Hello, everyone, as my microphone slowly descends. Okay, this is This Week in Science. This is the YouTube version. So this is our unedited peek behind the scenes. If you listen to us as a podcast, you'll get this bit and some other bits edited out. So, you know, just so you know where you are and what you're up to. We are gonna get started in just a second. We are down to Kiki, but that's okay. Justin and I can do it. We're gonna try. It won't be as good, but we're still gonna give you some science. It's just different. It's a different flavor this week without the good stuff. It's a very different show. That's right. Okay, so I'm just making sure I have everything. I have to get the thing out. Kiki does so many things. Okay. You ready, Justin? Here we go. I'm gonna huff and puff into this. Okay, great. This is Twist. This week in science, episode number 932, recorded on Wednesday, June 28th, 2023. Eat two pies for science. Hi, everyone. I'm Blair Basterich. I am here today with Justin Jackson.  But first. Disclaimer, disclaimer, disclaimer. Over five million studies are published each year now. Most cost multiple thousands of dollars to publish, paid for by the researchers or their institutions. The publication of scientific papers has become a multi-billion dollar a year business where the focus of the industry is speed and volume of papers rushed through an often limited peer review process. There are more scientific journals than ever before, which is to be expected, because we're in the present and should always be more things, more people. What is not to be expected though, is the increase of around 30% of the number of journals in the last 10 years. While the number of highly specialized publications is greater, the number of papers per publication is also higher. Meanwhile, the number of pages per paper is at an all-time low. A lot of what is being published may not need to be. As publication is considered necessary for career advancement, there is often no time to waste for a good subject, hypothesis or design of experiment before jumping into the publication waters. It is happening so often that the waters are getting muddy. Poorly designed experiments, lackluster research, partially published data, unrelated citations and a wholehearted disrespect for the craft of science. Most of it has very little impact. Scientists regularly disregard bad studies usually by disregarding a publisher's entire array of publications based on past poor performance. But the fiction age of scientific publishing is here. And even the once reliable publications are now starting to get muddy. Holding the line between what is science and what is clearly career or vanity publishing are a group of people who hold science to a higher standard than any other publication. People who demand more from science. The listeners of This Week in Science coming up next. One place to go to find a good science to you Blair. And a good science to you Justin. Welcome everyone to This Week in Science. We are down to Dr. Kiki this week, but never fear. We have plenty of science to go around. On this week's show we have tons of science news. I have stories about baby talking dolphins. I have drunk hummingbirds. I have elephant testicles and what it has to do with cancer resistance. It's a whole thing. What do you have Justin? Well, I also have some stories. Well, there's a new robot on the block that we're going to talk about. Yeah. Then there's a study from Oxford that found nothing. And it was a very good study too. There's also, this is a week when I thought, hey, I'll bring three stories instead of the usual four. Cause this one is kind of long. This is the hominin cannibal story that if you follow any kind of science news publication thing, this has already been talked about and oh, the ancient hominins are eating each other. Yeah, maybe. So Justin has the hot take for us this week. I got the hot take. I have an alternate possibility. Good. And then because there's no Kiki and basically the disclaimer, a couple of people in the chat room already were like, oh yeah, the papers these days, oh these kids these days, they don't know how to write papers. I have a couple of examples of things I've covered in the last month that I might bring up to talk about. When a science study shouldn't have published, you can put it in the no result journal that I gotta start the no result journal at some point. There's gotta be a place where if you just, you did your study, you put it all together, you did a really nice design and you ran through it and he's nothing impactful at all from your findings. Yeah, you can still get your PhD, you can still, yeah, absolutely. Here we looked into this, we found nothing which is a fantastic finding cause you found a result. But they always try to be like, oh, well this could mean something that's not there and it's really annoying. Anyway, so I might bring some of that to fill out the show. Nice. Okay, well, as we jump into the show here, we wanna remind you that subscribing to Twists as a podcast on your favorite podcast platform is super helpful. You can do that anywhere where podcasts are sold is the wrong word, but you know, offered freely. You can also do it on YouTube or Facebook or wherever you find us, just subscribe and encourage your friends to subscribe as well. So, would you like to start or should I start, Justin, what do you think? Well, I can start, I don't have a rundown. Oh, here we go. I'll start with the null result. Okay. This is, okay, so this is, oh, gosh, where is this? Wait. Oh yeah, so there's what? Over five million studies a year I was talking about being published, finding something worth publishing about, even if it's junk, even if it's unrelated to what they study. For some reason they have to publish. Meanwhile, researchers of Oxford, which is the finest university in all of Oxfordshire right here, published a study about nothing that found nothing and still made more of a contribution than most. The question they asked, when don't animals first appear in the history of the earth? And why is that? So, if we go by the genetic clock, the molecular clock within us, we can sort of trace back in time by the rate of mutations when the first animals should have emerged. And that number puts it right around 800 million-ish years ago. The fossil record dates back just 570 something million years ago, the time of the Cambrian explosion. Well, all of a sudden, everywhere, animals were getting stuck in rocks. The first discovery of Cambrian fossils were trilobites. They were discovered in 1698, described by Edward Ludd, Ludd Curator of the Ashmolean Oxford Museum, which, by the way, finest museum in all of Oxfordshire.  Darwin did not like this. I mean, of course, he was probably the first one, and at the time, the only person to have a problem with it, because evolution reasons, right? It didn't fit the slow modifications over time picture to have nothing, and then so much, and so many, and a diversification. So Darwin would have expected animal forms before trilobites. And since then, a lot of scientists who have learned about evolution have looked back at the record of animals and wondered the same thing. But it doesn't some of that have to do with just how we see fossils, and the fact that you might not see fossils that long ago because the conditions were different? Yes, yes, spoiler, that's the rest of the story. Sorry. Well, but okay, but still, but still 574 million years ago, the oldest fossil, 800 million years, the clock says there should be animals. That's a big span of time to find nothing at all. There should be a couple odd stragglers that got stuck in some mud pit somewhere, got covered by sand, however it happens. Should be something, should be some evidence in between. Okay, so first, to investigate this, a team of researchers led by Dr. Ross Anderson from the University of Oxford's Department of Earth Sciences traveled back in time for the answer. This is a quote from Dr. Anderson. The first animals presumably lacked mineral-based shells or skeletons, and would have required exceptional conditions to be fossilized. Yeah, too squishy. Yeah, too, that's it. You nailed it. Certain Cambrian mudstone deposits demonstrate exceptional preservation, even of soft and fragile animal tissues. We reasoned that if these conditions, known as Bergus shale type, BST, BST preservation, also occurred in the Neoportozoic rocks, that's the older times, then a lack of fossils would suggest a real absence of animals at that time. Okay, so to investigate this, research team applied a bunch of science, analytical techniques on samples of Cambrian mudstone deposits from 19 sites. Do you compare those hosting BST fossils with those preserving only mineral-based skeletal tritle bites and that sort of thing? They used the energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy, x-ray diffraction carried out at the University Oxford's Department of Earth Sciences and Materials, the finest earth science and materials department in all of Oxfordshire. The analysis found that fossils with exceptional BST-type preservation were particularly enriched in an antibacterial clay, called Bertherium Rean, something like this. Samples with a composition of at least 20% Bertherium yielded BST fossils in around 90% of the cases. So without leaving the lab, they're now searching the world for a soil type. They also found another one that would work in the lab, another antibacterial clay, Kaolinite, which appeared directly to bind with decaying tissues at an early stage, therefore forming a protective sort of halo around the fossil. Okay, so then they know, without leaving the lab, they know where in the world they want to look. They looked at samples from fossil rich age mudstone deposits. The analysis revealed that most did not have the compositions necessary for this BST-type preservation. However, three deposits, one in Canada, one in Russia, and one in Norway had almost identical compositions to the BST rocks from the Cambrian period. Perfect. So they went and they got samples of these three deposits, and none of the samples from these three deposits contained animal fossils, even though conditions were most favorable for their preservation, a null result. But a null result with a good experiment is still a good result. Dr. Anderson concludes, this provides the first evidence of absence and supports the view that animals had not evolved by the early Neoprotizoic era, contrary to some molecular clock estimates. Now, not super contrary, as these soil candidates were all very old. The most recent being the Svalbard formation in Norway, which is estimated to be 789 million years old. So kind of right up to the molecular clock. So this suggests a possible maximum age currently for the origin of animals around 789 million years, but the group intends to search for progressively younger Neoprotizoic deposits with conditions for preservation to see if they can find, not just when they weren't there, but when they actually started to show up. Right, because maybe it wasn't 800, maybe it wasn't 700 and whatever it was, maybe it was 600. 600, 8, 6, 32, it could be there's a bunch of numbers. There's a lot of millions of years in between. You gotta find the little, the moment, right? Which also like, were they widespread enough that no matter where you find the BST, if it's not there, they weren't anywhere? Correct, correct. Because these are also very far north and you figure. Well, and if you're talking about, 800 million years ago versus 500 something million years ago, it could take a couple hundred million years for life, for animals to disperse across the entire world. So unless you search every single deposit of BST throughout the entire world, if you're looking right up to that 800 million marker, you'd have to find the one population that popped up. That's hard to do. It's tough, it's tough. And we had bacterial life already going on. It's just this more complex, squishy multicellular life that's missing. Right. Possibly we could- What you get is squishy. It's squishy. What if the bacteria ate it all? So this is why they were only looking in antibacterial clay. Right, right, right. Which is like also like, you're right, it has to fall into the right mud in the right place and it has to be something to fall in there in the first place. Right. And then the samples that they go through. Yeah. Yeah, it's not easy. They didn't pick like the easy project. Well, they got nothing, so. But that's a good result. Yeah. Oh my goodness. Which you got Blair. Justin, do you have a hummingbird feeder? Not currently, no. Do you have hummingbirds where you are? Actually, I don't think I've seen one, no. Okay. Well, we have them here in California as you may have noticed in your previous exploits in this area of the world. But UC Berkeley wanted to look at if hummingbirds liked to get drunk. It's part of a larger set of studies about consumption of ethanol or alcohol in the animal kingdom. And the reason that they looked at hummingbirds in particular is that they're a prime candidate. So first of all, the backyard feeder that we fill with sugar water, it actually is a natural kind of attractant to yeast. Yeast settles in there, turns some of the sugar into alcohol. So if you leave the same sugar water out there for several days, it can ferment. Similarly, nectar filled flowers, also sugary liquid, also a great place for yeast. They can also have bacteria come in that metabolize sugar and produce ethanol. So naturally the places that hummingbirds are going to eat could be the bar, basically. So the question was from UC Berkeley, how much alcohol do hummingbirds consume? Are they attracted to alcohol? Are they repelled by it? And this is important because hummingbirds, they eat about 80% of their body mass a day in nectar. So something that's only slightly alcoholic. If you're drinking 80% of your body weight of it, that could actually be a pretty large impact. So they started by experimenting on hummingbeders. They're kind of like hummingbeders, right? They're beating their wings really fast. Hummingbirds that visit the feeders outside their office windows at UC Berkeley. So they started by looking at the sugar water that we put out that's artificial. To find out whether alcohol in the sugar water was a turn off or a turn on or it didn't matter. They had three test subjects. They were all Anna's hummingbirds and they were year round residents of the Bay Area. So they could track them, they kept coming. Hummingbirds would happily sit from sugar water with up to 1% alcohol by volume, just as attractive to plain sugar water. But if you upped it to 2% alcohol by volume, they would only drink half as much. They did not drink it at all. They just drank. This is another limit. Yes. So they're consuming the same total amount of ethanol because they're drinking half as much and it's double the concentration. So they're reducing volume. So they're getting like as buzzed, which is probably not buzzed at all. But basically they're adjusting their intake based on the ethanol kind of contents. So in the real world, they posit that it's not over approximately 1.5% because that seemed to be, they didn't have a problem at all with the 1%. They did have a problem with 2%. So somewhere in the middle there is where things are probably topping off in the natural world. When they tested the alcohol level in sugar water that had sat in the feeder for two weeks, it was only about 0.05%. So you don't need to worry about hurting the hummingbirds with your feeder. Change it out every couple of weeks, you're probably fine. So 0.05% doesn't sound like much, but again, if they're drinking 80% of their body weight a day, that does accumulate. Yeah, you gotta test the birds. See if they can fly in a straight line. They think that because they burn, because they metabolize everything so quickly that they burn the alcohol really quickly too as well as the sugars. So they don't think that they're getting drunk at all. Okay. But who knows? That's fine. Well, the thing is it's also like it's everything's moving through their system. Like I don't think that exercising while drinking keeps you from getting drunk. Because this is the thing I kept thinking is that hummingbirds, it's not like they just sit there and perch and then eat from the feeder. They're in like this constant flight mode when they're zipping around. So it doesn't keep you from getting drunk, but it does allow you to process the alcohol quicker. So you can get sober faster if you're moving around because you're metabolizing. So that is something to consider. The next step of this study is to measure how much ethanol is naturally found in flower nectar to determine how frequently it's being consumed by birds. And if there's anything going on with that. And again, as I mentioned, this is part of a larger study looking at animals in general and their consumption of ethanol or alcohol. So this kind of folds into that. And they want to experiment on old world sun birds and honey eaters from Australia next. So that's, they occupy the nectar sipping niche that hummingbirds have in America, just in Australia. So they're like, Australian hummingbirds. Their study is going to be, if you're going to do any research on this project, I suggest you get in now. Because it sounds like they're starting with nectar feeding birds. You don't want to be part of this study when they get to bears. Right. Drunk bears, I don't think. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, you're not poisoning the hummingbirds in your backyard, but you might be giving them a little buzz and that's okay. That's why they keep coming back? Yeah. Maybe. All right. What do you got now, Justin? Oh, okay. So this one is Boston Dynamics Robot Dog. Gets a lot of press for being the scariest possible use of robotics ever. Robot dog that induces feelings of empathy from humans when kicked, but then can't be kicked over, showing it has an unstoppable nightmare potential once it gets into the wrong hands, which it probably already has. That was probably yesterday. It's already in the wrong hands. But there's a new robot in town. Caltech Center for Autonomous Systems and Technologies has developed a robot of its own. It can roll on four wheels, turn its wheels into rotors and fly like a drone, stand on two wheels like a meek rat, meerkat, to peer over obstacles. It can walk by using its wheels like feet and it can use two rotors to help it roll up steep slopes on two wheels, tumble and more. It can go anywhere. And the robot has been equipped with autonomous AI capabilities and can make decisions for itself about how best to navigate through complex environments. The robot has been real world tested outdoors and has navigated the terrain of Caltech's campus. They named the robot M4 because apparently engineering students lack creativity. M4 is short for Multimodal Mobility Morph Bot. That makes the name M4 even worse because then you realize Morph Bot was right there in the long version of the name. Morph Bot's a way better name. Morph Bot, Morpho, Morpheus, Morphe McBotface, the Morphinator, Morph Zilla, RoboMorph 2000, anything would have been better than M4 because it's only gonna make things more confusing with time as M4 is already the name of a weapon. Military version of the AR-15, that'd be fair, military M4 rifle has been used to kill far fewer Americans than the AR-15. Key feature of the M4, Robot, Morpho, Morph Bot, this ability to repurpose its appendages as wheels, legs, and drone-like thrusters. When Morph Bot, I'm just the wrong way to call it, needs to stand up on two wheels, two of its four wheels fold up and then they turn into drone propellers which push it, spin the thing upwards to stand up. When it needs to fly, all four wheels fold out and start spinning propellers inside of the wheel wheels which lift the robot up off the ground to fly. In the current iteration, the walking motion is mostly proof of concept, although it looks pretty good. It looks like it was going over some rough terrain and video. But yeah, so far it's a little both. Kind of the cool thing about it is the, when it's driving, when it's on the wheels like, why would you bother doing the wheels if you could just fly anywhere and then or walk anywhere? When it's driving on wheels, it uses a tremendously lower amount of energy. So it may be able to go further compared to the nightmare robot dog. It might be able to run longer on its battery because it kind of just looks like a big RC car at that point. And there it is. We've got some video for the streaming audience. You can see it's got those big wheels and if you notice the inside of the wheels are drone propellers hiding away in there. So as it comes along, cruising the campus, it'll come to an obstacle, peek over it. Hey, what's on the other side? And then decide, oh, that's it. I'm out of here and fly away. Pretty cool. This is the sort of robot that I could see you know, being the next generation of Mars rover. Because of this. Yeah, it looks great. The multimodal ability, you know, get it, you know, that area looks rough like we might get stuck, just fly over it. Land on the other side that way, you know. That's awesome. That's a pretty cool use of that technology. I like nice and chill, I think, not scary. Just, hey, it's a car that can also be a drone. Love it. Yeah, it's pretty neat. Very cool. Yeah, oh yeah, that was actually, somebody says my next car. That was sort of the last best attempt at a flying car. Was a hovercraft. Was basically a hover car. It got up pretty high. It was actually out of UC Davis and a researcher spent a lifetime and a good deal of money trying to develop this thing. Which did get off the ground, but that's about it. Part of the problem with the flying cars, by the way, is that as people. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. If you don't have lanes, for example, then what? Just everybody dies, basically. Yeah, a lot of, it's the first couple of decapitations and then people will be like, do we really need to fly a drone? People go through a lot of effort to get their pilot's license to learn where they're supposed to fly. And there is not that much that goes into driving. It's not as much. But this is like one of those things where I think I would trust AI over humans to drive a flying car. This is one of those things that like, it's like Simpsons did it, but Futurama did it, right? Cause it's about the future. But it's where they have the, oh, the Golden Gate Bridge is now a hover bridge, right?  But then they reach the bridge and then there's no actual bridge. You just hover across in your lane, right? So that's, you know. Keep your lane. Gotta have the lanes. Yeah, yeah. Anyway. All right, Justin, I have a question. Do you baby talk to your baby? Not a whole lot, no. Not a whole lot, but did you ever catch yourself doing it? Ever. I ever caught, I'm sure I actually did. Yes. So humans do this, whether we do it to the annoying degree that some humans do where they literally won't talk to their child any other way, or whether you just go, who's the cutest? Like I do to my dog, right? If you're doing that, you're actually doing something that happens in nature. There are other animals that baby talk to their babies. And add to the list, as of this week, female bottle nose dolphins. Yeah, they change their tone when they address their calves. They have a baby talk. This was, this was a big study. They recorded the signature whistles of 19 mother dolphins in Florida when they were accompanied by their offspring and when swimming alone or with other adults, they did this study over three decades They placed special microphones on multiple individuals, multiple times on the same wild dolphin mothers in Florida, Sarasota Bay to record their whistles. And that included years when they had calves and when they didn't, and the calves stay with their mothers for about three years, sometimes longer. And in case you're curious about the fathers, they don't really parent. So it's really just the mother dolphins that are interacting with these babies. And so they found, so we already know that dolphins use whistles to keep track of each other. They'll whistle to say, I'm here, I'm here. But when they direct the signal to their calves, their whistle pitch is higher and their pitch range is greater. So it'll kind of go up, down, up, down, it'll go all over the place. Sounds very much like what humans are doing. Yes.  So why we do it is a whole nother question. There's more studies that going on about this. They found that female rhesus monkeys alter their calls to attract and hold offspring's attention. Zebra finches elevate their pitch and slow down their songs to address chicks. So there's lots of precedence for this in the animal kingdom, but the why is kind of a question. There's a couple of hypotheses. The main one is that it helps the offspring learn because they slow things down or exaggerate things. But another hypothesis is that it just gets their attention. It's like, hey, over here. So by making it a little more jarring, it gathers the attention of the baby better. Maybe it's just because this baby dolphin is so cute. You get to go like this little cute dolphin. They're cute. They look like tiny dolphins. I don't think they're like puppies. Who is a tiny dolphin?  But they sure, yeah, they're cute. They're cute like adult dolphins are, just small. But the other question that researchers have that they were not able to answer with this 30 plus year study is they don't know if dolphins use baby talk for other exchanges or if it really is just the whistling that, hey, I'm over here because they do a lot more than that vocally. So do they use baby talk with those other types of calls? I'm guessing, yes. But further study would be needed to confirm that. So there you go, baby talk, there's a reason for it. That's not an excuse to use it all the time, people. Your baby still needs to hear some normal speech to develop good speech patterns. And also so you're not annoying in public. Thank you. Oh, it's just too bad. Oh, man. I'm, yeah. Anyway, there we go. So with that, I think that's all of our quick stories, right, Justin? All right, those are the quick ones. Great. And now we've got some other ones. Yeah, do you know what time it is, Justin? I think it's time for Blair's Animal Corner with Blair. Small. Biped, milliped, notepad, she's your girl. Except for giant pandas and squirrels. What you got, Blair? I have a couple of really fun stories this week. So the first one is about holy jumping electric worms. Jumping electric worms? Yes.  See, elegans? Kenner have daintis elegans.  They ride electric signals to jump. And what's more, they ride those signals to jump onto their mighty steed, the humming bee. The humming bee. Gosh, I can't talk today. The bumble bee. Wait, what are you saying? Hold on, let me back up. Let me paint you a picture. It's happening, okay. So we know that there are small animals that will attach themselves to larger ones to hitch a ride. It allows them to save energy, migrating large distances, sometimes will protect them, sometimes will provide them with delicious food, via parasites, all sorts of fun things, right? So this is something that happens in the Animal Kingdom we know about, think about like birds on rhinos, stuff like that. But researchers have now shown that C. elegans, a little microscopic worm, can use electric fields to jump onto pollinating insects. Yes, so pollinators, we know, like insects and hummingbirds, that they have this like electric charged field around them. And it's because, it's believed to be because kind of rubbing on the flowers and also pollen is attracted to the electric field. So by being like a static electricity bee, you can grab more pollen and you can do your job more effectively. So the C. elegans is kind of taking advantage of that electrically charged insect to hitch a ride, to jump crazy distances, crazy fast, so that they can hop onto these bees and get the heck out of there. So the kind of the inspiration for this story happened because researchers noticed that they had these C. elegans in the lab in Petri dishes and the worms were often on the lid. How'd they get up there? Yeah. Well, maybe they climbed, right? Somebody, hey, who has been shaking the Petri dishes? Right, right. What's going on over here? So maybe they climbed up, right? Well, turns out, nah, they put cameras on them and they were jumping. They were just jumping on to the lid. So it wasn't... That is both totally awesome and a little freaky. Yeah, so they weren't sure how they were jumping onto the lid. There's these microscopic worms jumping the space of the agar on the Petri dish up to the lid. That's very far. If you're that small, it's a very long way to travel. Yeah, and now I'm going to try to multitask just to a crazy level and share a video while I tell you about this story. So these worms, they were like, how are they doing this? They don't have like the physical mechanics to be able to handle this. And so... They just saw the little video of the jump and that was pretty energetic. Yes, so they suspected, sounds like correctly, that they were traveling by electric field. So they placed worms on a glass electrode. They only leaped to another electrode once a charge was applied. They jumped on a speed on average of about 0.86 meters per second, which is close to how fast we walk. For a microscopic worm, that is fast. Their speed increased with an increase in electric field intensity. So they were definitely getting this done through the use of electric field. So I have another video here. I can queue up. So next the researchers rubbed flower pollen on a bumblebee so that they could have a natural electric charge. So they like basically rubbed the balloon on them, right? On some static electricity. And then once close to the bees, the worms stood on their tails and jumped aboard. Some worms even piled on top of each other and jumped in a single column, transferring 80 worms at once. Oh! So here we go. Let me see if I can show you another video of that.  This is incredible footage. Yeah, I just love it. So up to 80 of these guys, kind of, it reminded me of that robot that Kiki talked about on the show a couple weeks ago that were all triangles that assembled. They were talking about using it for the space station, but we all know what they were using, right? But it's like that, it's all the assembling, the worms all assembled together and get the job done. The next step of research for this is, how are they doing this? They don't understand how they're riding the electric wave, if it's special, if other microscopic worms can do this, if like other animals can do this, why the electric field is it and not something else? Why didn't they develop a muscle to do this instead? Right, so it's like, there's just, how did it happen? Well, they're suspecting that it has to do with genetics, mainly because they observed jumping in other worm species that are closely related to C. elegans, and the mutants were unable to sense electric fields and jumped less. So considering the mutation caused a loss of this behavior, it sounds like genetics probably have something to do with it, but they want to identify what genes are involved. So we'll see, but in the meantime, microscopic worms are jumping onto bumblebees via an electric field. I thought you were going to say in like, and so applying this to humans as we often do in C. elegans studies. Yeah, the latest in extreme tourism. Yeah. Jump onto an airplane via an electric field. Can you imagine? I don't know. Oh boy. And then my second animal corner story tonight, it's kind of a long walk, so you got to join me on it. Elephant testicles could hold the secret to anti-cancer genes. Of course, yes. Of course, of course. Elephants. They're very unusual animals for a lot of reasons. They are an exciting avenue for cancer researchers, mainly because of something called Peto's paradox. The idea is that the larger an animal gets, the more mutations or potential cancer risks result. But despite their large size and a high number of somatic cell divisions, which usually causes cancer, they defy those expectations. They are, they, along with whales, appear to be surprisingly resistant to the development of cancers. So this paradox where based on their body size and plan, they should be getting cancer all the time, but they are doing very well versus cancer as a general species. That paradox means that they're a really good avenue for cancer research. So they have found that there's an importance in elephants in the cancer mitigation puzzle related to a genetic marker called TP53. It's a gene and it creates the protein, P53. Really good naming, right? TP53, P53. That'd be fair. You know. To be fair, there's a lot of genes. Oh yeah. No, I'm saying it's very good. If you gave everyone a catchy name, we would have run out a long time ago. And we'd be right back here with some letters. Take exams on these sorts of things. I appreciate the simplicity. I love it. Anyway, P53, the protein created by TP53, the gene, identifies and neutralizes damaged DNA during cell divisions. So it impedes the spread of mutations, prevents cancer. Elephants have 20 copies of TP53 while all other known animals, including us, have one copy. Brilliant. That's the way you do it. So this is how they have this lockdown. This is how they keep from getting cancer.  It's expression plus what happens if you get a variant in one of those 20 genes? Well, it doesn't mean your cancer risk went up because you got 19 that can still get in there and do the repairs. Yes, there's huge redundancies. So now the question is, why do elephants have this? Why do we not? It's all about- Because the size of the- They're testicles. It's not the size of the testicles. No, no. It's that their testes do not dissent. So in mammals, healthy sperm needs to come from cooler testicles. That's why humans have them. They pop down to be able to temperature control the testicles. That's why they might sag if it's hot. They might kind of contract in. If it's cold outside, they're keeping those precious sperm the exact right temperature.  It's doing exactly what it needs to do to keep those precious, precious sperm the right temperature. It is beautiful process. Not something that I was talking about today. It's a really cool part of mammal biology. I don't know what to tell you. It's really wild. I'd honestly not have spent a tremendous amount of time thinking about it. But now that you pointed out, yeah, it's pretty cool. Read a book on mammal reproduction. You'll think about it a lot. Anyway, elephants do not have the genes responsible for this dissent. Most likely because they live in a place that is crazy hot. So kind of redundant. So their testicles remain inside their bodies even in mature males or bulls. So they are higher in temperature. The sperm is higher in temperature than other mammals. So all that to say, the researchers found that the proliferation of TP53 most likely did not evolve to combat cancer. Instead, it was, all these copies of TP53 showed up to support DNA stabilization in sperm because since they're super heated inside the body, there's way, way, way, way, way more opportunities for genes to be messed up in the sperm. So then the TP53 is there to fix the sperm. The cancer reduction is a byproduct. They call it a collateral advantage linked to cancer and aging. So yeah, so this is wild because otherwise any animal that could get cancer should have developed more TP53. So they had to figure out kind of like why elephants have this and others don't when all these other mammal species are susceptible to cancer. And so this really is just a crazy byproduct from the fact that their sperm is too hot. And so it just so happens that they have this extra TP53 that also prevents them from getting cancer. So of course, novel insights into the field of preventing cancer is always important, but it's also important because climate change and so lots of species, including potentially humans, especially the ones that don't have air conditioning could have this issue in the future of sperm cells that are exposed to extreme heat that could impact, like there's already been studies on how climate change is impacting sperm quality in various species, including potentially humans. So it's important to that, but it also is important. Now we've identified this gene that is directly related to fighting cancer that could be further avenues of research as well. So thank you, elephant testicles, for this cancer research. Immediately I'm thinking about those whales you were mentioning. Yes. Because I've seen a lot of pictures of whales and I've never been like, oh, there's the male whale, I can tell because, you know. Yeah, yeah, and it's because they're in the cold water, man. It's not very helpful, but they still have the bones to kind of anchor external testicles. So it's very interesting because they still have kind of some of the vestigial adaptation. Yeah, they still have toes, too. Yes, of course. Whales are all messed up. You know, they're just, they're lost. Well, I mean, you think you've evolved to the point where you've really done a good job transitioning to the ocean. Well done. You've been there for seems like forever.  You got, you know, the little details at the end of the project. Who doesn't need a couple tootsies every now and then. It's not hurting anybody. You never know, maybe one day we're gonna head back to land. Technically, snakes start developing legs when they're fetuses and then they whoop, they come back. I know that about the snakes. Yeah, I mean, a lot of animals that have kind of like crazy evolutionary left turns when they're only a few days old in development, you see the same stuff popping up and then some of it just goes away. So it's. I knew baby chickens had like the tooth buds were all there, but then they don't form. Yeah. But the snake legs. Yeah, I'll have to also look up some pictures for later on, I'll share. But in the meantime, that's all I got for the animal corner. What do you got, Justin? Oh, okay. So, researchers from Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History have identified the oldest decisive evidence of human close evolutionary relatives butchering and likely eating one another. Possibly maybe decisive as there is a lot of inferrings going on. With this study. And a tremendous amount of conclusion leaping taking place in the coverage of the study in the media. So first the findings, National Museum of Natural History, paleoanthropologist Brianna Pobener and her co-authors describe 11 marks found on a 1.45 million year old left shin bone from an unknown relative of Homo sapiens found in Northern Kenya. So hominin, 1.45 million years ago. Pobener was looking over the shin bone with a handheld magnifying glass, searching for clues about which prehistoric predators might have been hunting and eating humans, ancient relatives, hominins. She instead noticed where to immediately look to her like evidence of butchery. The next steps were perfect. Pobener made molds of the cuts and sent these molds to another researcher, Michael Pente of Colorado State University. She provided Pente with no details about what he was being sent. Simply asking him to analyze the marks on the molds and tell her what made them. So Pente then created 3D scans of the molds and compared the shape of the marks to a database of 898 individual tooth butchery and trample marks created through controlled experiments. The analysis identified nine of the 11 marks as clear matches for the type of damage inflicted by stone tools. The other two marks likely bite marks from a big cat. So lion being the closest modern match but there were three different types of saber toothed cats prowling the landscape 1.45 million years ago.  So that's a spoiler alert again Blair. You don't even need but the headline to reach the conclusion or at least my conclusions we're on the same page. Yeah. So first of all, I have some hesitancy of saying, aha, this is what this is because of the combination of finding something that looks like it's stone and something that looks like it's tooth. Because tooth and stone especially in a saber cat that has a weird bite or grasp might look a little bit similar. I'm not sure we have enough saber cat on bone studies to know the marks aren't highly visible. Like this was discovered. This bone was discovered 50 years ago by one of the leaky's I believe. This is not unstudied and it took a very close examination. Some of the other bones that they sort of show in the study that are animal bones that have clear signs of butchery have clear signs of butchery. This is very much hidden. However. Well, this one has like some tic-tac-toe action on it. Just a little bit. Yeah, it's got a little bit there, right? Yeah, it's a hash mark. Some of that's tooth. Some of that might be stone tool. Interesting. So part of that makes you go, ah, and maybe it's all tooth. However, when you look at where it is it's right where a stone tool is typically used on animal rendering to release the flesh from the bone. Right where that tendon is connecting is right where those marks that look more like stone tool marks than they do tooth marks. So there are multiple hominins in there at this time too. So shin bone has been identified and unidentified over the years as likely belonging to Australopithecus boisei and then to Homo erectus and then to experts decisively agreeing that there's not enough information to assign a specimen to a particular species of hominin. So the use of stone tools though also doesn't narrow down anything because it seems like everything was using stone tools way back then. Sure, it was very in vogue at that time. Yeah, it was very popular. I think Homo erectus gets the edge on that one but still it's not, nothing about it is for sure, for sure. So yeah, cut marks are right where you would want to remove calf muscle from the attached bone. They're also all oriented in the same way, such that a hand wielding a stone, bringing it down over and over again without justin the grip or the angle of attack would fit. How do we know they're eating it and they're not just like doing something else with it? They don't. So first of all, there's a lot of like, this is the first evidence of cannibalism. Cannibalism requires that the eater and the eat-e, eat-in, the eat-in and the eater be of the same species. That cannot be determined by these findings. Right. It could, so it could be an example of one hominin species devouring another. Sure. You know? What about just like wanting the bones though? Also. It could be cleaning the bone and wanting to use the bone as a tool. Yeah, or as like as, or they want it for another, I don't know. Yeah, there's like- Man, they're always wanting to like assign ritual to things too, like what if- So they will, this is the one time they didn't, they said, we don't think this is ritual. We think they ate them. Short because? Because rendering and therefore eating. Okay, all right. But there's no evidence of eating in this. So again, yeah, ain't necessarily so. So, okay. So none of the stone tool cut much? What about this, Justin? Oh my God. What if- Ha ha ha ha, this is dumb. What if they got, this hominin got bit by a cat and they're like, we got to cut the leg off?  To try to get them to survive. Cause they got a nasty bite and they're doing amputation. This is- Yeah. Right? But they're just taking the muscle off. Okay. But I think- You gotta do the muscle off. I think you're close. I think you're close. I have a theory. Okay. Okay, let's hear it. All right. So none of the stone tool cut marks overlap with the bite marks. So you can't really, the order of events is tough. Big cat may have scavenged their mains after hominins removed most of the meat from the leg, but the big cats, you know, these are cats that are, they could be scavengers, sure, but they're one of the biggest killing machines out there.  So the theory has been that saber-tooth cats make kills and then hyenas and hominins come by later and scavenge those kills for meat. So it's kind of would be going in the reverse order that we're used to expect, that we would expect. So yeah, top predator kill more than they need to eat, often leaving the meat behind to be scavenged by others. So here's my least icky scenario. Bonnie Bozii walking along 1.45 million years ago when a saber-toothed cat sees her and thinks, I can kill that. And a bunch, bunch, bunch, so much for Bonnie Bozii. Saber-toothed cat snacks away for a bit, but when a pack of a annoying hyena shows up, the big cat drags part of the carcass away, just a lower leg, heads to a more peaceful place to snack. On the way, it sees a wilder beast and thinks, I can kill that. He comes off chasing wilder beasts, leaving the Bozii leg behind. Along comes Joe Arrectus. And what luck, he's found some good eats, some sort of critter the big cat didn't finish off. Few swings with his sharp stone, and he's got enough meat to barbecue with that gal Bonnie Bozii from the cave next door. Anyhow, it's hominin with both tooth marks and signs of butchering, unknown species. So there's a chance they were butchering it, didn't even know it was a hominin. Yeah, yeah. They're coming in after the big cat. You know, it's got a couple bite marks on the leg, probably get that piece out of the way. There's not enough meat on there. I'm gonna eat all the other part. Might not have even known what they were cutting into. There's all sorts of scenarios before you get to, hominins were eating each other and also there was a line involved. Cause then it's like, then it's so unlikely that the lion didn't make the kill if the teeth marks are there. I mean, anything will scavenge, but. Yeah. Well, let's also for a second recognize is cannibalism really that bad?  Okay. I just think in the grand scheme of nature, it is very, very, and I will give it a third, very common. More common than we would expect. Yes. A lot of animals will cannibalize. So at what point, hominins decided nah, we don't know. And it doesn't, that's not damning. That doesn't mean anything. Lots of animals eat the same animal. Even animals we consider herbivores will do that. Like mice will eat their own young if they don't have enough resources. I don't know. So that's what I'm saying.  Oh, kind of to the conversation. Also, if they did, if it was cannibalism, who cares? They're mammals. They didn't have complex society with laws yet. I feel like you should be an expert witness in some sort of really awful court case.  It's fine. Yeah, we found on it in modern society, but really, do you think about it? There's nothing unnatural about it in any way. It's totally perfect. To me, very, very gross. To picture myself doing not, I can't even, or someone else to, nope, thank you. But like animal kingdom, very normal. That's all I'm saying. But it would also be the first example of this in this era, while we have plenty of, you know, I mean, there's, like you say, if somebody got killed by a lion and you know, it's resources or resources and if they think that way, but, oh, and it happens in the animal kingdom, but it would seem like if it was a relative who was finding an injured member of the family, that to me seems less- Did you not know what I just said about mice? I know what you just said about mice, but if you look at ape behavior, it would be very odd, I think. Yeah, I don't know. It's tough because so many of the apes are so vegetarian-leaning.  So I think, you know, if you look at predators, it's there. It's there. Lions, bears, they do it all the time. I think a wolf would eat a dog. 100%. A pet dog.  One of those meals is as good as another.  It's not good, it sounds like ecologically, it's a huge problem, but it still does happen. It looks too much like us to eat. But it happens, I'm just saying. Just, you know. You're right, you're right. Anyway. Blair says cannibalism, perfectly normal. Yeah. Nothing wrong with it. In the grand scope of evolutionary time and the animal kingdom, yes. For the blink of an eye that we've been around, not normal. Justin, did you want to talk about any bunk studies before we close out? You know, bunk studies are everywhere these days and I don't have one up. Okay. That's fine. I got too distracted with the stories we were doing. That's great. Do you have a favorite off the top of your head? You want to talk about it? Yeah, I do. So there was one that did, I don't even know how to say it. Mukuni Purinas, the velvet bean. Okay. Which was, you know. I've seen the supplement listed, this will improve brain power, this proves the veto. It also supposedly increases sperm count. So there was some research that was done where they were looking into sperm count.  This is researchers that University of Ghana looked into the efficacy and safety of Mukuna Purins. Seed powder on male fertility. This is a paper called moderate doses of Mukuna. Purina seed power is safe and improves sperm count and motility.  Well, the first thing that jumped out to me and thankfully they at least published their data because I'm finding lots of studies don't even publish all of their data. They had 21 tested rats with seven control rats. The 21 tested rats averaged 190.7 grams. The seven control rats weighed in at just 147.7. No explanation was given for why the weight was so different in the control. Now I looked up, this is specifically, what is it called this? A specific rat used in studies, what are they called? The SD, yeah, the Spragdali rats. Okay, so Spragdali rats, that you can track their weights pretty well over time. So basically when you look at where they should be weight-wise, the control rats in the study are a week younger. They're at like six weeks versus the rest of the rats being at seven weeks. And this is a control for a sperm study. So that's already gonna be a problem. If they either put all the runts into the control group or did this study and then went, oh, I don't have any controls and then we got more rats but didn't wait the extra week for them to be at the same weight and ran a control study, like something's just wrong there and there's no explanation for it. So next, they did that. So it was a 90-day study and they showed that the weights at the end because part of it's they're trying to also prove that you don't gain extra weight from doing this. You know, there's no weight gain from eating book in your brains. And at the end of the 90-day study, it was also strange because the weights that they had listed for the end were either nine-week-old male rats or as would be expected at the end of the 90 days, around 18 to 19-week-old female rats. The problem with that would be this is a sperm study and so if they're 18-week-old weigh-ins, our female rats, means that it calls into question the rest of their study or they only did nine, so there's no explanation, absolutely no explanation of why the weights of the control group and the end weights are all. Anyway, the authors conclude that their study observed increased sperm count with mucuna perines. The data though, the data in the actual data that they published shows that the sperm count was higher in one of the three different doses that they gave compared to the controls and in two of the other dosages was actually lower than the control group which were younger mice. Okay. So nothing, sounds like nothing. But no, but no, the study says, the study title, moderate doses of mucuna perine seed power is safe and improve sperm count motility. Paid for by? Yeah. And of course there's no, they declare no conflicts in it. But that's an example of, they've published the data and the data doesn't match the animal model that they claim that they're using unless the animal model is female which then has a problem with the fact that it's a sperm study. Right. Like, come on. Yeah. Like just, I mean, if they just didn't publish and then there's another one which I wish I had but I can't even remember the name of the study which was on face masks. And it is the most detailed, thorough multi-analysis of a chamber study where they've got these subjects in this metabolic chamber for three days and they're gonna climatize them one day and then they're gonna switch off and doing exercise with a mask and 95 mask on. And they've got a glucose monitor and a heart rate monitor and they're checking the respiration. They're checking the urine from the thing that have controlled calories and they list this incredible, incredible design of experiment. And the publication says that the heart rates were higher for those who were wearing the mask. And during exercise, the respiration rate was lower and don't publish any details of any of the other things including a bone density check that they was in the thing. Like, no details or data is published along with the study. Yeah, this is it. Includes anomalies, publishes without data. Right? So, uh-oh. So the, the biggest part here too is like while exercising, while exercising, the respiration rate was lower. Meaning they were taking less breaths per minute while exercising. Huge anomaly. Yeah. No explanation. I guess the heart rate being higher wearing a mask, I could sort of buy if you're getting a little less oxygen and your heart's maybe getting a couple extra beats in there per minute to try to get the, to get the blood past the lungs so they can pull oxygen. Like things like that sort of make sense. But this thing has just the longest list of conditions that they're going to test for. And then publishes with two of those results. And one of them doesn't make any sense and doesn't explain just moving on. Yeah.  There's the press release. And then sometimes there's the initial level of the interpretation of the press release, right? And at each one of those levels, there can be issues. And especially when you don't have open access to the actual data, then the naming of the article, the press release, the abstract, these things are all you have to go off of. And if you can't look at the actual data, then it's hard to be a skeptic, right? And it's hard to kind of check assertions from there. Yeah. You can access the study, which I think is more and more common now. You can access the original study, the original data, the original graphs, the original methods section. Then you can kind of start to form your own opinion if things seem fishy. Yeah. So I have never read a negative press release, right? I don't think I rarely have ever seen a science story covered critically, like really critically. Unless there's a, it's a big study and it's like, oh, some physicists are saying, these other physicists forgot to cross their, you know, factor thing over there in the math. And maybe that happens. Or if you're watching, if you're watching this week in science, then that is it. So this is the thing, is I wrote both of those studies. And so I was like here, here's just, all I get is a paper and like here, write up this study that's been done. And so I'm looking through it and I'm going, something's wrong. Very wrong here. And I'm wondering then, like, how often does that happen? Yeah. Like how often is the press release just a reiteration of whatever the researchers think this study was? And they usually like interview the lead researcher, they get sound bites, right? Yeah. So it's an interesting point. And I think that it's well taken. I mean, it's scary, but it's also as information is more accessible, which is a good thing, right? But also as technology improves, which is generally a good thing, it allows studies to be published quicker and it allows information to disseminate quicker. But that also means that sometimes peer review gets skipped or fast-tracked or whatever you wanna say that allows something to get published when perhaps it should not. And so I think that's the other piece, right? Is that like it used to be, oh, this got published in Nature. That means enough I saw this, that it's real and I can trust it. Yeah. So here's the thing. Peer review, you know, what the picture we have in our mind of what that is or maybe what it used to be, a group of learned folk who know a thing or two about the subject, looking at a paper from one of their colleagues and going, what do you think? Yeah, I think he's got some good point. I think he did this. Oh, we might wanna look at how, whether or not you wanna say this. Yes, giving feedback, waiting for revisions. Yes. Takes a couple years. Yes. From submission to publication. Nowadays, there's publishers who are promising 45 days to publish. Right. They have a guest editor, guest reviewer who may not have even to be in the right field. You might have a geologist looking over genomic paper going, oh, it looks like they know what they're talking about. Sound science-y to me. It's rubber stamp, peer reviewed. Yes. That's not doing it. So it's, you know, five million papers a year are there five million peer reviewers who are qualified to look at those papers and like- And how are they being compensated for that, if at all? Usually by discounts for their next publication. And saving a couple grand in that. Anyway, we can make this a regular segment at some point because it's starting to get- Yes. It's an interesting point that is well taken. With that, we are going to close out the show for a second. I thought we were in the after show already. But it's an important thing to address kind of recent studies that have come out that have dubious results or methodologies. But- And or great sounding results. Yeah. Completely didn't bother with, you know, putting the data in the publication of the paper right there. What's the point of the paper? Yeah. Just write a blog post. Just write a blog post. Hey, we think this. Exactly, yeah. It's based on my past experience, I think. Yeah, just post it to Facebook, buddy. Anyway, thank you for listening. We hope you enjoyed the show this week. Shoutouts to Fada for his help with social media and show notes. Gord for manning the chat room. Identity four for recording the show. Rachel for editing the show and everything else she does. Thanks for your amazing assistance. And thank you to our Patreon sponsors, which I do not have access to read. So instead, please imagine I am mispronouncing all of our amazing Patreon sponsors who we love and adore. And thank you for your support. So you can just, you know, insert mispronunciation there. You're welcome. If you are interested in supporting us as a Patreon sponsor, you can find information at patreon.com slash this weekend science. I hear there are various kickbacks, including stickers. I guess I have to be a Patreon sponsor to get some stickers. I'm very interested. On next week's show, we will be back, right, Justin? We will be Thursday, 5 a.m. central European time. Or as I know it, Wednesday at 8 p.m. Pacific time. Is that what you're doing this show? Yeah. You're doing it yesterday. Yeah, it's true. Although it's at the same time. If you want to listen to us as a podcast, perhaps while you rub balloons on bees to give them static electricity, you can search for this week in science where podcasts are found. If you enjoyed this show, please get your friends to subscribe as well. For more information on anything you've heard here today, show notes and links to stories will be available on our website, www.twist.org. And you can also sign up for a newsletter if we ever get around to writing one. It might come out at some point, who knows? It just, you got to sign up so when it happens. If enough people sign up. I don't know. I don't know what the variables are that result in a newsletter, but it's got to happen. You can also contact us directly. Email kiki at kirsten at thisweekinscience.com. Go, where were you? No, I'm kidding. Email Justin at twistminion at gmail.com or me Blair at BlairRaz at twist.org. Just be sure to put twist T-W-I-S in the service line or your email will be spam filtered into the kind of buried data of a bunk scientific study that no one will look at. It'll be a study also, by the way, all about the descended testicles of the elephant. Yes, then you know something's wrong.  Yeah, I don't know. Just stop it. It's broken. It's irreparable now at this point. Yeah, it just let it go. But we still want to use the email or carry your pigeon or something. We love your feedback. If there's a topic you'd like us to cover or address, a suggestion for an interview, a haiku that comes to you in the night, 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, remember. It's all in your head. This week in science, this week in science, this week in science, this week in science, it's the end of the world. So I'm setting up shop, got my banner unfurled. It says the scientist is in, I'm gonna sell my advice. Show them how to stop the robots with a simple device. I'll reverse global warming with a wave of my hat coming your way. So everybody listen, this week in science, science, science, science, this week in science. And that's the show. Thanks for stopping by everybody. Yeah, y'all come back now. That's it, we've done it. We did it. You have a baby to attend to. Hi. I have a baby to attend to. Do you have anything, any closing remarks before we? No, but I do think it would be a fun, a fun second show to do the bad science report. Like that was fun. But no, say goodnight Blair. I know it's been a tough journey here, trying to do the show all by yourself. I just have no lung capacity anymore. This is the problem. I just, I'm just like gasping for air to talk. It's, it's wild. She's not clapping. She's just got her hands together, but she doesn't know how to, yeah. Oh yeah, there we go. Oh yeah, I've done it. Okay. He's like, come on, you're like halfway there. You're having to do it like that. Yeah. Good night Blair. Say good morning Justin. Good morning Justin. Good night everybody. Good night Minions. Good night viewers. Good night listeners. Sorry for the short show, but it's off to bed for me. Bye everybody. Stay, what does he say? Stay safe. Stay cool. Be lucky. Stay curious. Stay just fabulous. I don't know. Stay all the things. Stay in your lane unless you know there's a bit, it's not a good lane and you know, switch, whatever. Yeah, yeah. Hop in your hover car and do what you gotta do. How do you? Maybe it happened. Okay, bye.