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Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature feature production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host

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Speaker 1: of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology,

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Speaker 1: and today on the show, we are talking about the weirdest,

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Speaker 1: most interesting stories that happen behind the scenes at museums.

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Speaker 1: Natural history museums are an incredible resource to be able

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Speaker 1: to go and visit and see some of the most

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Speaker 1: amazing aspects of evolutionary biology, often brought right to your city.

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Speaker 1: But there's so much that goes on that you may

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Speaker 1: not even know about. So today I am being joined

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Speaker 1: by the assistant director of the Museum of Zoology at

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Speaker 1: Cambridge University and the author of the new book Nature's Memory,

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Speaker 1: Behind the Scenes of the world's natural history Museum, Jack Ashby.

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Speaker 2: Welcome, Hi, Kenchin, Thanks for having me.

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Speaker 1: I'm so excited because I remember when I was a student,

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Speaker 1: I had an opportunity to visit There's the Harvard Museum

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Speaker 1: of Natural History, and it was really an amazing museum

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Speaker 1: to go to, Like you could go see there's this seal,

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Speaker 1: a camp that was suspended in this murky fluid. It

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Speaker 1: was it was all very old and kind of creepy,

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Speaker 1: but really cool. And then I had the opportunity to

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Speaker 1: actually see in the archives, so stuff that was not

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Speaker 1: available to the public, and there was so much more stuff.

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Speaker 1: I had no idea that the museum was not just

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Speaker 1: this kind of front facing thing for visitors to see

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Speaker 1: and look at the interesting taxidermy and bones and specimens,

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Speaker 1: but that there's like an incredible collection. Usually that the

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Speaker 1: museum is has behind the scenes that they can't display everything,

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Speaker 1: but they have so many weird, weird things exactly.

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Speaker 2: I've be in that museum in Harvard is amazing. Ar

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Speaker 2: could be the best plant display in the world.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, the glass wow, is amazing.

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Speaker 2: It is amazing. But yeah, like behind the behind the

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Speaker 2: scenes that natiste. But honestly, I don't think there are

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Speaker 2: more interesting places than whether you're in a room with

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Speaker 2: literally millions of incredible.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, the weirdest collection of parts of animals, Like I

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Speaker 1: remember there was a an entire collection of I believe

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Speaker 1: it was moth and butterfly Genitalia, which was started by

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Speaker 1: Nabokov because you know, he was a weird guy. He

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Speaker 1: was also a lepidopterist and the author of Flowlitas, so

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Speaker 1: interesting man. But like, yeah, just there they would have

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Speaker 1: all these things that they couldn't display all of them,

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Speaker 1: and then also it was a collection that would be

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Speaker 1: uh was continuing. I remember seeing someone who was in

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Speaker 1: the process of stuffing this little bird, so a collected

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Speaker 1: specimen of this type of bird, and it's like, oh,

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Speaker 1: here they are, you know, just stuff in the bird

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Speaker 1: full of sawdust. Like it was kind of to see

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Speaker 1: that this museum it's not just sort of a dusty

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Speaker 1: old building full of stuff that just sits there and

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Speaker 1: nothing happens, like there's so much activity. So can you

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Speaker 1: tell everyone kind of about your role at the museum

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Speaker 1: of the University Museum of Zoology in Cambridge.

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Speaker 2: Sure, So I'm really lucky. My job is essentially working

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Speaker 2: with the people who look after two million in speciments

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Speaker 2: here and also the people look after what about visitors,

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Speaker 2: So I've got a really diverse role across our museum.

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Speaker 2: It's incredible. We have to say about two million specimens here,

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Speaker 2: so they cover the whole of the animal kingdom, all

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Speaker 2: of biological time over the last half a billion years

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Speaker 2: or so, from all across the world. So it's yeah,

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Speaker 2: it's pretty exciting place to be. And also as part

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Speaker 2: of the University of Cambridge. There's really interesting research going

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Speaker 2: on behind the scenes in the museum, and like you say,

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Speaker 2: it's really important that the museums tell the story then

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Speaker 2: that it's not just the galleries, it's also research communities,

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Speaker 2: but also genuinely enormous store rooms of just loads of

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Speaker 2: stuff that has changed the world and how we understand it,

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Speaker 2: and it's used every day in groundbreaking research.

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Speaker 1: I remember when I went to the back rooms of

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Speaker 1: the Harvard Natural History Museum, there would be like a

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Speaker 1: room that looked sort of maybe like a normal archive,

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Speaker 1: just a bunch of drawers, a bunch of cabinets, and

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Speaker 1: then open a drawer and then there'd just be a

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Speaker 1: bunch of sort of either stuffed birds or taxi dermaine

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Speaker 1: animal samples, or even just parts of an animal, like

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Speaker 1: maybe maybe a pelt, like a bunch. They might open

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Speaker 1: a drawer and just you see a bunch of little

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Speaker 1: mice pelts, as if it's like for these are the

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Speaker 1: rugs for some kind of like leprechaun or something. Just

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Speaker 1: this the but it was for, you know, and then

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Speaker 1: they would explain that it'd be for some research on

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Speaker 1: the change and color of these these mouse pelts. Over

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Speaker 1: seasonal changes for these field mice or something. There'd be

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Speaker 1: all this amazing research. So take us sort of behind

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Speaker 1: the scenes at the Museum of Zoology at Cambridge University.

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Speaker 1: What does it look like in what is what is

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Speaker 1: kind of happening there a lot?

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Speaker 2: It's like the first thing to say is and it's

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Speaker 2: probably obvious as soon as we start thinking about it,

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Speaker 2: but it doesn't seem to surprise people. Is that, you know,

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Speaker 2: a tiny, tiny fraction of what we have in our

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Speaker 2: collections is on display. So we have too many in

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Speaker 2: speciments here in Cambridge. You wouldn't want to see too

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Speaker 2: many specimens at once, so there's only a few thousand

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Speaker 2: specimens in our gallery. So I think it's it's about

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Speaker 2: a quarter of a percent of how collections are on display.

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Speaker 2: You know, go to the Natural History Museum and in

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Speaker 2: London they have eighty million specimens, so I think it's

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Speaker 2: about three one thousands of a percent of their collection

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Speaker 2: is on display. Wow, statistically almost nothing. You know. Smithsonian

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Speaker 2: Museum in the US is the biggest museum in the

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Speaker 2: world in the natural history collections, one hundred and forty

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Speaker 2: eight million specimens. So just being here about the scale

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Speaker 2: of what we hold like globally the distributed collections over

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Speaker 2: a billion specimen. It is, you know, it's extraordinary to

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Speaker 2: think of that, and so basically quite a lot of

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Speaker 2: what goes into looking after those specimens. Think about natural

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Speaker 2: history collections, particularly zoology and plants, is that they're all organic,

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Speaker 2: so we have to stop them from rotting, stop them

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Speaker 2: from being eaten by paths or being damaged by a mold,

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Speaker 2: and so that's a pretty active role. But most people

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Speaker 2: in the museums are here to share them like they

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Speaker 2: are public spaces, both behind the scenes and kind of

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Speaker 2: the public galleries public galleries where most people visit. But

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Speaker 2: we have a really active set of things going on

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Speaker 2: behind the scenes where either people are working to create program,

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Speaker 2: exhibitions or events to share the collections, but also just

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Speaker 2: to welcome researchers visiting from all over the world or

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Speaker 2: having you know, we have about twenty five PhD students

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Speaker 2: here in the museum's order in Cambridgry of six curators

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Speaker 2: who are researching the collection, so we're doing research both

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Speaker 2: in house. Also hundreds of thiss come to use the

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Speaker 2: collections in their research.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and so like, what's an example of how a

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Speaker 1: researcher might use something a collection from a museum because

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Speaker 1: I think you know, often when you think of say biology,

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Speaker 1: research is something like maybe you go out and do

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Speaker 1: an observational study in the wild and you watch an

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Speaker 1: animal's behavior, or maybe you do some kind of research

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Speaker 1: on a live animal, Like you you do some sort

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Speaker 1: of mouse study, right like in medicine, where you have

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Speaker 1: you have mice in a lab. So I think often

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Speaker 1: the idea of research is like you either do something

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Speaker 1: in a lab with sort of like live things that

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Speaker 1: you've cut, or you go out into the wild and

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Speaker 1: you sit for a really long time and hope you

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Speaker 1: see something. But what in what way does museums can

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Speaker 1: museum specimens be used in research?

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Speaker 2: It's a lot of ways, you know, and their use

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Speaker 2: has only ever grown over time. So since the very

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Speaker 2: earliest days of that for history museums, the main kind

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Speaker 2: of science that was done in them is still done

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Speaker 2: in them is taxonomy, so describing the diversity of life

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Speaker 2: on Earth. If you describe a new species, you have

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Speaker 2: to base it on a single specimen or small set

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Speaker 2: of specimens called type specimens, and those type specimens have

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Speaker 2: to be deposited in the public Museum, so that forever,

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Speaker 2: you know, hundreds of years in the future and hundreds

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Speaker 2: of years in the past. People are saying, okay, if

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Speaker 2: you're describing a new species, you have to compare it

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Speaker 2: to all of the other known species. To say why

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Speaker 2: your new one is different, you have to compared to

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Speaker 2: the type specimens, and so without you know, without knowing

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Speaker 2: what species exist, not much of biology makes sense as

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Speaker 2: well as all as your bosom. It makes sense even

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Speaker 2: today thinking conservation biology. We can't conserve what we don't

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Speaker 2: know exist. So just describing diversity is fundamental to music inqulotions.

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Speaker 2: But since that so much more is happening here in Cambridge.

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Speaker 2: Our insect Ecology group are taking the data off of

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Speaker 2: insect specimens that are collected in the eighteen twenties around

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Speaker 2: Cambridge in the East of England and working with the

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Speaker 2: local wildlife trusts for the local conservation bodies to share

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Speaker 2: with them what was here two hundred years ago before

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Speaker 2: our part of the country was drained. So Cambridgeshire is

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Speaker 2: massive wetland. Naturally, the fens in the East of England

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Speaker 2: is this big flat wetland and habitat which was drained

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Speaker 2: during the industrial revolution. So the Wildlife Trust are now

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Speaker 2: working to restore and those habitats, but they need to

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Speaker 2: know what was there two hundred years ago. So the

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Speaker 2: data and our specimens are absolutely valuable for that. So

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Speaker 2: the kind of the very fundamentally, what have we got?

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Speaker 2: What is the diversity of life? And then each of

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Speaker 2: those data points, each of those specimens tell us where

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Speaker 2: something lived when it was collected. So it's evidence for

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Speaker 2: how biodiversity has changed over time, so particularly through human interactions,

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Speaker 2: but also through climate change. So our collections in museums

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Speaker 2: are the world's best data set for how the world

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Speaker 2: has changed over the last two hundred years, particularly on

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Speaker 2: those two issues that affect literally everyone on the planet,

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Speaker 2: where biodiversity loss and time changed. We could we could

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Speaker 2: not understand this that museum collections. But pretty much every

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Speaker 2: week someone is coming up with a new way of

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Speaker 2: using a collection in a way that the people that

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Speaker 2: collected the specimens would have absolutely no idea what they

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Speaker 2: were doing. Specimens collected in eighteen hundreds. People who work

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Speaker 2: on genetics now are using those collections in ways that

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Speaker 2: can't be imagined. But there's so many more kind of

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Speaker 2: imaginative ways of using it. There's this really famous study

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Speaker 2: where it turned out that the soot the pollution on

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Speaker 2: the feathers of birds in museum collections ended up being

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Speaker 2: the best evidence for the use of black coal in

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Speaker 2: the US over the last one hundred plus years. So

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Speaker 2: people can track and say, okay, look at the dirt

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Speaker 2: on a bird feather and work out how much pollution

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Speaker 2: was in the atmosphere, and then match that to the

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Speaker 2: climate data from the date that the bird was collected,

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Speaker 2: and track that over thousands of specimens over one hundred years,

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Speaker 2: and you've got the best environmental record for air pollution

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Speaker 2: in the US. And obviously I didn't even match that

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Speaker 2: the specimen was a bird for that it was they

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Speaker 2: weren't looking at the birdyliness of the specimen, they were

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Speaker 2: just looking at the dirt on the bed. And there

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Speaker 2: are loads of examples like that, or you know, there's

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Speaker 2: there's a great one the Naturalist Museum did in London

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Speaker 2: and a few years ago where the first thing you

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Speaker 2: see when you walk into the museum is this blue

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Speaker 2: whale that died in the eighteen nineties off the west

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Speaker 2: coast of Ireland, and they took one of the sheets

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Speaker 2: of Baileen from the whales mats, So this is you know,

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Speaker 2: it's the big filter like civil like.

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Speaker 1: Structure, the push room that they have in their mouths

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Speaker 1: that they used to filter out krill exactly.

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Speaker 2: So they'll take this massive gulp of water around krill

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Speaker 2: or squirered of fish and then push that water back

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Speaker 2: through these these brushes and hang out of their guns

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Speaker 2: and the same and them they just live around the

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Speaker 2: inside and how the biggest animals in the world eats

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Speaker 2: and the smalllest animals in the world. But what they

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Speaker 2: did was because by lean grows constantly throughout the animal's

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Speaker 2: life like you know, fingernails or head does, it provides

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Speaker 2: a record for the last they think six or seven

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Speaker 2: years of that animal because it was growing incrementally. So

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Speaker 2: they took a sample like let's say, every centimeter down

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Speaker 2: the bailey and that proved that provided evidence for where

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Speaker 2: exactly the whale was and the bailing group, because of

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Speaker 2: course we are what we eat. Yes, the chemistry of

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Speaker 2: the sea changes depending where on Earth it was, and

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Speaker 2: whales are really hard to study despite the fact that

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Speaker 2: they're massive, like they're super rare live underwater.

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Speaker 1: We just cat we can't be like you know, when

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Speaker 1: we think about studies and you're sitting there trying to

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Speaker 1: observe what the animals are doing. We can't do that

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Speaker 1: with whales, despite how big they are. It seems like

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Speaker 1: they'd be very obvious to study. But we can't live,

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Speaker 1: at least not yet, like in a bubble lab in

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Speaker 1: the middle of the ocean, waiting around for a blue

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Speaker 1: whale to do something interesting.

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Speaker 2: Exactly exactly so they could show. In the last six

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Speaker 2: or seven years of her life she kind of the

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Speaker 2: chemistry of her baileying, so the chemical isotopes of her

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Speaker 2: bailey matched that for about a year she was around

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Speaker 2: the subtropics or maybe around Cape Third in the Atlantic,

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Speaker 2: and then she spent each year migrating back and forwards

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Speaker 2: to the North Atlantic and the subtropics every year, and

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Speaker 2: then they could find the hormones in her bailiing to

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Speaker 2: so that she became pregnant and gave birth again in

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Speaker 2: the in the subtropics before migrating north again and eventually

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Speaker 2: dying and washing up on the on the west coast

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Speaker 2: of the Island're thinking eighteen ninety one and not studying

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Speaker 2: This wouldn't be possible without without takings from the Museum.

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Speaker 1: That's amazing, I mean, and it ties into so much research,

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Speaker 1: Like there's more modern research now on how whale urine

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Speaker 1: is like one of the biggest contributors to nitrogen in

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Speaker 1: the in more tropical waters, right. And then there's this

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Speaker 1: sort of funnel, this like p funnel from the from

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Speaker 1: the Arctic colder waters that actually have a lot more

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Speaker 1: nutritional density in them, and then they take the whales

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Speaker 1: feed there, then they migrate to these more tropical, warmer

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Speaker 1: waters and then they'll they'll mate, they'll give birth, and

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Speaker 1: so all the the leavings from them being there, like urine,

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Speaker 1: even the placenta contributes to this nitrogen in these area.

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Speaker 1: And then having this history of like, well we know

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Speaker 1: that whales we're doing these migratory paths for a long time.

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Speaker 1: It really contributes to our understanding of how they have

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Speaker 1: historically been behaving and how how you know, before kind

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Speaker 1: of humans started to do a bunch of whaling, how

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Speaker 1: much more of this whale fertilizer essentially must have been

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Speaker 1: in the ocean. So it gives us like a better

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Speaker 1: idea of like how much more nutrient and some of

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Speaker 1: these tropical regions probably were before we started our massive

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Speaker 1: whaling campaign in the in the eighteen and nineteen hundreds.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's such such a cool story that, Yes, Joe

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Speaker 2: Roman has just written this book. I just read an

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Speaker 2: Eat Poop Guy exactly about what you're talking about about

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Speaker 2: this kind of contributions that different animals make. Particularly is

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Speaker 2: a big section on whales to the kind of the

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Speaker 2: chemistry of their environment and the nutrition of their environments. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: really really interesting stuff.

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Speaker 1: There's an interesting also when you were mentioning the whale bailing.

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Speaker 1: I remember reading about how there were various museums who

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Speaker 1: would hold on to whale ear plugs. So like ear wax,

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Speaker 1: which in whales isn't softer flake how it can be

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Speaker 1: in humans, but it actually forms these really hard, almost

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Speaker 1: like rock like chunks, and through its lifetime it forms

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Speaker 1: these bands like kind of like tree rings, but this

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Speaker 1: these sort of more horizontal bands as it is changing

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Speaker 1: its seasonal nutrition and it builds up over a lifetime,

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Speaker 1: and museums would get these from dead whales and they

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Speaker 1: didn't know what to do with them. They didn't certainly

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Speaker 1: like maybe they would put one or two on display,

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Speaker 1: but they had so many of them, but they held

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Speaker 1: onto it right, Like, this is one thing I love

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Speaker 1: about what museums do is they'll just hold on to

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Speaker 1: stuff and you know, without any guarantee that this is

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Speaker 1: going to be really important. But it's like, hey, this

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Speaker 1: is this seems very cool, very interesting, we don't know

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Speaker 1: what to do with it. And then in you know,

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Speaker 1: more recently, researchers are like, hey, actually we now know

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Speaker 1: how to study the chemical composition of the earwax, and

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Speaker 1: so we can track because like with the different bands

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Speaker 1: of earwax, we know that this whale is this many

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Speaker 1: years old, We know that it changes colors with the season,

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Speaker 1: with the nutritional cycle, and now we can actually, like

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Speaker 1: with the bay leen, we can look at hormone levels.

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Speaker 1: We can know if this whale was like stressed in

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Speaker 1: this certain season. And so all of this information like

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Speaker 1: basically the whale's life story stored in its giant chunk

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Speaker 1: of earwax that museums have been carefully taking care of

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Speaker 1: tending to with no you know, like with no glory, right,

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Speaker 1: Like it's not like you get an award for hanging

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Speaker 1: on to old whale earwax. But then finally it becomes

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Speaker 1: really important for research, Like are they do you have

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Speaker 1: any other examples of like very like seemingly either unimportant

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Speaker 1: or really strange or gross museum holdings that could actually

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Speaker 1: be really interesting for research.

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Speaker 2: Something were called the extended specimen concept, which is a

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Speaker 2: not very inserting way of how exctually get about what

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Speaker 2: is on our specimens. So, like I said, fundamentally, it's

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Speaker 2: what is it, where is it from, and when did

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Speaker 2: it die? Is that's the basic data of any specimen.

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Speaker 2: But beyond that, we can you know, we can take

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Speaker 2: the pollen off of the bee and work out what

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Speaker 2: flowers it is visiting. We can take the stomach contents

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Speaker 2: of any animal worked out what it was eating. We

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Speaker 2: can take hormones, as you said, or chemical data and

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Speaker 2: work out what was it, you know, what what how

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Speaker 2: is it? How is it experiencing its life, and what

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Speaker 2: what environments is it exposed to, which can tell us

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Speaker 2: exactly where it's came from came from by matching the

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Speaker 2: soil chemistry or water chemistry. And we can take its parasites.

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Speaker 2: We can take a measure of how symmetrical an animal

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Speaker 2: it is, which tells us how stress it was one

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Speaker 2: of the growing They're so just infinite data on any

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Speaker 2: of these specimens literally infinite data and if you take

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Speaker 2: that across a billion specimens in the world, Yeah, it

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Speaker 2: is genuinely endless. There's another story, a bit like the

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Speaker 2: weal one, but perhaps less gross, and that's the longest

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Speaker 2: living animal ever discovered, with a tiny species of Arctic

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Speaker 2: clam and people realize that by sectioning, they're taking a

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Speaker 2: slice across this clamshell. It too had growth rings from winter,

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Speaker 2: summer and change. It's like a like a like a

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Speaker 2: treatment and you can take the you could analyze the

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Speaker 2: chemistry of each of those hundreds of bands. This this

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Speaker 2: clam lift I think five hundred and seventeen years or

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Speaker 2: something like that, and each of those bands providing an

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Speaker 2: environmental record for the sea where it lived, so they

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Speaker 2: can for the last night under years create a climate

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Speaker 2: record of that of that little patch of sea, which

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Speaker 2: is just present from one specimen. And yeah, well bailey

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Speaker 2: whal ear whap is even cooler and bail because it's

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Speaker 2: the whole the whole of the animal's like pretty long too. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: They don't they don't like lose. That's it's so strange

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Speaker 1: because they don't like drop. Like as humans, we kind

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Speaker 1: of lose our ear wax right, like it naturally sort

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Speaker 1: of like our the cycle of the ear, like it

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Speaker 1: gets pushed out with like the skin renewal inside the

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Speaker 1: ear and then slowly and it comes out. And that's

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Speaker 1: why you have gross earwax that comes out of your ears.

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Speaker 1: It's normal and it's healthy. But for whales, it just

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Speaker 1: sits in there and kind of gets and collects over

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Speaker 1: time and it forms these hard plugs and they actually

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Speaker 1: like use them to enhance their their hearing because like

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Speaker 1: sound can travel through the ear plug into their skull

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Speaker 1: and it's it's wild to me. That's something that it's like, uh,

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Speaker 1: this thing that in human beings were just like, well,

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Speaker 1: this is a gross waste product, and then it just

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Speaker 1: becomes this fundamental part of a whale's anatomy throughout its life.

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Speaker 1: But that's amazing about the I had no idea that

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Speaker 1: there were clams that uh not only would could live

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Speaker 1: that long, but then by looking at this, like it's

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Speaker 1: such a humble little thing, right, like you don't a

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Speaker 1: clam is something I feel like we barely register when

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Speaker 1: when we're going along the beach. They're so common we

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Speaker 1: eat them. But then too, it's like that just this

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Speaker 1: humble little animal keeping such a detailed record of not

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Speaker 1: only its life but the environment around it. Like there's

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Speaker 1: so much understanding how much information is contained in like

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Speaker 1: one animal, Like there's the genome, right, the DNA, which

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Speaker 1: is vast and kind of an insanely insane amount of data,

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Speaker 1: but then everything else as well, when you're able to

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Speaker 1: study the chemical composition of say like it's shell or

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Speaker 1: any anything else that you can preserve, is it is

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Speaker 1: kind of mind blowing. Like you think of a library,

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Speaker 1: right with like billions of books, and then each book

386
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Speaker 1: is like hundreds of thousands of pages or or even

387
00:22:00,680 --> 00:22:03,680
Speaker 1: more like when you're thinking about an animal, right, So

388
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Speaker 1: it is it is just a bewildering amount of information

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Speaker 1: that is collected in museums.

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Speaker 2: Likely connection hey vers is coming along. It's something coming

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Speaker 2: on with a really specific question, and we're just kind

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Speaker 2: of waiting here for question, and we we can't anticipate

393
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Speaker 2: what's there with asking me about dental calculus. So plaque

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Speaker 2: on mammal specimen, mambal teeth in a collection like again,

395
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Speaker 2: it's the kind of always prot back to your growth.

396
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Speaker 2: Is that going to provide a record of the diet?

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Speaker 1: Yeah? Also yeah, it's like, hey, you know what, we

398
00:22:42,200 --> 00:22:44,199
Speaker 1: do have a bunch of plaque in our collection that

399
00:22:44,240 --> 00:22:49,920
Speaker 1: you can come look at. Yeah, it's that's incredible. And

400
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Speaker 1: only I think a fraction of these stories sort of

401
00:22:52,880 --> 00:22:56,440
Speaker 1: reach the news, and usually it's something really sensational or

402
00:22:57,200 --> 00:22:59,679
Speaker 1: fun to look at. Like how in a lot of

403
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Speaker 1: music collections they started realizing that there were animal pelts

404
00:23:05,320 --> 00:23:11,600
Speaker 1: from particularly from Australian marsupials, that would biofluoresse under UV light.

405
00:23:12,200 --> 00:23:15,320
Speaker 1: And then they started going like, wait, you know, but

406
00:23:15,440 --> 00:23:17,399
Speaker 1: we have to test this now on every animal we

407
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Speaker 1: possibly can't to see which of these which of these

408
00:23:20,840 --> 00:23:23,800
Speaker 1: mammals are biofluorescing, because I think we had already known that,

409
00:23:23,960 --> 00:23:27,840
Speaker 1: like there is a lot of biofluorescence, say in scorpions,

410
00:23:27,920 --> 00:23:32,159
Speaker 1: various arthropods, but then to find that there were a

411
00:23:32,200 --> 00:23:36,320
Speaker 1: lot of mammals that also had this biofluorescence. And then

412
00:23:36,520 --> 00:23:38,960
Speaker 1: of course how do you get access to being able

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Speaker 1: to test a bunch of animal pelts, Well, museums have them,

414
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Speaker 1: so like just going through these collections and then you know,

415
00:23:46,760 --> 00:23:49,960
Speaker 1: turning on a little black light and seeing which glows.

416
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Speaker 1: It's it's it's sort of fun to look at images

417
00:23:53,720 --> 00:23:57,919
Speaker 1: of these like glowing platyplus pelts. But there's there's so

418
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Speaker 1: much more that is happening all the time. I would

419
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Speaker 1: imagine in terms of researchers suddenly being like, wait, actually,

420
00:24:03,680 --> 00:24:05,960
Speaker 1: we have so many examples that we could go through

421
00:24:06,000 --> 00:24:08,919
Speaker 1: and see if this new thing that we're discovering holds

422
00:24:08,920 --> 00:24:13,479
Speaker 1: true for other species or other specimens exactly.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, museums are really unusual places and that they bring

424
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Speaker 2: together animals that you will never find together anywhere else.

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Speaker 2: A worus and a platypust that have steered each other. Yeah,

426
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Speaker 2: so my platypusts are actually my corner of zoology. So

427
00:24:27,600 --> 00:24:31,040
Speaker 2: that was super interesting finding when we found out they're biofluoresce,

428
00:24:31,080 --> 00:24:33,760
Speaker 2: and we have no idea why or even if there

429
00:24:33,800 --> 00:24:35,480
Speaker 2: is a reason, you know, it could just be some

430
00:24:36,480 --> 00:24:40,680
Speaker 2: random revolutionary spandrol wiggle them just it just is it's

431
00:24:41,000 --> 00:24:44,160
Speaker 2: a byproduct or something else that doesn't have any evolutionary

432
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Speaker 2: function because sistem most of the time daytime in their burrows,

433
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Speaker 2: so they probably don't experience a love, if you like,

434
00:24:53,400 --> 00:24:55,160
Speaker 2: so we don't really know what's going on there.

435
00:24:55,920 --> 00:24:58,080
Speaker 1: Just so fun could just be a fun Easter egg, right,

436
00:24:58,119 --> 00:25:00,399
Speaker 1: like it's a yeah, Like I know that they've been

437
00:25:00,440 --> 00:25:03,160
Speaker 1: trying by kind of examining a bunch of specimens, there's

438
00:25:03,200 --> 00:25:06,800
Speaker 1: been some attempt to establish some pattern of like when

439
00:25:06,880 --> 00:25:09,720
Speaker 1: does this happen, why does it happen? But yet absolutely

440
00:25:09,760 --> 00:25:14,200
Speaker 1: sometimes it can just be sort of a structural feature

441
00:25:14,600 --> 00:25:17,639
Speaker 1: that has nothing like the biofluorescence, has nothing to do

442
00:25:17,720 --> 00:25:20,000
Speaker 1: with why that feature is there. Like you said, the

443
00:25:20,040 --> 00:25:22,840
Speaker 1: spandrel being that you have some structural feature of an

444
00:25:22,840 --> 00:25:25,199
Speaker 1: animal for some other purpose, and then as kind of

445
00:25:25,240 --> 00:25:29,040
Speaker 1: like a byproduct, you have this other thing because it

446
00:25:29,080 --> 00:25:31,119
Speaker 1: refers to I believe, like when you would have like

447
00:25:31,160 --> 00:25:34,040
Speaker 1: an archway in architecture, and then you have these two

448
00:25:34,119 --> 00:25:38,240
Speaker 1: corners and the archways that are just there because of

449
00:25:38,280 --> 00:25:41,719
Speaker 1: the structure. They don't actually serve any purpose. But in

450
00:25:41,840 --> 00:25:44,280
Speaker 1: architectural history you'd have all these sort of like highly

451
00:25:44,320 --> 00:25:46,800
Speaker 1: decorated spandrels just because it's like some space where you

452
00:25:46,840 --> 00:25:50,760
Speaker 1: can do a little motif. And then in modern times

453
00:25:50,800 --> 00:25:52,679
Speaker 1: and we're like trying to figure out, like what is

454
00:25:52,720 --> 00:25:54,800
Speaker 1: the purpose of this spandrel, like what is it there for?

455
00:25:54,920 --> 00:25:56,920
Speaker 1: And it turns out it's not there for anything. It's

456
00:25:57,000 --> 00:26:00,600
Speaker 1: just there because it's a byproduct of how you build, uh,

457
00:26:00,760 --> 00:26:04,600
Speaker 1: sort of a curve within a square archway and then

458
00:26:04,600 --> 00:26:06,680
Speaker 1: that's it. So it's the same thing with animals, where

459
00:26:06,720 --> 00:26:08,679
Speaker 1: it's like yeah, sometimes it's not. It's not there for

460
00:26:08,720 --> 00:26:11,920
Speaker 1: any reason. Maybe there's a different reason that their fur

461
00:26:12,400 --> 00:26:15,600
Speaker 1: has this biofluorescent property. Maybe it has something to do

462
00:26:15,680 --> 00:26:18,800
Speaker 1: with like thermal regulation, but there's no actual purpose to

463
00:26:19,080 --> 00:26:20,920
Speaker 1: the glowing, but it's it's fun to.

464
00:26:20,880 --> 00:26:23,160
Speaker 2: See, yeah, exactly, exactly.

465
00:26:23,680 --> 00:26:27,480
Speaker 1: Uh So I one thing that I think is really

466
00:26:27,480 --> 00:26:34,119
Speaker 1: interesting is that the idea that museums are not like, uh,

467
00:26:34,320 --> 00:26:38,960
Speaker 1: there's no such thing as say, a purely objective museum. Uh.

468
00:26:39,040 --> 00:26:41,320
Speaker 1: And and this is not like a criticism of museum,

469
00:26:41,359 --> 00:26:43,960
Speaker 1: it's it's it's the idea that a museum can have

470
00:26:44,320 --> 00:26:48,240
Speaker 1: a viewpoints, so in the same way that a curator

471
00:26:48,320 --> 00:26:51,359
Speaker 1: of an art museum might make decisions on which paintings

472
00:26:51,480 --> 00:26:55,160
Speaker 1: or sculptures to highlight, which informs our understanding of art,

473
00:26:55,440 --> 00:26:57,200
Speaker 1: you know, Like we know that the Mona Lisa is

474
00:26:57,240 --> 00:26:58,800
Speaker 1: a big deal because when you go to the Louver,

475
00:26:59,119 --> 00:27:02,000
Speaker 1: there's a giant room mostly just dedicated to her in

476
00:27:02,080 --> 00:27:05,000
Speaker 1: a huge line, And so we have this cultural understanding

477
00:27:05,080 --> 00:27:06,959
Speaker 1: of like she is a big deal, even though her

478
00:27:07,000 --> 00:27:11,119
Speaker 1: painting's kind of small, And so the duration of a

479
00:27:11,200 --> 00:27:15,840
Speaker 1: natural history museum, even though it's not art right Like so,

480
00:27:15,880 --> 00:27:18,040
Speaker 1: I think we're more used to the concept of art

481
00:27:18,080 --> 00:27:21,480
Speaker 1: being subjective, but with something like a natural history museum,

482
00:27:21,560 --> 00:27:24,240
Speaker 1: I think there's often this idea like, well, science has

483
00:27:24,440 --> 00:27:26,960
Speaker 1: sort of one answer, and everyone knows what it is

484
00:27:27,000 --> 00:27:30,000
Speaker 1: if you do the research, and so that's just how

485
00:27:30,200 --> 00:27:34,320
Speaker 1: these decisions are made, say in a museum. But that's

486
00:27:34,359 --> 00:27:38,199
Speaker 1: not necessarily the case. So what are some examples of

487
00:27:38,240 --> 00:27:43,040
Speaker 1: how natural history museum curation can either bias our views

488
00:27:43,160 --> 00:27:47,240
Speaker 1: or change our views on the natural world in ways

489
00:27:47,240 --> 00:27:50,680
Speaker 1: that are not always bad, but it can definitely interact

490
00:27:50,760 --> 00:27:54,440
Speaker 1: with sort of our cultural biases that we already have.

491
00:27:55,680 --> 00:27:57,879
Speaker 2: I think that's such an interesting question. It's something I

492
00:27:57,920 --> 00:28:02,080
Speaker 2: spent a lot of time writing about in memory. It's

493
00:28:02,160 --> 00:28:06,160
Speaker 2: just to think that visually, museums might be showing natural objects,

494
00:28:06,160 --> 00:28:08,840
Speaker 2: but they are made by people. Both the objects that

495
00:28:08,840 --> 00:28:12,360
Speaker 2: are not wholly natural they will be artifacted in some way,

496
00:28:12,400 --> 00:28:14,240
Speaker 2: but the people that have prepared them and then they've

497
00:28:14,280 --> 00:28:16,760
Speaker 2: chosen what to put on display. So it's I think

498
00:28:16,800 --> 00:28:20,399
Speaker 2: it's an astonishing thing that although we might have a

499
00:28:20,440 --> 00:28:24,760
Speaker 2: billion speciment in the world's naturalist museums, all of the museums,

500
00:28:25,400 --> 00:28:28,640
Speaker 2: you know, despite that diversity of stuff, pretty much all

501
00:28:28,680 --> 00:28:31,400
Speaker 2: show the same thing and they talk about the same

502
00:28:31,440 --> 00:28:34,400
Speaker 2: animals in the same kinds of ways, and that kind

503
00:28:34,440 --> 00:28:36,320
Speaker 2: of There are these just tropes and trends of how

504
00:28:36,440 --> 00:28:38,920
Speaker 2: museums talk about nature and how museums display nature that

505
00:28:38,960 --> 00:28:40,560
Speaker 2: I think are worth on picking it a little bit.

506
00:28:41,120 --> 00:28:42,800
Speaker 2: And yeah, the first thing to say is that today

507
00:28:42,920 --> 00:28:47,240
Speaker 2: most naturalism museums will say that their purpose, like their

508
00:28:47,280 --> 00:28:50,760
Speaker 2: mission statements, will also something like we want to make

509
00:28:50,880 --> 00:28:53,880
Speaker 2: our visitors encourage them to care about the natural world,

510
00:28:53,960 --> 00:28:56,680
Speaker 2: encourage them to care about biodiversity. And I think, you know,

511
00:28:56,720 --> 00:28:59,520
Speaker 2: they're really good at doing that. But what's interesting is

512
00:28:59,520 --> 00:29:02,240
Speaker 2: when you go in to a natural history gallery, that's

513
00:29:02,240 --> 00:29:05,120
Speaker 2: not what biodiversity looks like, you know, just in the

514
00:29:05,200 --> 00:29:10,400
Speaker 2: animal I mean first amazonologists. So I'm affected by lets

515
00:29:10,440 --> 00:29:13,880
Speaker 2: less than other people. But museums are really bad at

516
00:29:13,920 --> 00:29:18,640
Speaker 2: play displaying plants. Normally, ants are only on displayed in

517
00:29:18,720 --> 00:29:19,400
Speaker 2: relation to.

518
00:29:19,560 --> 00:29:24,200
Speaker 1: Animals and kind of like a background background the carpet

519
00:29:24,400 --> 00:29:26,640
Speaker 1: on which they say yes exactly.

520
00:29:26,720 --> 00:29:29,000
Speaker 2: So this notion of plant line. This where we can

521
00:29:29,040 --> 00:29:32,320
Speaker 2: look at a scene where you know, there's as a

522
00:29:32,360 --> 00:29:34,920
Speaker 2: photograph with a leopard in the middle of a grass,

523
00:29:34,960 --> 00:29:37,520
Speaker 2: and we ignore the grass. We just see the leopard,

524
00:29:37,520 --> 00:29:40,120
Speaker 2: even though you know what grass is ninety eight percent

525
00:29:40,120 --> 00:29:43,440
Speaker 2: of the picture. That happens in museums too. But even

526
00:29:43,560 --> 00:29:45,840
Speaker 2: among animals. You know, we've so far as we have

527
00:29:45,960 --> 00:29:49,160
Speaker 2: just described about one and a half million species of animal.

528
00:29:50,600 --> 00:29:53,479
Speaker 2: And I always ask people to guess how many of

529
00:29:53,480 --> 00:29:58,000
Speaker 2: those one and a half million species are mammals, And

530
00:29:58,080 --> 00:30:00,320
Speaker 2: I think people are generally surprised that they but it's

531
00:30:00,360 --> 00:30:02,360
Speaker 2: not that many. There's only about six and a half thousand,

532
00:30:03,040 --> 00:30:06,960
Speaker 2: a few in seven thousand, zero point four percent of

533
00:30:07,000 --> 00:30:09,120
Speaker 2: all life on Earth as a mammal. But what do

534
00:30:09,160 --> 00:30:12,160
Speaker 2: we see when we go to naturalism museums. We've see mammals,

535
00:30:12,160 --> 00:30:14,480
Speaker 2: We see loads and loads and loads of mammals, as

536
00:30:14,640 --> 00:30:18,320
Speaker 2: insects make up sixty percent of that diversity. So almost

537
00:30:18,360 --> 00:30:21,640
Speaker 2: a million species of insects has been described, But insects

538
00:30:21,640 --> 00:30:25,360
Speaker 2: are given so little space in naturalist museums, and I

539
00:30:25,400 --> 00:30:28,920
Speaker 2: think that's going to affect what people learn to value.

540
00:30:29,240 --> 00:30:32,800
Speaker 2: So museums are culturally important in our relationship with the

541
00:30:32,880 --> 00:30:36,720
Speaker 2: natural world, and we obviously we are mammals as humans,

542
00:30:37,200 --> 00:30:39,600
Speaker 2: and we're going to be drawn to cute things with

543
00:30:39,720 --> 00:30:45,160
Speaker 2: cute faces and fur. But if museums really are trying

544
00:30:45,160 --> 00:30:47,840
Speaker 2: to make people care about their besty, they should probably

545
00:30:47,840 --> 00:30:49,719
Speaker 2: do a better job of displaying insects.

546
00:30:49,920 --> 00:30:53,560
Speaker 1: We've just got to convince people that tartar grades velvet

547
00:30:53,560 --> 00:30:56,360
Speaker 1: worms are incredibly cute, and we got to.

548
00:30:56,360 --> 00:30:57,120
Speaker 2: See that they are.

549
00:30:57,320 --> 00:31:01,400
Speaker 1: They're so cute velvet if if I could have like

550
00:31:01,520 --> 00:31:04,520
Speaker 1: one sort of a genie wish to like make an

551
00:31:04,600 --> 00:31:08,479
Speaker 1: animal a pet that should not be a pet, like

552
00:31:08,560 --> 00:31:12,320
Speaker 1: having a giant velvet worm as a pet would be amazing.

553
00:31:12,360 --> 00:31:15,520
Speaker 1: They're these little pudgy animals. They're not They're just their

554
00:31:15,600 --> 00:31:18,640
Speaker 1: whole They're kind of their own thing. They're not a worm,

555
00:31:19,320 --> 00:31:23,720
Speaker 1: they're not an insect, they're not a caterpillar. They just

556
00:31:23,800 --> 00:31:28,000
Speaker 1: look like these little soft, chubby pokemon like things that

557
00:31:28,080 --> 00:31:29,800
Speaker 1: have a bunch of little legs, a bunch of little

558
00:31:29,840 --> 00:31:32,360
Speaker 1: chubby arms, and then these two fat antenna and they

559
00:31:33,400 --> 00:31:37,520
Speaker 1: are they they're very cute to look at. They're terrifying

560
00:31:37,560 --> 00:31:42,440
Speaker 1: predators for smaller insects, but it's a yeah, it's I

561
00:31:42,520 --> 00:31:46,000
Speaker 1: just I would love to see a museum have on

562
00:31:46,040 --> 00:31:50,560
Speaker 1: display sort of like giant versions of say, arthropods insects,

563
00:31:50,640 --> 00:31:52,800
Speaker 1: so that you can see kind of up close. Because

564
00:31:52,800 --> 00:31:54,360
Speaker 1: if you're kind of looking at a display with a

565
00:31:54,400 --> 00:31:58,920
Speaker 1: tiny beetle, maybe someone's like, you know, what is I

566
00:31:58,960 --> 00:32:01,320
Speaker 1: barely notice that? But if but if you're looking at

567
00:32:01,360 --> 00:32:05,320
Speaker 1: like a giant plant hopper, and how colorful and amazing

568
00:32:05,360 --> 00:32:08,240
Speaker 1: it is, I don't know. I would love to see.

569
00:32:08,320 --> 00:32:11,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, they are like obviously infectual, they have going

570
00:32:11,360 --> 00:32:13,880
Speaker 2: against them. It's that they're tiny, yes, but there are

571
00:32:13,920 --> 00:32:16,000
Speaker 2: ways of displaying, like there are ways of doing good

572
00:32:16,000 --> 00:32:18,920
Speaker 2: insect displays, including and you say, giant things, but also

573
00:32:19,080 --> 00:32:22,400
Speaker 2: just loads and special So what they make up for

574
00:32:22,520 --> 00:32:24,560
Speaker 2: is what they do insights, they make up for it.

575
00:32:25,280 --> 00:32:28,120
Speaker 1: I remember seeing in a natural history museum like this

576
00:32:28,280 --> 00:32:33,080
Speaker 1: giant mandola of like various beetle species, just like kind

577
00:32:33,120 --> 00:32:36,560
Speaker 1: of arranged by color, and that was that was very cool.

578
00:32:37,160 --> 00:32:40,360
Speaker 2: It's yeah, they're beautiful, and so I think that's that's

579
00:32:40,400 --> 00:32:42,720
Speaker 2: one bites is that we're not we're not reflecting the

580
00:32:42,800 --> 00:32:46,120
Speaker 2: natural world taken well. And then there's another one that's

581
00:32:46,120 --> 00:32:48,640
Speaker 2: slightly more insidious. And that's that we have way more

582
00:32:48,680 --> 00:32:51,280
Speaker 2: male specimens on display in naturist museums than where do

583
00:32:51,280 --> 00:32:51,760
Speaker 2: you females?

584
00:32:51,920 --> 00:32:54,560
Speaker 1: He wants to see a girl lion? Nobody.

585
00:32:55,560 --> 00:32:59,360
Speaker 2: I like that. You might think, you might think that

586
00:32:59,600 --> 00:33:02,800
Speaker 2: you know it's justified, but and you know, it's a

587
00:33:02,840 --> 00:33:04,840
Speaker 2: difficult decision. So you know, nature's men. We spend a

588
00:33:04,840 --> 00:33:07,600
Speaker 2: lot of time talking about it, that people are making

589
00:33:07,640 --> 00:33:10,320
Speaker 2: decisions about what on displayed, what stories are the most

590
00:33:10,960 --> 00:33:15,959
Speaker 2: interesting or most like, to help people feel inspired all

591
00:33:16,040 --> 00:33:19,240
Speaker 2: struck by the natural world. And yes, you can understand

592
00:33:19,360 --> 00:33:23,560
Speaker 2: that given the choice between you know, a massive, brightly

593
00:33:23,760 --> 00:33:28,600
Speaker 2: colored male bird and a kind of brown, small drab

594
00:33:28,720 --> 00:33:31,000
Speaker 2: female bird, there is there is some sense in them

595
00:33:31,000 --> 00:33:33,800
Speaker 2: showing the female. I would argue that it's interesting to

596
00:33:33,800 --> 00:33:35,520
Speaker 2: show that males and females can be different.

597
00:33:36,280 --> 00:33:39,120
Speaker 1: And it's also like the manner in which that like

598
00:33:39,280 --> 00:33:41,960
Speaker 1: the manner in which they're displayed with male and female birds.

599
00:33:42,000 --> 00:33:44,880
Speaker 1: Is One thing I've noticed is that the big maybe

600
00:33:44,880 --> 00:33:47,560
Speaker 1: you have like a brightly colored male, and then they

601
00:33:47,680 --> 00:33:50,520
Speaker 1: include the female, but she's kind of in the background.

602
00:33:50,720 --> 00:33:53,440
Speaker 1: She's They don't really spend a lot of time preparing

603
00:33:53,480 --> 00:33:56,719
Speaker 1: the taxidermad specimen she's just like and there's the female

604
00:33:56,760 --> 00:34:00,400
Speaker 1: and she's brown and whatever and like and they have

605
00:34:00,480 --> 00:34:03,720
Speaker 1: the male in this like glorious sort of you know action,

606
00:34:03,920 --> 00:34:06,920
Speaker 1: pose wings out, you know, in a in some display,

607
00:34:07,440 --> 00:34:10,680
Speaker 1: and it really makes you feel like the female birds

608
00:34:10,719 --> 00:34:13,360
Speaker 1: are sort of just in the background, not doing anything,

609
00:34:13,400 --> 00:34:16,840
Speaker 1: when in fact, these drab female birds are the whole

610
00:34:16,880 --> 00:34:20,520
Speaker 1: reason in a lot of theories is that they're the whole

611
00:34:20,520 --> 00:34:22,680
Speaker 1: reason you have these like male displays, and they have

612
00:34:22,840 --> 00:34:26,279
Speaker 1: so much agency in picking mates and what they're doing

613
00:34:26,360 --> 00:34:29,919
Speaker 1: in terms of, uh, care for offspring, or they may

614
00:34:30,280 --> 00:34:33,600
Speaker 1: have some really interesting behavior and you're just not capturing that.

615
00:34:33,719 --> 00:34:36,560
Speaker 1: If you have this big, you know, display of a

616
00:34:36,600 --> 00:34:39,360
Speaker 1: truly beautiful male specimen, nothing wrong with doing that, but

617
00:34:39,400 --> 00:34:41,640
Speaker 1: then the females just kind of like in the background.

618
00:34:41,719 --> 00:34:44,600
Speaker 1: Like if you could maybe showing her that she's like

619
00:34:44,719 --> 00:34:48,160
Speaker 1: really investigating this male, and you'd have to be a

620
00:34:48,200 --> 00:34:51,239
Speaker 1: clever taxidermist to show that kind of action shot of

621
00:34:51,280 --> 00:34:55,920
Speaker 1: like this female is actually very active in this courtship ritual.

622
00:34:55,960 --> 00:34:57,920
Speaker 1: But it's is it is often just like, look at

623
00:34:57,920 --> 00:34:59,879
Speaker 1: this amazing male and then she's back there doing something.

624
00:35:00,040 --> 00:35:01,560
Speaker 1: Don't we don't really care about.

625
00:35:01,920 --> 00:35:03,719
Speaker 2: I think it gets worse, it gets worse than that.

626
00:35:03,760 --> 00:35:05,520
Speaker 2: So you know, I do write about this a lot

627
00:35:05,760 --> 00:35:08,120
Speaker 2: in the book, but the bias, and it's particularly picked

628
00:35:08,160 --> 00:35:10,319
Speaker 2: up by a colleague of mine called Rebecca Maten who

629
00:35:11,000 --> 00:35:13,839
Speaker 2: who kind of noticed this, this this version what you're

630
00:35:13,840 --> 00:35:16,440
Speaker 2: talking about, where it's not only that they're in the background,

631
00:35:16,480 --> 00:35:20,560
Speaker 2: but the females are you know, lower on the shelf

632
00:35:20,880 --> 00:35:24,719
Speaker 2: or sometimes mounted, like literally bowing down to the males.

633
00:35:24,800 --> 00:35:28,400
Speaker 2: The males, as you say, be passed up domineering pose

634
00:35:28,680 --> 00:35:33,080
Speaker 2: and the and the females are literally kind of head down,

635
00:35:34,040 --> 00:35:35,960
Speaker 2: face on the floor. This is this is I say,

636
00:35:36,000 --> 00:35:38,879
Speaker 2: how how dead birds prop up the patriarchy. And it's

637
00:35:38,920 --> 00:35:41,680
Speaker 2: got absolutely nothing to do with natural history. It doesn't

638
00:35:41,680 --> 00:35:44,520
Speaker 2: reflect what happens in the wild. What these birds are

639
00:35:44,560 --> 00:35:46,160
Speaker 2: doing now.

640
00:35:46,200 --> 00:35:50,320
Speaker 1: It's like like females are sort of like the Simon

641
00:35:50,440 --> 00:35:53,319
Speaker 1: Cowell of animals, like in the in terms of these

642
00:35:53,400 --> 00:35:56,600
Speaker 1: like they will be yeah, if you watch them, like

643
00:35:56,719 --> 00:35:59,319
Speaker 1: if you want, you'll see like a bower bird really

644
00:35:59,320 --> 00:36:01,920
Speaker 1: trying to impress a female and she is like scrutinizing him,

645
00:36:02,040 --> 00:36:04,640
Speaker 1: judging him, and he's the one sort of like no, no, no,

646
00:36:04,680 --> 00:36:07,239
Speaker 1: please stay like come back, like so it is. It

647
00:36:07,320 --> 00:36:10,960
Speaker 1: is not it's not only uh, showing bias, but it

648
00:36:11,040 --> 00:36:14,200
Speaker 1: is inaccurate, right, it is not it's not showing you

649
00:36:14,239 --> 00:36:16,200
Speaker 1: the truth. Right. So I think like that's kind of

650
00:36:16,200 --> 00:36:19,600
Speaker 1: an like it's an important point because I think sometimes

651
00:36:19,600 --> 00:36:22,719
Speaker 1: people think, like, ah, you know, who cares about like

652
00:36:23,040 --> 00:36:26,239
Speaker 1: you know, quote unquote feminism in museums, Like that's just

653
00:36:26,320 --> 00:36:29,239
Speaker 1: that's not science. It's like no, Actually, if you're not

654
00:36:29,239 --> 00:36:34,799
Speaker 1: paying attention to our kind of weird human gender biases, uh,

655
00:36:35,000 --> 00:36:38,799
Speaker 1: that will distort what is actually happening in terms of

656
00:36:39,000 --> 00:36:43,160
Speaker 1: actual animal behavior and what's happening in the natural world exactly.

657
00:36:43,200 --> 00:36:45,000
Speaker 2: I think that actually goes beyond the specimens to what

658
00:36:45,000 --> 00:36:48,160
Speaker 2: we write on the labels as well. So Rebecca mentioned

659
00:36:48,280 --> 00:36:52,160
Speaker 2: the study of typical naturist museum labels and in those

660
00:36:52,320 --> 00:36:55,640
Speaker 2: relatively row instances where you have females on display, male

661
00:36:55,680 --> 00:36:59,000
Speaker 2: and females on display to look at them, the labels

662
00:36:59,000 --> 00:37:01,000
Speaker 2: on a male specimen in it or say something like

663
00:37:01,520 --> 00:37:04,240
Speaker 2: you know, this is how the animal eats or moves

664
00:37:04,239 --> 00:37:08,400
Speaker 2: through its habitat or defends itself or general natural history

665
00:37:08,440 --> 00:37:11,000
Speaker 2: facts are on the male specimens because on the female

666
00:37:11,040 --> 00:37:13,880
Speaker 2: specimens its stories about how the species really produce it,

667
00:37:14,480 --> 00:37:16,880
Speaker 2: and how they make babies, how they raise their babies,

668
00:37:17,160 --> 00:37:21,120
Speaker 2: and of course female specimens also eat and move through

669
00:37:21,160 --> 00:37:25,160
Speaker 2: the habitats and defend themselves, and male specimens also reproduce

670
00:37:25,239 --> 00:37:28,680
Speaker 2: and once we're babies. But it perpetuates the very human

671
00:37:29,120 --> 00:37:33,680
Speaker 2: social construct of what gender you know, gender roles are.

672
00:37:34,320 --> 00:37:37,840
Speaker 2: So you know, it's it's pushing a human and social

673
00:37:37,840 --> 00:37:43,799
Speaker 2: construct onto an animal in ways that you know, unhelpful,

674
00:37:44,040 --> 00:37:47,319
Speaker 2: that it gives a very because an obvious but subconscious

675
00:37:47,360 --> 00:37:52,640
Speaker 2: message to you any visitor reading that, including kids. So

676
00:37:52,920 --> 00:37:54,920
Speaker 2: you know, museums do have a role in shape and

677
00:37:54,960 --> 00:37:57,640
Speaker 2: what people think. And it's not just the specimens, it's

678
00:37:57,680 --> 00:38:00,520
Speaker 2: also what people write on the labels. And not for nothing,

679
00:38:00,560 --> 00:38:02,160
Speaker 2: but most people who work in that dressed to medium

680
00:38:02,200 --> 00:38:07,799
Speaker 2: for women. So it's such an ingrained yeah construct.

681
00:38:09,440 --> 00:38:11,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, well, you know how it is the

682
00:38:11,680 --> 00:38:15,080
Speaker 1: the male crab goes out to his little job, and

683
00:38:15,080 --> 00:38:17,640
Speaker 1: then the female crab stays at home in the in

684
00:38:17,680 --> 00:38:22,760
Speaker 1: the kitchen, raising all the little crab baby. You know. Yeah,

685
00:38:22,880 --> 00:38:26,520
Speaker 1: we there are like specific examples in nature that seem

686
00:38:27,160 --> 00:38:31,560
Speaker 1: to when it likes quote unquote subverts this expectation. Uh,

687
00:38:31,719 --> 00:38:36,520
Speaker 1: it's like surprising or we see it as for example,

688
00:38:36,560 --> 00:38:40,520
Speaker 1: like I think some of the myths about say, like spiders,

689
00:38:40,880 --> 00:38:45,080
Speaker 1: uh is because like there are a few examples of like, yes,

690
00:38:45,120 --> 00:38:47,880
Speaker 1: the female spiders tend to be larger than the males,

691
00:38:48,239 --> 00:38:52,080
Speaker 1: So people have a concept that all female spiders will

692
00:38:52,120 --> 00:38:56,440
Speaker 1: engage in uh, sexual cannibalism, and it's like, well, that's

693
00:38:56,600 --> 00:39:00,680
Speaker 1: actually not true. I think it's just that it's surprising

694
00:39:00,840 --> 00:39:05,440
Speaker 1: enough to people that female arthropod's female spiders tend to

695
00:39:05,520 --> 00:39:09,120
Speaker 1: be larger than the males that a few examples in

696
00:39:09,160 --> 00:39:12,960
Speaker 1: which there are female spiders who do engage in sexual cannibalism,

697
00:39:13,040 --> 00:39:16,400
Speaker 1: and sometimes it's like it's not that they always do it,

698
00:39:16,440 --> 00:39:21,520
Speaker 1: but they only do it in certain situations. Turns into

699
00:39:21,560 --> 00:39:23,560
Speaker 1: this kind of like a myth of like, well, you

700
00:39:23,600 --> 00:39:26,920
Speaker 1: know how spiders are they flip the script and because

701
00:39:26,960 --> 00:39:29,560
Speaker 1: they're so big and so scary, they always eat the

702
00:39:29,600 --> 00:39:33,600
Speaker 1: males after copulation, and so it's a you know, you know,

703
00:39:33,640 --> 00:39:37,040
Speaker 1: it's kind of like even once you get an example

704
00:39:37,040 --> 00:39:40,120
Speaker 1: of like, look, this clearly is subverting sort of the

705
00:39:40,719 --> 00:39:47,080
Speaker 1: human cultural expectations, that too can become mythologized because we

706
00:39:47,200 --> 00:39:51,120
Speaker 1: see that as an exception rather than something within the

707
00:39:51,160 --> 00:39:54,560
Speaker 1: spectrum of many different types of animal behaviors that are

708
00:39:55,239 --> 00:39:57,839
Speaker 1: very diverse. And there's a lot of different type of

709
00:39:58,400 --> 00:40:02,960
Speaker 1: spider ma eating behaviors that is not just like a

710
00:40:02,960 --> 00:40:08,280
Speaker 1: a giant evil female eating the poor little males exactly.

711
00:40:08,320 --> 00:40:10,759
Speaker 2: And you know, there's a lot of animals in which

712
00:40:10,760 --> 00:40:12,879
Speaker 2: the females is bigger than the males for obvious reasons

713
00:40:12,920 --> 00:40:16,440
Speaker 2: where the one's producing the eggs. So for example, a

714
00:40:16,480 --> 00:40:18,200
Speaker 2: lot of birds of prey, and most birds of prey

715
00:40:18,239 --> 00:40:21,600
Speaker 2: probably even the females are bigger snakes and crocodiles as well.

716
00:40:22,719 --> 00:40:25,280
Speaker 2: And what's interesting is not only that that gender bias

717
00:40:25,280 --> 00:40:27,400
Speaker 2: I mentioned when more males are on display than females,

718
00:40:27,440 --> 00:40:29,759
Speaker 2: that's also true in the stored collections. So it's not

719
00:40:29,880 --> 00:40:32,040
Speaker 2: just kind of the curatorial bias in what's going on display,

720
00:40:32,080 --> 00:40:34,560
Speaker 2: but on what science is being done as well. So

721
00:40:35,160 --> 00:40:37,880
Speaker 2: there are way more males in the stored collections and females,

722
00:40:38,360 --> 00:40:41,880
Speaker 2: and that bias is actually less strong for species in

723
00:40:41,880 --> 00:40:47,960
Speaker 2: which females are bigger, ordet decorated. And but that that

724
00:40:48,000 --> 00:40:51,120
Speaker 2: bias in the stalled collection is interesting and important to acknowledge,

725
00:40:51,160 --> 00:40:53,160
Speaker 2: and the scientific point of view, because if you're making

726
00:40:54,920 --> 00:40:58,120
Speaker 2: study based on, however, many thousand specimens of the given

727
00:40:58,120 --> 00:41:01,760
Speaker 2: species or given group in a museum, and the majority

728
00:41:01,760 --> 00:41:03,640
Speaker 2: of those specimens of male, you need to account for

729
00:41:03,680 --> 00:41:06,759
Speaker 2: that bias in any conclusions you make. We might you know,

730
00:41:07,000 --> 00:41:09,319
Speaker 2: in many species, males and females might eat different things,

731
00:41:09,400 --> 00:41:13,600
Speaker 2: or behave differently, or have different but you know, if

732
00:41:13,600 --> 00:41:15,840
Speaker 2: you analyze the chemistry, the chemistry will end up being different.

733
00:41:16,600 --> 00:41:19,400
Speaker 2: So if we're not acknowledging that bias in the science

734
00:41:19,400 --> 00:41:21,520
Speaker 2: that's being done, we're going to be misrepresenting what females

735
00:41:21,640 --> 00:41:24,120
Speaker 2: animals are doing. The science gets corrupted too.

736
00:41:24,560 --> 00:41:27,359
Speaker 1: I mean, that's it's that's really interesting because that's also

737
00:41:27,400 --> 00:41:32,480
Speaker 1: the case in medical science that uses say mouse lineages

738
00:41:32,560 --> 00:41:37,720
Speaker 1: or rat lineages, there's this, uh, this like weird rat

739
00:41:37,800 --> 00:41:42,600
Speaker 1: sexism where rat or mouse sexism, where often medical studies

740
00:41:42,600 --> 00:41:47,160
Speaker 1: will only use male male mice or male rats because

741
00:41:47,200 --> 00:41:51,160
Speaker 1: it's like, ah, yeah, but the females have hormonal cycles

742
00:41:51,160 --> 00:41:54,920
Speaker 1: that will interfere with our research, and it's like, okay,

743
00:41:55,080 --> 00:42:00,800
Speaker 1: but you do realize that, uh, in humans, female humans

744
00:42:00,800 --> 00:42:07,239
Speaker 1: also have hormonal cycles that might interfere with whatever medical

745
00:42:07,280 --> 00:42:09,920
Speaker 1: concept that you're studying. So like there's this bias of like, well,

746
00:42:09,960 --> 00:42:12,399
Speaker 1: we'll just use the male mice because or the male

747
00:42:12,480 --> 00:42:15,480
Speaker 1: routes because we don't want to really have to have

748
00:42:15,640 --> 00:42:18,200
Speaker 1: this other variable of the hormones and the female routes

749
00:42:18,200 --> 00:42:25,120
Speaker 1: and the female mice. I've been hearing stories right in

750
00:42:25,120 --> 00:42:27,960
Speaker 1: in terms of like the current sort of in the US,

751
00:42:28,120 --> 00:42:31,000
Speaker 1: as people probably know, we've been getting this concept that

752
00:42:31,040 --> 00:42:35,320
Speaker 1: we need to get rid of dei or quote wokeness

753
00:42:35,360 --> 00:42:39,760
Speaker 1: in research. And so what's been happening is any research

754
00:42:39,800 --> 00:42:44,480
Speaker 1: that deals with sex or hormones has been targeted for

755
00:42:44,640 --> 00:42:47,200
Speaker 1: potential defunding. And so I have a friend who is

756
00:42:47,239 --> 00:42:51,960
Speaker 1: telling me about she's an entomologist, and there's researchers in

757
00:42:52,000 --> 00:42:56,319
Speaker 1: the US who their content got flagged because they were

758
00:42:56,360 --> 00:43:03,520
Speaker 1: looking at sexual diversity in crickets. So this was this

759
00:43:03,560 --> 00:43:08,879
Speaker 1: is looking at sex ratios in cricket species, and they

760
00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:11,759
Speaker 1: are you know, we're getting sort of like targeted because

761
00:43:11,800 --> 00:43:14,720
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, well, you're doing something that is part

762
00:43:14,800 --> 00:43:18,720
Speaker 1: of a this is not objective, right, You're doing some

763
00:43:18,719 --> 00:43:21,120
Speaker 1: some sort of like social science with your research. And

764
00:43:21,680 --> 00:43:24,400
Speaker 1: I think this is kind of a I think for

765
00:43:24,480 --> 00:43:27,839
Speaker 1: a lot of people, now this is obviously strange and wrong.

766
00:43:27,920 --> 00:43:32,200
Speaker 1: But for a while, even before this current political situation,

767
00:43:32,600 --> 00:43:37,640
Speaker 1: I think that there's been this desire to completely separate

768
00:43:39,440 --> 00:43:44,480
Speaker 1: the hard science, the hard science, from social sciences, or

769
00:43:44,840 --> 00:43:51,799
Speaker 1: to have this concept of pure objectivity in say evolutionary biology,

770
00:43:52,120 --> 00:43:56,160
Speaker 1: that is separate from culture, it's separate from society, and

771
00:43:56,320 --> 00:43:58,960
Speaker 1: that we don't you know that is it's a political

772
00:43:59,000 --> 00:44:02,400
Speaker 1: it's it's a kind of like thing on a in

773
00:44:02,440 --> 00:44:06,480
Speaker 1: a vacuum. So what how do you think is like

774
00:44:07,320 --> 00:44:10,160
Speaker 1: On the other hand, though, like it is important in

775
00:44:10,239 --> 00:44:13,359
Speaker 1: science to have a certain element of objectivity. You want

776
00:44:13,440 --> 00:44:17,120
Speaker 1: to do research, you want to keep like you said,

777
00:44:17,160 --> 00:44:23,120
Speaker 1: like having collections that are more objective. Well is important

778
00:44:23,120 --> 00:44:26,080
Speaker 1: for research in terms of having say like an equal

779
00:44:26,080 --> 00:44:29,680
Speaker 1: balance of the sex of different specimens. So what is

780
00:44:29,800 --> 00:44:34,560
Speaker 1: like a healthy way to balance objectivity with an understanding

781
00:44:34,600 --> 00:44:38,160
Speaker 1: of how our culture and our society can influence our

782
00:44:38,480 --> 00:44:41,719
Speaker 1: understanding of evolutionary biology, Like, is what is a way

783
00:44:41,760 --> 00:44:44,640
Speaker 1: to both acknowledge sort of our biases but also try

784
00:44:44,680 --> 00:44:49,200
Speaker 1: to achieve this this idea of scientific objectivity.

785
00:44:49,880 --> 00:44:52,000
Speaker 2: And I think it goes a lot deeper than evolution

786
00:44:52,120 --> 00:44:55,240
Speaker 2: biology certainly includes that I think not true His museums

787
00:44:56,239 --> 00:45:00,160
Speaker 2: represent themselves. As you say, it's a political and scientific

788
00:45:01,840 --> 00:45:04,960
Speaker 2: meaning that you know, they've excluded themselves from conversations that

789
00:45:05,040 --> 00:45:07,400
Speaker 2: have been happening in every other kind of museum discipline

790
00:45:07,560 --> 00:45:10,279
Speaker 2: about the human stories behind that collection. You know, if

791
00:45:10,280 --> 00:45:14,239
Speaker 2: we pretend this is just a collection of hedgehogs and crickets,

792
00:45:15,440 --> 00:45:18,920
Speaker 2: then we're ignoring the stories of the circumstances in which

793
00:45:18,960 --> 00:45:23,000
Speaker 2: those hedgehogs and crickets are collected. You know, it is obvious,

794
00:45:23,080 --> 00:45:26,200
Speaker 2: utterly obvious when when you start to think about it,

795
00:45:26,520 --> 00:45:29,759
Speaker 2: that science is part of culture and is affected by

796
00:45:29,760 --> 00:45:35,480
Speaker 2: the science society is that it's embedded in Societies are

797
00:45:35,480 --> 00:45:38,080
Speaker 2: different in parts of the world at different times in history,

798
00:45:38,160 --> 00:45:41,359
Speaker 2: so that what museums collect, how they display them, how

799
00:45:41,360 --> 00:45:44,000
Speaker 2: they interpret them, how they study them, how they store

800
00:45:44,040 --> 00:45:48,400
Speaker 2: them reflect the same prejudices and biases or priorities and

801
00:45:48,480 --> 00:45:53,839
Speaker 2: interests as a society that they're happening in. So, you know,

802
00:45:54,800 --> 00:45:56,439
Speaker 2: we've been starting to say this for the last few

803
00:45:56,480 --> 00:45:59,200
Speaker 2: years that museum naturist mediums are you know, are starting

804
00:45:59,200 --> 00:46:01,879
Speaker 2: to realize that. Yeah, so of course where human constructs, yes,

805
00:46:01,960 --> 00:46:04,759
Speaker 2: museums are not neutral, and that's a good thing. But

806
00:46:05,000 --> 00:46:06,640
Speaker 2: you know, what's happening in the US at the moment.

807
00:46:06,680 --> 00:46:09,400
Speaker 2: It's an obvious example of that because they are directly

808
00:46:09,480 --> 00:46:13,040
Speaker 2: controlling what science is happening at the moment. And that

809
00:46:13,120 --> 00:46:17,840
Speaker 2: has always happened that it's in a democratic country, it's

810
00:46:17,960 --> 00:46:21,799
Speaker 2: what's happening now is pretty extraordinary. So we you know,

811
00:46:21,840 --> 00:46:24,719
Speaker 2: we're we're at this point and have been for the

812
00:46:24,840 --> 00:46:28,160
Speaker 2: last really not that long seven or eight years. In

813
00:46:28,239 --> 00:46:31,240
Speaker 2: naturists museums are kind of acknowledging the fact that science

814
00:46:31,360 --> 00:46:35,600
Speaker 2: and science museums are not beyond politics. And and I'll

815
00:46:35,640 --> 00:46:37,680
Speaker 2: say that that notion has kind of crumbled as soon

816
00:46:37,719 --> 00:46:41,359
Speaker 2: as you start thinking about it. So we're going through

817
00:46:41,360 --> 00:46:43,680
Speaker 2: a bit of huge piece of work to kind of

818
00:46:43,800 --> 00:46:45,960
Speaker 2: add this layer of relevance. And as I said, we

819
00:46:46,640 --> 00:46:50,160
Speaker 2: are naturist medium that are incredibly important. There's just relevance

820
00:46:50,200 --> 00:46:53,239
Speaker 2: in tackling climate change by adversity of arts, but we

821
00:46:53,360 --> 00:46:56,120
Speaker 2: also have a really important role in talking about social

822
00:46:56,239 --> 00:47:01,120
Speaker 2: justice and the cultural history of our collections and the

823
00:47:01,239 --> 00:47:05,280
Speaker 2: societies that we represent. So you know's there's two sides

824
00:47:05,320 --> 00:47:06,960
Speaker 2: to this. I'd like to think that's why there's a

825
00:47:07,280 --> 00:47:11,279
Speaker 2: whole trunk in unless in nature's memory, the suicide some

826
00:47:11,280 --> 00:47:15,000
Speaker 2: one is acknowledging, like the circumstances in which collections were

827
00:47:15,000 --> 00:47:18,799
Speaker 2: made often exploitative or you know, actively violent, but there

828
00:47:18,800 --> 00:47:23,520
Speaker 2: were collections made during military campaigns where you know, where

829
00:47:23,560 --> 00:47:27,960
Speaker 2: European countries or the US were invading other countries and

830
00:47:28,600 --> 00:47:32,520
Speaker 2: taking that opportunity to build collections, just as they were

831
00:47:32,560 --> 00:47:34,759
Speaker 2: in places like you know, the British Museum or other

832
00:47:34,800 --> 00:47:43,520
Speaker 2: anthropology collections. Our Natrist museums represent the material will be

833
00:47:43,520 --> 00:47:47,560
Speaker 2: that animal, vegetable and mineral that they're colonizing. The powers

834
00:47:47,800 --> 00:47:51,120
Speaker 2: were investigating what could be, what would make money, what

835
00:47:51,120 --> 00:47:55,160
Speaker 2: would be exploded there, and the museums were deliberately built

836
00:47:55,160 --> 00:47:57,960
Speaker 2: to kind of house those repositories and then also present

837
00:47:58,080 --> 00:48:02,640
Speaker 2: a positive view of colonization to their audiences and audiences

838
00:48:02,719 --> 00:48:06,799
Speaker 2: obviously in the in the in the metropology and of

839
00:48:06,840 --> 00:48:09,520
Speaker 2: the countries that were doing the colonizing. That's one side

840
00:48:09,560 --> 00:48:11,319
Speaker 2: of it, just telling more honest stories about how our

841
00:48:11,360 --> 00:48:15,520
Speaker 2: collections came together. And in doing so, you know, people

842
00:48:15,520 --> 00:48:19,400
Speaker 2: are pushing against this push against the idea of rewriting history. Obviously,

843
00:48:19,760 --> 00:48:22,240
Speaker 2: that's all what historians do. That's the job of history

844
00:48:22,440 --> 00:48:25,200
Speaker 2: to work out what actually happened. And if it turns

845
00:48:25,239 --> 00:48:27,400
Speaker 2: out that what we have been thought had been happening

846
00:48:27,719 --> 00:48:31,000
Speaker 2: isn't actually what happened, then it is you can't really

847
00:48:31,120 --> 00:48:35,239
Speaker 2: sensibly argue against not reflecting, Oh, we know a bit

848
00:48:35,280 --> 00:48:38,040
Speaker 2: better about what the real circumstance is. That's one part

849
00:48:38,080 --> 00:48:40,600
Speaker 2: of it, but very much related part of that is

850
00:48:40,600 --> 00:48:43,440
Speaker 2: is you know acknowledging who was involved in those stories

851
00:48:43,480 --> 00:48:46,520
Speaker 2: in the museums, Like some museums are places of storytelling,

852
00:48:46,640 --> 00:48:49,120
Speaker 2: and whenever someone is telling a story, you need to

853
00:48:49,120 --> 00:48:52,760
Speaker 2: think about who are they and who are they telling

854
00:48:52,760 --> 00:48:55,600
Speaker 2: the story for, and that museums, like all museums, have

855
00:48:55,719 --> 00:48:58,719
Speaker 2: been telling particular kind of story with a particular kind

856
00:48:58,719 --> 00:49:01,600
Speaker 2: of audience in mind for very long. Those stories have

857
00:49:01,719 --> 00:49:05,239
Speaker 2: elevated certain kinds of people whilst kind of diminishing other

858
00:49:05,320 --> 00:49:08,440
Speaker 2: kinds of people. So what I guess I'm saying is

859
00:49:08,960 --> 00:49:10,840
Speaker 2: that we're doing this piece of work to try and

860
00:49:11,200 --> 00:49:16,400
Speaker 2: recognize and acknowledge and share that the big names behind

861
00:49:17,160 --> 00:49:19,760
Speaker 2: major discoveries and the history of science didn't work alone,

862
00:49:19,840 --> 00:49:21,520
Speaker 2: and then the story that we're telling there was a

863
00:49:21,560 --> 00:49:25,520
Speaker 2: far greater diversity of characters than some we've traditionally told.

864
00:49:25,560 --> 00:49:28,800
Speaker 2: So there are you know, countless people of color and women,

865
00:49:29,320 --> 00:49:33,320
Speaker 2: local and indigenous collectors who have made huge contributions to

866
00:49:33,360 --> 00:49:36,120
Speaker 2: the history of science and massive discoveries. And it isn't

867
00:49:36,160 --> 00:49:38,080
Speaker 2: all just about you know, the Charles Darwins and that

868
00:49:38,080 --> 00:49:40,160
Speaker 2: Alfred Russell Wallace is and the other rich white guys

869
00:49:40,160 --> 00:49:43,440
Speaker 2: who made huge contributions. But they didn't work alone. And

870
00:49:43,480 --> 00:49:47,360
Speaker 2: it does nothing to kind of diminish their accomplishments by saying, actually,

871
00:49:47,360 --> 00:49:52,320
Speaker 2: that specimen was collected by you know, the local charactor

872
00:49:52,360 --> 00:49:55,320
Speaker 2: who shared the coreactive of knowledge and expertise and labor

873
00:49:56,000 --> 00:49:59,880
Speaker 2: in making those discoveries. So it's just as I said,

874
00:49:59,680 --> 00:50:01,920
Speaker 2: a the relevance to museums because it means that more

875
00:50:01,960 --> 00:50:07,160
Speaker 2: people will feel represented in those histories and feel like science,

876
00:50:07,239 --> 00:50:09,440
Speaker 2: museums and science in general is a place for them

877
00:50:09,480 --> 00:50:11,520
Speaker 2: and something that people like them have contributed to.

878
00:50:12,120 --> 00:50:15,520
Speaker 1: It's also like an interesting like the idea that some

879
00:50:16,560 --> 00:50:20,720
Speaker 1: guy comes in from on a boat from England, no offense,

880
00:50:21,120 --> 00:50:25,440
Speaker 1: and goes to some island, sees like all of the

881
00:50:25,480 --> 00:50:30,720
Speaker 1: behaviors that animals do at any point, comes back tells

882
00:50:30,920 --> 00:50:34,200
Speaker 1: the stories like we've now discovered everything about these animals

883
00:50:34,200 --> 00:50:36,439
Speaker 1: because I went on a boat to this place for

884
00:50:36,440 --> 00:50:41,279
Speaker 1: a few years. Like, it's such an unrealistic version of

885
00:50:41,440 --> 00:50:46,640
Speaker 1: how animal observations and this is just talking about observations

886
00:50:46,640 --> 00:50:50,000
Speaker 1: in the wild, right, like are actually made and how

887
00:50:50,760 --> 00:50:54,279
Speaker 1: the like how there are so many animals for which

888
00:50:54,280 --> 00:50:56,879
Speaker 1: it is very difficult to observe them that you have

889
00:50:56,920 --> 00:51:00,520
Speaker 1: to rely on people who live there to god your

890
00:51:00,560 --> 00:51:03,880
Speaker 1: research into these animals. So like, you know, things that

891
00:51:03,920 --> 00:51:08,759
Speaker 1: could be dismissed as local folklore or non scientific, right

892
00:51:08,800 --> 00:51:11,920
Speaker 1: because these are observations made by fishermen. Maybe you have

893
00:51:12,239 --> 00:51:15,560
Speaker 1: a bunch of people who live near where nar waals are, right,

894
00:51:15,560 --> 00:51:18,719
Speaker 1: and they make these observations. It's like, well, these aren't

895
00:51:18,760 --> 00:51:23,040
Speaker 1: really scientific, but we don't have anything else, right, Like

896
00:51:23,120 --> 00:51:25,000
Speaker 1: we kind of mentioned this a little bit earlier about

897
00:51:25,040 --> 00:51:28,680
Speaker 1: how hard it is to study some of the largest

898
00:51:28,680 --> 00:51:31,480
Speaker 1: animals in the world, whales, because we don't live there.

899
00:51:31,480 --> 00:51:33,600
Speaker 1: There's nobody that lives in the middle of the ocean

900
00:51:33,640 --> 00:51:36,920
Speaker 1: where we can make observations and see their sort of

901
00:51:37,000 --> 00:51:44,520
Speaker 1: quotitian lives. Similarly, the best records of animal observations for

902
00:51:45,000 --> 00:51:50,040
Speaker 1: remote areas where well relatively remote, right remote to us.

903
00:51:50,120 --> 00:51:53,480
Speaker 1: When we don't live in those areas are going to

904
00:51:53,520 --> 00:51:56,959
Speaker 1: be made by people who live there. And so if

905
00:51:57,040 --> 00:52:01,560
Speaker 1: we dismiss those kinds of observations or even cultural stories

906
00:52:01,640 --> 00:52:05,400
Speaker 1: right that get passed down from generations, we're also dismissing

907
00:52:06,000 --> 00:52:08,799
Speaker 1: a huge wealth of knowledge. Right, So, like there are

908
00:52:08,880 --> 00:52:13,200
Speaker 1: a lot of animal observations that we're now of starting

909
00:52:13,239 --> 00:52:16,840
Speaker 1: to realize that oh, like this story of say like

910
00:52:17,000 --> 00:52:21,440
Speaker 1: hawks in sort of the outback like spreading fire that

911
00:52:21,600 --> 00:52:25,359
Speaker 1: wasn't maybe just metaphorical, They might literally do that. We

912
00:52:25,800 --> 00:52:29,239
Speaker 1: need to observe them more to know like if they're

913
00:52:29,239 --> 00:52:34,160
Speaker 1: doing this behavior. But these kinds of cultural stories or

914
00:52:34,680 --> 00:52:39,840
Speaker 1: observations made by local people are really important data points

915
00:52:40,120 --> 00:52:42,160
Speaker 1: that should be respected in that way. And I think

916
00:52:42,200 --> 00:52:45,359
Speaker 1: having the like not having this like idea that like, well,

917
00:52:45,440 --> 00:52:49,520
Speaker 1: science comes from you know, a white guy who came

918
00:52:49,560 --> 00:52:52,400
Speaker 1: in on a boat and suddenly like gave the gift

919
00:52:52,440 --> 00:52:55,200
Speaker 1: of science to people who were living in this area.

920
00:52:55,239 --> 00:52:58,920
Speaker 1: It's like no, Like, observations made over generations is a

921
00:52:59,000 --> 00:53:02,759
Speaker 1: type of data collect and it's something that is really

922
00:53:02,800 --> 00:53:07,080
Speaker 1: important should we want to actually engage in research in

923
00:53:07,120 --> 00:53:13,840
Speaker 1: a way that is, you know, taking into account a

924
00:53:14,280 --> 00:53:18,360
Speaker 1: type a type of research and a type of data

925
00:53:18,400 --> 00:53:22,560
Speaker 1: collection that takes years in generations.

926
00:53:21,800 --> 00:53:25,040
Speaker 2: To do exactly that. And I mean, even if we

927
00:53:25,080 --> 00:53:27,360
Speaker 2: did just want to focus on Western science and scientific

928
00:53:27,480 --> 00:53:30,000
Speaker 2: understanding as the world, which as you say, is pretty

929
00:53:30,120 --> 00:53:33,239
Speaker 2: narrow a way of looking at things, even making those

930
00:53:33,239 --> 00:53:36,400
Speaker 2: discoveries required an understanding of how to catch the animals

931
00:53:36,400 --> 00:53:38,920
Speaker 2: in the first place, which requires know where they're going

932
00:53:38,960 --> 00:53:40,279
Speaker 2: to be at a certain time of year, a certain

933
00:53:40,360 --> 00:53:41,840
Speaker 2: kind of day, how they're going to react if you

934
00:53:41,880 --> 00:53:43,640
Speaker 2: chase them, how where they're going to borrow, you know,

935
00:53:43,880 --> 00:53:46,480
Speaker 2: and all of that. I've been studying this collection of

936
00:53:46,520 --> 00:53:52,080
Speaker 2: Central Australian mammals, which is from the first scientific expedition

937
00:53:52,120 --> 00:53:56,600
Speaker 2: in Central Australia, and it was it resulted in the

938
00:53:56,640 --> 00:53:59,920
Speaker 2: collection of a bunch of new mammal species that hadn't

939
00:53:59,920 --> 00:54:03,320
Speaker 2: been encountered by Europeans before, and all of the labels

940
00:54:03,320 --> 00:54:05,560
Speaker 2: on these specimens spread across museums across the world to

941
00:54:05,600 --> 00:54:08,799
Speaker 2: say they were collected by one of two white men

942
00:54:08,960 --> 00:54:12,279
Speaker 2: on this expedition or associated with this expedition, And having

943
00:54:12,320 --> 00:54:14,480
Speaker 2: read their letters, it's clear that they didn't have want

944
00:54:14,480 --> 00:54:16,279
Speaker 2: of them to collected a single specimen. It was all

945
00:54:16,840 --> 00:54:19,480
Speaker 2: it was all sudden arevent to the first nations Australian

946
00:54:19,520 --> 00:54:22,000
Speaker 2: women who were collecting these specimens, and then they were

947
00:54:22,000 --> 00:54:25,959
Speaker 2: being shipped back to the city, and they were even

948
00:54:26,320 --> 00:54:29,000
Speaker 2: telling them what was collectible, so that the event of

949
00:54:29,040 --> 00:54:32,600
Speaker 2: women was that, you know, were directing the collecting efforts

950
00:54:32,680 --> 00:54:36,000
Speaker 2: and describing the natural history and providing the specimens. So

951
00:54:36,000 --> 00:54:41,600
Speaker 2: it's yeah, it's huge roles that have transformed Western scientific

952
00:54:41,680 --> 00:54:44,560
Speaker 2: understanding of in that case, central Australian mammals.

953
00:54:44,920 --> 00:54:46,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think it's just it's the

954
00:54:46,760 --> 00:54:50,520
Speaker 1: respecting the amount of information that you can get from

955
00:54:51,040 --> 00:54:54,759
Speaker 1: having the humility to understand that. Like, look, I may

956
00:54:54,840 --> 00:54:57,879
Speaker 1: have like a lot of knowledge about biology, but if

957
00:54:57,920 --> 00:55:01,840
Speaker 1: you go to a lot area, like people who have

958
00:55:02,000 --> 00:55:07,440
Speaker 1: say lived near the Amazon based basin for many generations,

959
00:55:08,280 --> 00:55:11,839
Speaker 1: they will just intrinsically have sort of a perspective and

960
00:55:12,080 --> 00:55:16,439
Speaker 1: life experience that can help you. Right, Like it's it's

961
00:55:16,480 --> 00:55:19,560
Speaker 1: not it doesn't have to be a competition about like oh,

962
00:55:19,600 --> 00:55:22,880
Speaker 1: who's more knowledgeable or which method is better. It's like

963
00:55:23,680 --> 00:55:25,880
Speaker 1: all of these types of methods can work together, right,

964
00:55:26,000 --> 00:55:30,480
Speaker 1: Like the sort of you know, the scientific method that

965
00:55:30,600 --> 00:55:33,480
Speaker 1: you are trying to do by collecting specimens and then

966
00:55:33,520 --> 00:55:37,239
Speaker 1: whatever research you're doing works can work in tandem with

967
00:55:37,480 --> 00:55:42,839
Speaker 1: the knowledge and data collection of people who live there.

968
00:55:42,960 --> 00:55:47,840
Speaker 1: It's it's absolutely sort of a symbiotic relationship, not something

969
00:55:47,880 --> 00:55:49,919
Speaker 1: that is like has to be one or the other

970
00:55:50,120 --> 00:55:53,640
Speaker 1: or replaced by one thing. You know, it's a it's

971
00:55:53,680 --> 00:55:58,520
Speaker 1: sort of a it's just it's all an opportunity to

972
00:55:58,560 --> 00:56:01,120
Speaker 1: be able to share data together, which I think is

973
00:56:01,360 --> 00:56:03,680
Speaker 1: something that to me that like, that's one of the

974
00:56:03,680 --> 00:56:08,719
Speaker 1: most inspiring things about natural history museums is the idea

975
00:56:08,719 --> 00:56:14,400
Speaker 1: of like humanity collectively sharing uh, just this immense amount

976
00:56:14,520 --> 00:56:19,600
Speaker 1: of data, uh information and stories about our world, and

977
00:56:19,680 --> 00:56:24,560
Speaker 1: so understanding that this takes many shapes and forms. That

978
00:56:24,719 --> 00:56:28,040
Speaker 1: is not just purely like you know, Charles Darwin getting

979
00:56:28,080 --> 00:56:30,640
Speaker 1: on a boat and going to an island. No, no

980
00:56:30,680 --> 00:56:33,000
Speaker 1: offense to Charles Darwin. He was great. But you know,

981
00:56:33,040 --> 00:56:37,080
Speaker 1: it's it's that is not the only type of uh

982
00:56:37,920 --> 00:56:44,000
Speaker 1: kind of natural history that exists. Yeah, before we go,

983
00:56:44,080 --> 00:56:46,719
Speaker 1: I do want to ask just do you have any

984
00:56:46,800 --> 00:56:52,799
Speaker 1: like really weird or funny uh stories about something that

985
00:56:52,840 --> 00:56:56,359
Speaker 1: happens behind the scenes at the Museum of Zoology at

986
00:56:56,440 --> 00:57:00,160
Speaker 1: Cambridge that you think would like surprise people like, it

987
00:57:00,160 --> 00:57:03,120
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be super important to science, just something like,

988
00:57:03,520 --> 00:57:07,040
Speaker 1: you know, because like one thing that UH is like

989
00:57:07,400 --> 00:57:13,720
Speaker 1: there's this in UH at the Harvard Museum of Natural History,

990
00:57:13,719 --> 00:57:17,720
Speaker 1: there's just this like decaying elephant head that's just it's

991
00:57:17,760 --> 00:57:21,000
Speaker 1: not on display for visitors because it's too kind of

992
00:57:21,040 --> 00:57:23,880
Speaker 1: creepy looking. But they just sort of shoved it there

993
00:57:23,960 --> 00:57:26,720
Speaker 1: in one of the one of the research buildings, and

994
00:57:27,080 --> 00:57:30,200
Speaker 1: this elephant head that's like falling apart. It looks very haunted.

995
00:57:30,280 --> 00:57:34,200
Speaker 1: Like I I think that if there's like an elephant

996
00:57:34,240 --> 00:57:36,160
Speaker 1: haunting that happens, it's going to be because of that.

997
00:57:36,280 --> 00:57:38,600
Speaker 1: But is there any any kind of like weird or

998
00:57:38,680 --> 00:57:40,320
Speaker 1: funny stories that you can share.

999
00:57:41,920 --> 00:57:44,400
Speaker 2: I think this isn't just for Cambridge, but it's definitely

1000
00:57:44,440 --> 00:57:48,400
Speaker 2: true here. I think it's really surprising that the length

1001
00:57:48,520 --> 00:57:55,080
Speaker 2: that museums can go to to change a specimen and so,

1002
00:57:55,240 --> 00:57:59,120
Speaker 2: like it often surprises people to learn that most mammals

1003
00:57:59,360 --> 00:58:05,360
Speaker 2: have in their penis because museums. It's surprising because you

1004
00:58:05,440 --> 00:58:09,240
Speaker 2: will almost never see a mammal skeleton with its penis

1005
00:58:09,280 --> 00:58:12,760
Speaker 2: bone attacked. So there is one specimen on display here

1006
00:58:12,800 --> 00:58:15,080
Speaker 2: in Cambridge out of how I don't know how many

1007
00:58:15,160 --> 00:58:19,240
Speaker 2: hundreds of skeletons that has a penis bone attached, and

1008
00:58:19,280 --> 00:58:22,439
Speaker 2: it's an elephant seal. But if you go to any

1009
00:58:22,640 --> 00:58:27,160
Speaker 2: European museum, including the UK, you are very unlikely to

1010
00:58:27,200 --> 00:58:30,920
Speaker 2: see a penis bone. Interestingly, Americans are less prudish, but

1011
00:58:30,960 --> 00:58:36,920
Speaker 2: the reason being is that you Victorian curatives have decided

1012
00:58:36,960 --> 00:58:39,200
Speaker 2: to try to spare their visitors blushes or perhaps the

1013
00:58:39,240 --> 00:58:42,200
Speaker 2: giggles or twelve year old boys by taking the penis

1014
00:58:42,200 --> 00:58:45,560
Speaker 2: spats away. But what that means is that museums have

1015
00:58:45,640 --> 00:58:49,480
Speaker 2: been deliberately misshaping their specimens, so deliberately telling people the

1016
00:58:49,520 --> 00:58:52,560
Speaker 2: wrong thing right about animal anatomy, that there is a

1017
00:58:52,560 --> 00:58:56,160
Speaker 2: bone in most mammals penis And I think that's astonishing

1018
00:58:56,480 --> 00:58:59,720
Speaker 2: that they would do that. And so you go to

1019
00:58:59,840 --> 00:59:02,640
Speaker 2: it thing, right, Yeah, you go to a museum store

1020
00:59:02,640 --> 00:59:04,480
Speaker 2: and they're literally drawers of penis bones.

1021
00:59:06,280 --> 00:59:09,240
Speaker 1: To me, that's more perverse, right, like it it's way

1022
00:59:09,280 --> 00:59:11,720
Speaker 1: more perverse to like rip the penis pone off the

1023
00:59:11,720 --> 00:59:13,800
Speaker 1: skeleton and put it in a drawer somewhere.

1024
00:59:14,560 --> 00:59:18,760
Speaker 2: So it's like I was. I was in the California

1025
00:59:18,760 --> 00:59:23,960
Speaker 2: California Academy of Science in San Francisco, and I was

1026
00:59:24,000 --> 00:59:27,640
Speaker 2: walking around kind of impressed how many penis bones place.

1027
00:59:28,560 --> 00:59:30,440
Speaker 3: And then I was in their store room and I

1028
00:59:30,560 --> 00:59:35,160
Speaker 3: noticed that in the stores like where you've got a

1029
00:59:35,400 --> 00:59:39,440
Speaker 3: kind of a skeleton of say a seal, which obviously

1030
00:59:39,440 --> 00:59:43,720
Speaker 3: in storings are not mounted into into a skeleton Shapey're

1031
00:59:43,720 --> 00:59:44,520
Speaker 3: not articulated.

1032
00:59:44,640 --> 00:59:46,960
Speaker 2: They are kind of left in boxes because that is

1033
00:59:47,080 --> 00:59:50,400
Speaker 2: much easier to store but also to study. Yeah, and

1034
00:59:50,440 --> 00:59:53,760
Speaker 2: they don't have any human biases attached to them. Is

1035
00:59:53,800 --> 00:59:56,920
Speaker 2: that they had also like so they displayed that they

1036
00:59:56,920 --> 00:59:58,840
Speaker 2: had on the shelves. They had a box with the

1037
00:59:58,880 --> 01:00:02,200
Speaker 2: bones in it of the skeleton, and then the skull

1038
01:00:02,280 --> 01:00:04,320
Speaker 2: separate on the shelf, but then also separate on the

1039
01:00:04,320 --> 01:00:06,000
Speaker 2: shelf next to it was the penis pone. So they

1040
01:00:06,120 --> 01:00:08,920
Speaker 2: also removed the penis bone from the boxes, were kind

1041
01:00:08,960 --> 01:00:13,720
Speaker 2: of like elevating its importance. But I just don't understand

1042
01:00:13,760 --> 01:00:15,040
Speaker 2: what's going on there, and I asked the curator and

1043
01:00:15,480 --> 01:00:16,560
Speaker 2: I don't know, that's just what.

1044
01:00:16,480 --> 01:00:16,840
Speaker 4: We do.

1045
01:00:20,280 --> 01:00:21,120
Speaker 2: Un built tropes.

1046
01:00:21,640 --> 01:00:23,280
Speaker 4: But you go to go and.

1047
01:00:23,360 --> 01:00:28,160
Speaker 2: Look around the naturalistic collector a skeleton collection of mammals,

1048
01:00:28,560 --> 01:00:30,960
Speaker 2: and it should be the primates, the rodents. What we

1049
01:00:31,000 --> 01:00:33,680
Speaker 2: used to call the insectivors, which are the moles, shrews

1050
01:00:33,680 --> 01:00:40,120
Speaker 2: and hedgehogs, the anevns, the bats, and the rabbits, and

1051
01:00:40,160 --> 01:00:42,440
Speaker 2: they should have penis pants on most of their species

1052
01:00:42,440 --> 01:00:45,240
Speaker 2: obviously just on the mail, but you will. It's a

1053
01:00:45,360 --> 01:00:47,200
Speaker 2: hearty hard fish to find them.

1054
01:00:47,400 --> 01:00:49,760
Speaker 1: It reminds me of It makes me think of like

1055
01:00:49,840 --> 01:00:54,040
Speaker 1: sort of artist depictions of male and female skeletons where

1056
01:00:54,080 --> 01:00:57,240
Speaker 1: it's like the female skeleton has like an hourglass shape

1057
01:00:57,240 --> 01:01:00,800
Speaker 1: and it's like, no, no, that's not how. That's not how

1058
01:01:00,880 --> 01:01:04,080
Speaker 1: that works, or like a or like a smaller hip

1059
01:01:04,080 --> 01:01:07,400
Speaker 1: bone than the male. It's like that's not that's not

1060
01:01:07,600 --> 01:01:10,280
Speaker 1: that's not how. That's not how it works. But yeah, no,

1061
01:01:10,480 --> 01:01:12,480
Speaker 1: that that is amazing because it's just like it is.

1062
01:01:12,720 --> 01:01:16,600
Speaker 1: It's like how our prudishness then leaves people to not

1063
01:01:16,720 --> 01:01:20,640
Speaker 1: understand that actually like, uh, we're kind of the exceptions,

1064
01:01:20,720 --> 01:01:23,240
Speaker 1: Like there are there are other animals that do not

1065
01:01:23,400 --> 01:01:29,240
Speaker 1: have penis bones along with humans and another close human relatives,

1066
01:01:29,280 --> 01:01:31,400
Speaker 1: but like like we are kind of the exception, like

1067
01:01:31,400 --> 01:01:33,400
Speaker 1: most mammals do have penis bones.

1068
01:01:33,440 --> 01:01:39,880
Speaker 2: Correct, Yeah, this is just like beha and bred y.

1069
01:01:41,760 --> 01:01:46,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, just just not like it's like, yeah, either

1070
01:01:46,360 --> 01:01:50,120
Speaker 1: the bonobos don't I think, right, or am I wrong

1071
01:01:50,160 --> 01:01:50,480
Speaker 1: about that?

1072
01:01:50,880 --> 01:01:59,720
Speaker 2: I can't remember. I want to say, yeah, I can't remember. Yes, yeah,

1073
01:01:59,840 --> 01:02:00,840
Speaker 2: I think chimps.

1074
01:02:00,600 --> 01:02:01,440
Speaker 1: Have Oh no, they do.

1075
01:02:01,600 --> 01:02:01,840
Speaker 2: They do.

1076
01:02:02,320 --> 01:02:08,280
Speaker 1: Both chimpanzees and bonobo's have the penis phone. I'm wondering

1077
01:02:08,320 --> 01:02:11,120
Speaker 1: now if it is just humans that don't have it

1078
01:02:11,160 --> 01:02:12,240
Speaker 1: among primates, or if there are.

1079
01:02:12,160 --> 01:02:14,040
Speaker 2: Any primary there are there are. I think there are

1080
01:02:14,040 --> 01:02:16,479
Speaker 2: a couple, but they're unusual. You know, there are definitely usual.

1081
01:02:16,800 --> 01:02:19,960
Speaker 1: We're weird, but because we're the ones making the museums,

1082
01:02:20,000 --> 01:02:22,360
Speaker 1: we're like, no, all your other all your other mammals

1083
01:02:22,600 --> 01:02:27,560
Speaker 1: are weird freaks like not us. Well, thank you so

1084
01:02:27,640 --> 01:02:30,280
Speaker 1: much for coming on today. This has been really really interesting.

1085
01:02:31,400 --> 01:02:35,720
Speaker 1: And where can people get your book? Tell people what

1086
01:02:35,760 --> 01:02:38,880
Speaker 1: it's called and why they should read it. I want

1087
01:02:38,880 --> 01:02:40,040
Speaker 1: to read it now, to be honest.

1088
01:02:40,840 --> 01:02:43,040
Speaker 2: It's called Native's Memory, Behind the Scenes of the World's

1089
01:02:43,080 --> 01:02:45,320
Speaker 2: Not Christ Museums, and it comes out in twenty fous

1090
01:02:45,360 --> 01:02:47,120
Speaker 2: and a contentiary five and.

1091
01:02:47,400 --> 01:02:50,680
Speaker 4: So saying so you know all good bookshops, and it's

1092
01:02:50,240 --> 01:02:54,320
Speaker 4: it's it's about how nature is presented to the world

1093
01:02:54,320 --> 01:02:56,960
Speaker 4: in museums and the windows that we provide a naturalist

1094
01:02:57,000 --> 01:02:57,720
Speaker 4: museums that kind of.

1095
01:02:57,720 --> 01:03:00,720
Speaker 2: Provides a universe and tour of all the world Tristan's games.

1096
01:03:00,880 --> 01:03:02,680
Speaker 2: That's one story. The other stories how we go about

1097
01:03:02,680 --> 01:03:05,240
Speaker 2: telling the human stories and our collections and of the

1098
01:03:05,280 --> 01:03:07,560
Speaker 2: things I mentioned there, so how well at people representation

1099
01:03:07,720 --> 01:03:10,680
Speaker 2: museums and then finally talked about how natrists museums can

1100
01:03:10,760 --> 01:03:13,640
Speaker 2: save the world. That first set stories we're talking about

1101
01:03:13,640 --> 01:03:15,400
Speaker 2: about the research happening air questions much.

1102
01:03:15,480 --> 01:03:18,080
Speaker 1: Yes, I think if you are concerned about the way

1103
01:03:18,120 --> 01:03:20,200
Speaker 1: that science is being treated right now in the US,

1104
01:03:20,400 --> 01:03:23,760
Speaker 1: reading this would be really interesting because it is like,

1105
01:03:24,080 --> 01:03:27,480
Speaker 1: this is all about how our perspectives can be shaped

1106
01:03:27,480 --> 01:03:31,800
Speaker 1: by sort leads the you know, the decisions of what

1107
01:03:31,840 --> 01:03:35,360
Speaker 1: we elevate in science and then how you know, potentially

1108
01:03:35,440 --> 01:03:38,360
Speaker 1: like going forward and what we can do. So yeah,

1109
01:03:38,400 --> 01:03:41,120
Speaker 1: thank you so much for coming on, and thank you

1110
01:03:41,200 --> 01:03:44,280
Speaker 1: guys so much for listening. If you're enjoying the show

1111
01:03:44,280 --> 01:03:46,760
Speaker 1: and you leave a rating or review, that really helps me.

1112
01:03:47,840 --> 01:03:50,800
Speaker 1: And thanks to the Space Classics for their super awesome song.

1113
01:03:50,880 --> 01:03:54,840
Speaker 1: Ex Alumina. Creature features a production of iHeartRadio for more

1114
01:03:55,520 --> 01:03:58,240
Speaker 1: podcasts like the When You Just Heard But visit the

1115
01:03:58,240 --> 01:04:00,880
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or hey, guess what, wherever you

1116
01:04:00,960 --> 01:04:03,360
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows. I can't tell you what

1117
01:04:03,440 --> 01:04:10,400
Speaker 1: to do. I will see you next Wednesday, m hm