Hello and welcome to this week's podcast broadcast of this week in science We are back again, and hope you're here with us. Oh people are counting down in the discord We're a little bit ahead of you, but not by much.  Are you ready for a good show? Yeah, let's do it. Okay. Let's have a wonderful show. Why does it do this over time? We weren't we didn't get two seconds into the really good show Like every week now even though I'm starting within the Facebook window of time it says no no no no We're not gonna let you do that. And so now I'm gonna do this again. Hopefully it'll go Facebook is live Fingers crossed but anyway, we're here. You're there. Let's science it up If you are watching live you're watching this stuff If you're gonna subscribe to the podcast this will not be included because this will all get edited out and other Beat some bloops for the podcast version But make sure you click the likes the shares the subscribes wherever you are watching or listening right now And we are so glad that you are here All right, let's make this happen in three two this is Twist this week in science episode number 942 recorded on Wednesday, September 6th 2023 How much science did you inhale? Hey everyone, I'm dr. Kiki and tonight on the show We will fill your heads with a rant reversal a brainy dish and less pollution, but first Disclaimer disclaimer disclaimer if you have tuned in to this show, you know what you're in for this week in science Coming up next Kind of mine I can't get enough every day of the week There's only one place to go to find the science to you And a good science to you too Justin. Welcome Back to another episode of this week in science. We're so glad everyone is here to join us For another fun-filled discussion of the weekly science news Yeah, you ready for this Justin? I am We're ready. We're really ready to do this this week world's shortest disclaimer and let's go Yeah, well, you know sometimes I go on and on and on To disclaim ring talking about stuff this time. I figured you know what this is like Well, I don't know where we at the thousandth episode yet. Not yet in in there. We're getting close We're pretty close there. Yeah, but there's always more science to talk about people heard all of the disclaimers How many times gonna explain that we're gonna do a science show? It's always different, which is always great What do we have for the show this week? I have new stories about some embryos in a dish brain in a dish some genetic protect for a genetic protection factor potentially some less pollution and Baddy boxes good or bad What did you bring? I've got magic mushrooms for major depressive disorder how chronic fatigue might be a post viral infection and Homo erectus balls plus Plus an update to the two week ago A speculative ramp prediction about Denise Evans. I've already thrown it out and I've got a replacement for today Well, that's what we're here for we get to talk about all of these thoughts in our brains And if you enjoy all these thoughts in the brains and the discussions that are going on Please make sure that you subscribe to this week in science wherever you're watching YouTube Facebook and Twitch Wednesdays 8 p.m. Pacific time ish is about when we start we go for a tight 90 minutes for sure ish We are Podcasting just about every place podcasts are found and if you're looking for more information you can find our website twist.org It's where our show notes and other subscribe buttons and things are Now it's time for the science Start with some embryos We'll start at the very beginning of I don't know Human embryonic development research where I started Researchers at the Weitzman Institute of Science have been looking at how we can take human stem cells so like adult skin cells that have been Reversed to a younger state pluripotent stem cells Embryonic stem cells how we could put them all together Into a little clump of cells that develops just like a regular human embryo so no egg no sperm no fertilization just a clump of cells in a dish that Organizes itself and grows just like an embryo and they just reported in nature this last week that they were able to get a Complete model of human embryos from stem cells cultured in the lab And got them to grow to day 14. We've talked about this now. Yeah day 14 It's not just that they couldn't go to day 15 because the they hadn't gotten the cells right or something That's the arbitrary cut-off date for how long you're allowed Under law, I guess that's kind of international science agreement. Yeah It's packed a handshake a signature on a line. Yeah, I'm only allowed to take them to that many days past a certain point to there's also like It's actually the right way. It's a it's an It's an ish Because there's days, but then there's also like well if these lines appear in the cell for me Then we also you have to abort because then it has gotten to a certain state of development that you're not going to go Go past you can't cheat and have an accelerated development All right, but no 14 days. That's beyond this point. There's a there's a Cutoff right. We're not speeding it up within that it is the what is supposed to be the natural progression of development during that first period of time the researcher doctor Jacob Hannah at the Whitesman Institute of Science says there's you know really like exciting stuff happens in the first month So we're still there the agreement is still stopping it well before the first month But like the first month is when like the drama of cellular Division takes place a lot of the problems that lead to miscarriages and other birth defects those occur or they start to go cells start to A pop toast or be developed in the right way or the wrong way to lead to a viable embryo that can lead to a viable pregnancy Um, but don't really know what's going on there and the ethical way that they want to do this is without embryonic derived stem cells, but adult Induced pluripotent stem cells so the majority of these cells that were included in this were Induced pluripotent stem cells so they reprogrammed the cells so they went back to this very very early early early state All the naive state where they can be anything. They're naive. They can do anything and They've been working on this since about 2013 and we've reported on some of the stuff coming out of this lab and others related to this stuff They took the cells and they divided cells into three groups. They had cells that were Treated with chemicals so that there was no genetic modification to turn on certain Certain genes so they were trying to basically Induce these naive cells to become different types of tissue so that some of the cells became embryos because they got certain chemicals some of them became placenta some of them became like yolk sac they needed stuff to sustain the Embryo so that potentially if someday that 14-day limit is taken away or we know that there are lots of birth defects and other issues of pregnancy Related to the development of the placenta itself if those are Understood then we can really figure it out the researchers say an embryo is self-driven by definition We don't need to tell it what to do. We only must unleash its internally encoded potential and What they've created now is this stem cell based embryo like structure It developed normally outside a womb for eight days and reached a developmental stage equivalent to 14 days in human embryonic development, so They're very excited because they got placenta. They got yolk sac They got bits and pieces of all the cells that they haven't really been able to get before this is the most complete structure that's been viable all the way through the time period that they have That they've been working through and so this could lead to new directions in in pregnancy research into understanding how the little tiny little tiny ball of cells that becomes a human actually gets its start and How it how the yolk sac is involved? What are the genes that are involved in making it all work and So it's it's very exciting to these researchers and now to the general Community working on human embryonic development This is just this is why I Need my own country So I cannot participate in the 14-day So I can just be like, okay There's I've got this small island nation. We're only gonna be here apparently for a couple more years Because of global warming and sea level rise However in the time that we were we're still above sea level We're going to authorize that we're not we are not going to participate in the international agreement To go to 28 days at the very least right like come on Well, I think this is great what they're doing so far Everybody's doing protocols according to international agreement, which is fantastic if the researchers and Countries decide to do it differently moving forward, you know Understanding the research and how induced pluripotent stem cells can be used to understand this stuff It's great I mean what they've already discovered with this study is that they need to have placental forming cells at Like day three like really really early the placental form of forming cells need to be there and viable as their own type of cell Really early and if not then the yolk sac fails to develop Properly and there's the embryo will fail. So this is really helpful early early stage embryonic development Very important to understand. So this is pretty cool Yeah Answering basic questions about where how do we get our starts? How does it work? How do the cells work? What do they need? Pretty awesome What do you want to talk about now?  Yeah, I'm so depressed in my country. Okay This is actually a pretty big study in that 34 different researchers from 18 different institutions that Run the gamut of Like really Prominent schools and institutions across across the nation They have looked into Using psilocybin magic mushrooms in association with major depressive disorder so They had this is sort of a we've been hearing about these these sort of one-off pre-clinical trial sort of proof of concept studies where they have done something similar had a psychological support along with psilocybin administered To see what effects they would have in a therapeutic setting They've been positive They've shown Really good results on a small scale. So this is a larger scale study and Basically what they've done With a hundred and four people this time as opposed to just a few at a time hundred and four Adults diagnosed with major depressive disorder We're given a single dose 25 milligram dose of psilocybin and Of course had the psychological support Available as well and they found that they had almost instantaneous Reduction in symptoms Wow, that's at the eight-day and then again it tested at 43 days that is Basically instantaneous when you were comparing it to most antidepressive drugs which have a scale of Several months it might be four months before they will determine whether or not something is working really working. Yeah all right So so really fast start everything that was interesting too is that there weren't any This was a this was single dose. So this is not daily pills This is not daily intake Which means the actual drug in the system clears and the patients are still maintaining this reduction in symptoms So so what that means is that it has in a single dose changed or impacted the Plasticity of the brain. It's changed the way that neurons are connecting with each other because that's one of the big things related to major depressive disorder is the the brain's destruction or Deletion of connections within within the brain and it's like over time those doses of SSRI's and others are Hopefully enabling those connections to rebuild Yeah, so they did they used a couple of different scales everything it has, you know everything in depressive symptoms that are from anxiety to depression to you know the whole thing and it was Yeah positive results. So so the thing to compare this to is the antidepressants, which like we were saying has Maybe two three four months before they start to kick in after taking daily doses There's an average relapse rate meaning they stop working Within a year for Within a year after that they kick in and are are are working That actually is only effective in about two-thirds of the patients There's still a third that that that you know each time I guess that it doesn't work and Then there's about a 50% chance or more that they'll stop working That they worked for a while and now whatever the effect you were getting for me in a depressant no longer works. Yeah So that and so what then takes place is doctors go through a list of antidepressants You try this one for months. No effect. We'll try a different one that one works great. It worked for Eight months and now it's not working. Okay fine We'll try a different one and you'll have to wait four months to see if that works. So you have this sort of constant treadmill of Waiting for a drug to work Then it works and then you hope it keeps working. Yeah now one of the there's a lot of side effects that come along with these One of which is an emotional blunting that's associated with a lot of antidepressants They did not find that With the psilocybin psilocybin dosing they didn't experience That major the other one is withdrawal symptoms Right, we're not taking one. Yeah. Yeah, the withdrawal sensors are pretty intense like I had to Yeah, here goes discontinuing antidepressants even if ineffective You can have severe and debilitating withdrawal symptoms including dizziness nausea Peristitia headache feeling abnormal anxiety Suicidal ideation insomnia and depression Symptom from an antidepressant even if it didn't work and now now you put that into How many of these withdrawal phases are people going through in the search of one that even works? Yeah Anyway Of course, so this research is sort of confirming past research this time it was a double-blinded very You know robust experimental design larger cohort confirming past findings and smaller studies Contributing to a growing body of evidence suggesting that psilocybin is a potential intervention for major depressive disorder. However it is unlikely to get approved and The reason is This is just me talking. That's you. Yes. This is this is just talking. This is not the study Yeah, okay. It's not likely to get approved Disclaimer it's gonna take 30 drugs off the market that people take every single day And not necessarily though because we don't know I mean this is a number of subjects But again, it's not all subjects not everything works for everybody. So you know, that's true. That's true I mean, this is and it could potentially be another tool in the basket and You know as in the study they're doing synthetic psilocybin and not Natural psilocybin Mushrooms, so The difference isn't is the good parts the molecule, right? So that's the thing that you're that's the but the thing is This is also a testing one dose So additional dosing they don't come to the conclusion that this is a Curative response, they're not they're not looking at that. They're looking at reductions of symptoms and comparables to antidepressants, so Right, you always have to look at like the end point of the study. Yeah. Yeah, and it's a 43-day study Basically, so they're not they're not going Beyond that. This is just another iterative step that science that science takes But really They're really encouraging It is encouraging and I you know what I also I'm going to be interested in seeing is there are a number of researchers who are trying to figure out if they can create compounds like psilocybin or ketamine that seem to have these antidepressant effects, but see if they can Detect if they can create chemical Analogs that don't stimulate the hallucinatory Impact so the maybe the physiological impact is different so that maybe because psilocybin itself can have negative side effects from those doses You know, maybe there are Chemical analogs that can work in the positive way without having to have what some people think are positive Side effects, but many others think of as frightening and negative side effects So yeah, and it might be that that it might be that those exciting or frightening experiences are Part of why they work. It might be just part of the process Yeah, they might not be able to be separated in which case in which case. Yeah, it is like a it is difficult because it's like Yeah, I only have to take this pill You know once a month, but I can't leave the house for two days You know Is that if we're going to fit into a busy modern lifestyle or not? Well, maybe it's not two days at home and maybe it's just a few hours that you're you know Psychedelic therapist guiding you through Whatever the treatment is and there are people working on this stuff, which I think is very cool Sounds like the kind of Anyway It seemed to improve it was a one-off, but it seemed to improve color blindness too For people who still had the the minor version of the color I don't remember that one at all, but it sounds like like you like you're saying it sounds like it's doing a rewiring And that's why it's maybe having this lasting effect But how does it do? Yeah, how does it do that? It's kind of gonna be hard to come up with a get a drug company behind a product that they would sell once And then the part the patient is like, you know good Well, we need a different model for how we do things, but okay There are other health issues that people are up against in their lives as we age Alzheimer's and Parkinson's are disorders of the brain and nervous system that Impact the large number of people on the planet hundreds of thousands of people millions of people but researchers out of Stanford University have published a paper in the proceedings of the National Academy of Science on their work on A particular gene variant that is called DR4 and it's an allele so it's like a you know one version of a particular gene That seems in earlier studies they found it to be protective for Parkinson's disease against Parkinson's disease and in this study they did a big database search Related to Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease and they determined this is correlation specifically, but they determined that People with DR4 and those without it People with DR4 as one of their genetic alleles had a 10% risk reduction against those Who did not have it so there was a similar protective effect for Parkinson's and for Alzheimer's disease they looked at Autopsied brains from Alzheimer's patients and they found that those who had DR4 in their genes had fewer Tau tangles they had fewer of the neuro Fibrillary fibrillary tangles that muck everything up and Seem to characterize what we look at when we're looking at Alzheimer's brains and the Looking even further they think that this hints that tau is playing also a role in Parkinson's DR4 it turns out is part of a Gene complex known as HLA. This is the human lymphocyte antigen complex HLA is part of our immune system HLA every human has lots of little genes that grab on to stuff in the cells and like Pop it up to the surface of the cell membrane and go look at this Look what I found in the cell. Isn't this interesting? This is does this belong does this not belong and so these HLA genes these little alleles When they grab these things maybe the DR4 goes oh, I don't like this tangle I go put it outside the cell and then the immune cells come along and they go. Oh, that's not a good I don't like a tangle and then they eat the tangle they got that Let's a pop toast that cell and then you don't have the tangles building up You don't have the problems that are happening. So It's a it's a really interesting finding that that Potentially could lead to more research into these each HLA genes and how they work with the immune system and autoimmune disease So if you're show if you have a gene that's not showing up the towels tangles If you don't have that DR4 and your your your HLA is like me It's fine. I know I don't think that's interesting then your immune system never knows it needs to take a cell out of the running And so you can end up with cells that cause problems that and then lead to Inflammation that furthers autoimmune disease and can and can have all sorts of downstream effects So the researchers at Stanford with their paper that they publish they think that DR4 is involved in protective autoimmunity it knows how to grab on to The right tau protein and to show it off and say hey your problem. I don't like you. This is a this isn't this isn't good and They did find in a dish They tested in a dish a bunch of these peptides and molecules and DR4 and they found that DR4 really really liked a very particular protein a peptide little tiny chunk of a protein called PHF 6 and It just so happens that PHF 6 is also a peptide that gets altered in Alzheimer's brains So DR4 is like really sticky for this messed up peptide that Possibly leads to clumping and the neurofibrillary Fibrillary tangles that lead to clumping and neural problems in Alzheimer's and possibly Parkinson's They're from this study. They're suggesting that people that they could maybe even develop a vaccine Based on this yes, so I'm suspect Jays everything Ah When it comes to the immune system Oh, you should be with the gene I'm looking at it with the gene higher incidence of multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis This is this is the this is the high wire act of our immune system. So Well, for instance is that this the CD4 T cell genes or T cells they get recruited when Cells are doing bad things and they do the app they they're involved in apoptosis There's their T cells that will go after our own cells and kill them off Mm-hmm when they when they you know when they go when somebody says exactly those cells What do you think of this and they like I don't like it and they will attack the whole cell So This is also a problem for people who are trying to Target tumors Because the tumor cells might be like, oh, no, no, no, we don't want too much of these cell killers here So they go, aha, we'll knock down that system then what happens then there's over recruitment and these things are killing other cells So for instance high CD4 T cells are Are now associated with the most severe COVID Right because when these cells get recruited They tend to do a lot of damage to lung and liver kidney that sort of thing But then if you don't have an abundant recruitment or if you have too good of an inhibitory Regulation of them that doesn't allow very many of them to interact with cells then you get more likely cancer This is the problem with anything When you're talking about oh, we need to go in and fix this problem in the immune system for this disease Yeah, you can cure probably any disease By by a time of fixing the immune system, but you're probably gonna cause a different disease It's possible. I mean our immune our immune system is really like three different systems that have been layered on And work together. Yeah, it's a very complex system It's not you're ever going to be as easy as tackling one problem You have to take into account all of the upstream downstream effects of the thing you're doing Because they're gonna affect other areas maybe far away from the thing that you've targeted So I'm just saying that's the immune system scares me We should mess with it, but not too much Just a little bit, but not too much. It's okay Viral researchers looking at coverage like oh, well, we need a vaccine that can prevent these CD4 T cells from from being overexpressed and then you have the cancer researchers like no We need to increase them so that they can take out in the tumors that they're being recruited to take down and You know almost like you've got different People trying to cure different diseases in complete opposition about what should be done to perfect the human body But of course Yeah, it's not necessarily perfecting the human body. It's you know cost-benefit, you know If you're against Alzheimer's or cancer Maybe this choice and treatment that we have right now is the best thing to do at this point in time Maybe, you know one thing at this point. That's where we are. Maybe someday Nanobots will fix us all. I'm still trying to achieve the perfect body. I don't know You're pumping iron or are you feeling a little fatigued doing nothing? I'm doing nothing. Do you know why? Because I am just chronically fatigued all the time now Because yeah, it's because I have a little virus. It's growing in the house getting bigger every day Getting into more and more things climbing on stuff now. My goodness This is an interesting article Where oh gosh Who do I didn't I don't know where this is? Oh public library of science Pathogens close pathogens. This is professor Marine our Hanson Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics Cornell University Took a look at the history the correlation between What is typically now called? Chronic fatigue syndrome, but used to have a much more science ename my my algic and so an encephalophenyelitis Encephalophenyelitis Yes, my algic encephalomyelitis or chronic fatigue syndrome. Yes. Yeah, so it got turned into Different anyway chronic fatigue syndrome. I'll call it that because I can't that's the other one Or you could just say MECFS MECFS there we go So this is one of these diseases that everybody has been faking for The longest time something they figure they estimate around 60 million or more people have been faking this disease That they're just tired all the time when they're really lazy Well, no people have this chronic fatigue. However, there's no Diagnostic there's a diagnostic that varies But there's no treatment. Yeah, and most doctors don't have a way of a Clinical test that identifies for sure. Yes, you have it and because of this and it's affecting here They don't really know the cause They don't know the mechanics behind it and so what happens is doctors say Well, okay, let's try I you should get plenty of rest Eat healthy and have regular exercise like go for a walk. Yeah, that's gonna make you tired Right because one of the things is people have Unrestful sleep so whether it's eight hours or four hours They've they rest as though they've gotten maybe two Even sometimes light like going for that regular exercise walk can actually drain them to the point of being unfunctional and It's just it's a it's a real disease with a That's only ever Sort of lost in the shuffle because doctors don't know how to Define it or treat it and so I love though that it's it's like COVID-19 Really brought it to the forefront because of the number of people who with long COVID These were the symptoms. This is what a lot of people really have the Long COVID that really is lasting. This is what they have and I remember back in the very early days of this show talking about chronic fatigue syndrome and the the Whether or not it was real and scientists debating whether or not it was real.  I just don't feel good So I have to do something If you tell me it's the sound of a noisy refrigerator, then I would believe you Keep you awake at night. That'll wear you out So so Handsome know I've sort of been I think paying attention to this pre COVID And So what she's done is pretty interesting she's collected cases of Of ME CFS outbreaks and And where multiple multiple large groups of there were larger groups of people have all sort of Been diagnosed with it at the same time and these are correlated with viral infections What's what she's the determined is tough is she's thinking she's she's finding a strong correlation between ME CFS's and Enteroviruses the entire virus family. Yeah Some of that's Epstein bar virus. That's human herpes viruses Plus others and It's pointing at like the difficulty here is It seems to come about from a post viral infection reaction So you're you get the virus. You're sick.  So you go to the doctor and the doctor does a blood test that they don't put things together There's nothing there. The virus is cleared. So it's hard to even connect it to whatever because they can do they can go and look at your Antibodies and say like oh, here's a list of maybe viruses that you've been infected with and this is a deep drill down that your local doctor is not doing They can say oh, here's all the viruses that you have Anybody reactions to so it might have been one of those but they don't know what you just had if especially if it was a mild And you just kind of got through it, but then the fatigue is the intense part that comes later So just exactly what you're saying one of the in the global experiment that is COVID-19 SARS-CoV-2 We've seen a large number of post viral infections Effects from for this chronic fatigue and so Hanson Professor Hanson's and this Paper that he's writing up is it's kind of pointing out that Okay, welcome aboard Welcome, you finally come along. Okay, great. We we we have record number of people being diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome however There are already that many people and more who have it and it didn't get it from SARS-CoV-2 Mm-hmm. So yeah, not the only ones. Yeah, so there's other viruses and if you create a treatment if they do develop a treatment which I hopefully they do that that Works for people who are Have been post, you know post COVID Infection it might not work for the others if we're talking about a viral reservoir or something of this nature That's different than the COVID it may not affect If unless you're just talking about attacking symptoms, but if you're actually talking about clearing finding cause finding May not so anyway, she's like we need to research Where it was before as well as this new direction of COVID but yeah But yeah, there there's nothing like a global experiment of getting everybody sick at once To illustrate that chronic fatigue syndrome not only is it real But it is Virally connected because the list of things because they couldn't Doctors couldn't easily Connect it to a viral infection Lists everything from environment to gut microbiota to stress to To like there's a whole list of pathogens. They think might be related to it But the chance of what Professor Hanson is saying is like no, there's probably a few viruses That are responsible for all of them. They're common enough that a lot of people have come in contact with it and so we need to we need to focus on causatives which COVID-19 has maybe Right Yeah, what is happening with the? Immune system interactions. What is leading to this ongoing? Inflammation the fatigue all the stuff that is related to it. I don't more research because Likes being tired. I mean, I love sleeping, but I don't want to be no and the fatigue that hits people is debilitating. It can be debilitating Another incredible science communicator out there Diana Cowarn The physics girl she is suffering from ME CFS related to COVID infection long COVID post COVID syndrome and she's Months now and she is still Dealing with it and it's not not easy. So Yes, she's she's just one and there are many many others out there. Well, so And this is just in from Hanson's write-up but In hers they they're estimated she says they're estimating about 65 million people Have Have it post COVID and that as many people had it from other viruses before Geez, but we ignored them or so a hundred and then was that hundred my math is bad at math a hundred and twenty the hundred and thirty million with chronic fatigue syndrome and We're like, ah, I get plenty of rest Like I get that the doctors always mean well and that they're only working with what they can work with But gosh, it's got to be frustrating It's got to be it's sort of like how we were talking about a while ago how there's a genetic component that that takes place with East infections that has nothing to do with hygiene So doctors are like, oh, let me teach you how to take care of yourself proper hygiene I think I've been doing that, right? Or oh gosh, I think I've been going to bed at a reasonable time. I eat vegetables and it's still a problem So eat your bed eat your vegetables take care of yourself, you know, and then good luck everybody We talk a lot on the show about air quality and more and more studies over the last decade or so have have reported on the links between air pollution specifically fine particulate matter and illness in society and So more and more often we're like, oh smog or you know air, you know people who work it up At the little toll booths on freeways is up there, you know, they're in danger fire. It's bad volcanoes That's also bad, but fine particulate matter really really bad for causing illnesses related to asthma bronchitis cardiopulmonary issues So I Was excited about this particular study and I'd love to see more about it, but out of Washington University in St. Louis these researchers looked at particulate matter 2.5 so PM 2.5 this 2.5 micron size and smaller is particularly associated with premature death and So these researchers specifically looked at these little tiny bits of fine particulate matter in the skies Originally from 1998 to about 2011 and then from 2011 to 2019 and they determined that It hit a peak in 2011 so part fine particulate matter was going up up up and we weren't really paying attention Yeah, I was like, oh well the health issues, but you know now we're really talking about the health issues really There is an reduction and there has been a reduction from 2011 to 2019 in the amount of Fine particulate matter that is actually in the air which I find like hey Maybe we're doing something a little right. Maybe we're talking about things in the right way Maybe technology is coming along and we're not having as many coal power powered Power plants or you know, maybe there are other local Contributions that are changing things they specifically say that this reduction is driven by Exposure reduction in China and also reduced growth in different areas of the world So You know every once in a while, it's you know, we talk doom and gloom and pollution and trouble and our world's ending And I but you know, it's kind of nice to see that Maybe we're starting to do something right that maybe our technology is starting to come a lap Come along and not just related to the number of people on the planet, which is just going up up up But also the way that we're able to mitigate Some of the changes that we make That's that's one way of looking at it. Yeah, when I when I'm looking at this map You know what I'm seeing. What are you seeing? I'm seeing that Yeah, I I don't I don't I don't know how that's possible. I Just don't understand how it would be possible like like if this was just a map of the United States Europe I guess Like it would make sense but If if if you're saying particulate matter has gone down in Developing nations well, maybe I'm growing as much the growth of particulate matter Okay, okay, I think it's a misleading info graphic Yeah, well, so what they've said is that what the num what they looked at their endpoint for their data global population weighted Particulate 2.5 micron particulate matter exposure related to population levels and pollution levels over the period of time so Tied to population per population and pollution people are getting less Pollution that is dangerous to their lifespan per pop. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah based on population size Specifically they say it's a rigorous air quality management in China since about 2013 okay So China We want to help we want to get continue to help Countries that are developing developing nations to become better stewards of their resources and people and helpless, you know, if we can create better ways to Create cleaner energy faster for everybody. It's gonna be a lot better for the people who are on the planet. Anyway Good news everybody Little less pollution Even though there's more people on the planet. I'm not gonna talk about those numbers anymore Like if they're dividing the amount of pollution by there being more people then I'm like, okay I see how you got there, but if they're like if they're saying people are less exposed to pollution. I mean we've had we've had like Certainly automakers have done a better job of Trying to maintain You know keep the pollution in the car out of the out of the exhaust, but yes Yeah, so automobiles more cars than they used to be China is reducing the number of coal coal fired power plants and going more nuclear. So there's a lot more of that going on There there are changes in the way that things work, but you know, we have to balance that with I mean, who knows where it's gonna go since 2019 the number of northern hemisphere fires has increased the number of You know, we've got big climate problems that could potentially impact this a lot that aren't related to mitigation effects of our own technologies and air quality so But yeah, a little good news 2019 that was good I'm like, oh, I don't know. I don't know I can handle it any good news No, I don't even know what it looks like. I know you're not accepting this good news very well I'm trying to help out here Justin. Well, it's just it looked too dramatic to me Like I I'm trying to figure like what was the revolutionary technology behind this major shift in pollution globally And if you if you isolated it to a few areas I might have been like, okay. Well, they've applied a new approach but globally including developing nations that are That are burning more Like there's all sorts of sustainable infrastructure that's going in places China hosted the Olympics for a while. So they had to turn things off to clean the air so people Where's this study out of hang on Washington university in st. Louis And this is a peer reviewed study in nature communications. So you too I still want to look at this study. We'll link to it in our show notes There's something right like they don't even guess that like the reason why Like oh, I'm a somebody put up a solar panel in uh, Argentina and therefore they've reduced the panel Well, I mean There's There's a lot more people Like even if even if you cut emissions in half Or whatever would be for what 20 years study a third maybe If you reduce through emissions by 25 percent, there's 25 more people creating emissions. Like there's like, I'm just like not understanding how It's possible It's that it was a reduction Yeah Too many humans doing stuff every day for that to Sort in my brain There's more. Yeah, there are more people doing things, but we're also maybe doing things better. There's a stagnation of growth in the uh The particulate matter Attributable mortality. So fewer people were dying from the particulate matter exposure, there's Really they say globally China was the the the big mitigating factor the reduction And that it's been due to long-term effort since uh and change overall But it could change we need to keep working so that climate change Uh and human based sources don't keep the number going back up again. Let's live healthier everyone This is this weekend science. Thank you for joining us. I hope that we are bringing you a little bit of good news science Just breathe that in that just smells so good All that dose of science right there. That's right If you're enjoying the show, please share this weekend science with a friend and then Additionally you can help to keep twist going be one of our supporters head over to twist.org and click on the patreon link Those of you who support us at ten dollars and more per month will get thanked by name at the end of the show So thank you so much for all of your support everyone out there. We just love that you're here Hey, everybody in the chat room and over there in the discord. I hope you're all doing well Let's have more science We're gonna come on back with more this weekend science right now I think i'm going a little baddie Just a little baddie. I'm just gonna leave it there. They're just Arriving at a question I'm just good Thanks a lot What by why goodness? What do you mean kirsten? What do I mean? Researchers out of university of illinois illinois urbana champaign have been looking at the Good and the bad of bat boxes We love bats bats are pollinating species. They're wonderful nighttime species who also they get the insects See them you less mosquitoes and those those flying things that to bite you in the nighttime The mosquitoes helped get rid of the things that you probably are not excited about in the nighttime So we want to help the bats and so a lot of people are like let's put bat roosts I have a tree. I have a house. I'm going to put a bat box on my tree. I'm going to put a bat box on the house and question is how good are these boxes for bats and I personally am interested in this because I've been thinking about this and you go online And everywhere you search it says make sure you put the bat box Make sure it has like southern an eastern exposure to the sun And that it's the the bat box is like in the sun And the bats will go in there and they like it hot and I'm like wait wait real and this is just general information Apparently this is not This is not confirmed and is probably Very bad for the bats What do you think happens when you put a bat box in the sun In a fairly warm climate You cook the bats Yes, and that is exactly what uh what they found they've they and others have documented that uh different bat boxes Shapes and sizes and materials Um can reach really dangerous temperatures And very often you end up With poorly planned bat boxes because you're just a person who's like i'm gonna save the bats and you put a box on the side of your house And then the bats cook and you end up with a bunch of um little tiny bat bodies piled up underneath Uh those bat boxes on really really hot summer days Bad it's bad everybody. Uh, so this The biggest concern is overheating and they think that What's happening is that people are inadvertent inadvertently creating what's called an ecological trap By creating putting bat boxes in places It's something that the bats might like but it's not necessarily the best housing for them So the bats might inadvertently choose This bat box but that bat box might not be where they should be because it's in A bad place for them or it's just poorly designed and the uh on top of Overheating the opposite of that is freezing because if it's exposed and in the wrong place Not only do you have the problem of hot summer sun you also have an issue with no insulation and Low temperatures in the winter that can freeze bats so The researchers are assessing these conditions and trying to figure out how to make better Bat boxes for better bat box So then yeah, but then you have to put them in the right place so the raccoons can't get them or snakes Other predators And then what about tics and mites and other ectoparasites that might really like living in those bat boxes And making we're not going to solve every bat problem He was these researchers publishing in conservation biology They would really like us to do a good job of trying to help the bats and I think that I think we can do better We can do we can do better if we try We could save the bats if we build better back bat boxes and don't this I think my big take home for this is Just don't just accept what you see online because you you're probably Using unconfirmed information to create the the best Unless unless you listen to this show online in which Everything believe it all John uh rano in a comment referring to the Study I was uh my my comment on your study about there being 25 percent more people Yeah, over the course of that 20 years according to some website. I just pulled up Uh 1999 we were just over six billion people Planet earth and then what was it 2019 was the end of that study? Yes 7.7 64 billion so Not 25 but maybe 20 percent Actually, it would be a little over 20 percent 100 percent of humans die eventually Uh, but yeah, uh, we we have a population growth rate of over one percent So in 20 years you would be over 20 percent more population and that's going to be true of every 20 years until we run out of food space air and ammunition So in the meantime, don't worry about us. Worry about the bats and if you are focus on the bats people Saving the bats the researchers who uh who were involved in the study at the university of illinois urbana champagne They have a website Which is wildlife dot n res dot illinois dot edu slash safer bat boxes will link to this on our website And they have tips for making bat boxes safer for bats So they'll help you with Where you place them how you color them what you might want to build your bat box with so if you want to help With the bats make sure you're going to a well resourced website before just Going batty like I do Yeah Or or you know, if you're in an urban environment Uh an urbanized environment, you might want to just focus on The animals that are already there and giving them a good place to live I I don't see why people aren't making rat boxes That's If you build a rat box wrong it could become a rat box It's an animal in your community that needs some place cozy and warm at night That's a little bit cool in the summer Rat boxes people why not it's that or your house, right? That's why they keep trying to get in They don't have any rat houses. Is anybody built for them? Go out there and build some rat houses take care of your community That's what we're doing with the bat houses community that you know, don't just That's be one animal specific all the animals my house is home to all the animals now. Yeah, okay, build a A raccoon mansion in your backyard forget the tree house raccoon for it people build squirrel houses. Why not a raccoon house a squirrel house perfect perfect idea I plant I apparently only plant things in my backyard that uh that helped bunnies survive now So that is what I'm doing. I'm helping the local bunny population But there are lots of ancient things that have died out over the years because nobody was taking care of them so Justin did you want to talk about Some old humans and maybe reverse some of your discussion from previous weeks uh, yeah, so uh, uh, first I'm going to start with uh The 1960s uh researchers in northern Israel excavating a 1.4 million year old homo erectus site found hundreds of stone balls I think they found at this one site almost 600 of these And they were made from different types of rock The salt limestone Stone balls from 38 different layers. So this could have been You know created over a hundred thousand years even like they're they're from all sorts of different eras And they're described as plum size Yeah, I don't know how big a plum grows over there You know, a california plum gets pretty big But yeah, I can kind of picture this as being something that fits in the palm of the hand So it says uh, these rocky orbs had no discernible purpose And some speculated that they may have been debris produced while making other tools now researchers suggest That our ancient relatives intentionally crafted these spheres Perhaps for the sheer joy of creating symmetry According to the article in science, I'm gonna just jump in right there and say no I don't think it was from the pure joy of creating symmetry. You don't know I don't know if I'm gonna speculate because I think that they were probably not used for hunting But likely used to throw at things That makes a lot. I mean this looking at these these spheroids They look like something that you would throw, but maybe they were playing pachi ball Look these are yeah, it's possible. It's possible.  You either can wave a stick at them or you can throw a rock And these are these are people who are making some stone tools So my goodness. Well, boy, you throw a rock in it, you know Sometimes it's uh goes far and sometimes it doesn't go far and sometimes it kind of flops around And then somebody's like, oh, I threw this rock and went right where I meant to throw it And suddenly went about making more rocks like this. That's my guess. I used it to throw at things Maybe maybe you could hunt one of kirsten's backyard bunnies with it But beyond that Probably not a great hunting tool, but pretty good. Maybe at throwing it. I don't know what's there coyotes or whatever might be Trying to wander into camp or a lion even like you don't want to get close saber tooth things And hopefully you don't throw it at other humans, but uh, the researchers did 3d modeling And they could tell that these uh were From the scarring and little nap signatures on these that they were intentionally crafted to take on these spherical shapes that these aren't like River stones that were collected because that would have been too smooth It wouldn't have had the sort of precise Uh napping that was required to get to that point. So And there's some point out that like, uh, you know, we don't have the full context because of course these are 1.4 million years old or something So for all we know they were painted bocce balls like you're saying kiki, you know And this was part of some sport or some some entertainment What do you do when you're biding your time at camp in between hunting, uh outings or How does it work? Yeah How long have human ancestors been trying to entertain themselves? Oh probably from yeah And protect themselves Well They had they did have the stars to watch those must have always been fun Mm-hmm I wonder though this kind of a A structure very like you said, it's something that was on purpose This is something that they possibly learned the napping technique. Maybe this is also, um early learning how to do Flint napping or learning how to create structures Maybe these were instead of teaching your child how to make a knife When they might still Maybe you start with a ball. Maybe you you know, maybe these were um, maybe they had lots of different uses and so actually what you just point out is is is so smart because One of the things that we're almost always missing from every archaeological record Are children's toys And yet we have all these uh, small rattles Or like this small balls or small artifacts that we find made and we go. Oh Yes, they were ritual Uh use they had some sort of like they because it didn't have a clear function Chances are we're finding toys all the time but archaeologists Uh become archaeologists because they were not allowed to play with toys These children so they don't recognize them Any archaeologists out there feel free to pipe in on that one, but But now you're I mean it could just be that these were these were I don't know made by children But they could have been made for children for sure. They could have been children's toys Like why not like If they're found around the campsites or wherever the uh in habitation Locations don't wander off here through rocks at each other. That's a What could happen? We don't know Here try and make these rocks and then throw them at each other. No, no No, throw them at the uh saber tooth coyote don that is trying to attack our or not that. Yeah All right, so then uh, this brings me to I'll finish up with my so Two weeks ago. I said, oh, I don't believe in denisevans anymore I think those were homo erectus neanderthal hybrids all of right I I spent like the last uh weak or so thinking about it and I think that's completely wrong Okay, why why so? Well because it doesn't add up to It still has all of the problems to solve of these Hybrid populations being in the exact right area common human Ancestors moving through and interacting with neanderthals and denisevans or this hybrid group of them That that that that Okay, so the story so far neanderthals develop out of africa and around 700 000 is 600 700 000 years ago Diverged from denisevans All right, they split paths one goes into asia one goes into europe And there's always being mentioned at mystery archaic dna somewhere in there, but we'll just ignore that because we don't know what that is So neanderthals in west to the west of new europe denisevans move east into asia and then About six seven hundred thousand years after they have split It looks like they meet again at deniseva cave And they find this bone and they do the dna and they find aha we have We've discovered a neanderthal with Some unknown dna that we now can tell was connected to neanderthals About six seven hundred thousand years ago. We have a hybrid between the two This is the amazing discovery at deniseva cave Okay Here's the problem I'm finding is the order Of discovery has dictated everything Okay, so kiki you and I are gonna go and we're going to sequence the genome of a donkey Yes, okay, and so we find an old donkey skull in the desert and we Find that we can extract some dna from it and we do And now we have the genome For the first time ever of a donkey Yes, and then then we go and we find a horse And we sequence the genome of the horse And we find that the horse the horse actually Is half donkey And half archaic ancestor to the donkey that was split by by a long period of evolution Well, what turns out is our hybrid that we think this horse is Is actually a horse And what we first sequenced and called donkey was a mule Oh That's sneaky Sneaky right so Under this new scenario that i'm looking at What would happen is around 700 000 years ago an ancestor common ancestor of modern humans And neanderthals Is in af or is in uh asia It's western asia It has It runs into homo erectus They mix Then their offspring go into europe Hundreds of thousands of years past somebody finds a couple of neanderthal Some skulls and we sequence it and we go, aha Neanderthal and so we have a neanderthal genome Yes, it's a it's a hundred percent classic neanderthal genome because that's all we know Then What is it gonna look like? If we ever find a homo erectus Genome It's gonna look like it's half neanderthal right that it's got some shared stuff in there It's gonna look like it's Half neanderthal and half something that was connected to neanderthals About 700 000 years ago, right That's maybe why all the denies of the dna that we're finding Looks like it's half neanderthal Because in our description of neanderthal We have human common ancestor and homo erectus Now I thought of that and I went well, gosh, that's kind of interesting But what about all then the the neanderthal dna which is actually higher in east asia than it is in europe? Oh, wait a second That's also where all the denies of indiana is Wait a second. What if that what we're calling neanderthal in that east asian populations? Isn't neanderthal because our neanderthal is defined in this scenario by homo erectus and Right that means Wait for it It's possible It's possible That human ancestors The current modern humans 50 to 60 70 80 thousand years ago When traveling east Actually encountered homo erectus An interbred direct No Little buffer zone friend zone with a denies of in Right, so it could have been yeah modern human and uh homo erectus And because it also would explain why on remote island populations in the in indonesia And in the philippines the indigenous people have the highest rate of denies of in dna Despite no d denies of in or neanderthal fossils in the area But an abundance of late existing homo erectus including The homo florensis you know, so It's the if it's such a clear it makes it so much easier because you no longer need All these intermiddle populations or neanderthal and then reintroduction with the denies of in's later a few minutes just go direct to asia And then mix with if denies of it is actually homo erectus Anyway, my point is my this is my new prediction Even okay modern humans Uh mixed directly with homo erectus in in east asia Neanderthal is a mix of the human Shared human ancestor and homo erectus In all of europe and that every denies of in dna that we we find Is always going to be a hybrid With neanderthal because half of neanderthal Is shared with modern human is shared with denies of in because i think denies of in dna Is homo erectus dna? We'll never find homo erectus dna anywhere Until we disentangle That's a fascinating idea and we don't and we're not going to get homo erectus dna directly going that far back because DNA doesn't as far as we are able to do get it to unless we already have it Preserve it that much. Yeah, unless we already have genome. Yeah, interesting Well in the genome, but also like one of the one of the things is we there are estimates Of homo erectus surviving much later than people people think of homo erectus is two million years ago But it could have been longer. That's when it starts. Yeah But the end date of homo erectus is still open with some Saying is recently is 30 000 years some More in the you know, like the fossils which is a real overlap with modern major Alls and everyone. Yeah. Yeah, and and i'm also suggesting I don't think that there is neanderthals in the far east. I don't think that's neanderthal at all I think that dna is what we're describing is is just homo erectus And when you say homo erectus too, it's going to be a much more diverse population Uh of homo erectus than there are pretty much anything else because it's been existing for as long That's how you like homo florentis. You could call homo erectus It's island eyes. It's more often. Yeah I think yeah, I mean, this is definitely the kind of conversation that needs to happen with somebody who does these genomics who does that the the phylogenetic analysis of human dna of these You know looking at the human ancestors going way way back. I mean this is this is a puzzle I mean, I think the thing is is that it it's great To have these conversations and these open questions because honestly nobody really knows the answer at this point in time We're calling it the braided stream We have that we have a lot of data, but there's still more to More to more to learn if we get like a homo florentis or I can't keep forgetting the name of there's another Heidelbergensis or no, no, there's another small person in the in the indonesian one of those islands down there. Yeah separate from the homo florentis If I keep forgetting its name If we can find and these are like possibly they're 18 to 30 000 years You know if we get dna from one of those and it comes back as denisevin I will feel like You know we're we're pretty far along that route So there's there's ways that we could solve this what I would love though is I would love us to get a guest Who's been studying these genomes to tell me if that if it's possible that that homo rectus and neanderthal hybrid Could could work Or you know, what are the and if not then what are the reasons that that hypothesis Shouldn't work based on the current understanding or current data. Oh, yeah, but basically this is all this is all but you know We got to look at the genetics, right? Yeah. Yeah, what I'm asking what I'm asking for is get me out of this rabbit hole Tell me why it's wrong so I can stop thinking about it I can't do anything with this information You need yes, I need to get it expunged for my brain so my brain stops going wait a second. Whoa, hold on We need to get you some help What does the other thing is like, you know, like we were talking about uh looking at the pluripotent cells for signs of early pregnancy termination miscarriage Yeah, those genes in the western world are strongly correlated They're they're associated with Neanderthal inheritance Right some of them. Yeah a lot of it is it's heavily influenced by neanderthal ancestry. So The thing is like well, why would you know, and there's been some speculation? Well neanderthals, uh, you know Because there were hunter-gatherers they didn't want to have a large populations evolutionarily. It was to their benefit to have less children I think that's nonsense I think what happens Is that because of their hybridization event from a much different part of humanity and this early homo erectus just in theory that that that Didn't make them infertile, but made it did made them less fertile made it more difficult complicated And actually likely made many of them Hybrids are very often infertile or have uh fertility issues. There's uh, well well Um documented impacts of hybridization of uh of various species that Result in infertilities for various reasons, but yeah That's fascinating Laura d is asking in the chat room if we could interbreed and produce fertile offspring Where we different species and that's a really interesting question because you have The biologists who are the lumpers and put everyone together and then you have the splitters who split everyone apart and even in You know talking about bird species or animal species like patrick pecaro saying and you could have an animal That's the same species ish, but it's separated geographically where they normally don't come together They're geographically isolated. So we call them different species But they can hybridize sometimes and come together because of geographic incidents And they and they do or they made just fine and it was just a geographic isolation Sometimes it is actually genetic or other anatomical factors that are involved in actually blocking the fertility aspects, but Our concept of the species is There are one things around here our concept of a species is just a very fuzzy wuzzy Issue we have some that we could say yes, they don't They don't interact we don't interbreed, but there are others that are just on that line, which is very interesting So so so bears can From different regions they can interbreed you can get a brown bear and a polar bear and they can have Lines and tigers can make ligars. I don't know if a liger is reproductive I don't know horses and donkeys seem like the same thing And they can reproduce A mule that then cannot reproduce after so So it and that's and that's the thing. It's there's a little bit of uh genomic dice roll in how The components that you inherit can operate the next time around and With neanderthals what I what it looks like is they had some major issues with reproductive health That may not have evolved Naturally, I think that's the clear sign of some Or it was a trait or it was a trade-off because maybe their reproductive aspects It was a trade-off for survival in other ways because they were Uh living in colder climates more often there was a there were they had different slightly different adaptations to the The ecology of the areas that they were in so these are big questions. They're fascinating Oh, we can't answer them tonight. That's we'll try though by continuing to talk about them Until my brain Is reduced Or until I get again who can put you in your place, right? Okay cells in a dish. Let's talk about those We love cells in a dish, uh Wait, why didn't you say I was talking you're saying something about anyway? Cells in a dish researchers published in nature communications last week their work on um this wonderful dish brain system that we've talked about previously on the show researchers Uh have been trying to demonstrate synthetic biological intelligence with a neural network of cortical neurons In a dish dish brain That were trained to play pong We talked about this and so the brain these little cells were able to go. Oh I'm connected to a monitor and or this is the read the the feedback that they were getting and they were able to Cells in dish able to play pong With a computer interface. I don't think they knew they were playing pong But they learned based on certain feedback how to do How to react and how to turn themselves on and turn themselves off stimulate or Or or reduce their output now these researchers just publishing in nature communications Their study critical dynamics arise during structured information presentation within embodied in vitro neuronal networks So what does this mean? It means that the researchers have taken their dish brain and they put The dish brain to the test against Hypotheses about how the brain works and how neurons in a neural network work together and because of what they had been able to do teaching the the neurons to play the game of pong they were able to Measure the what's called criticality of clusters of neurons on how clusters of neurons interacted and reacted to feedback that was presented to them and they discovered that They needed feedback responses. So feedback loops led to the real activity and real learning of the network and there's been a hypothesis in Neuroscience for a while that's called a like critical a criticality event Leading to a neural network Choosing one path of action or another being active or not being active. How is it going to be going to respond? And based on what they saw in their dish brain, they were able to show that This criticality hypothesis Was supported So the brains needed To have feedback and when they had feedback certain populations of the neurons went into what was called an avalanche mode They all decided to work together. It's like we have a threshold a potential that Leads to a single neuron firing or not firing But in a neural network, there's also kind of a threshold and these researchers thinking about this the the importance of this is that sometimes when neurons All go too much then you have things Like epilepsy you have storms in the brain you have migraines You have things going wrong because the neurons aren't working together in the proper way They're not acting on feedback correctly. The opposite end of that is a coma where the neurons are just not reacting to feedback at all And so in this gameplay simulation and stimulation They were able to show that This neural criticality is just a base feature Of how neurons interact and it's really important For neural networks to move going forward learning feedback and There has to be a reorganization of the neurons working together to get to this critical avalanche state where they go boom We're firing together everybody. Let's do it We're a team And daniel smith in chat room. Yes the old adage neurons that fire together wire together So this is the um, you know, why would a group of neurons fire together this critical dynamics, uh, this criticality is part it's not sufficient to make it all go but with reinforcement Neuronal networks get to this uh, this criticality which Allows an avalanche of activity within the entire neural network So why is this important? This is important to understand, uh cognition and how our brains work generally um, how We can potentially move forward in understanding disorders like comas or epilepsy And also how we can create better Brain dishes dish brains video game playing brains in a dish All better At least we've given them something to do in there.  What was the brain?  I don't anyway Uh, there was big recollection of some of something you're describing Uh a study this last week that people were talking about a lot online Uh was published in the journal of pediatrics researchers showed that when you put Complex breast milk components into infant formula formula that The uh, the the babies Uh Let's see for 12 months if they were supplemented for 12 months It raised their IQ by five and a half years of age by five points So complex breast milk proteins like lactoferrin Mfgm others these supplements led to increased IQ But this is specifically for Infants and that and that I just wanted to bring this study up because infant IQ Five and a half years. So child IQ they measured the IQ at the age of five and a half complex skills Executive function learning innovation those kinds of things Oh the marked the man with two brains. Thank you very much. That was the movie Yes, paul disney. You guys got it the man with two brains. That was the one. Um But the the coverage of this paper out of the university of kansas Has been bothering me because it makes it sound like, you know, if you give this souped up infant formula to your babies You're gonna raise their IQ But they're not saying it's a better breastfeeding It's this is because a large number of infants are not breastfed for various reasons. There are, uh, you know All sorts of reasons why breastfeeding doesn't pan out for people. We don't we're not going to go into that And it's been a question as to how can we make formula better? So if this isn't a store, this isn't a suddenly Infant formula is better than It is after a hard day's work There's nothing There's nothing that rejuvenates me better than a hearty cup of breast milk Why I just love it No Yeah So if you're fed if babies are fed formula that have more complex Profiles for carbohydrates fats all those things and are closer to That of natural breast milk It does help with cognitive development, but this is not an either or this is just helping to make Breastfeeding formula or baby feeding formulas better Yes And I need that extra edge throughout the day a little bit of breast milk in my cup That's what I go with Soup up your brain skills. It also does wonders for the luster of my hair No, don't I mean Oh the internet My last study my last study for the night Let's not stay up too late because yet another study has shown that When you deprive mice of sleep it causes neuronal cell death in the hippocampus They didn't look at people but because of because they kept mice up for two days and didn't let them sleep They're able to say this is this is bad Sleep deprivation. This is a study published in the journal of proteome research in mice They determined and they were able to correlate The sleep deprivation led to neurological damp damage in the hippocampus in these mice They looked at the hippocampi and looked at the proteins that were involved the genes that were involved and what was actually happening With the mice the mice also really got worse at navigating a maze over the couple of days that they weren't sleeping very well sleep deprivation affected their their behavior and cognitive abilities, but they determined that there is a A protein that's called pliotrophin And it declined in sleep deprived mice and they determined that this loss of pliotrophin Might be involved in a molecular pathway that leads to hippocampal cell death Pliotrophin is also implicated in Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases in humans. So The the the big thing here is that pliotrophin it decreases and when it decreases It affects a whole signaling cascade inside your neurons that actually leads to apoptosis of the neurons the neurons go I'm not getting the protein kinases that I'm supposed to in the things that aren't happening and we should kill ourselves So They saw that in the mouse hippocampus They did not see it in human hippocampus because that's not what they looked at But they're gonna potentially be looking at it as a novel biomarker For insomnia induced cognitive impairment. So maybe it'll help us in the future in the meantime Go to sleep If you can I wonder Is that like an attempt by the brain to fix something Probably this is like you're not sleeping. Why are you not sleeping? It's It's probably the the hippocampus. No, it would actually be the amygdala wouldn't That's usually the which is the one in an olympic system Which is the one that's always sending out the like Oh danger danger danger That would be the amygdala fear anger. Yeah, amygdala hippocampus is more memory. So It's gonna be yeah, you don't want to lose your memories unless that's what's keeping you up at night and then Maybe the brain's like, okay We need to we're having a problem. We need to delete some files It's what we need to do. I don't know. I don't know if the hard drive is full or not But uh, this is a step I always take we're gonna delete a bunch of files and then we're gonna shut down and restart So that's a really I mean that's the question. Why would a reduction in this particular protein Impact such a cascade in the cells lead to cognitive like basically why is it like hey, you're not sleeping So we're gonna maybe it's because uh, it's resource management We got to we got to get rid of things because we're not functioning properly. You got to Got to slim slim down so we can sleep better and put energy where it needs to be put because sleep as we know is also Kind of a brain energy management type It's when the brain clears things out and there's a lot of body functions related to metabolism during sleep I love the idea that the body has a regulatory system.  That's what we know.  We're just going to start hitting delete buttons Maybe we'll get lucky Yeah, but if you don't want to have the delete buttons and if you can get your sleep try and get some sleep It's probably better for your neurons if you're a mouse We don't know for sure in humans because we haven't done that study except maybe because it might be linked to Alzheimer's and other issues. So I think that what I'm trying to say is that we've made it to the end of the show. Have we done it Oh, I think we have look at that a tight 90 Oh close ish. Well, once it's edited. Yes, absolutely I want to say thank you to everyone for joining us for this show tonight Thank you all of you in the chat room being here chatting while we are doing the show Thank you all of you in the discord Who are talking? It's great. Oh, our in law has taken a clip over on twitch The moment that justin forgot was on the internet. Okay, I gotta look at that one later. That's gonna be fun Thank you fada for all your help with show notes social media. It's really uh, I can't do it without you gourd Thank you for our in law. Thank you for helping with the chat rooms making sure everybody's happy and nice in there identity for thank you for recording the shows and Rachel thank you as always for editing the shows and of course I cannot go on Without thanking our patreon sponsors who allow us to Definitely can continue continue continue this show Thank you to arthur kepler craig potts mary guertz Teresa smith richard badge bob coals kent north coat rick loveman george corris p.l There is velezarb john ratna swami carl cornfield chris wozniak veggers jeff stad Donathan styles aka don stylo alikoff and regan shoebrew sarah forfar don mundas pig steven albaran daryl myshac stew pollock andrew swanson fredes 104 skyluck paul ronovich kevin reardon noodles jack brian kerrington davidie youngblood shon clarence lamb john mckay greg reilly marqueson flow steve leesman aka zima ken haze howard tan christopher rap and richard brendan minnish johnny gridley hymidae g wittburton lattermore flying out chrisward drier ardy am greg briggs john atwood ruddy garcia dave wilkinson rodney lewis paul rick ramis philip shane curt larson craig landon sue doster jason old stave neighbor eric nap e o adam ishkan kevin parochan erin luthan steve debel bob calder marjorie behal d disney david similarly patrick percoraro and tony steele thank you for all of your support on patreon And if any of you are looking forward to having me read your name at the end of the show Or just want to help the show out head over to twist dot org and click on the patreon link To help become one of our patreon supporters on next week's show We will be back broadcasting live from our youtube and facebook channels uh eight p.m. Pacific time on wednesdays and then we do a second show five a.m. On thursday central european time same show same show Want to listen to us as a podcast? 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Please let us know And we will be back here again next week and we hope that you will 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 is the end of the world So i'm setting up a shop got my banner unfurled it says the scientist is in i'm gonna sell my advice Show them how to stop the robot with a simple device I'll reverse below the warming with a wave of my hand and all this 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 science This week in science This week in science Science science science This week in science this week in science This week in science science science science i've got one disclaimer and it shouldn't be news That's what i say may not represent your view And we're back I got a plan This week in science second half oh it's after after show oh we're further along than i thought what Yes, i don't know or you're the only one ever sitting in a haiku. I should stop asking because i don't think people know how to write haikus I think haven't there been There's been more than one. How is that a couple? Yeah, just a couple but i think it was island or every time That's always What is this clip? What is this saying? Oh, it's a wonderful clip. That's gonna be great. Thank you are and lore. Love it Oh, it's your your wonderful advertisement for breast milk for Breast milk for the after work cocktail hour That was that's ridiculous Over on twitch I think i fully i fully endorse i fully endorse the uh the use of that for for selling uh The promoting of breast milk drinking as an after work cocktail No It's fascinating though You go in the internet, but i fully endorse it you go on the internet No, no, that's about but i completely put everything of my trust behind it I don't know about you, but uh you go on the internet and Advertisements there's some there's some company like for some reason they want to sell me this colostrum shake and that's basically the early breast milk, um, but It's fascinating. I guess that's the whole thing for better skin For better hair for better digestion drink colostrum chocolate flavored No Seriously my facebook ads. I don't know why I deserve it. I don't know why it's either tmoo or that Hi cappy cappy knows Cappy knows this show is over She's walking around down on your hair saying You got lots of things to say tonight Oh and a purrs. She's purring too I don't know I'm happy you can be here again are in lore. Yeah, I'm glad you're having a good day concussions are awful Uh fatigue syndromes are awful.  So those of you who are here and able to be here I appreciate it every time Nevada year, it's time for you to go watch the ashoka episode, huh? Time the the uh the character that wasn't in the canon until george lucas said it was anyway happy She needs to say hello to everybody because she's got Are in lore that's awful. I'm sorry Everyone day by day Yeah, it was kitty. That's cappy That's cappy. She's gotten very Both of my cats recently very vocal. They talk to me all the time. Well, they've always been vocal but even more so I lost justin. I don't know where he's gone I am tired too farda. Oh, there he is Now my other cat stella is meowing from upstairs somewhere They have so many things to say the are in lore It's possible who knows I don't judge no judgment here um Yeah, I hope everyone who is uh, I hope maybe maybe we're helping people get through their exodus from burning man Maybe we're helping Helping you get through the morning get through the night wherever with this weekend science Not burning man muddy man Are you muted justin? No. Yes Yes, you're muted There you are Yeah, I was like, where are you doing? I don't know. I'm just gonna talk to myself.  I have to go to I have to find out what I'm saying. Oh This is a big yellow jacket year shoe brew. Yes lots of yellow jackets agreed I think I saw something in the news about that actually Maybe I didn't maybe I made it up Oh Marin counties, uh a month ago yellow jacket attacks spike worst I've seen Aggressive stealing singing yellow jackets buzzing in the north bay um another uh Oregon will am at week are there fewer bees and more wasps this year Interesting cbc Calls to remove wasps nests are surging Yeah, interesting. That's fascinating. So, uh, there's a bunch of kind of this is North oh, you're in north north north cal. Yeah corroborating reports in the news, but I don't know if anyone's does that done the data there, but Yay yellow jackets I don't like yellow jackets. I like bees. I like things that are Good for the flowers and the trees. I'm sure yellow jackets are in there too somewhere. They're in the ecosystem. They're important I just don't like them the stingings I'm tired It's a tired week this week. I don't know how to share Yeah All right What do you want to show that thing that I said I wasn't gonna show What is it? The thing related to the story I was telling or should I just skip it? Is it a map? Yeah You really want to talk about this, don't you? well kind of I kind of don't but it's once you see it you can't unsee it You sure I'm I'm not I'm not in charge. Is this wait? You're it's nothing indecent though, right? No Okay, so I see it's okay I have to oh, what do I oh, yeah Hang on hang on you can always send me a link in the private chat and I'll share it or you could just share a link The problem is I Yeah, sharing is Technology oil's busting again Yeah, I got a picture here. I'm just gonna do this. I'll just do it this way. This will be the easiest Okay, hang on All right, am I sharing I can it still shows me No, yeah, I need to go and do all sorts of settings changes. Okay, let me find this give me give me one second Is this something you downloaded? Is it a link? Well the thing is I I got pictures of the map that I downloaded And so and I'm having an issue sharing that well actually I'm having an issue sharing my screen even because it wants me You should be able settings and Oh, no. Yeah. No, but yeah It's like a whole thing. Let me see if I can find the website real quick. That would be great hired Hi, what do you want you want to go to bed? You would you want to go In the meantime does anybody watch star trek enterprise and can they tell me if season three is just going to be The sad dark season the entire season because We're like three episodes into star trek enterprise season three at home and We're not it's so dramatic and everybody's Weird and sad and angry and does it get any better? Because I think my family might give it up Wait. Oh, whatever Justin was doing. He is now completely gone Oh Here it comes coming back coming back you just you're like, I can't even I just gotta go right now I'm hitting all the wrong buttons. Okay. So I put link number one In the private chat. I got that. Okay So let's let's pull that up. You're gonna help you there. Come over here. I just go in there And then just a couple of these down. This isn't the original source, but it's the first one I found it Wait, the Map that's there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Here we go with the map Back to the Denisovans There we go So This map Thank you gourd shows The distribution of neanderthal and Denisovan Supposedly DNA through all now under Justin theory The Denisovan and a portion of this neanderthal would actually be homo erectus this ancient human form And you can see based on this list This map this heat map almost nothing at all. There's nothing there in Africa from these archaic forms And we see a big hit when you get down into uh, Oceania Philippines Uh, Indonesia It's a little higher in southeast china this sort of thing Now what's interesting is I would I would then conflate some of that those neanderthal findings is also being Denisovan is being the same thing as homo erectus, right? So The thing is we we we're lacking Morphological, we don't have morphological evidence of this. We don't have The skulls that they find in those places with high Denisovan are homo erectus fossils. They're not finding these these hybrids that should exist one tooth Or like a finger. Well, there's that's a finger in Siberia, but you know even in But they find like there's homo erectus skulls Like one of the more recent ones is in Indonesia, but there's a bunch in Cambodia and other places like this, okay So here's the second map. Oh, you've given me another thing. Okay, so I'm going to stop sharing So look at this map and also notice also notice that uh over in venezuela ecuador the top of south america It's suddenly a very low Neanderthal count. It's really interesting. It's like lower Neanderthal than Then a lot of places in the world And that just northern edge of south america. Okay, so you just want us to Flip to the other map this map You notice we've got uh the top of uh north america is dark Africa is pretty dark there uh, and then we get highlights in southeast asia and in oceania Now this heat map Is of global penis size And when i'm looking at it, it seems to correlate pretty strongly with the first map Now part of the difference in these maps is one is by country and it is The entire populations and the other one is more looking at where they have found instances in indigenous so there is There is a little bit of uh These are crude maps to begin with but they're also not looking at quite the same populations but this the maps Indicate to me That a morphological difference May have existed Between the archaic human and the modern humans which would actually fit a couple of things one current modern human Survival strategy has been heavily breeding Where we we are more into sex i think than the archaics I think they would have been if they if you took an archaic human and put them on the plant today They used the internet to go to hunt hub To look at hunting videos all day because that's what they were really into the other thing is we've we've talked about before how neanderthals how neanderthals uh developed very quickly from childhood to adulthood That means less time in puberty which means less hormonal exposure Which might also mean you could also have less antigen receptors That whole formative sexual organ formative phase that current modern humans Go through which would have been shortened which would also Give you this result So it could also just be A a shorter having a shorter maturity a quicker maturity accelerated maturity Phase could result in this in archaics. It's an interesting it's it's an interesting question, but I mean How yeah, why why not what genetics are involved and how did it get here? And I think it might be more hormonal than direct genetics, but I think it would be an interesting thing to pursue To look at something like antigen receptors in archaics And and see what those signals look like so there's like a whole whole area in this that needs to get explored I think because that those two maps when I saw them as crude as they are And as they are using slightly different populations They still had a crazy amount of overlap And especially when I looked at the north america or the sorry the northern south american like seemingly outlier Is a seeming outlier on both maps And that's that's really the intriguing part like yeah, that's a very interesting The overlaps with deniseman DNA are strong in this But so is the the outlier the dose dependent sort of nature of neanderthal Contribution Uh to the global populace. How many gene? Yeah, how much of the genetic percentage is made up? And and affecting current modern human penile size Yeah As I said it, you're right You did it Tom Hanks global what size? Yeah Yeah, yeah, you heard him. That's what we're talking about But I mean everything I we come back to this a lot morphology is influenced by genetics by environment There's a lot of these things and as we get into questions of why humans are distributed Adapted in particular ways like how do these things how do these things all interplay? How does it all work together? It's an interesting Interesting observation you've got going on there. I I hope that you are looking through these scientific literature to see how this has been addressed um in the genetic So the one thing that the one thing that sort of led me down this new uh neanderthal is a hybrid with homeorectis Because that that sort of mule scenario that I started as I was with Uh, if if denisovans of the mules It it really doesn't answer a whole lot of questions If neanderthals are the mule and we've taken their genome and called it neanderthal and now are seeing Anything else that looks like that That one actually just it answers a whole lot more questions and it and it fits the model of you know what this reminds me This isn't like a this part portion of it the initial like I should look into this It's sort of like when a kid looks at a map And discovers plate tectonics without being told because you can see this is large pieces together. That's it So on the surface there was that And then I go back into research and they was like oh denisovans and neanderthals split About 700 000 years ago, and also we found a uh yet unidentified arcades and uh signature at the same time Wait, what? Well, how can it be unknown? There's only so many things that we knew to be on the planet that there's an archaic unknown It's like a it's a it's a subspecies a hybrid another speed. Yeah what it's the braided student Everything came from you know Origin and split and liberated and split and rebated branch And a combined branch It's mac when you look back when you're doing the molecular count back to when these things were the same are going to look the same is my point Plus the fact that they have an archaic that kind of limits like a split with an archaic which makes sense And and my initial thought was that means What we're calling denisovan Is the branch that changes from neanderthal because of this archaic influence but now The more I've thought about it. I've I've come to the conclusion that the split is neanderthals From the the human shared ancestor Which would have been in africa and out of africa at the same time And would have stayed its self For hundreds of thousands years before humans come along which we either it either develops into us or we split off from it some point later But it's one of those great things like when they talk about like when humans and neanderthals diverged We didn't take a separate path and then there was nothing They branched off and then that thing that they branched off from stayed itself in africa for a long time before we show up Yeah, okay So it's braided stream, but it's also sometimes The thing that you split from continues So then it's a just three branches instead of two, but the the whole thing then makes way more sense if That archaic interaction is what leads to neanderthals and that the archaic itself Remains itself and is now what we're calling denisovan And even You know, there's still archaic that we keep seeing in signals of current modern human too that hasn't been associated with denisovan or or neanderthal yet But I still think it is all answered by Denisovan dna being homo erectus And is the archaic It's only That we got it separated because we don't have overlap with what we have seen in neanderthal Which we defined as a whole It's a thing that's neanderthal and they have a separate Evolutionary path and never combined and the idea that they never combined For hundreds of things, you know Out of leaving africa even though they combined immediately when humans current modern humans show back up Just kind of wouldn't make sense And 700 000 years ago by the way too is You know They wouldn't have been as removed from homo erectus as Evolutionarily as we are now because this was like a long way back in the almost halfway back into the history of it. So fascinating I found an article from 2000 What was this published?  Oh 2021 this was this articles from 2021 um apparently Looking at dna from An individual who had like a great great great grandfather who was neanderthal neanderthal they Had looked at a number of things in the dna um So apparently and I did not realize this Uh our closest our closest living relatives the common and bonobo chimpanzees have penile spines barbs That chafe the vagina um and apparently Uh not only is human dna lacking the genes for those spines But also our neanderthal and denis denis of the denis of and Genomes Yeah So this is why there's speculation that there's a monogamy involved Because the spiny-ness is good for promiscuous species Didn't know that Yeah, um This particular evidence as well. There's androgen evidence suggesting that Neanderthals were more promiscuous than humans Okay, that would that would surprise me I don't know, but Yeah With them having they're basing it off of that, you know the digit ratio like the the length of your your your fingers And the way that androgen testosterone impacts your finger growth So apparently because of that Their ratio neanderthal ratios Suggest that they were more promiscuous because they had more testosterone than humans Yes, well, they might have needed it fascinating article here, but that doesn't Yeah, but but then I but does it uh does that Say anything about that wouldn't say anything about the length of time of that growth though See this is like if they're growing if they reach adulthood by age 14 Compared to humans. It's something very accelerated like this. It means they missed all those hormonal teenage years where the Bulk and girth of growth Is taking place I don't know Yeah Now it's fascinating they uh researchers have been studying HPV and stuff related to uh hepatitis related to Neanderthal DNA and uh strains that the DNA react to antigens and things additionally they've been uh looking at oral Mic microbes left because of the teeth that what's left the DNA of microbes left in the teeth and mouths to suggest that maybe neanderthals and humans kissed because humans Just kissing isn't necessary Wow, okay Good to know I think kissing is cool like Non kissing cousins. That's what would be neanderthals and humans otherwise So we're gonna kissing cousins. That's fine. There's some interesting stuff in this history It's history that uh researchers are digging into various different things Neanderthals Denisovan there was one one of these neanderthals finds that and I don't think it's the one I don't think it's the finger but one where it was They were like this we have found a denisovan That or a mix a hybrid that is Had a two parents one that was denisovan and one that was neanderthal Yes What are the chances That you found an individual happened to be the the direct descended out of three or four Denisovans that we've ever found and gotten DNA from that you found one whose parents were both denisovan and and uh neanderthal compared to What you've been calling What you've been calling denisovan and neanderthal Is one is a hybrid already And so when you get the same possibility is finding a kid's toy Yeah, no, I think it's a lot. I think I think that I think that one alone almost proved my hypothesis that That denisovan is a hundred percent Uh homo erectus and the fact that they're calling half of its genome neanderthal Would make it so that they would find a bunch of these eventually that had both parents one neanderthal and one of denisovan in fact It's probably going to be all of them that they find that look like they're the first generation Of the split every time as though neanderthals and denisovans Solely saw each other out in the ancient world to mate and never mated with their own kind in nasa Ridiculous Hey, thank you. Yes. I say and that is just the way it is the just so stories No, yeah I need to I need to get uh I need to get a server So I can play with the buyer informatics of oh, yeah fine. You don't need a server. You just need access to a A cloud to you know, one of those services that do it. I've got the I've got the the genome ready to go It's just it's huge The denisovan neanderthal genome is huge. I don't want to like I don't think I could put them on my computer and do anything with them I think I want You need a bioinformatics specialist to look into one.  You've got you you've grabbed on You want to know what is a current humans and homo erectus Directly made it in in Asia. Is that what I'm saying? I think that's what I'm saying now It's time people laugh or laugh all you want people But I was right about the neanderthals in the current modern humans and I'll be right again Or you'll be wrong, but it's always good to make a guess, right? Make a guess make an educated guess try to make it an educated guess try to dissuade you But I did I went and I kept looking for Uh, I kept looking for like okay, so The way that they've determined the genome Obviously Is going to tell me that uh, they've already looked at this or they've already figured out that this isn't correct And and it turns out that when they're backtracking Uh When they're backtracking The denisevin and the neanderthal genome, they're finding that they split 700 000 years ago based on the fact of how many Additional changes have happened to those genomes over time However How would you How would you disassociate that From emerging or a mixing And they're they're doing it. It has to do with proportions. It's all the math, right? Like right now. It's like mutations and Differences and it's there it's math. It's and it's a 200 000 year window, which is kind of big So it's not precise, but it's still it's It's not precise, but there are known rates of mutational change. There are. Oh, yeah. Yeah But there's like it's just Yeah, but I'm just saying that this the reason what they've come up with right now their hypotheses and everything It's not just, you know, they're they're it's math is what they're using They're looking at the number of differences and the ways things that yes It's proportions and frequencies of things showing up. So And and and what it does is it traces back to 700 000 years Right, but once you're there there's not really an explanation of how that starts If that's a splitting or if that's emerging, there's no way to disentangling that which I thought somehow that there might be but I haven't seen it at least it may be more math More explanation more math But that's why they have these ideas of like unknown Human species that we haven't found yet Like it's because they're trying to come up with different hypotheses to explain the relationships and why The math works for a certain branching of the phylogenetic tree Like why do certain things appear to be more or things human ancestors? Appeared to be more or less related Right, how to how is the braided stream braiding and so that it's yeah But again, uh, if you're if you're trying to identify a horse and all you have listed Categorized as a mule Then that horse is gonna look like half a mule If that's your reference That's the problem I need to go to bed now so I can get up in the morning and take my son to school And do the parenting thing, you know Say good morning, Justin Good morning, Justin You are bright and shiny and ready to go. That's because I drink Nope breast milk I know you Pause for me and I'm Ready to go And what do you say to me? No Good night, kiki Good night, everyone. Oh gosh. I'm breaking my lamps. I hope you have a wonderful week. We'll be back here again next Wednesday Thank you for joining us for this episode of this weekend science. Stay safe.