second, I didn't know what was going on and then I realized it's aftershock So the desk is coming down so Blair can sit. I sit She sits Hello science fans We lost a grouchy gamer and a kevin reared in earlier We gained a derrick schmitt We've got a noodles And yeah, I did it before it's me. It's me who has the the window Noise problem windows windows was making it's never done that before I thought I had them turned off because I don't like those noises I don't understand these computer things. Whoa, I don't need foregot inspired and started exercising. Yes nighttime exercising decreased that Blood pressure systolic BP Ah How's it going Blair? Pretty good Yeah, yeah, how about you? It's pretty good Pretty good. Yeah, it's good. My dad is home. Yay. Yeah Not very happy He's home and healing. It's good. Kira is still here. There you are 12 53 a.m I'm yawning here and it's not even 10 o'clock here yet. I'm like Pacific time. It's it's rough I created an earthquake Oh, man. Oh, yeah, I think Justin has left to go to a party Well, I'm sure he will be leaving to go to a party or something. He may I don't know. He's staying at he said he's Had an Airbnb Justin is Yeah Derek Schmidt. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Well, my dad said that he was feeling better except for the pain Yes It sounds like you leave you leave the hospital and they take away the the big painkillers, but yeah, it's great. So We hope hope dad will continue with all the healing so He can give everyone good trouble We're a lot longer good Yeah that's every once in a while Good news Take it when we get it, right Little bits of good news. Yes, definitely Your dad's probably sleeping right now or I'd say hi Blair's dad Oh, yeah, probably They usually watch the beginning of the show. Yeah Don't always make it to the end No Oh fada, you're gonna stay up for strange new worlds, huh? I hear that's a good new series enjoy Why are you yawning? Oh, oh because I got up early this morning so I could watch the Cavley awards announcement uh and the Cavley awards are uh The Cavley Institute is A Norwegian Institute and so the awards were in Norway time and so they started at six o'clock this morning So I woke up. I woke up. You were probably exercising when I woke up this morning Blair That's true My alarm goes off at five oh two and five oh seven ouch I am running by some time between five fifteen and five thirty I have to put in my contacts brush my teeth Oh my god, put on running clothes See look at me. I'm I'm yawning because I'm like Leash up Sadie who's not interested five thirty and then rolled over in bed and turned my iphone my not my iphone my android on Watch it off my phone Oh, dad's awake Dad's awake. Hi dad. Hi mom. Hi dad. Basterich Mom Basterich is probably asleep. Yeah She wakes up very early I don't like that mom mom Basterich is awake They're like we're watching you we see you well it is summer break for my mom so Oh, it's time to go crazy then. Yeah, she can stand late She's staying up late. Yeah, goodness. Yeah I know I go to bed at nine o'clock on normal nights on non-twisting I keep you up. This is your your one time shifted night. Yeah Oh, yeah, Derek Schmidt. What is very early to me? Good question Well before I got this job that I have now anything before six o'clock was insane early But uh, my my mom still beats me sometimes She will wake up at like 4 30 sometimes and she just some people need less sleep and some people just I am Yeah, I I am usually asleep within five minutes of my head hitting the pillow And I do not wake up if I wake up during the night I'm wrecked the next day But uh, but yeah, my mom somebody who just like never She often does not sleep through the night. She wakes up a lot. That's always been her deal She often sleeps less than seven hours And so she'll wake up at 4 4 30 and just be up I want to know if your mom has one of the early bird chronotypes Oh, probably so I I knew a guy who who had this, uh, whatever their chronotype is where he Like would never sleep more than four hours a night And this is this is a guy who went to school Time Yeah raising kids like he was do and and then would like Go hit the gym and hit like and do like the long-distance bike riding stuff Yeah, one of my professors was like that. He got four hours a night I go for a brisk walk in the morning and then uh, I have to take a nap I go see and naps naps and me do not get along. I cannot nap a nap will ruin my day I can't help but nap anymore. I used to never but now it's like oh, it's part of my daily routine I need I need a nap Like middle of the day Well, you're probably getting woken up in the middle of the night also. I'm not a sound sleeper. This is also true Yes Yeah, I so Bridal often nap from like nine to ten and then he'll go to work so, uh, he I mostly don't notice when he leaves Everyone's all be like, oh, yeah, I remember when you left but Yeah We fall asleep together at nine o'clock and then I wake up in the morning alone That's it so It's amazing. He can take a nap like that. Oh, yeah We should stop talking about all of this sleep because uh, I am in a different time zone than I usually inhabit and I am now Ready for bed at a reasonable hour.  This is way past. This is when I was waking up I would wake up to do the show When I was there and now that I'm here, it's past my bedtime and I I really need to go to bed Justin, I just think you're confused This is very confusing This is very late everything Oh, but as everybody in the chat is saying Lady de paul twist has me up past my bedtime to worth it That's right. Oh, it's worth it Derek. Yeah So, Justin, are you around in the u.s. For one more week or about that? Yeah. Yeah, okay So will you be able to make the show next? Oh, yeah, it should not be a problem Okay. Yeah, but uh, it will be at a different location So as we discovered there's a slight delay in the wi-fi here It could get better or much worse next week. I don't know Yeah, I think it's gotten better over those over the show. I'm at the mercy of the Whatever the the wi-fi level That has been supplied wi-fi mercy Which is also kind of weird because I'm 6,000 miles closer than I usually Any something to do with proximity would be involved but nothing nothing to do with proximity Oh my goodness, that's funny. Oh, what was I thinking? He didn't stay it. So I didn't and I don't know I know. Oh Uh I got an email from Uh Eugenie Eugenie Scott Who is uh With the National Center for Science Education National Center for Science Education. She's not there anymore, but used to run that and uh, she is part of organizing sceptical con, which is this skeptical We went there once we did. Yeah, we did we did a live show there. I think it was gree blaire. Yeah. It was yeah Um, which means it was more than a decade ago. You're welcome A while ago, uh, this will take place on the weekend of july 16th to 17th. Um, and she said it will be The internet based and she wanted to know if twist would be interested in exhibiting it at sceptical this year Absolutely. Um So we'd put a thing I'm always down for that We could maybe make a short video every 10 years website. I don't know what that means. I think it's just online I don't know if we would have to be in it, but we would get Uh, a free registration to the conference. Cool. Yeah Yeah, that would be cool. I would love to attend, but but also like I Like there's there's always a ton of things in the venue of Sorting out what is rational useful thought and the insane nonsense that are popular popular culture Propagates. Yeah, I feel like I I'm ready to do Uh, a rant or presentation About about the entire ancient aliens Thing about the use of archaeology as propaganda versus as a fact checker for things Yeah, that'd be cool I would love to do One of my favorite things I would love really love to do Is do a suspension of all doubt when it comes to UFOs And analyze it as if All of the witness accounts that have been thrown out there into the and through the public Were were correct in what that would have to then mean That would that would it was it would be Uh suspending doubt for the flow of the information coming in But then apply a skeptical reasoning to what that would then have to mean just and that one's one of my favorites because Every almost every single accounting of what an alien looks like when people have had a a close encounter in been Is a hominin it's Have you have you seen the uh like hominin? Have you seen the opening for this last episode of saturday night live? Yeah, I've seen I've seen those Really really funny. I think it's the only funny skit in the entire episode, but That's usually how they like open really good one and then it's this is like a downhill slope for the rest of the But that's also like you know an important thing like the the the accounts of probing Sound like like wow, how why would they come halfway across the galaxy or whatever to yeah, they have like probe human like essentially Yeah, they have like a warp technology, but they can't scan your internal organs without sticking something up Your rear end, but again if you if you suspend all doubt and accept that then you can say Oh, well, they needed a sample of the microbiome, which is something you would want for any species Yeah, of course you'd have to probe pretty far Well, you need a roto router, right? because you The the the microbiome is gut like is different at different sections, right? So like The the microbiome in the stomach is a different group of bacteria Yeah, but there's enough evidence to think in the colon that you could large versus the small intestine I don't know if it would all be right But the small intestine and the large intestine are definitely going to give you my conclusion real quick Because if they're hominins and they look like humans they evolved on planet earth And wherever they you know people like oh all throughout history They show up and have abducted people even the ancient greeks have reports of the They're mulled in so their technology never changes through time They look human and they're getting gut samples. They're future microbiologists After antibiotics or some disease is wiped out the microbiome and they need to go get the paleo Microbiome to replenish So that's just your humans, but then you have to think what about all the Diet is just a fad. What about all the paradoxes of going back and And interacting with the past well If you went back and interacted with the people of pompeh It'd be no problem because you know what's going to happen now. You're just dealing Dr. Who story No, is that dr. Who is that? No, that's loki. Loki's like does all this crazy stuff where he's like showing up in like I don't want to say he goes to pompeh and dr. Who too, right? No, he they they do that too But and in fact it becomes the 12th doctor is one of the people they interact with the actor They bring back to do the 12th doctor, but this doesn't matter. My the point is If they're from the future and they're willing to like interact a little haphazardly with people of our time It means something really bad is going to happen and create a massive bottleneck and none of us are going to be included on the other end of it There's also like if you really if you really take if you take anything Suspend all doubt and then apply a skeptical analysis to it. You can come up with a result that's very different than Then the unskeptical I approach anyway, those would be fun things to do, but I gotta go It would be fun. I'm gonna say good night Blair. You gotta go. Oh, okay Good night Blair. Say good night, Justin. Good night, Justin Good Good night, everyone Thank you for another great show. Glad to see you safe and sound here in the u.s. Justin We'll see you again next week everyone Stay safe Stay healthy and stay curious. We do hope that you will come back again Bonne