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Speaker 1: Welcome to Cruture, feature production of I Heart Radio. I'm

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Speaker 1: your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology

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Speaker 1: and evolutionary biology. In Today on the show, we're talking

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Speaker 1: about beauty, style pizzazz. The natural world is full of fantastic,

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Speaker 1: fashionable animals. But what causes this beauty? Why is a

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Speaker 1: bird of Paradise so fantastic? Do the beautiful colors and

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Speaker 1: crests found in birds and other animals have some secret

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Speaker 1: purpose or do they just like looking hot? Joining me

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Speaker 1: today to discuss this question is science writer for The

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Speaker 1: New York Times, magazine, Scientific American and many other publications,

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Speaker 1: Farris Jaber. Welcome, Hi, Thank you so much for having me.

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Speaker 1: I'm so excited to talk to you. I love your

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Speaker 1: articles and your Twitter feed. Often it gives me inspiration

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Speaker 1: for this very podcast, and I love that you bring

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Speaker 1: attention to some of these The best word I can

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Speaker 1: come up with is like whimsical. Just animals that are

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Speaker 1: They seem like they're from a fairy tale, from some

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Speaker 1: kind of fantasy setting, and they are amazing both to

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Speaker 1: look at and in terms of their behaviors. And I

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Speaker 1: just love relishing the these like details of beauty in

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Speaker 1: the natural world. Yeah, I never get tired of looking

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Speaker 1: at or talking about all the fantastic creatures out there. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I want to talk a little bit about the science

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Speaker 1: the biology of beauty because it is it sounds like

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Speaker 1: a very light topic, but it's actually extremely controversial and

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Speaker 1: behind these deep schisms in evolutionary biology, and it's it's

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Speaker 1: a topic that is far from being frivolous. But to

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Speaker 1: give the listeners a sense of what we're talking about, first,

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Speaker 1: I want to talk about one of the most incredible

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Speaker 1: birds in terms of beauty and style and presentation, the

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Speaker 1: bower bird, which has always amazed me. It's the most

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Speaker 1: ostentatious animal I think in the natural world. There are

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Speaker 1: twenty seven species of bower birds found in Australia New Guinea.

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Speaker 1: They're famous for building their bowers. So, Ferris, can you

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Speaker 1: describe what a bower is and what these bower birds do? So,

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Speaker 1: in a literal sense, a bower is this arrangement, this

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Speaker 1: assemblage of twigs and wood, and it can take various shapes. Usually,

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Speaker 1: you know, it might be a corridor, kind of a

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Speaker 1: hallway like structure. It could be sort of a hut

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Speaker 1: or teepee, or it could be sort of a spire

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Speaker 1: or pole. And then the bower birds will decorate these

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Speaker 1: structures with all kinds of colorful and interesting objects like

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Speaker 1: flowers and berries and snail shells, and if they're near

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Speaker 1: a place where there's been a lot of people, they

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Speaker 1: might even use plastic debris like bottle caps or cutlery. Um.

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Speaker 1: But in a less literal sense and more functional sense,

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Speaker 1: a bower is many things. It's a sculpture, it's a gallery,

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Speaker 1: and it's a court. It's a space for courtship. So

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Speaker 1: male bower birds are creating these structures so that female

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Speaker 1: bower birds can come along and inspect them and judge them,

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Speaker 1: you know, sort of evaluate how well the male bower

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Speaker 1: bird has constructed this power, what kind of objects has

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Speaker 1: he collected, how much attention has he paid to curating

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Speaker 1: this collection. And that is part of their mating process.

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Speaker 1: So the females, you know, they choose which males they

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Speaker 1: want to mate with, partly based on the artistry displayed

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Speaker 1: in these bowers. And that's very different from the typical

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Speaker 1: bird's nest, right because there are birds who will show

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Speaker 1: off their nests like males will build a nest and

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Speaker 1: show it off to the female. But this is quite

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Speaker 1: a bit different from the bower itself, right right, And

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Speaker 1: so interestingly, the bower doesn't end functioning as a nest

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Speaker 1: at all, So it's a it's entirely sort of aesthetic

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Speaker 1: structure used in the mating process. The female comes along,

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Speaker 1: she inspects it. If she decides to mate with the

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Speaker 1: male based on that bower and based on his overall

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Speaker 1: appearance and dance moves, then they will mate, and then

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Speaker 1: she'll fly off and she'll build an entirely separate, cup

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Speaker 1: shaped nest in which she will lay the eggs, and

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Speaker 1: then she'll raise the offspring entirely on her own. So

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Speaker 1: the male is not involved in the in the the

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Speaker 1: the raising process of the children, just in this elaborate mating.

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Speaker 1: So he builds this fancy dance platform, puts on a

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Speaker 1: show mate, and then is out of there. Does he

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Speaker 1: mate with only one female or multiple females? I believe

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Speaker 1: he will mate with as many as we'll give him

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Speaker 1: the chance to do so. And but females at the

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Speaker 1: same time will also visit multiple bowers, so they're not

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Speaker 1: just yeah, they're not mating with the first one. They

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Speaker 1: come across gender equity in bower mer So, uh, that's

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Speaker 1: really interesting. So the bowers, they don't have a practical

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Speaker 1: function in terms of mating. They're not used for security protection.

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Speaker 1: It is purely to set a stage for this bird's display.

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Speaker 1: And often it's like color coordinated, like they'll focus on

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Speaker 1: getting only blue things or only red things, or like

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Speaker 1: different colors and then grouping the colors together. To me,

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Speaker 1: what is striking about these bowers is they look like

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Speaker 1: an art project that a human would make. Absolutely they

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Speaker 1: remind me a little bit of Wes Anderson style of like,

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Speaker 1: you know, highly curated things in very discreet categories, but

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Speaker 1: like beautifully arranged. They also remind me a bit of

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Speaker 1: like um Cabinet of Wonders, you know, from the eighteenth

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Speaker 1: century and such, and sort of placing things in these

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Speaker 1: a little discreet um windows of you know, to view.

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Speaker 1: But what's interesting is that some scientists have propose that

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Speaker 1: they're may be a functional purpose for the females, which

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Speaker 1: is that these structures may allow them to more safely

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Speaker 1: evaluate a male up close without as much risk of

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Speaker 1: the male forcing himself on the female. So it becomes

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Speaker 1: almost like a screen, you know, a physical barrier which

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Speaker 1: you know, between her and him, so that she has

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Speaker 1: more time to evaluate before copulation takes place. It's kind

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Speaker 1: of like it's kind of like meeting at a coffee

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Speaker 1: shop for your first date exactly. It also reminds me

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Speaker 1: of these these scenes from like Jane Austen novels where

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Speaker 1: you know, people are overhearing things across like a hedge maze,

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Speaker 1: you know, and the characters like just across but they're

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Speaker 1: just barely separated. That Yeah, I could definitely see what

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Speaker 1: is the Mr Darcy as some kind of fancy, ostentatious bird. Uh, yeah,

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Speaker 1: that is. It is very interesting. I mean it is.

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Speaker 1: It is a courtship. Like I do not watch Britain,

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Speaker 1: but I would imagine it would be like a scene

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Speaker 1: from Britain based on what I have seen of the show,

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Speaker 1: just like this this very and it's it's a ritual

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Speaker 1: like the male It's not just like, hey, here's all

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Speaker 1: my stuff. He does an elaborate dance and she evaluates

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Speaker 1: that and she either stays and mates with him or

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Speaker 1: moves on to the next mail exactly. They like the

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Speaker 1: bower Birds just you know, they they're sort of firing

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Speaker 1: on all throttles when it comes to meeting, like they

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Speaker 1: have the colorful plumage, they have the elaborate dance moves,

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Speaker 1: they have crazy cool songs, and then they have these

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Speaker 1: probably you know, one of the most compelling examples of

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Speaker 1: what could be considered art in the animal kingdom. I

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Speaker 1: can't it's hard to think of another animal that makes

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Speaker 1: a structure that is this aesthetically elaborate. Yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: I know of animals who do make things that look artistic.

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Speaker 1: Like there's the pufferfish, the certain species of pupper fish

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Speaker 1: that does those designs in the sand, and you know

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Speaker 1: he's working with what he has, which is just sand,

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Speaker 1: and so it's very meditative. It looks like, you know,

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Speaker 1: a a sand garden like this, you know, very meditative thing.

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Speaker 1: But it is it's definitely not as Again, this looks

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Speaker 1: like something you would find at a modern art museum.

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Speaker 1: It's so incredibly elaborate. And so when you see this,

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Speaker 1: it's it's so show it's I think there's something shocking

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Speaker 1: about it because it defies this expectation that evolution produces

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Speaker 1: just the brute, most efficient animals that it can. Now

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Speaker 1: this is a misconception, of course, like evolution. There's nothing

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Speaker 1: efficient necessarily about evolution. It's you know, this very long

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Speaker 1: process and it it comes from a very simple rule

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Speaker 1: like whether or not something survives and procreates, and that

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Speaker 1: creates an incredible abundance of complexity. And I think that

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Speaker 1: is what you see here when you see beauty in

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Speaker 1: the natural world and these like elaborate structures, elaborate rituals,

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Speaker 1: it's like, Okay, this is not this is an unexpectedly

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Speaker 1: roundabout way for a male to get a female's attention

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Speaker 1: for mating. And so there are kind of these two

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Speaker 1: competing theories about why something like the bower bird could

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Speaker 1: create something like this or you know, other instances of

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Speaker 1: beauty like bright plumage, beautiful songs, anything that doesn't have

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Speaker 1: a clear practical purpose. One is that it's an honest

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Speaker 1: signal of the animal's fitness. So maybe with long plumage

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Speaker 1: the bird has to be particularly healthy, a good immune

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Speaker 1: system to fight off parasites. Or maybe building the bower

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Speaker 1: is advertising this bird's ability to forage, like its eyesight. Uh,

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Speaker 1: it's mental acuity. Um. But there's another theory that Darwin

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Speaker 1: himself was kind of partial to right, right, So Darwin

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Speaker 1: proposed that maybe, instead of some sort of on a

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Speaker 1: signaling going on, maybe certain animals just like the way

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Speaker 1: that certain colors or certain flourishes appear to them, and

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Speaker 1: that females are making these mating choices based on essentially

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Speaker 1: arbitrary aesthetic preferences. And I think he was kind of

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Speaker 1: um an exception among his peers at the time for

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Speaker 1: suggesting something like that, because it required a certain level

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Speaker 1: of recognition and respect for the sentience and agency of animals,

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Speaker 1: and at the time, I think it was still fairly

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Speaker 1: popular to think of animals more like automatons. You know,

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Speaker 1: they're kind of machines, are just making these robotic behaviors

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Speaker 1: and actions and not actually deciding things, and they certainly

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Speaker 1: don't have conscious aesthetic preferences, you know, the way that

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Speaker 1: people might. But Darwin, you know, Darwin had a different

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Speaker 1: way of looking at it, and he suggested that this

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Speaker 1: was a possibility. Yeah, I mean, it's interest seen because

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Speaker 1: it runs a foul of two antiquated notions. One is

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Speaker 1: that animals don't really have agency, and also that females

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Speaker 1: or women in human society don't have agencies. So like,

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Speaker 1: if you're saying that female a female animal somehow has

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Speaker 1: some agency that would be the ultimate taboo back uh,

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Speaker 1: during Darwin's time exactly, and I and one of his peers,

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Speaker 1: I think was you know, became infamous over time for

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Speaker 1: saying that it could not be that, you know, nature

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Speaker 1: was controlled by vicious feminine caprice as we called it.

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Speaker 1: But you know, the these the winds of women could

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Speaker 1: not possibly dictate, you know, the evolution of species. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I love that. I I read that in your article.

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Speaker 1: And actually everyone should read this article if you like

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Speaker 1: this episode. It's how beauty is making scientists rethink evolution.

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Speaker 1: It's a wonderful article and unlike a podcast, you can

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Speaker 1: actually look at these images of birds. So that's a

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Speaker 1: nice thing about the written medium. And yeah, I this uh,

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Speaker 1: this guy st George move Art having this like being

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Speaker 1: offended at this notion that a bird and a female

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Speaker 1: bird could somehow shape evolution. It's so it's so interesting

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Speaker 1: to me how these social hang ups, like are kind

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Speaker 1: of cultural issues, can influence how we analyze animal behaviors.

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Speaker 1: Do you think that's still a problem now? Yeah, absolutely,

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Speaker 1: That's something I think about a lot because I think,

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Speaker 1: first of all, in sort of a fundamental biological level,

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Speaker 1: all species are kind of trapped in their personal bubbles

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Speaker 1: of perceptions, you know, which are really determined by partly

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Speaker 1: determined by their biology. What kind of hardware do they

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Speaker 1: have with which to perceive the world. And then, um,

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Speaker 1: any animal that has culture that add so many extra

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Speaker 1: layers of perceptual bias, and as you know, as humans

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Speaker 1: as having particularly complex cultures that change so dramatically over time,

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Speaker 1: that makes it even more complicated. And I think, um,

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Speaker 1: you know, even if we look at just Western thought

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Speaker 1: and Western culture alone, we can see a very dramatic

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Speaker 1: shift in the way that we think about other animals

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Speaker 1: and non human species. I think for a long time now,

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Speaker 1: we've been in this this difficult process of trying to

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Speaker 1: kind of you know, shed some of these older ideas

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Speaker 1: about animals as automatons and have greater recognition for animal

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Speaker 1: agency animal sentience. But it's it's certainly not something that's

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Speaker 1: been universally adopted, even within Western culture. It's definitely an

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Speaker 1: ongoing process. But I think that that you do see

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Speaker 1: kind of this art bending towards greater recognition, and in

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Speaker 1: some ways you could even think of it as a

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Speaker 1: return to the earliest ways of engaging with animals because

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Speaker 1: I you know, I think that if you look at

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Speaker 1: were clearly obsessed with other species, even in this sort

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Speaker 1: of worshiping, ritualistic way. When you think about a lot

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Speaker 1: of indigenous cultures and mythologies, there used to be a

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Speaker 1: much greater respect for other species and thinking of them

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Speaker 1: as people as you know, as rathren that you know,

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Speaker 1: they were just different kinds of people that we shared

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Speaker 1: the planet with. It's an interesting thing because I've encountered

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Speaker 1: these two kind of attitudes, which is one is that

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Speaker 1: we over anthropomorphize animals. So when you know, in evolutionary biology, uh,

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Speaker 1: when you study it, you're sometimes like told like, okay,

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Speaker 1: you can't anthropomorphize you you can't think of this in

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Speaker 1: terms of human terms, like if you're talking about you know,

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Speaker 1: maybe the ant wants to protect its colony, Well, does

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Speaker 1: it really want that? Is it just driven by an instinct? Uh?

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Speaker 1: And then on the other hand, I think there is

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Speaker 1: also this mistake of under anthropomorphizing in a way. Of course,

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Speaker 1: animals are not going to have human behaviors because they're

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Speaker 1: not humans. They won't have a human mind frame. But

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Speaker 1: just because an animal is not like a furry human, uh,

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Speaker 1: it is also you know, the the the all the

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Speaker 1: things that make up our consciousness is present in many,

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Speaker 1: many animals, and so this idea that they couldn't do

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Speaker 1: something like say appreciate beauty is also a mistake. So

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Speaker 1: like we it's it's this like tug of words like, oh, well,

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Speaker 1: we have to think about these animals scientifically. We can't

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Speaker 1: attribute our own human emotions to an animal. And people

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Speaker 1: often when I have guests on my show, they're always

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Speaker 1: apologizing because they're saying like, oh, I'm probably saying it

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Speaker 1: like this animal has these feelings and they probably don't.

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Speaker 1: It's like, well, you know, maybe they don't have the

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Speaker 1: same feelings you would have as a human. But I

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Speaker 1: think it is a mistake also to overcorrect and think

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Speaker 1: like they don't have they can't just do something because

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Speaker 1: it's fun, or they can't do something because it it's

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Speaker 1: pretty and it's it's interesting. Uh. And so like you know,

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Speaker 1: when you see an animal playing, people think like, well,

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Speaker 1: it's got to be because they're practicing for some purpose.

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Speaker 1: It's like, well, they could just be having fun. And

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Speaker 1: I think that's such an interesting idea of what's going

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Speaker 1: on with these birds, Like maybe these birds, uh just

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Speaker 1: find bright, flashy feathers, cool dances, bowers with lots of

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Speaker 1: like blue and red items altogether just really pretty and cool.

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Speaker 1: And you know, I think that it is interesting that like,

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Speaker 1: as humans are like that's pretty and that's really cool,

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Speaker 1: and the female birds are also, you know, perhaps thinking

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Speaker 1: in their own bird way, the same thing. Absolutely, I

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Speaker 1: completely agree. I think that especially in mainstream scientific communities,

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Speaker 1: there is this almost reflexive tendency to avoid and challenge

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Speaker 1: and resist anything that seems like it's being too anthropomorphic,

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Speaker 1: you know, projecting too much of human mindsets onto other creatures.

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Speaker 1: And it's certainly understandable why that would be the case,

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Speaker 1: because it can go too far, and that can become

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Speaker 1: its own kind of bias, and we just start to

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Speaker 1: see what we want to see, not what's really there.

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Speaker 1: But there's equally this danger of going too far in

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Speaker 1: the other direction, and then we start to undervalue what

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Speaker 1: other species are capable of and objectify them. Really in

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Speaker 1: some ways, we start to remove their agency, and it

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Speaker 1: just you know, when you when you really think about

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Speaker 1: evolutionary biology, doesn't make sense that there would be only

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Speaker 1: one species that would be capable of, you know, appreciating

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Speaker 1: beauty in that sense. There has to be some sort

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Speaker 1: of longer history of this, you know, ability forming over time,

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Speaker 1: so it can't just be restricted to a single species. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's a bit, it's a bit self isolating and self absorbed.

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Speaker 1: Isn't it for us to think, Oh, we're the only

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Speaker 1: ones who can think things are just cool or pretty

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Speaker 1: or have fun? Uh? It's I think more comforting to

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Speaker 1: feel like other animals, you know, have those same emotions

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Speaker 1: or similar emotions at least absolutely. Yeah, to think about,

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Speaker 1: do you know, how did they develop in different species?

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Speaker 1: And where are sort of the where could it be

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Speaker 1: convergent evolution? You know, where could it be and you know,

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Speaker 1: something entirely independent and what those differences might be Like.

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Speaker 1: It's also interesting to think about that just being something

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Speaker 1: that may be inevitable once you reach a certain level

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Speaker 1: of intelligence. Like I love looking at the behavior of

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Speaker 1: octopuses because they're about as far evolutionarily as you can

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Speaker 1: get from us, Like we diverged when we were what

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Speaker 1: like little flatworms of some kind, and they independently evolved.

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Speaker 1: The complex brain, complex eyes, basically you know, all of

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Speaker 1: these things they evolved that are you know, recognizable to us,

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Speaker 1: right as like in behaviors that are recognizable to us

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Speaker 1: from like a flatworm. And they also demonstrate things like curiosity,

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Speaker 1: which you know, we can't know that they're curious, but

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Speaker 1: they sure act in that way. And so I think

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Speaker 1: there's something I find sort of inspiring over the idea

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Speaker 1: that like, you know, maybe like birds and humans share,

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Speaker 1: you know, an appreciation for beauty because we're you know,

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Speaker 1: both terrestrial animals and we kind of we've share more

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Speaker 1: in common at least than humans and octopuses. But maybe

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Speaker 1: there's also something to the idea that we could you know,

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Speaker 1: these kinds of things. This this ability to start to

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Speaker 1: appreciate the environment that you're in just kind of happens

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Speaker 1: as soon as you reach a certain level of awareness

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Speaker 1: and intelligence. Yeah, I'm really fascinated by that idea as well,

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Speaker 1: And so it's interesting to think of For example, you know,

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Speaker 1: a lot of minor staying is that a lot of

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Speaker 1: primates do not necessarily have great color vision, but the

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Speaker 1: lineage of primates we descended from sort of regain some

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Speaker 1: better color vision over time, and there are lots of

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Speaker 1: hypotheses for why that might be the case. You know,

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Speaker 1: maybe it helped us pick out ripe fruits amongst a

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Speaker 1: tangle of green. Maybe it helped us socially because we

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Speaker 1: could see when somebody was read in the face because

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Speaker 1: they were angry, or blushing because they were embarrassed and such,

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Speaker 1: and so we could think that, you know, birds and

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Speaker 1: humans might have this sort of attention to color and

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Speaker 1: detail for some of the same pragmatic evolutionary reasons. You know,

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Speaker 1: they providing these discrete advantages. But then you know, if

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Speaker 1: a human, a bird, an octopus, whatever it might be,

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Speaker 1: achieves a certain sort of baseline level of intelligence, of cognition,

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Speaker 1: of self awareness, you start to have all these extra

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Speaker 1: abilities and phenomena emerging. You know, from that overall condition

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Speaker 1: that you know, it wasn't anticipated, you know, it's certainly

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Speaker 1: it's just the sort of unexpected by products, and asthetic

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Speaker 1: appreciation could be at least partly an example of that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think that sometimes something can start from a purpose

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Speaker 1: that is more strictly speaking, quote unquote practical, and then

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Speaker 1: evolve into something that is more it's still practical, but

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Speaker 1: it is more complex, and so we see it as

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Speaker 1: sort of this higher um state of being. So with

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Speaker 1: birds and with beauty, Uh, I guess that is kind

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Speaker 1: of the question. So like if they are attracted to beauty,

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Speaker 1: what determines beauty in the first place? So, you know,

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Speaker 1: they it seems like it has to start somewhere all

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Speaker 1: the maybe some people would are you know, it doesn't

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Speaker 1: necessarily have to start anywhere. It could be spontaneous, but

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Speaker 1: it seems like there there may have been at some point,

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Speaker 1: like a practical purpose to being attracted to bright colors

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Speaker 1: or plumage, Like, is there is there even an answer

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Speaker 1: to how this bird appreciation for beauty started? Yeah, So,

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Speaker 1: like you said, some scientists I think would argue that,

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Speaker 1: you know, certain esthetic preferences are truly arbitrary and do

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Speaker 1: not have clear origins or explan nations. There's another group

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Speaker 1: of scientists that are really interested in sort of uncovering

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Speaker 1: the origins of these types of preferences, and in some

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Speaker 1: cases they've been able to trace them to quirks of

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Speaker 1: an animal's anatomy or to something to do with their

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Speaker 1: evolutionary history. Um. For example, there's a group of guppies

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Speaker 1: in Trinidad I believe that are really attracted to right

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Speaker 1: orange patches on their mates, and it turns out that

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Speaker 1: they are also really attracted to these bright orange tree

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Speaker 1: fruits that fall into the water that they feed on.

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Speaker 1: So some some reasons are proposed that maybe this you know,

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Speaker 1: initial practical, pragmatic, evolutionary advantageous attraction to orange for sustenance

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Speaker 1: was then co opted into the mating process and became

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Speaker 1: this more aesthetic preference, and that type of co opting

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Speaker 1: of kind of bleeding of you know, the pragmatic into

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Speaker 1: the aesthetic could be happening um in all kinds of

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Speaker 1: species and throughout evolutionary history. This is a complete shot

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Speaker 1: in the dark and probably not true, but I do

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Speaker 1: wonder and I have wondered those sometimes that when we

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Speaker 1: see a cute animal and we joke like, oh, I'm

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Speaker 1: going to eat you up, like if there is something

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Speaker 1: And again this is complete guesswork, but like it's at

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Speaker 1: some point it was based in an appetite, but then

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Speaker 1: it also triggered our cuteness thing of like maybe it

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Speaker 1: has a human baby kind of face, like those proportions,

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Speaker 1: and we wanted to eat them, but then we're like, oh,

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Speaker 1: you look too much like a baby. I don't actually

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Speaker 1: want it, you're too cute. But then they are like

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Speaker 1: that cuteness and then like I'm gonna eat you. It's

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Speaker 1: like they kind of get mixed up and it's you know,

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Speaker 1: I don't know, it's it's something that I think is

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Speaker 1: kind of funny because like when I'm with my dog

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Speaker 1: and she's really cute, I'm like, I'm gonna eat you,

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Speaker 1: and it's like maybe my great great great great great

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Speaker 1: great great great grandma was like thinking that about actually

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Speaker 1: eating a dog, but then was like, actually, you're too cute,

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Speaker 1: I can't eat you. That's really interesting. That makes me

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Speaker 1: think of one of the one of the hypop the

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Speaker 1: seas for the origin kissing is that you know, in

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Speaker 1: some cultures there is this really intimate and and another

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Speaker 1: species too, there's an intimate mouth to mouth feeding process

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Speaker 1: where the parent will chew up food and then regurgitate

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Speaker 1: it to the infant um. And so this sort of

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Speaker 1: you know, extremely intimate mouth to mouth contact eventually gets

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Speaker 1: co opted again becomes something else, um, you know, moves

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Speaker 1: from the parental to the sexual to the reproductive. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So it's interesting how I think a lot of times

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Speaker 1: and evolution we see something starts out one way and

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Speaker 1: then you know, through this combination of natural selection and

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Speaker 1: chance and then sometimes sort of conscious perception becomes something

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Speaker 1: else entirely. And that's actually, you know, something that may

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Speaker 1: have happened with feathers and plumage. So you know, there's

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Speaker 1: this thinking that initially dinosaurs evolved you know, sort of

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Speaker 1: early feathers maybe for warmth, for temperature regulation, but they

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Speaker 1: became this incredible canvas for aesthetic experimentation because now you

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Speaker 1: have this really interesting surface area and this material that

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Speaker 1: can do all kinds of interesting things with pigment and

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Speaker 1: with form, and so that initially pragmatic adaptation became something

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Speaker 1: more aesthetic over time. Yeah, that's so interesting to me.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I do love that we've kind of revitalized

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Speaker 1: our image of dinosaurs to have all of these you know,

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Speaker 1: the colors that we see in more modern paleo art

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Speaker 1: showing dinosaurs. Is maybe they actually were instead of like

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Speaker 1: the kind of skin wrapped like Jurassic Park, although I

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Speaker 1: love Jurassic Park. You know, the kind of more you know,

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Speaker 1: olive and brown tone dinosaurs, and it's I would love

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Speaker 1: like because then when you think about it, like maybe

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Speaker 1: they had some kind of like mating rituals, like funny dances,

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Speaker 1: like imagining some kind of dinosaur doing uh goofy little

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Speaker 1: dance that like the bower bird does pretty incredible. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm like a moonwalking t red. You know, I can

428
00:26:07,040 --> 00:26:11,679
Speaker 1: see it. I can definitely see it. So what is

429
00:26:12,080 --> 00:26:15,520
Speaker 1: runaway selection? Like? How can you have a trait that

430
00:26:15,560 --> 00:26:19,600
Speaker 1: goes from being practical to being pure decorative frippery. Like

431
00:26:19,680 --> 00:26:24,480
Speaker 1: you start out with wings and then they kind of

432
00:26:24,560 --> 00:26:28,760
Speaker 1: like turn into something like you you'll have, maybe more accurately,

433
00:26:28,800 --> 00:26:31,119
Speaker 1: you'll have like a tail feather and that's very useful

434
00:26:31,160 --> 00:26:34,000
Speaker 1: for flight. In a bird of Paradise becomes really long,

435
00:26:34,080 --> 00:26:36,679
Speaker 1: it actually becomes kind of a burden for the birden

436
00:26:36,840 --> 00:26:39,879
Speaker 1: it doesn't really help flight, it actually hinders them. But

437
00:26:39,920 --> 00:26:43,160
Speaker 1: the ladies love it. So having these long tail feathers

438
00:26:43,440 --> 00:26:45,719
Speaker 1: really helps them in sexual selection. So how does it

439
00:26:45,800 --> 00:26:49,720
Speaker 1: go from being like, how can you have an impractical

440
00:26:50,600 --> 00:26:55,200
Speaker 1: trait in evolution? Yeah? So I think we could imagine

441
00:26:55,200 --> 00:26:58,439
Speaker 1: a population of birds that, let's say they have long

442
00:26:58,920 --> 00:27:02,440
Speaker 1: maroon tails others and the feathers are useful for both

443
00:27:02,480 --> 00:27:05,800
Speaker 1: flight and they're also this maroon color because it's helpful

444
00:27:05,960 --> 00:27:09,960
Speaker 1: for camouflage in their particular habitat, and then, for whatever reason,

445
00:27:10,119 --> 00:27:14,600
Speaker 1: females really strongly prefer males that have the longest and

446
00:27:14,800 --> 00:27:18,560
Speaker 1: the sort of brightest maroon tail feathers. So though and

447
00:27:18,600 --> 00:27:22,000
Speaker 1: if the preference is strong enough, those males will be

448
00:27:22,119 --> 00:27:26,119
Speaker 1: much more reproductively successful than any of their counterparts, regardless

449
00:27:26,200 --> 00:27:29,480
Speaker 1: of their other traits and abilities. And then their children

450
00:27:29,520 --> 00:27:32,560
Speaker 1: will have, you know, also extremely long and extremely bright

451
00:27:32,640 --> 00:27:36,119
Speaker 1: maroon tail feathers, and then generation by generation, the you know,

452
00:27:36,359 --> 00:27:38,960
Speaker 1: the the males with the longest and the brightest feathers

453
00:27:39,000 --> 00:27:41,080
Speaker 1: will get chosen over and over again until they reach

454
00:27:41,240 --> 00:27:44,679
Speaker 1: ridiculous proportions, and they may even come up against some

455
00:27:44,880 --> 00:27:47,920
Speaker 1: physical physiological limit where the feathers are now so long

456
00:27:48,000 --> 00:27:50,240
Speaker 1: that they're actually hindering their ability to fly or to

457
00:27:50,280 --> 00:27:52,680
Speaker 1: survive in general, and it you know, kind of reaches

458
00:27:52,880 --> 00:27:55,880
Speaker 1: you know that that's sort of counterbalancing, but it can

459
00:27:55,920 --> 00:27:58,600
Speaker 1: still get to this really extreme point. And that's exactly

460
00:27:58,640 --> 00:28:00,440
Speaker 1: what we see in birds of pair of dice and

461
00:28:00,600 --> 00:28:03,800
Speaker 1: embower birds in many other creatures. I mean, it's astounding

462
00:28:03,880 --> 00:28:08,520
Speaker 1: because it is the birds themselves, their preferences, shaping evolution

463
00:28:08,840 --> 00:28:15,080
Speaker 1: more powerfully than say environmental dangers. Yeah, and I find

464
00:28:15,080 --> 00:28:19,959
Speaker 1: that incredibly interesting to think about, is that this internal preference,

465
00:28:20,040 --> 00:28:23,720
Speaker 1: you know, this aspect of the bird's consciousness has become

466
00:28:23,720 --> 00:28:28,040
Speaker 1: this incredibly powerful agent in their own evolution um, which

467
00:28:28,080 --> 00:28:30,920
Speaker 1: is just so there's like this internal landscape in addition

468
00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:34,680
Speaker 1: to the external environment that is you know, shaping literally

469
00:28:34,800 --> 00:28:38,880
Speaker 1: shaping their anatomy and their behavior is an incredibly powerful way.

470
00:28:39,000 --> 00:28:42,360
Speaker 1: What is an example of runaway sexual selection that you

471
00:28:42,480 --> 00:28:45,640
Speaker 1: love that we have not mentioned yet? So one of

472
00:28:45,680 --> 00:28:48,000
Speaker 1: the examples in the article and that a lot of

473
00:28:48,000 --> 00:28:51,880
Speaker 1: people find really interesting is the club winged mannequin, which

474
00:28:51,960 --> 00:28:55,880
Speaker 1: is this fascinating little tropical bird which I believe is

475
00:28:55,920 --> 00:28:59,560
Speaker 1: the only bird that produces sounds through a process called

476
00:28:59,600 --> 00:29:03,719
Speaker 1: stridu lation, which is similar to how some insects do it.

477
00:29:03,800 --> 00:29:05,360
Speaker 1: Like you can think of like, um, you know, certain

478
00:29:05,400 --> 00:29:09,840
Speaker 1: crickets or grasshoppers rubbing their rubbing their sort of their

479
00:29:09,840 --> 00:29:12,320
Speaker 1: wings are that browning parts together really really fast and

480
00:29:12,360 --> 00:29:17,080
Speaker 1: really really quickly to produce this intense running And so

481
00:29:17,160 --> 00:29:21,080
Speaker 1: the club winged mannequin, for whatever reason, the females love

482
00:29:21,240 --> 00:29:25,400
Speaker 1: this this stridulated thrumming sound, and so the males evolved

483
00:29:25,440 --> 00:29:29,360
Speaker 1: over time to produce it completely contorting the bones and

484
00:29:29,400 --> 00:29:31,920
Speaker 1: their wings to the point that it actually hinders their

485
00:29:31,920 --> 00:29:35,880
Speaker 1: ability to fly. And even the females have inherited some

486
00:29:36,040 --> 00:29:39,000
Speaker 1: of this sort of warped bone anatomy and the genetics

487
00:29:39,040 --> 00:29:42,640
Speaker 1: underlying it, and even their flight is a bit hindered

488
00:29:42,640 --> 00:29:45,560
Speaker 1: by it, which is very you know, that really goes

489
00:29:45,600 --> 00:29:48,640
Speaker 1: against some of the sort of classical ideas of evolution

490
00:29:48,680 --> 00:29:51,920
Speaker 1: by natural selection always making animals, you know, better adapted

491
00:29:51,960 --> 00:29:55,640
Speaker 1: to their environments. Well, this adaptation makes them more reproductively

492
00:29:55,840 --> 00:29:59,120
Speaker 1: attractive the males anyways, but it's not really conferring any

493
00:29:59,120 --> 00:30:01,680
Speaker 1: advantage whatso over to the females to have that kind

494
00:30:01,720 --> 00:30:06,480
Speaker 1: of worked skeletal system. So it's a really extreme example

495
00:30:06,680 --> 00:30:10,640
Speaker 1: of runaway selection. I'm gonna play really quickly the sound

496
00:30:10,640 --> 00:30:13,680
Speaker 1: of a club wing mannequin because it is it is

497
00:30:13,720 --> 00:30:21,320
Speaker 1: absolutely incredible. I mean it's incredible. It's hard to even

498
00:30:21,320 --> 00:30:24,440
Speaker 1: tell that this is not like a call it's making

499
00:30:24,480 --> 00:30:29,120
Speaker 1: through vocalization. It is the stridulation of its wings, and

500
00:30:29,160 --> 00:30:33,120
Speaker 1: you can when you're watching it, it's vibrating so quickly

501
00:30:33,160 --> 00:30:36,840
Speaker 1: you can barely tell that's what's going on. Yeah, there

502
00:30:36,880 --> 00:30:40,680
Speaker 1: are certain animal sounds that are just so surreal or otherworldly,

503
00:30:40,760 --> 00:30:42,440
Speaker 1: Like I always think of wet all seals, Like I

504
00:30:42,440 --> 00:30:44,600
Speaker 1: couldn't believe that was coming from an animal. The first

505
00:30:44,640 --> 00:30:48,360
Speaker 1: time I heard these sort of space age you know,

506
00:30:48,720 --> 00:30:53,840
Speaker 1: murmurs coming from these seals. Yeah, I was like, what

507
00:30:54,400 --> 00:30:56,240
Speaker 1: and this is similar, Like it sounds so to me.

508
00:30:56,280 --> 00:30:59,600
Speaker 1: It sounds so electronic, like almost artificial. It's like, wow,

509
00:30:59,640 --> 00:31:02,920
Speaker 1: that's come from a living organism, a synthesizer. You could

510
00:31:02,920 --> 00:31:06,280
Speaker 1: probably make a synthesizer out of club wing mannequins, although

511
00:31:06,320 --> 00:31:09,080
Speaker 1: that would not be ethical, but it would sound great.

512
00:31:10,080 --> 00:31:12,280
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's actually at the end of the show,

513
00:31:12,320 --> 00:31:15,000
Speaker 1: I always play a game called I Guess He's squawking,

514
00:31:15,680 --> 00:31:18,840
Speaker 1: and I play a mystery animal sound that won't happen

515
00:31:18,920 --> 00:31:20,920
Speaker 1: yet because we're not we're not near the end yet,

516
00:31:20,960 --> 00:31:23,800
Speaker 1: but I'm excited to do that. But yeah, I mean,

517
00:31:23,800 --> 00:31:27,480
Speaker 1: that actually reminds me of another animal you bring up

518
00:31:27,480 --> 00:31:32,360
Speaker 1: in your article, which is, uh, these frogs that create

519
00:31:32,760 --> 00:31:35,120
Speaker 1: this really interesting sound. Right. So you know a lot

520
00:31:35,120 --> 00:31:39,800
Speaker 1: of different amphibians will make crookings and sounds during the

521
00:31:39,840 --> 00:31:44,040
Speaker 1: mating process. Um, but there's a certain type of total

522
00:31:44,040 --> 00:31:49,040
Speaker 1: itt that has had a really interesting evolutionary history um

523
00:31:49,040 --> 00:31:52,000
Speaker 1: with doing this. And so if I remember correctly, there's

524
00:31:52,080 --> 00:31:55,720
Speaker 1: kind of this danger because if the totalts are too

525
00:31:55,760 --> 00:31:59,600
Speaker 1: loud in their mating calls, they actually will attract bats

526
00:31:59,720 --> 00:32:03,920
Speaker 1: that eat them. Um. But the males need to sort

527
00:32:03,960 --> 00:32:07,400
Speaker 1: of make these little croaks, which sound actually a lot

528
00:32:07,480 --> 00:32:10,280
Speaker 1: like laser guns. They're they're very they're kind of, you know,

529
00:32:10,320 --> 00:32:13,000
Speaker 1: similarly interesting to the clubbing mannequin's calls, to make these

530
00:32:13,040 --> 00:32:16,840
Speaker 1: little wines in order to attract females. And it was

531
00:32:17,360 --> 00:32:21,720
Speaker 1: very perplexing to researchers why females were attracted to this

532
00:32:21,920 --> 00:32:28,120
Speaker 1: particular sound. Um, And over time there's been some research

533
00:32:28,160 --> 00:32:32,160
Speaker 1: suggesting that it basically was a quirk of their evolutionary

534
00:32:32,240 --> 00:32:36,560
Speaker 1: history in that males that happened to produce this particular

535
00:32:36,640 --> 00:32:41,640
Speaker 1: frequency activated this sort of long abandoned auditory channel, so

536
00:32:41,760 --> 00:32:46,080
Speaker 1: they were simply more noticeable to females compared to other

537
00:32:46,120 --> 00:32:49,800
Speaker 1: males that weren't making the sounds in this correct frequency.

538
00:32:49,840 --> 00:32:52,760
Speaker 1: And whereas originally the thinking might have been that the

539
00:32:52,840 --> 00:32:56,440
Speaker 1: total it's making this particular sound were fitter in some way,

540
00:32:56,480 --> 00:32:59,040
Speaker 1: they were larger, they were better mates for the females,

541
00:32:59,520 --> 00:33:02,440
Speaker 1: now it's seams like that perhaps is not the case. Um,

542
00:33:02,480 --> 00:33:05,400
Speaker 1: they just sort of chanced upon this cork revolution that

543
00:33:05,480 --> 00:33:07,720
Speaker 1: allowed them to be more noticeable to the females and

544
00:33:07,800 --> 00:33:11,800
Speaker 1: therefore more attractive, you know, to us. You know, none

545
00:33:11,800 --> 00:33:16,000
Speaker 1: of these sounds like are particularly interesting or attractive, like

546
00:33:16,040 --> 00:33:18,480
Speaker 1: as humans, like they're you know, they're just for yourself.

547
00:33:19,000 --> 00:33:21,600
Speaker 1: Well yeah, some people, I should say, they're just sort

548
00:33:21,640 --> 00:33:25,520
Speaker 1: of it's it's difficult to understand why this particular whiting

549
00:33:25,680 --> 00:33:28,400
Speaker 1: you know, would be sexy or attractive, but to the

550
00:33:28,480 --> 00:33:31,360
Speaker 1: you know, to the totalts, it is incredibly appealing. Um.

551
00:33:31,400 --> 00:33:33,040
Speaker 1: And so that just you know, sort of speaks to

552
00:33:33,560 --> 00:33:36,520
Speaker 1: how different, um, these sort of asthetic preferences can be

553
00:33:36,520 --> 00:33:39,040
Speaker 1: from one species to another. And this could also be

554
00:33:39,480 --> 00:33:42,320
Speaker 1: through visual channels, right, Like you could have a visual

555
00:33:42,400 --> 00:33:47,640
Speaker 1: cute bright colors that just happened to be extremely noticeable.

556
00:33:47,800 --> 00:33:50,760
Speaker 1: Like we we each all animals have their own perceptive

557
00:33:50,840 --> 00:33:56,040
Speaker 1: field through hearing, vision, taste, smell, electro reception, all sorts

558
00:33:56,080 --> 00:33:59,840
Speaker 1: of senses. And so if you're looking for a mate, uh,

559
00:34:00,080 --> 00:34:02,080
Speaker 1: and you hit on one of the like one of

560
00:34:02,320 --> 00:34:06,160
Speaker 1: the most important thing in mating and dating is be noticeable.

561
00:34:06,560 --> 00:34:10,839
Speaker 1: So if you can make your perspective mate. Notice you

562
00:34:11,360 --> 00:34:15,000
Speaker 1: that is a huge, huge step in terms of getting

563
00:34:15,000 --> 00:34:17,319
Speaker 1: towards a successful mating. I mean, I think we just

564
00:34:17,840 --> 00:34:19,879
Speaker 1: we just talked about this on the show a couple

565
00:34:19,880 --> 00:34:23,560
Speaker 1: of weeks ago. But there are the the mobular rays

566
00:34:23,680 --> 00:34:26,800
Speaker 1: which will jump up out of the ocean and slam

567
00:34:26,840 --> 00:34:28,799
Speaker 1: back down. It's like, why are they doing that? That

568
00:34:28,840 --> 00:34:31,160
Speaker 1: seems like such a waste of energy, and they're trying

569
00:34:31,160 --> 00:34:33,520
Speaker 1: to get attention so that they can try to find

570
00:34:33,520 --> 00:34:36,160
Speaker 1: a mate. So it seems like that is that like

571
00:34:36,760 --> 00:34:39,120
Speaker 1: those kind of that kind of avenue of like you

572
00:34:39,239 --> 00:34:44,080
Speaker 1: just if you can hit on a specific perceptive, I

573
00:34:44,080 --> 00:34:49,479
Speaker 1: guess um a person something that is specific species will

574
00:34:49,520 --> 00:34:53,560
Speaker 1: perceive especially strongly, like a certain sound, a certain color,

575
00:34:54,040 --> 00:34:56,839
Speaker 1: and that just is like so bright to them. That

576
00:34:56,920 --> 00:35:01,239
Speaker 1: may be a selective pressure for having some kind of

577
00:35:01,280 --> 00:35:05,440
Speaker 1: sexual selection that incorporates that extremely strong signal for that

578
00:35:05,520 --> 00:35:10,439
Speaker 1: specific species. Absolutely. One of the scientists I talked about

579
00:35:10,480 --> 00:35:13,320
Speaker 1: in the article, Molly Cummings, has done some really interesting

580
00:35:13,320 --> 00:35:17,280
Speaker 1: work on fishes, and she's shown that, you know, different

581
00:35:17,360 --> 00:35:22,080
Speaker 1: fish in different environments will have different esthetic preferences based

582
00:35:22,080 --> 00:35:25,600
Speaker 1: on the way that light is moving through their environment.

583
00:35:25,960 --> 00:35:29,520
Speaker 1: So you know, different types of aquatic habitats, different opacity

584
00:35:29,560 --> 00:35:32,640
Speaker 1: of water, whether it's really clear, whether it's murky, that

585
00:35:32,760 --> 00:35:36,280
Speaker 1: affects what type of wavelengths are best able to penetrate

586
00:35:36,320 --> 00:35:39,719
Speaker 1: and move through that water. And so different species of

587
00:35:39,800 --> 00:35:43,080
Speaker 1: fish will have different preferences for say, polarized light, you know,

588
00:35:43,200 --> 00:35:46,520
Speaker 1: versus a different type of light, depending on how their

589
00:35:46,560 --> 00:35:51,000
Speaker 1: environment constrains what they were able to best perceive. That's

590
00:35:51,000 --> 00:35:54,280
Speaker 1: so interesting. I mean, we've already mentioned a few animals

591
00:35:54,280 --> 00:35:58,279
Speaker 1: that are are not birds, like fish, the toatlets. Do

592
00:35:58,320 --> 00:36:01,920
Speaker 1: you think that these other animals could also potentially have

593
00:36:02,120 --> 00:36:05,440
Speaker 1: like a concept of beauty, um, even if it's not

594
00:36:05,520 --> 00:36:08,680
Speaker 1: necessarily beautiful plumage, Like, even if it's the sound, the

595
00:36:09,080 --> 00:36:13,120
Speaker 1: weird squeaking sound of a totally like to them, do

596
00:36:13,160 --> 00:36:16,560
Speaker 1: you think it is something that could be beautiful? Yeah,

597
00:36:16,760 --> 00:36:18,839
Speaker 1: I think that, you know, the further we kind of

598
00:36:18,880 --> 00:36:21,960
Speaker 1: go back in evolutionary history, you know, like getting back

599
00:36:22,000 --> 00:36:24,000
Speaker 1: to the ocean, back to you know, the mother of

600
00:36:24,000 --> 00:36:27,520
Speaker 1: all life, back to the fish before they came on land, Like,

601
00:36:27,560 --> 00:36:31,000
Speaker 1: it gets harder and harder to sort of put ourselves

602
00:36:31,000 --> 00:36:33,359
Speaker 1: in their mindset and sort of understand, you know, how

603
00:36:33,360 --> 00:36:36,120
Speaker 1: they perceived the world, but I think you know they're there.

604
00:36:36,239 --> 00:36:40,160
Speaker 1: There's the famous Cambridge Declaration of Consciousness. Like, there seems

605
00:36:40,160 --> 00:36:43,640
Speaker 1: to be pretty widespread acceptance among scientists that all vertebrates

606
00:36:44,040 --> 00:36:47,040
Speaker 1: and some invertebrates like octopuses and honey bees and such,

607
00:36:47,160 --> 00:36:50,040
Speaker 1: have consciousness. You know, they are conscious. They have this

608
00:36:50,120 --> 00:36:53,480
Speaker 1: basic level of being able to understand and engage with

609
00:36:53,560 --> 00:36:55,600
Speaker 1: the world and perhaps even be aware of themselves. So

610
00:36:55,640 --> 00:36:58,200
Speaker 1: I would think that it is certainly possible amongst any

611
00:36:58,200 --> 00:37:01,640
Speaker 1: type of vertebrate we're discussing, including fish. And then maybe

612
00:37:01,640 --> 00:37:04,480
Speaker 1: where it gets trickier would be something like the peacock

613
00:37:04,560 --> 00:37:07,759
Speaker 1: spider um, you know, which is which is an invertebrate

614
00:37:07,800 --> 00:37:10,680
Speaker 1: like the octopus, and it is very small, you know,

615
00:37:10,840 --> 00:37:13,120
Speaker 1: so like like a honeybee has a very little brain

616
00:37:13,239 --> 00:37:15,880
Speaker 1: just in terms of you know, size, but has an

617
00:37:15,920 --> 00:37:21,160
Speaker 1: incredibly interesting and complex mating ritual and these beautiful, glittering

618
00:37:21,239 --> 00:37:25,719
Speaker 1: irajustine abdomens that almost look like faberge eggs with incredibly

619
00:37:25,760 --> 00:37:30,040
Speaker 1: intricate patterns, you know, really intense blues and reds and oranges,

620
00:37:30,239 --> 00:37:33,359
Speaker 1: and they flip up their abdomens and they wave their

621
00:37:33,480 --> 00:37:35,960
Speaker 1: legs around and do this really cool little mating dance

622
00:37:36,080 --> 00:37:39,319
Speaker 1: um as part of their courtship. So that has a

623
00:37:39,360 --> 00:37:42,719
Speaker 1: lot of parallels to what birds um, you know, do um,

624
00:37:42,960 --> 00:37:46,360
Speaker 1: even though these spiders are invertebrates. And yeah, it's really

625
00:37:46,480 --> 00:37:49,520
Speaker 1: it's fascinating to think about what's going through the spider's mind.

626
00:37:49,600 --> 00:37:51,399
Speaker 1: You know, what's going through their their mind is they're

627
00:37:51,400 --> 00:37:55,160
Speaker 1: sort of evaluating their mates, um colors and dance moves.

628
00:37:55,200 --> 00:37:58,320
Speaker 1: And I mean, it's just an extraordinary level of beauty

629
00:37:58,440 --> 00:38:02,640
Speaker 1: from our perspective, folving in a creature that is that

630
00:38:02,760 --> 00:38:05,480
Speaker 1: many people are terrified of or even revile, you know,

631
00:38:05,520 --> 00:38:09,160
Speaker 1: but these are just incredibly beautiful animals. Yeah. I love

632
00:38:09,360 --> 00:38:12,520
Speaker 1: jumping spiders so much there. I mean, to me, every

633
00:38:12,600 --> 00:38:16,320
Speaker 1: jumping spider is so cute. It's those two big eyes

634
00:38:16,400 --> 00:38:19,520
Speaker 1: that they have and they're uh. I think that they're

635
00:38:19,560 --> 00:38:22,680
Speaker 1: really the only spider, or one of the only spiders

636
00:38:22,680 --> 00:38:27,120
Speaker 1: that has such a visual perception. I think they're the

637
00:38:27,120 --> 00:38:30,040
Speaker 1: only type of spider that can like actually move their

638
00:38:30,280 --> 00:38:35,400
Speaker 1: retinas around. And there was a recent study looking into

639
00:38:35,760 --> 00:38:38,319
Speaker 1: actually I think I discussed this last week, but a

640
00:38:38,400 --> 00:38:42,560
Speaker 1: recent study that looks into that the possibility that jumping

641
00:38:42,600 --> 00:38:46,759
Speaker 1: spiders might have r E M sleep like rapid eye

642
00:38:46,800 --> 00:38:50,319
Speaker 1: movement sleep, and so of course we don't know that

643
00:38:50,360 --> 00:38:53,200
Speaker 1: they're dreaming and having visual dreams, but we do know

644
00:38:53,360 --> 00:38:57,640
Speaker 1: that animals that do have rapid eye movement sleep like humans,

645
00:38:58,160 --> 00:39:01,440
Speaker 1: probably do have visual dreams. So it's a possibility maybe

646
00:39:01,480 --> 00:39:06,680
Speaker 1: these spiders are dreaming about seeing uh an amazing display

647
00:39:06,760 --> 00:39:10,439
Speaker 1: from another eligible spider. But it's it's hard to it's

648
00:39:10,480 --> 00:39:15,040
Speaker 1: so hard to imagine something so small and simple having

649
00:39:15,680 --> 00:39:19,480
Speaker 1: a really rich, deep consciousness. And I'm not saying that

650
00:39:19,520 --> 00:39:23,279
Speaker 1: they do, but it is fascinating that they have that

651
00:39:23,440 --> 00:39:27,200
Speaker 1: there is evidence that there's more to them than them

652
00:39:27,239 --> 00:39:31,600
Speaker 1: just being basically like having the awareness of you know,

653
00:39:31,800 --> 00:39:38,000
Speaker 1: a robot or you know, like a tiny automaton. Absolutely, yeah,

654
00:39:38,239 --> 00:39:45,040
Speaker 1: you do spiders dream and technicolor a spiders anyways. Yeah,

655
00:39:45,160 --> 00:39:49,400
Speaker 1: And you know, something that I've always found really interesting

656
00:39:49,560 --> 00:39:52,640
Speaker 1: about this is from jumping spiders to birds, is that

657
00:39:52,719 --> 00:39:57,040
Speaker 1: an animals perception of beauty often over lapse with our own.

658
00:39:57,160 --> 00:39:59,640
Speaker 1: Sometimes it doesn't, like with the toadlets, little pup you

659
00:39:59,760 --> 00:40:03,480
Speaker 1: sound owns, but a lot of times it does. Oh.

660
00:40:03,560 --> 00:40:06,800
Speaker 1: Other examples of when it doesn't are like hooded seals

661
00:40:06,840 --> 00:40:10,439
Speaker 1: when they inflate their nostril that creates this bright red

662
00:40:10,480 --> 00:40:14,600
Speaker 1: balloon maybe not so attractive to us, um, but very

663
00:40:14,600 --> 00:40:18,760
Speaker 1: alluring to female hooded seals. But yeah, I mean peacock

664
00:40:18,840 --> 00:40:23,680
Speaker 1: jumping spider birds. Uh, the bower birds that create things

665
00:40:23,719 --> 00:40:26,759
Speaker 1: that look like works of art that a human would make.

666
00:40:27,000 --> 00:40:31,120
Speaker 1: With birds, they are aesthetic preferences seem to align with

667
00:40:31,160 --> 00:40:35,320
Speaker 1: our own, which is you know, really interesting, like how

668
00:40:35,360 --> 00:40:39,200
Speaker 1: can we share this sense of beauty with a bird

669
00:40:39,320 --> 00:40:42,880
Speaker 1: that were so otherwise different from there? They are living dinosaurs,

670
00:40:43,360 --> 00:40:47,280
Speaker 1: they are very unlike us. Do you think there's any

671
00:40:47,360 --> 00:40:51,319
Speaker 1: reason that there's this overlap? Is it pure coincidence or

672
00:40:51,400 --> 00:40:56,239
Speaker 1: is it maybe because of some shared evolutionary history. I

673
00:40:56,280 --> 00:40:58,800
Speaker 1: do think there has to be at least some shared

674
00:40:58,880 --> 00:41:03,279
Speaker 1: evolutionary history blaming that just because we are both vertebrates,

675
00:41:03,280 --> 00:41:06,040
Speaker 1: so you know, going back to our vertebrate ancestors, we

676
00:41:06,200 --> 00:41:10,600
Speaker 1: must have inherited some sort of basic sensory perceptions, you know,

677
00:41:10,719 --> 00:41:13,520
Speaker 1: and of course those would have continued to evolve over

678
00:41:13,560 --> 00:41:17,000
Speaker 1: time and are very different lineages, um, but there's probably

679
00:41:17,040 --> 00:41:20,279
Speaker 1: still some very fundamental you know, abilities there that we

680
00:41:20,320 --> 00:41:23,319
Speaker 1: do have in common. And and you know, you know,

681
00:41:23,520 --> 00:41:26,480
Speaker 1: clearly with bower birds and certain other kinds of words.

682
00:41:26,480 --> 00:41:31,400
Speaker 1: We do share this attention to this interest in bright color,

683
00:41:31,440 --> 00:41:35,520
Speaker 1: you know, in fruit, in flowers and and actually flowers

684
00:41:35,600 --> 00:41:37,480
Speaker 1: is one of the most interesting ways that I have

685
00:41:37,480 --> 00:41:40,440
Speaker 1: found a sort of you know, think through these questions

686
00:41:40,520 --> 00:41:44,160
Speaker 1: of beauty and the potential purpose of beauty, um and

687
00:41:44,160 --> 00:41:47,319
Speaker 1: and the origin of beauty, because if you think about it,

688
00:41:47,320 --> 00:41:51,239
Speaker 1: it's really bizarre that we as humans are so obsessed

689
00:41:51,360 --> 00:41:54,120
Speaker 1: with flowers because they really have nothing to do with

690
00:41:54,239 --> 00:41:57,080
Speaker 1: us in terms of their evolutionary history. You know, flowers

691
00:41:57,120 --> 00:42:00,680
Speaker 1: co evolved with insects and birds and other illinators to

692
00:42:00,760 --> 00:42:04,719
Speaker 1: attract those pollinators. That is sort of why they look

693
00:42:04,800 --> 00:42:06,960
Speaker 1: the way they do and why they smell the way

694
00:42:07,040 --> 00:42:10,799
Speaker 1: they do. Um, and insects and birds are privy to

695
00:42:10,840 --> 00:42:14,319
Speaker 1: this entire dimension of floral beauty that's totally hidden to

696
00:42:14,360 --> 00:42:16,960
Speaker 1: us because they can see in the ultra violet part

697
00:42:16,960 --> 00:42:19,520
Speaker 1: of the spectrum, and they can see um patterns on

698
00:42:19,600 --> 00:42:22,680
Speaker 1: flowers that we cannot with with our own just you know,

699
00:42:22,760 --> 00:42:26,480
Speaker 1: human biological eyes. So what is it about flowers that

700
00:42:26,560 --> 00:42:29,400
Speaker 1: you know, we don't just like flowers like we become

701
00:42:29,440 --> 00:42:33,640
Speaker 1: completely obsessed with them, Like tulip mania. You know, many

702
00:42:33,680 --> 00:42:37,480
Speaker 1: centuries ago in the Netherlands, women tulips reached absurd prices,

703
00:42:37,840 --> 00:42:41,960
Speaker 1: or the continuing passion for orchids that kind of began

704
00:42:42,120 --> 00:42:45,120
Speaker 1: with the invention of like early glasshouses and bringing tropical

705
00:42:45,160 --> 00:42:48,719
Speaker 1: specimens abroad and things like that. Um And so you know,

706
00:42:48,840 --> 00:42:52,040
Speaker 1: I think you could think of um pragmatic reasons that

707
00:42:52,080 --> 00:42:55,160
Speaker 1: would be true for a lot of species, like understanding

708
00:42:55,160 --> 00:42:58,439
Speaker 1: that flowers turn into fruits, turn into food, so there's

709
00:42:58,440 --> 00:43:02,680
Speaker 1: this potential for sustenance. But then could flowers also just

710
00:43:02,760 --> 00:43:05,320
Speaker 1: be impinging upon what we were talking about earlier, to

711
00:43:05,480 --> 00:43:08,160
Speaker 1: kind of these emergent phenomena that come out of a

712
00:43:08,160 --> 00:43:12,480
Speaker 1: certain level of cognition and intelligence. So they're just you know,

713
00:43:12,719 --> 00:43:17,760
Speaker 1: they're hitting upon our sort of ability to appreciate color

714
00:43:17,880 --> 00:43:20,759
Speaker 1: and form and smell and the harmony of all of

715
00:43:20,800 --> 00:43:24,160
Speaker 1: those things in a natural creation, you know, in an

716
00:43:24,239 --> 00:43:27,600
Speaker 1: organic form um. And so you know, it's just it's

717
00:43:27,640 --> 00:43:30,759
Speaker 1: just fascinating to sort of use flowers as a way

718
00:43:30,760 --> 00:43:33,319
Speaker 1: to sort of explore all of those interests. And I

719
00:43:33,360 --> 00:43:37,360
Speaker 1: love the fact that bower birds choose flowers as well.

720
00:43:37,400 --> 00:43:39,560
Speaker 1: That's one of the ornaments they choose for their bowers

721
00:43:39,840 --> 00:43:42,120
Speaker 1: is flowers. So clearly we're not the only ones who

722
00:43:42,160 --> 00:43:45,880
Speaker 1: have that appreciation. So if you want to flatter a

723
00:43:45,920 --> 00:43:49,840
Speaker 1: bower bird, you could get them like a bouquet, exactly

724
00:43:50,239 --> 00:43:53,239
Speaker 1: good information for everyone who wants to flirt with a

725
00:43:53,239 --> 00:43:56,920
Speaker 1: bower bird. I mean, that's that is incredible. I I

726
00:43:57,000 --> 00:44:01,239
Speaker 1: think it is. I think it's too often that we

727
00:44:01,360 --> 00:44:07,239
Speaker 1: think about things like beauty and art as something frivolous, unimportant,

728
00:44:07,400 --> 00:44:10,399
Speaker 1: just like window dressing, you know, something that is not

729
00:44:11,320 --> 00:44:14,560
Speaker 1: really it's not it's not a serious topic. It's not

730
00:44:14,800 --> 00:44:18,560
Speaker 1: serious science or something, and it is such a huge mistake,

731
00:44:18,600 --> 00:44:21,600
Speaker 1: I think because that is when you think, when we

732
00:44:21,680 --> 00:44:25,319
Speaker 1: think about our consciousness, it's not such a mystery why

733
00:44:25,400 --> 00:44:28,160
Speaker 1: we find food appealing, right, like we need to eat.

734
00:44:29,000 --> 00:44:32,480
Speaker 1: It's pretty obvious why we would enjoy food, or why

735
00:44:32,560 --> 00:44:35,799
Speaker 1: we would enjoy having food around holidays and stuff. But

736
00:44:35,920 --> 00:44:40,279
Speaker 1: like something like appreciating beauty not just in each other

737
00:44:40,480 --> 00:44:44,160
Speaker 1: but in the natural world, like seeing flowers, like some

738
00:44:44,239 --> 00:44:48,240
Speaker 1: of the most famous painters were absolutely obsessed with natural scene,

739
00:44:48,320 --> 00:44:53,799
Speaker 1: natural beauty, flowers, uh, painting animals. Uh. It is I

740
00:44:53,840 --> 00:44:57,600
Speaker 1: think really interesting that we have that in our consciousness

741
00:44:57,600 --> 00:45:01,080
Speaker 1: and if we get behind, if we solve this mystery

742
00:45:01,080 --> 00:45:06,000
Speaker 1: of like why we enjoy beauty, why other animals enjoy beauty.

743
00:45:06,040 --> 00:45:09,000
Speaker 1: I think that would unlock a lot of really interesting

744
00:45:09,040 --> 00:45:13,279
Speaker 1: things about the brain, about our psychology, that would be

745
00:45:13,360 --> 00:45:16,040
Speaker 1: really informative. But I think in order for us to

746
00:45:16,080 --> 00:45:19,320
Speaker 1: do that, we really have to appreciate this as something

747
00:45:19,360 --> 00:45:24,040
Speaker 1: that is super important, deeply, deeply important. That's a great point,

748
00:45:24,040 --> 00:45:26,840
Speaker 1: and I think that you know your point about you know,

749
00:45:27,040 --> 00:45:30,799
Speaker 1: thinking of beauty is frivolous. It even gets embedded in

750
00:45:31,280 --> 00:45:34,040
Speaker 1: scientific concepts and scientific ways of thinking because you know,

751
00:45:34,040 --> 00:45:37,680
Speaker 1: the technical term for all of this incredible plumage that

752
00:45:37,719 --> 00:45:40,960
Speaker 1: we've been talking about is sexual ornaments, right, And so

753
00:45:41,120 --> 00:45:44,239
Speaker 1: the word ornaments, like it immediately is kind of um

754
00:45:44,480 --> 00:45:47,520
Speaker 1: downplaying the importance because we think of something as oh,

755
00:45:47,560 --> 00:45:51,360
Speaker 1: that's just decorative, right, It's it's not really that important.

756
00:45:51,360 --> 00:45:54,640
Speaker 1: It's just an ornament. Whereas as you're saying, you know,

757
00:45:54,960 --> 00:45:57,120
Speaker 1: this question of where beauty comes from and what it

758
00:45:57,160 --> 00:46:00,360
Speaker 1: is doing gets at some of the biggest questions, biggest

759
00:46:00,360 --> 00:46:03,879
Speaker 1: outstanding questions and evolutionary biology and some of the longstanding

760
00:46:03,920 --> 00:46:07,680
Speaker 1: tensions you know, in the history of science. Yeah. Absolutely,

761
00:46:07,880 --> 00:46:10,080
Speaker 1: So if we could all just kind of like get

762
00:46:10,120 --> 00:46:13,440
Speaker 1: over ourselves and admit it's really interesting that stuff is

763
00:46:13,480 --> 00:46:18,920
Speaker 1: pretty and flowers are awesome exactly. Yeah, I've never never

764
00:46:19,000 --> 00:46:23,040
Speaker 1: understood flowery as a you know, as a disort insult

765
00:46:23,120 --> 00:46:25,000
Speaker 1: like you know, I think that if I could write

766
00:46:25,000 --> 00:46:27,040
Speaker 1: a sentence as beautiful as a flower, I'd be very

767
00:46:27,160 --> 00:46:29,640
Speaker 1: proud of that sentence. I know, I know, I I

768
00:46:29,719 --> 00:46:33,080
Speaker 1: also love flowers. If I, as a podcaster, could somehow

769
00:46:33,160 --> 00:46:36,239
Speaker 1: put flowers in all y'all's ears, I would do it,

770
00:46:37,120 --> 00:46:42,640
Speaker 1: uh if the technology existed, which it doesn't unfortunately. But

771
00:46:42,840 --> 00:46:45,520
Speaker 1: before we go, as I mentioned earlier, we have a

772
00:46:45,520 --> 00:46:47,680
Speaker 1: game at the end of the show, which is gives

773
00:46:47,719 --> 00:46:50,759
Speaker 1: his squawk in the Mystery Animal sound game. Now I

774
00:46:50,840 --> 00:46:54,080
Speaker 1: do say squawking, but this is not restricted to the birds.

775
00:46:54,320 --> 00:46:58,279
Speaker 1: It is any animal in the world. Uh, and you

776
00:46:58,520 --> 00:47:01,600
Speaker 1: the listener, and even you the if you would like, uh,

777
00:47:01,880 --> 00:47:05,520
Speaker 1: you can try to guess who is squawking. So this

778
00:47:05,719 --> 00:47:09,239
Speaker 1: is last week's sound that this was the hint. It

779
00:47:09,440 --> 00:47:12,439
Speaker 1: is the largest of its order, but that doesn't mean

780
00:47:12,520 --> 00:47:24,799
Speaker 1: it'll refuse a good cuddle. All right, Well, can you

781
00:47:24,840 --> 00:47:28,880
Speaker 1: guess who squawking? And no pressure because if I honestly,

782
00:47:28,880 --> 00:47:31,520
Speaker 1: if I had to play this game, I would probably

783
00:47:31,600 --> 00:47:35,400
Speaker 1: lose most of the time, so your your prestige is

784
00:47:35,440 --> 00:47:38,799
Speaker 1: not on the line here. That is a really interesting one.

785
00:47:38,840 --> 00:47:41,600
Speaker 1: So at first my mind was going, like aquatic, like

786
00:47:41,680 --> 00:47:44,719
Speaker 1: some sort of cetacean, you know. But then I was

787
00:47:44,760 --> 00:47:47,040
Speaker 1: like listening to the background sound and it didn't quite

788
00:47:47,040 --> 00:47:49,040
Speaker 1: seem to match. And then then I was thinking, maybe

789
00:47:49,040 --> 00:47:53,279
Speaker 1: that is a bird of some sort. So you're saying

790
00:47:53,280 --> 00:47:59,360
Speaker 1: it's the largest of its order, Um gosh, I'm wondering.

791
00:48:01,440 --> 00:48:03,720
Speaker 1: I'm wondering if it's like one of those really big birds,

792
00:48:03,760 --> 00:48:06,960
Speaker 1: like an ostrogen email or casserie. I don't know. I

793
00:48:07,040 --> 00:48:10,040
Speaker 1: know I've heard that sounded very similar sound before me

794
00:48:10,160 --> 00:48:12,880
Speaker 1: having a really hard time pinpointing what it is. You're

795
00:48:13,040 --> 00:48:17,560
Speaker 1: closer with aquatic, although only only halfway there, only halfway

796
00:48:17,600 --> 00:48:22,280
Speaker 1: there was an aquatic mammal, then an aquatic is semi

797
00:48:22,320 --> 00:48:28,880
Speaker 1: aquatic mammal or no, actually semi yes, sorry, semi aquatic mammal. Okay,

798
00:48:29,120 --> 00:48:33,279
Speaker 1: something something like a semi aquatic mammal, something like um,

799
00:48:35,000 --> 00:48:38,080
Speaker 1: like a walrus or a seal, something of that nature

800
00:48:38,320 --> 00:48:43,360
Speaker 1: or close but not not quite. Yeah, I'm stumped, officially stumped.

801
00:48:43,640 --> 00:48:49,360
Speaker 1: This is actually a cappy bara yes, the largest rodent

802
00:48:49,560 --> 00:48:54,279
Speaker 1: in the world. Congratulations to the three fastest guessers who

803
00:48:54,320 --> 00:49:00,160
Speaker 1: gives correctly Grant W. Michael D. And jest See. I

804
00:49:00,239 --> 00:49:04,600
Speaker 1: had guinea pigs as a kid, and they're not they're

805
00:49:04,600 --> 00:49:07,560
Speaker 1: they're relatively they look like huge guinea pigs and they're

806
00:49:07,600 --> 00:49:10,920
Speaker 1: relatively related. But guinea pigs will make this kind of

807
00:49:10,960 --> 00:49:14,840
Speaker 1: like this little like squeaking sound as well when usually

808
00:49:14,880 --> 00:49:17,360
Speaker 1: when they're eating and they're really happy. But it is

809
00:49:17,440 --> 00:49:20,279
Speaker 1: bizarre to hear it coming out of this like giant you.

810
00:49:21,040 --> 00:49:24,200
Speaker 1: It's hard to expect it because this animal is so huge.

811
00:49:24,680 --> 00:49:27,640
Speaker 1: I before looking this up, I had no idea that

812
00:49:27,719 --> 00:49:32,080
Speaker 1: cappy barras sounded essentially like a little guinea pig. My

813
00:49:32,120 --> 00:49:35,640
Speaker 1: mind was not going there at all. That is really interesting, no,

814
00:49:36,000 --> 00:49:37,920
Speaker 1: I know, and I mean I was shocked to hear

815
00:49:37,960 --> 00:49:41,120
Speaker 1: because I would have thought, because cappy barrows are so huge,

816
00:49:41,200 --> 00:49:43,600
Speaker 1: I would have thought that their voices would be deeper.

817
00:49:43,960 --> 00:49:48,200
Speaker 1: But instead you're basically hearing what a guinea pig sounds like.

818
00:49:49,080 --> 00:49:51,880
Speaker 1: So they are the largest rodent in the world. They

819
00:49:51,920 --> 00:49:55,880
Speaker 1: are a semi aquatic herbivore who lives in South America,

820
00:49:56,000 --> 00:49:58,359
Speaker 1: and it looks like a giant guinea pig. They can

821
00:49:58,400 --> 00:50:01,440
Speaker 1: weigh around a hundred and already pounds or a little

822
00:50:01,520 --> 00:50:06,160
Speaker 1: over sixty ms. So yeah, I think people are pretty

823
00:50:06,200 --> 00:50:10,160
Speaker 1: familiar with the laid back vibes of the cappy bara.

824
00:50:10,320 --> 00:50:14,319
Speaker 1: There very chill. But it's interesting because these like this

825
00:50:14,640 --> 00:50:17,279
Speaker 1: chill vibe that they have. It's not because they're so

826
00:50:17,360 --> 00:50:21,120
Speaker 1: big they lack natural predators. They do actually have predators,

827
00:50:21,160 --> 00:50:24,640
Speaker 1: but it is because they actually enjoyed the company of

828
00:50:24,680 --> 00:50:28,080
Speaker 1: their peers. They typically live in groups of around twenty.

829
00:50:28,200 --> 00:50:31,160
Speaker 1: They can even live in huge groups of up to

830
00:50:31,280 --> 00:50:35,520
Speaker 1: a hundred individuals. And the squeaking sound that this cappy

831
00:50:35,560 --> 00:50:37,880
Speaker 1: bara is making is probably just like a little happy

832
00:50:37,920 --> 00:50:42,080
Speaker 1: sound because he's expecting to be fed soon. Wow. I

833
00:50:42,160 --> 00:50:45,120
Speaker 1: love that, just like it's the same sound my pet

834
00:50:45,120 --> 00:50:47,600
Speaker 1: guinea pigs would make when I'm like getting out the

835
00:50:47,640 --> 00:50:50,080
Speaker 1: alfalfa for them and they see me do on it

836
00:50:50,880 --> 00:50:54,600
Speaker 1: uh and make that little squeaking noise. I love that.

837
00:50:54,719 --> 00:50:57,120
Speaker 1: This is I was actually just looking into the sort

838
00:50:57,120 --> 00:51:01,240
Speaker 1: of controversy over what types of cat can roar versus

839
00:51:01,360 --> 00:51:04,680
Speaker 1: pur and you know, classically it was divided amongst the

840
00:51:04,760 --> 00:51:07,920
Speaker 1: big cats and and smaller cats and supposedly only the

841
00:51:07,920 --> 00:51:10,560
Speaker 1: big cats could roar and only the smaller ones could purr,

842
00:51:11,280 --> 00:51:14,680
Speaker 1: but there's some really interesting exceptions, like, um, I think

843
00:51:14,760 --> 00:51:18,319
Speaker 1: nobody has ever heard a snow leopard roar before, even

844
00:51:18,320 --> 00:51:21,879
Speaker 1: though it should technically be capable of it. And there's

845
00:51:21,920 --> 00:51:23,840
Speaker 1: also a lot of you know, sort of debate about

846
00:51:23,840 --> 00:51:27,600
Speaker 1: what technically qualifies as a roar or a purr, and

847
00:51:27,640 --> 00:51:29,640
Speaker 1: so you can kind of, yeah, it gets it gets

848
00:51:29,680 --> 00:51:32,080
Speaker 1: pretty complex over that. But sometimes you hear, like a

849
00:51:32,200 --> 00:51:35,880
Speaker 1: very large, anatomically large cat, like a cheetah or something,

850
00:51:35,960 --> 00:51:39,279
Speaker 1: make a very domestic cat like sound, and it's it's

851
00:51:39,400 --> 00:51:42,000
Speaker 1: very there's some dissonance there, like you weren't expecting that

852
00:51:42,040 --> 00:51:44,040
Speaker 1: sound to come out of that animal. Yeah, they can

853
00:51:44,080 --> 00:51:47,480
Speaker 1: like do really high pitched chirping sounds that sounds like

854
00:51:47,520 --> 00:51:50,120
Speaker 1: a little baby chick, but it's coming out of this

855
00:51:50,239 --> 00:51:53,560
Speaker 1: huge cheetah. And when I first heard that from coming

856
00:51:53,600 --> 00:51:55,600
Speaker 1: from a cheetah, I was shocked. I thought it was

857
00:51:55,640 --> 00:52:02,560
Speaker 1: like a hoax. Yeah, so onto this week's mystery animal sound.

858
00:52:02,760 --> 00:52:05,880
Speaker 1: The hint it is actually good for these guys to

859
00:52:05,960 --> 00:52:09,520
Speaker 1: have an inflated sense of pride, And if you've been

860
00:52:09,560 --> 00:52:12,880
Speaker 1: paying close attention to the episode, and you read Ferris

861
00:52:13,080 --> 00:52:17,319
Speaker 1: Jaber's article how beauty is making scientists or rethink evolution,

862
00:52:17,840 --> 00:52:28,400
Speaker 1: you are sure to know the answer. So, Ferris, you

863
00:52:28,520 --> 00:52:31,000
Speaker 1: cannot answer this because I know you know the answer

864
00:52:31,040 --> 00:52:37,240
Speaker 1: to it. But I I think I've left enough clues

865
00:52:37,440 --> 00:52:40,840
Speaker 1: that some of you out there will get it. So Ferris,

866
00:52:40,840 --> 00:52:44,040
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining me today. Tell people

867
00:52:44,040 --> 00:52:47,279
Speaker 1: where they can read your articles and your writings. Thank

868
00:52:47,320 --> 00:52:50,560
Speaker 1: you so much. This was absolutely wonderful. Um most of

869
00:52:50,560 --> 00:52:52,560
Speaker 1: my magazine writing has been for the New York Times

870
00:52:52,560 --> 00:52:56,399
Speaker 1: magazine lately. UM My website is just Ferris Jaber dot.

871
00:52:56,719 --> 00:52:59,640
Speaker 1: My most recent article was in National Geographic and it's

872
00:52:59,640 --> 00:53:04,160
Speaker 1: all out the tiny microscopic organisms that live in forlorest

873
00:53:04,320 --> 00:53:07,400
Speaker 1: soil and are really important for forest ecosystems as a whole.

874
00:53:07,640 --> 00:53:10,440
Speaker 1: So if I have an episode sometime in the future

875
00:53:10,440 --> 00:53:14,120
Speaker 1: that is about forest ecosystems, you can probably guess that

876
00:53:14,200 --> 00:53:19,120
Speaker 1: I read one of Ferris's articles and was inspired. Uh so, yeah,

877
00:53:19,200 --> 00:53:22,719
Speaker 1: thank you so much. Definitely check out how beauty is

878
00:53:22,760 --> 00:53:26,239
Speaker 1: making sciencests freethink evolution. It's a great article. It's a

879
00:53:26,239 --> 00:53:29,480
Speaker 1: great companion to this episode. And thank you guys so

880
00:53:29,560 --> 00:53:32,880
Speaker 1: much for listening. If you're enjoying the show and you

881
00:53:33,000 --> 00:53:35,560
Speaker 1: leave our writing or view, I read all the writings.

882
00:53:35,560 --> 00:53:37,640
Speaker 1: I read them all. I print them all out, put

883
00:53:37,719 --> 00:53:40,440
Speaker 1: them in a big binder, and put it under my pillow.

884
00:53:41,360 --> 00:53:44,799
Speaker 1: I don't actually do that, but mentally I do. I

885
00:53:44,920 --> 00:53:48,480
Speaker 1: cherish them all. Uh and thanks so much to the

886
00:53:48,560 --> 00:53:52,680
Speaker 1: Space Classics for their super awesome song Exo Alumina. Creature

887
00:53:52,719 --> 00:53:56,000
Speaker 1: features a production of I Heart Radio. For more shows

888
00:53:56,040 --> 00:53:58,560
Speaker 1: like the one you just heard, visit VR, Hurt Radio, app,

889
00:53:58,600 --> 00:54:01,320
Speaker 1: Apple Podcast, or Hey guess what. Wherever you listen to

890
00:54:01,360 --> 00:54:07,279
Speaker 1: your favorite shows. See you next Wednesday. M