Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature feature production of I Heart Radio. I'm
Speaker 1: your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology
Speaker 1: and evolutionary biology, and today on the show, we're talking
Speaker 1: about animals who can rebuild themselves like some kind of
Speaker 1: tea one thousand. I'm talking self decapitation, magical dolphin healing,
Speaker 1: and the incredible regeneration that's happening inside our very own bodies.
Speaker 1: Discover this more as we answer the angel question, why
Speaker 1: can't we be part? Salamander Joining me today is a
Speaker 1: TV writer whose articles and columns have been featured in
Speaker 1: The New Yorker Guardian and l A Times, who also
Speaker 1: writes on some show called Some More News. Dave Schilling, Well, hello, Wow,
Speaker 1: what a delightful intro. I always try to complement the
Speaker 1: hosts on their intro because it sets the tone of
Speaker 1: congeniality and friendships that I like to in gender one,
Speaker 1: I go on a podcast, thank you all artificial. I'll
Speaker 1: just sort of a baby welcome down. HollyHood is all
Speaker 1: just just peel my face off, damn it, I knew it. Yeah, well, no,
Speaker 1: thank you very much. It's it's a treat to have
Speaker 1: you on here. Because we are talking about animals who
Speaker 1: can regenerate themselves, which is inspired by a news story
Speaker 1: I saw about a cea slug, which I love it
Speaker 1: when there's nature news and it's just like, hey, look
Speaker 1: at the cea slug. It's headless, and it's like, yes,
Speaker 1: you've got me, You've got me right where you want me.
Speaker 1: I'm intrigued immediately. Yeah, It's like I normally kind of
Speaker 1: recoil at clickbait, but when it's when it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: check out this headless sea slug, I'm like, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I'll do it. It's moving around. That's good. I'm clicking
Speaker 1: on that for sure. Well I am the opposite, and
Speaker 1: in that I see it and I say no, thank you. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's enough that you've described a ce sea slug without
Speaker 1: a head. I don't need to see it. I know
Speaker 1: what it looks like and it's not for me. I
Speaker 1: can paint a mental picture of it. Right. What is
Speaker 1: your relationship with with squiggly animals? Not not a big fan.
Speaker 1: This is a great question. And when I told my
Speaker 1: girlfriend I was coming on this show, she said, you
Speaker 1: hate animals, and I'm like, I guess you're right. I
Speaker 1: do hate animals. I don't dislike them that strongly, But
Speaker 1: I was never an animal person because I didn't have
Speaker 1: pets growing up, which is strange because I grew up
Speaker 1: in one of the more rural and and uh agrarian
Speaker 1: parts of California. This little town Caldmer said, everybody understood
Speaker 1: farming and did four h and you know that was
Speaker 1: part of the culture. I was just I wanted nothing
Speaker 1: to do with it. They smell bad, they lick you, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, they pissed wherever they want. I don't have that.
Speaker 1: I don't have those liberties that I can take where
Speaker 1: I can. Just jealous, So you're just jealous a little bit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: imagine if you could just kind of wander the earth,
Speaker 1: grazing off of the land, defecating wherever you please, not
Speaker 1: having to work, not having to fill out unemployment insurance forms,
Speaker 1: not having to put gas in your gas tank. You just,
Speaker 1: you know, amble down the road eating grass. I mean,
Speaker 1: you occasionally get slaughtered by some kind of predator, but
Speaker 1: I think it's worth it to not have to fill
Speaker 1: out forms, to never deal with bureaucracy again, and just
Speaker 1: occasionally get murdered by a lion. Yeah, let me think
Speaker 1: about this, what I prefer the abattoir or the d
Speaker 1: m V. I'm taking the roasted the TMB. I bet
Speaker 1: they never saw that coming. No, this is the first
Speaker 1: time anybody's ever maligned the DMV. Shocking, George Carlin level groundbreaking,
Speaker 1: you were a serbic satire. It'll be like one of
Speaker 1: those fun things like with a podcast where you have
Speaker 1: the Gift on and you're just like constantly grossing them
Speaker 1: out and they're not having a good time, but we
Speaker 1: we all we all share a good laugh. Yeah. I'd
Speaker 1: say one of my favorite podcasts is when they don't
Speaker 1: have a good time, when when the guests is visibly
Speaker 1: sick and Alice is like trying to navigate their psychosis.
Speaker 1: That's my favorite. Right when the gift is nauseous the
Speaker 1: whole time. That's that's the sort of or the the
Speaker 1: environment I'm trying to cultivate on this podcast. Isn't that does? Oh?
Speaker 1: You know, I don't know if that's intentional. But another
Speaker 1: one man, Joe Rogan, He's like the d m V
Speaker 1: of podcasts. Am I right? I hope that I hope
Speaker 1: that I learned something today. I might not revel in
Speaker 1: it the way that you will, but I want to
Speaker 1: learn something. I think as long as we're both open
Speaker 1: to learning, both going to be happy people. Yes, I
Speaker 1: think that, And this is a good message for the
Speaker 1: listeners to, like, we're gonna we're gonna learn some stuff
Speaker 1: about animals. Listen, you don't have to like the idea
Speaker 1: of self decapitation. I'm not trying to get you to
Speaker 1: like be calm about self decapitation, but to understand it more,
Speaker 1: you know, to get to know. I think understanding something
Speaker 1: makes us less afraid. So if you if I'm saying,
Speaker 1: you know, hey, look at this animal pulls off its
Speaker 1: own head and keeps on living. Your first reaction might
Speaker 1: be terror, But let's let's have that reaction turn into
Speaker 1: understanding and knowledge, empathy, empathize with this creature. Right right
Speaker 1: when a little girl like has her head do a
Speaker 1: three hundred sixty degree turn and then says like, I
Speaker 1: want to play with me, Like I think you need
Speaker 1: to learn, Like, do play with her? Find out like,
Speaker 1: you know, just explore the world around you. Yeah, she's
Speaker 1: literally just asking to Connect's not she doesn't necessarily want
Speaker 1: to kill you. Yeah, just want that kid in the
Speaker 1: shining with such a snob. These little girls ask him
Speaker 1: to come play with them. It's like, you know, they're
Speaker 1: like and play with us forever. That's awesome. Todd Browning's
Speaker 1: freaks one of us. They wanted to have a little gang,
Speaker 1: a little good friends, so fun fun times. So we're
Speaker 1: gonna have fun times with self decapitating sea slugs is
Speaker 1: the point. So self decapitating sea slug. I feel like
Speaker 1: every topic on this show sounds like a good metal
Speaker 1: band name, and it just is a rule like it
Speaker 1: always it always happens. So yeah, self decapitating c slug
Speaker 1: good metal band name. We've actually talked about plenaryans on
Speaker 1: the show, which is a type of flat worm that
Speaker 1: can regenerate itself if you chop it up into little pieces.
Speaker 1: So if you chop off its head or cut it
Speaker 1: in half into little pieces, like Gordon Ramsey could just
Speaker 1: go to town on one of those things and it
Speaker 1: would keep regrowing itself. Just pretty great. Um. But the
Speaker 1: discovery of the sea slug is unique in that it
Speaker 1: it actually it's not just that it regenerates it self decapitates.
Speaker 1: It decapitates itself, which kind of sounds like a weird
Speaker 1: sea slug fetish. Um, but apparently it's not. Um. So,
Speaker 1: first I want to thank New York Times science writer
Speaker 1: Annie Roth for her amazing article on this subject. So
Speaker 1: researchers discovered this self decapitation habit in lab raised Elisia marginata,
Speaker 1: which is a green and orange sea slug that looks
Speaker 1: kind of like a wavy, succulent plant. I actually originally
Speaker 1: misread its scientific name as margharita because it kind of
Speaker 1: looks like a margharita to me. You know, it's like
Speaker 1: green and it's like a like sort of pink or
Speaker 1: orange e pink on the rims, So it's like it's
Speaker 1: like a refreshing Margarita's it's it's covered in salt. I
Speaker 1: think that would be bad for although it is a
Speaker 1: cease look, so it is naturally covered. Insult if you
Speaker 1: have if you have three of them, your pants just
Speaker 1: fall off. You know, it's just like a margarita. Anyway, Um,
Speaker 1: this guy, why does he do this? Why does he
Speaker 1: take his head off? That is an excellent question. Here's
Speaker 1: a question, like if you had the power to take
Speaker 1: off your own head just for you know, like would
Speaker 1: like would you? I mean, it wouldn't hurt you, like
Speaker 1: you wouldn't die, but you could do that. Would that
Speaker 1: be a fun superpower to have? Or would you just
Speaker 1: pass on that? I don't know what I would do
Speaker 1: with that super volleyball. Uh yeah, walk around the grove
Speaker 1: and freak people out it. Maybe you hide your head
Speaker 1: in in a closet and then you can observe other
Speaker 1: people doing things. Like you know, you can be a
Speaker 1: voideur of a sort of invisible man. But it's your head. Um,
Speaker 1: you could you could uh you know, put your head
Speaker 1: in uh in like a like the an office of
Speaker 1: a movie studio. You can get a bunch of spoilers
Speaker 1: the latest Marvel film. I don't think I would want
Speaker 1: to do that though, because then where could I go
Speaker 1: when my head was off, um, nowhere, because I don't
Speaker 1: have a head, so self defeating and self decapitating, self
Speaker 1: defeating and self decapitating. Yeah, I mean though for me,
Speaker 1: if like I could just set my head up in
Speaker 1: front of the microphone and continue to podcast where my like,
Speaker 1: let my body roam around the apartment bonk into things,
Speaker 1: maybe like put some like food down my neck hole,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Like it seems you know,
Speaker 1: I can take a nice nap right now. Yeah, take
Speaker 1: a nap with my body and fold some laundry while
Speaker 1: I'm doing podcasts. Oh, I should fold laundry while I'm
Speaker 1: doing podcast just with my normal body. Yeah. But what if,
Speaker 1: like you need to hit the stop button on the
Speaker 1: record or something, you call your body over and your
Speaker 1: body is like no, I'm taking it out. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so your question is a very good Why would a
Speaker 1: ce slug want to self decapitate doesn't want to spook
Speaker 1: its friends? Well they looked into this and there's actually
Speaker 1: something called self amputation or autonomy in other animals. So
Speaker 1: lizards will detach their tails and it's often used as
Speaker 1: a self defense mechanism. So if the lizard gives the
Speaker 1: predator the tail and escapes, she lost her tail, but
Speaker 1: she keeps her life and it's a good trade. But
Speaker 1: this habit of voluntarily amputating your whole body is new.
Speaker 1: And what's even more interesting is that like these specimens
Speaker 1: they saw doing this were in a lab, they weren't
Speaker 1: being pursued by a predator, So what was going on?
Speaker 1: So the research true started studying the sea slug self decapitations,
Speaker 1: because that's what do you do as a research if
Speaker 1: you find an animal in your lab is cutting off
Speaker 1: its own head, you're like, Okay, you know, I guess
Speaker 1: we got to look into this now. So their research
Speaker 1: seems to indicate that the self decapitations are a purposeful
Speaker 1: way for the sea slugs to ditch their bodies when
Speaker 1: they become infected with parasites, which, oh, okay, this makes sense. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I get it. I actually, if I became infected with parasites,
Speaker 1: I think I would want to just get rid of
Speaker 1: my old body and grow a whole new one, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Like I've done I find like
Speaker 1: like you have tape worms. It's like, all right, we
Speaker 1: gotta just like that's it. I would do that if
Speaker 1: I had like really bad gas, right, just get rid
Speaker 1: of the whole body, get a new another body. Uh.
Speaker 1: I did think of one excellent use of self decapitation.
Speaker 1: Let's say in the near future, when it's possible, you're
Speaker 1: at a party and you're hanging out and you know,
Speaker 1: having to drink or eating some snacks or like hanging
Speaker 1: by the ox cable and picking the songs because you're antisocial.
Speaker 1: Somebody comes by and says, oh, I'd like to talk
Speaker 1: to this person because they're interesting or cute or whatever. Well,
Speaker 1: if you want to get rid of a pesky party
Speaker 1: guest who is hassling you or is inane or boring
Speaker 1: or offensive, instead of you know, just being rude, you
Speaker 1: pop that old head off and freak them out. They're like,
Speaker 1: I want to talk to somebody without a head, and
Speaker 1: then they scamper away and then you pop the head
Speaker 1: back on. All right, that person hit the bricks and
Speaker 1: you're good to go. Yeah. No, I do like that.
Speaker 1: I like the escape sort of in your scenario. It's
Speaker 1: similar to autonomy and nature because they do it to
Speaker 1: escape predation, and in this scenario, you do it to
Speaker 1: escape an awkward situation. I think I would probably set
Speaker 1: up like one of those little miniature basketball hoops in
Speaker 1: my apartment or wherever. It like the trash can hoops
Speaker 1: where you throw the trash in and it goes into
Speaker 1: a little bucket, but with my head. So if someone's like,
Speaker 1: how's it going, do you have any new projects going
Speaker 1: in on in your life? Like what's new? And like
Speaker 1: I don't want to answer because literally nothing is going
Speaker 1: on in my life and I don't know how to answer,
Speaker 1: Like what's new with you? And I'm embarrassed just check
Speaker 1: my head into the hoop and go like who this is? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think we've we've setched out why this should be
Speaker 1: the next stage of human evolution and being able to
Speaker 1: take off your own head. Yes, And the way to
Speaker 1: do it if we're going to copy the sea slugs
Speaker 1: mechanism is they actually have it's a clean cut, which
Speaker 1: is interesting because they don't actually have little tiny sea
Speaker 1: slug guillotines that they use. It's they actually seem to
Speaker 1: dissolve the cells around this sort of amputation line so
Speaker 1: that their head just can kind of like you know,
Speaker 1: pop off of their body and they will regenerate from
Speaker 1: that like area from the stump, uh, an entirely new body.
Speaker 1: Within actually a few weeks, their body is starting to regrow,
Speaker 1: maybe not to its original size, but it is. They
Speaker 1: actually get a new body the old body actually, so
Speaker 1: it doesn't regrow a new head, but the old body
Speaker 1: does remain alive for like a few months. And yeah,
Speaker 1: it reacts to getting poked. It's eventually gonna die because
Speaker 1: there's no head and it apparently can't regrow ahead. So
Speaker 1: it's not like the sea slug becomes too sea slugs,
Speaker 1: but the body just kind of shambles around for a
Speaker 1: few months before finally decomposing, which you know is neat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I suppose. So it also looks like a potato chip here,
Speaker 1: like you know, one of those like those tara chips
Speaker 1: that are multiple colors, like looks like a tear chip
Speaker 1: or something. Oh yeah, yeah, where it's like made out
Speaker 1: of some kind of yam instead of a potato and
Speaker 1: you convinced yourself it's as good as a potato chip,
Speaker 1: but it's not. It never is. It's disgusting. Yeah, like this,
Speaker 1: like I imagine this sea slug is if I would
Speaker 1: eat or her, Okay, thank you. I don't know though.
Speaker 1: That's seen from the from the Lion King where they're
Speaker 1: eating all those boogs. You know, this looks like one
Speaker 1: of the good ones, one of the good, the good
Speaker 1: ones that they Yeah, you know what this is. I
Speaker 1: think this, this sea slug is an ally for sure,
Speaker 1: one of the good ones. So another cool thing about
Speaker 1: these self decapitating sea slugs is they also practice kleptoplasty,
Speaker 1: which is when they steal chloroplasts from the algae they
Speaker 1: eat and then hijack them for their own solar power production.
Speaker 1: So the sea slugs can then derive energy from the
Speaker 1: sun like a plant because they've just stolen the plant's
Speaker 1: method of energy conversion. Uh. And so yeah, they are
Speaker 1: solar powered body regrowing auto decapitators, which I think is cool. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's also a great name for a metal band. It is. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's like nothing that I say on this show couldn't
Speaker 1: be turned into a metal band, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: I agree. I think you should get T shirts made
Speaker 1: up look like metal band t shirts, but they say
Speaker 1: self decapitating sea slugs instead of Danzig. I do like this.
Speaker 1: This is a good merch opportunity. Yeah, just have like
Speaker 1: the metal font and then a sea slug like on
Speaker 1: some drums. But it's just its head. So how's it
Speaker 1: playing the drums with the with the arms bouncing from
Speaker 1: drum to drums. Oh, it's like the two little um
Speaker 1: It's little antenna are the things? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, exactly
Speaker 1: stock exactly see stocks is that they're called um or
Speaker 1: they're they're they're either called tentacles or right of four wars. Actually,
Speaker 1: you're right. These are not ice stalks. In lamb snails,
Speaker 1: those are I stalks. But in the sea slug. They're
Speaker 1: they're called rhino four's they have they don't have the
Speaker 1: eyes on them, they have sensory organs. Though, who's the expert? No,
Speaker 1: could it be me? Guess? So now it's your podcast.
Speaker 1: This is the rules. Alright. The next thing we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about is the salamander that regrows limbs. This is true.
Speaker 1: But first we've got to take a commercial break. Oh wait, no, no,
Speaker 1: it's your podcast now, so you okay, all right up
Speaker 1: next we're gonna talk about a salamander that recrows it's limbs.
Speaker 1: But first let's pause for a commercial break. And now
Speaker 1: you do the whole outro by memory, the whole outro
Speaker 1: by memory. While the sea slugs self decapitation is the
Speaker 1: most impressive form of self amputation, the award for drama
Speaker 1: has to go to crabs and other crustaceans, who, when
Speaker 1: faced with a dilemma, will with a flourish rip off
Speaker 1: their own arms to escape danger, or simply to ditch
Speaker 1: an injured claw. From a crab who rips off its
Speaker 1: own arm and throws it at a seagull to escape predation,
Speaker 1: to a crayfish who amputates its own injured claw after
Speaker 1: escaping a pot of boiling water. There are many dramatic
Speaker 1: escapes caught on video of crustaceans flipping their attacker the
Speaker 1: ultimate bird, by shucking out their entire arm. Eventually they'll
Speaker 1: be able to grow their arm back. In fact, some
Speaker 1: commercial fishers declaw crabs as an allegedly more sustainable form
Speaker 1: of fishing. They'll catch the crab, rip the crab claw off,
Speaker 1: and chuck the live crab back into the ocean, albeit
Speaker 1: missing one or more of their arms. The thought is
Speaker 1: that by harvesting only the crab claw and tossing the
Speaker 1: rest of the crab back, the crab at least has
Speaker 1: a chance to regrow its limb continue to live and reproduce.
Speaker 1: And while it's an interesting idea, maybe it's tad diabolical,
Speaker 1: it's not yet proven that this really is sustainable, as
Speaker 1: limba generation and crabs does take time and energy, so
Speaker 1: there's no guarantee they'll actually survive. The trauma also seems
Speaker 1: kind of mean to the crabs, but at the same time,
Speaker 1: I guess it's better than the whole crab being dead.
Speaker 1: I'm not a crab, or at least not yet, so
Speaker 1: I can't speak for the crabs. When we return, we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about the surprising acts of regeneration happening
Speaker 1: inside our own bodies. Humans can't regrow limbs. If I
Speaker 1: get in a fight, I can't simply throw my arm
Speaker 1: at someone run away while calling out my classic catchphrase,
Speaker 1: I gotta hand it to you. But as embryos, we
Speaker 1: have surprising superpowers. If we lose a limb bud as
Speaker 1: an breo, the tiny nub from which a whole limb
Speaker 1: will grow, we can regenerate a new limb bud. This
Speaker 1: is due to the preponderance of stem cells we have
Speaker 1: as developing embryos, the undifferentiated cells that can become any
Speaker 1: cell that are growing bodies neat. But even as adults,
Speaker 1: we have some regenerative capabilities where you might least expect
Speaker 1: it are spooky skeletons. Are ready to talk about skeletons.
Speaker 1: I know it's not Halloween, but you know, yes, I
Speaker 1: wasn't here if I was back in. Yet we're back in.
Speaker 1: We're back in, and we're talking about skeletons. I would
Speaker 1: love to talk about a skeletons. Every time you think
Speaker 1: that you get out of out of talking about skeletons,
Speaker 1: I pull you back in. Yeah, just like in The Godfather. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I think our skeletons are really interesting because our
Speaker 1: kind of perception of skeletons is like, it's like the
Speaker 1: spooky stuff that gets left behind after we die. You
Speaker 1: can play it like a xylophone, but it's basically dead.
Speaker 1: It's it's not it's not living tissue. It's like, because
Speaker 1: it's not living tissue, it's the only thing that's left
Speaker 1: behind after after we were dead and get eaten by
Speaker 1: vultures and worms and stuff. But our bones are actually
Speaker 1: very much alive, which is kind of a weird thing
Speaker 1: to think about. I guess, like, you know, like we
Speaker 1: have this whole living skeleton inside of us. I think
Speaker 1: of of bones as, like you said, kind of a
Speaker 1: waste product of a dead person, or or the things
Speaker 1: that are inside of me to keep me from turning
Speaker 1: into a pile of Q. Yeah. Yeah, I don't. I
Speaker 1: don't really. I don't think about the fact that there's
Speaker 1: there's all kinds of information going on in there. It
Speaker 1: feels like sort of the rind of the human You know,
Speaker 1: when you eat a chicken, you got these leftover chicken
Speaker 1: bones and just you know, throw them out. You can
Speaker 1: know on that bad boy for for days and still
Speaker 1: get stuff out of it. Yeah. No, I actually crack
Speaker 1: open chicken bones and suck out the marrow, which uh
Speaker 1: some people find unpleasant to look at. So I don't
Speaker 1: do people. Do you do that? You crack them open
Speaker 1: and suck suck the marrow out. It's you can eat it.
Speaker 1: I mean you have to be careful. I don't necessarily
Speaker 1: recommend everyone do this because like, you don't want to
Speaker 1: get like a little if the bone is like cooked,
Speaker 1: Like you don't want to get a chunk of uh
Speaker 1: you know, pokey chicken bone down your throat, So be
Speaker 1: very careful. But you can't actually eat like the marrow
Speaker 1: inside bones. In fact, if you've ever had at a
Speaker 1: restaurant bone marrow, uh, it's it's actually really good. You
Speaker 1: can like have cow bone marrow where it's like spread
Speaker 1: on toast or something and it's, uh, it's actually really
Speaker 1: full of of protein and fat. So do you you
Speaker 1: live with another human being? Right? And you do this
Speaker 1: in front of them sometimes sometimes? And what is this person?
Speaker 1: Your person think about this particular bthology. I guess is
Speaker 1: the probably he's just glad it's not him. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a good answer. Oh boy, I mean I lick
Speaker 1: my plate and my ex wife thought I was a
Speaker 1: absolute pig. But this is another level of making your
Speaker 1: meal um a little more. I guess what's the word
Speaker 1: waste free? Yes, yeah, just tell your wife. At least
Speaker 1: I don't eat the bone. They don't suck the marrow
Speaker 1: out of a chicken bone for fun anyway. Again, be
Speaker 1: very careful doing that. I don't want people to, like,
Speaker 1: you know, like everyone's going to try this now because
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, Katie doesn't must be cool, but don't
Speaker 1: choke on a chicken bone. Yeah, Katie's gonna tell you
Speaker 1: be careful. I'm gonna tell you don't do it. How
Speaker 1: about that? How about don't how about whatever she said,
Speaker 1: do the opposite and then we'll be fine. Yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: all right now, I'm cool with that. So you might
Speaker 1: not think of your bones as being living tissue, but
Speaker 1: it very much is. So the part of the bones
Speaker 1: that we think of, like you know, the spooky skeleton
Speaker 1: plate like a xylophone, That is the ossified part of
Speaker 1: the bone made of calcium, and that is indeed left
Speaker 1: behind after the rest of our bodies decay, and that
Speaker 1: is basically the only non living part of the bone um.
Speaker 1: One of the functions of the skeleton is for skeletal support,
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, Dave, like, so we don't turn into
Speaker 1: a puddle of jello. I remember learning that in preschool
Speaker 1: where they showed us like what would happen to a
Speaker 1: human body if you removed all the bones? And it
Speaker 1: turned into like a human pudding. And it was vaguely traumatic,
Speaker 1: and maybe it explains why I am the way I
Speaker 1: am now. They showed you a human coop? Where did you?
Speaker 1: Where did you grow up? San Diego? Folks, if you're
Speaker 1: in California, if you work from californ you know with
Speaker 1: San Diego is where your dreams go to die. So
Speaker 1: this is all checking out. The laid back surfer culture
Speaker 1: is just a front from the diabolical things going on beneath.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so that is one of the functions. It
Speaker 1: supports muscle tissue UM, but it also has other functions.
Speaker 1: So inside the bone is the marrow, the spongy living
Speaker 1: tissue that's very important for our bodies. So stem cells
Speaker 1: in the bone marrow actually foster cell production. So there's
Speaker 1: red and yellow bone marrow. Red marrow produces blood cells, platelets,
Speaker 1: and white blood cells, whereas yellow marrow stores fat and
Speaker 1: produces cartilage, fat and cells that will construct the bones themselves.
Speaker 1: And here's a question. So if bones are just you know,
Speaker 1: these kind of this dead framework that supports our bodies, like,
Speaker 1: how do we why don't we just have like a
Speaker 1: baby skeleton in us? Right? Like they we somehow go
Speaker 1: from being a baby with like a baby skeleton to
Speaker 1: being a full grown adult with like an adult skeleton.
Speaker 1: So the skeleton is growing with us somehow. And it's
Speaker 1: actually really interesting the way that this works. So bones
Speaker 1: are very dynamic and they go through an incredible process
Speaker 1: of planned destruction and renewal that continues throughout adulthood. And
Speaker 1: it's called bone remodeling. Again another metal band cover. Also,
Speaker 1: I feel like, you know, that would be in Nightmare
Speaker 1: Before Christmas or something. It's like, that's like the construction,
Speaker 1: the spooky ghost construction thing is bone remodeling. I was
Speaker 1: gonna say bone remodeling. It should be a TLC reality show, uh,
Speaker 1: sort of like house Hunters or you know those renovation shows,
Speaker 1: but they renovate your bones. Yes, exactly, I see. I
Speaker 1: see it's like, uh, your bones. See, here's the problem
Speaker 1: with your your bones. Your bones weren't built on a
Speaker 1: good foundation. So we're gonna need to take them all out.
Speaker 1: You know, when I have to rip those bones out,
Speaker 1: they're not good bones. Good bones in there that we
Speaker 1: got from crateron barrel. Oh God, we found so much
Speaker 1: asbestos in your bones. What's the resale value on your bones?
Speaker 1: Find out? Uh? So there are cells that are responsible
Speaker 1: for breaking down your bones, and there are cells responsible
Speaker 1: for building up your bone mouth. So these cells like
Speaker 1: to break down your bones just to build them back
Speaker 1: up like a cult. So as kids, they're actually much
Speaker 1: more building than there is breaking down, which helps us
Speaker 1: grow bigger skeletons. In fact, like by the time you
Speaker 1: turn one years old, you'll have replaced a hundred percent
Speaker 1: of your skeleton. In comparison, as adults, we only replace
Speaker 1: about ten percent of our bone tissue every year. So
Speaker 1: as adults, like, once we're done growing, which they've both
Speaker 1: you and I have, it's all downhill from here. Um. Sadly,
Speaker 1: that breaking down and building process is pretty much at
Speaker 1: equilibrium for a while, but as we get even older,
Speaker 1: the breaking down process can sometimes outpace the building process,
Speaker 1: which is why sometimes as you get older you actually
Speaker 1: get shorter um. It can also lead to problems like
Speaker 1: osteoporosis or the weakening of the bones. So basically you
Speaker 1: have this very dynamic construction process with your bones, and
Speaker 1: there are the two cells that are responsible are called
Speaker 1: osteoclasts and osteo blasts. So osteoclasts are like the demolitions
Speaker 1: expert of the team. They come in. They're responsible for
Speaker 1: breaking down the mineral components and collagen of your bones
Speaker 1: and releases these broken down components into the blood, which
Speaker 1: is a process called resorption, So you're reabsorbing these minerals
Speaker 1: that you're breaking down. Then osteoblasts come in use those
Speaker 1: recycled minerals and deposited into a new layer of bone tissue,
Speaker 1: which is called ossification. It's also one of the reasons
Speaker 1: that it's important to have calcium because even though you
Speaker 1: are recycling the bone that you're breaking down, it's a
Speaker 1: lossy process, like you lose some of the calcium in minerals.
Speaker 1: So like to help strengthen your bones so that like
Speaker 1: when they're rebuilding it, they have enough materials to build
Speaker 1: strong layers of bone. It's good to have calcium and
Speaker 1: milk or ice cream or eating animal bones. Now, I'm kidding, yes,
Speaker 1: sucking on chicken bones. That's gonna keep you strong and healthy.
Speaker 1: That's what I tell my son here, suck on this thing.
Speaker 1: And he's like going to town on the chicken bone.
Speaker 1: And and he's he's a huge child, bigger than me
Speaker 1: nowentile for an age, and headsize ches all the time.
Speaker 1: Oh wow. I like, yeah, that's good parenting. That's what
Speaker 1: they call it. Start like a start like a dad
Speaker 1: blog where it's just about your giant child who eats
Speaker 1: chicken bones. I don't want to be the bean dad,
Speaker 1: but it's the opposite, right because being dad denied his
Speaker 1: daughter sustenance of the can of beans, whereas chicken dad
Speaker 1: offers whole chickens to his son and allows the sun
Speaker 1: to go to town. No, I'm gonna make him slaughter
Speaker 1: that chicken himself, right exactly. They got to learn you
Speaker 1: be a man. Uh. Toxic masculinity is the worst thing
Speaker 1: to happen to chickens, truly, So whild bone. While routine
Speaker 1: bone regeneration is no big deal for humans, we can't
Speaker 1: regrow whole bones after like our limbs, something happens to
Speaker 1: a limb. You know, our bones can heal. You know,
Speaker 1: if you've ever had a broken bone, you know that
Speaker 1: whole process. But if a limb is amputated, the bone
Speaker 1: doesn't just grow back along with the whole arm. Some
Speaker 1: of our tissue does regenerate to some degree, like our
Speaker 1: skin regenerates to some degree. But again, we're not growing
Speaker 1: back whole arms, and so why can't we do this?
Speaker 1: While salamanders totally can. Uh. Salamanders can regrow whole body parts,
Speaker 1: bones and all if they are lost, so it's legs
Speaker 1: or tail, it can regrow. They are able to do
Speaker 1: this trick by basically turning the cells at a wound
Speaker 1: site into embryonic undifferentiated cells. So they revert to these
Speaker 1: embryonic cells which can then uh be differentiated into any
Speaker 1: type of tissue needed. But humans and other vertebrates can't
Speaker 1: do this except when we're embryos. So, like I said earlier,
Speaker 1: when we're embryos, we can regrow limb buds because we
Speaker 1: have all of those stem cells, all of those like
Speaker 1: base sally can be anything they want. Cells like in
Speaker 1: the lego. Remember in lego, the movie to where it's
Speaker 1: like I can be anything. I want to be the thing.
Speaker 1: It's like the cells but then they're turning into bones.
Speaker 1: Is this track? Do the kids like this? I don't
Speaker 1: know if kids like this, but I think it makes sense. Yeah, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm hip. I know the Lego movies. So also
Speaker 1: not just embryos. This is a cool trick that young
Speaker 1: children can do to certain extents. So young children can
Speaker 1: regenerate the tips of their fingers much more easily than
Speaker 1: adults can, so they can grow back the whole finger,
Speaker 1: whereas as adults, we can grow back some of our
Speaker 1: like the very tip of our finger. Again, don't try
Speaker 1: this at home, guys. I cannot emphasize this enough. Please
Speaker 1: don't try it at home. But yeah, children are much
Speaker 1: better at growing back the tips of their fingers, uh,
Speaker 1: because they have there. Like when you're younger, you just
Speaker 1: have more ability to regenerate because you're growing, you have
Speaker 1: more of these undifferentiated cells. But I think, like one
Speaker 1: of the big questions is like why don't humans and
Speaker 1: other vertebrates for that matter, like have these regeneration skills
Speaker 1: that we see in salamanders, who are a vertebrate, but
Speaker 1: are one of the rare vertebrates who can regrow like
Speaker 1: whole limbs or even lizards who can regrow their tails.
Speaker 1: There's like a mammal called the spiny mouse which can
Speaker 1: regrow its fingers. Actually a lot of I think a
Speaker 1: lot of mice can actually regrow their fingers, but the
Speaker 1: spiny mouses especially interesting because it allows like whole chunks
Speaker 1: of its skin and tissue to get pulled off. It's
Speaker 1: if it's being attacked by something and then it can
Speaker 1: regrow it. So we see this in a few animals,
Speaker 1: but not in a lot of them, and especially not
Speaker 1: in big animals like humans. It it seems like a
Speaker 1: no brainer, like why wouldn't we want to regenerate arms.
Speaker 1: Clearly the biological ability to do that exists, but we
Speaker 1: just don't have that, which seems like a downer. But uh.
Speaker 1: One of the theories is that scar tissue formation is
Speaker 1: actually a positive trait that helps quickly seal wounds. So
Speaker 1: if every wound site goes like the whole regeneration route,
Speaker 1: we may not be able to close over that wound
Speaker 1: fast enough to prevent infection. So if you have a
Speaker 1: really big wound and you're really quickly sailing it with
Speaker 1: a scar. That may actually improve your outcome in terms
Speaker 1: of preventing infection, especially if you have a longer lifespan,
Speaker 1: like something like a sea slug or a lizard or
Speaker 1: a salamander or a mouse may have a shorter lifespan
Speaker 1: in having and you know, are more preyed upon. So
Speaker 1: being able to have this limb regeneration is a more
Speaker 1: important evolutionary feature than to something like a human, where
Speaker 1: you know, we we have longer lives, and so if
Speaker 1: like every time we get like a wound or something,
Speaker 1: it's like this long process of regeneration, we just have
Speaker 1: this like baby arm that takes the weeks and weeks
Speaker 1: to grow back, may actually be more difficult for us
Speaker 1: to survive. Another issue is that regeneration of huge amounts
Speaker 1: of tissue can actually increase the risk of cancer because
Speaker 1: every time you have cell replication, there's a chance, very
Speaker 1: very tiny chance of a mutation. But every time you
Speaker 1: like spin that wheel, you may get a cancerous cell um.
Speaker 1: So like if you have a whole limb regenerating versus
Speaker 1: just like some of your skin healing, that's meant you're
Speaker 1: rolling the like cell mutation die a lot more so
Speaker 1: it may increase the risks of cancer. So like again,
Speaker 1: like if you know, these kinds of traits would have
Speaker 1: started popping up much earlier in our evolutionary tree, but
Speaker 1: it would make sense if like our ancestors, it's like
Speaker 1: they are starting to get longer lifespans and they're bigger,
Speaker 1: and so like that playing with that number of cells
Speaker 1: ended up just like if you were regenerating things that
Speaker 1: would maybe end up giving you cancer before you know
Speaker 1: it could serve you any purpose. Right, that makes sense.
Speaker 1: They never would have thought that being able to regenerate
Speaker 1: your limbs could give you cancer. So I'm glad. I'm
Speaker 1: glad devolution for sparing us that particular indignity. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Which is the thing about wolverine, like he should be
Speaker 1: riddled with tumors. Yeah no, no, no no, no no, but wolverines,
Speaker 1: uh powers killed cancerselves. I don't know, called salamanderine. I
Speaker 1: think that's not as cool looking. And he wouldn't have
Speaker 1: the claws. He would just he wouldn't have legs. He
Speaker 1: just kind of screwed around. Have legs they do, They're right,
Speaker 1: you're right, so trot around, right, Yeah, that would be
Speaker 1: cute like a wolverine with little baby legs like fascinating.
Speaker 1: What about brains? Can we regenerate brain tissue? The standard
Speaker 1: knowledge is that only children generate new brain tissue as
Speaker 1: adults are brains stop developing. Recovering from brain injuries or
Speaker 1: stroke doesn't involve growing new brain tissue, but through the
Speaker 1: art of neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is the brain's ability to adapt
Speaker 1: by rerouting neural connections and creating new neural networks using
Speaker 1: old brain tissue. It's how you learn new things even
Speaker 1: as an adult, and proves our brains are surprisingly good
Speaker 1: at making do with what we've got. But the classic
Speaker 1: idea that we can't regenerate neurons as adult is being
Speaker 1: called into question by new research. When adult neurons are damaged,
Speaker 1: they don't simply die. They may revert back to an
Speaker 1: embryonic state, from which point they can regenerate and create
Speaker 1: new connections. The real reason that brain tissue doesn't regrow
Speaker 1: after brain enter according to new research, is not that
Speaker 1: neurons themselves can't feel, but that the injured tissue surrounding
Speaker 1: the neurons is too damaged to keep the neurons alive
Speaker 1: long enough for them to feel. So now the question
Speaker 1: medical researchers are tackling is how we might be able
Speaker 1: to intervene by implanting a bio scaffold in the injured
Speaker 1: part of the brain to foster neural feelings. Speaking of brains,
Speaker 1: let's talk about one of the world's brainiest aquatic mammals,
Speaker 1: the dolphins, who, as it turns out, shares more with
Speaker 1: wolverine than aquaman. Dolphins are relatively large, so they don't
Speaker 1: face many natural predators other than human boats and fishers.
Speaker 1: But of course there are sharks. And while the conflict
Speaker 1: between sharks and dolphins is by no means one sided,
Speaker 1: dolphins are smart enough to tip smaller or younger sharks over,
Speaker 1: which stuns them and allows the dolphins to mercilessly attack.
Speaker 1: Dolphins do have to worry about attacks from large sharks
Speaker 1: like bull Sharks are great whites. So what do you
Speaker 1: do when your backyard is fall of sharks? So, Dave,
Speaker 1: I think we take for granted that we don't just
Speaker 1: have to encounter sharks all the time. You know what
Speaker 1: I mean? Well, yeah, I mean they'd have a hard
Speaker 1: time handling the surface world roller skates on roller skates,
Speaker 1: put them in a radio flyer and pull them. They
Speaker 1: just like are in a little wagon like and then
Speaker 1: pushing it with their little flippers going I'm gonna get you,
Speaker 1: gonna get you. I'm gonna get a lot of sharks
Speaker 1: taking pitch for that, because okay, sharks literally, yeah, you
Speaker 1: get it that that shark tank isn't just a bunch
Speaker 1: of sharks. And then they have two buttons. Button one
Speaker 1: is yes and button two is no, and then if
Speaker 1: they press no, you get fed to them. And that's why,
Speaker 1: you know, I feel like, you know, there was a
Speaker 1: time when you could have like these very deep cable
Speaker 1: channels where not a whole lot was on and you
Speaker 1: just leave it on. Like I wanted to an extended
Speaker 1: cable channel called shark Tank where it's sharks in the
Speaker 1: tank and every twenty minutes or so they throw chum
Speaker 1: into the tank and that would be relaxing. I think, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would enjoy that. Yeah, but I do love sharks,
Speaker 1: But I also love that sharks are in the ocean
Speaker 1: and not out of the ocean where I am. Um.
Speaker 1: The threat to humans in terms of sharks is always
Speaker 1: sort of over overestimated. Like, it's true that sharks do
Speaker 1: very occasionally attack people, but the simple fact is we
Speaker 1: are just not around them that much, so it's very rare.
Speaker 1: And most of them, most sharks don't actually want to
Speaker 1: deal with us, like, they don't want anything to do
Speaker 1: with us. We don't we don't taste good like. They
Speaker 1: don't seem to like how we taste like. They'll often
Speaker 1: take a bite and be like, oh no, no, thank you.
Speaker 1: So like often shark attacks are accidental, But dolphins, on
Speaker 1: the other hand, are not only potential prey, but they're
Speaker 1: also competitions. So dolphins and sharks get into fights sometimes.
Speaker 1: And if you're a dolphin, you need some strategy for
Speaker 1: living in this environment where you have a bunch of
Speaker 1: body boys running around trying trying to chomp on you.
Speaker 1: Another bad name. Let's move a punk band, though not
Speaker 1: a metal band, you know what I mean. The boys. Um. So,
Speaker 1: dolphins seem to be able to heal very rapidly from
Speaker 1: severe shark bites and other injuries from observations, so this
Speaker 1: is a pretty new area of research. How do you
Speaker 1: study something like this? You can't just have a dolphin
Speaker 1: in a lab and then hurt it, you'd be a monster,
Speaker 1: and you'd go to jail. You'd go to dolphin jail
Speaker 1: and human jail. Like I think I think everyone could
Speaker 1: agree that just like hurting a dolphin, you know, intentionally,
Speaker 1: you just go to jail, go to you know, So
Speaker 1: we can't study it without being evil in a lab setting.
Speaker 1: So it's all based on observations of dolphins. So these
Speaker 1: observations seem to indicate that they can survive what seems
Speaker 1: like it should be mortal wounds from a shark, and
Speaker 1: they don't seem to bleed out. They seem actually really
Speaker 1: surprisingly stoic. They don't seem to show a huge pain response,
Speaker 1: at least visually, and they can heal back with minimal
Speaker 1: changes to their body contour. So that means like there's
Speaker 1: not a big like crater in their body. Like if
Speaker 1: you've ever had like a nasty injury or something, you
Speaker 1: know that sometimes your skin doesn't heal back all the
Speaker 1: way to where it used to be. You can actually
Speaker 1: have little craters or or bumps or something like that,
Speaker 1: and that that's normal because like scar tissue doesn't necessarily
Speaker 1: it's not the same as the tissue was beforehand. So
Speaker 1: it's really surprising to be able to heal from a
Speaker 1: grievous like a shark bite that takes a chunk out
Speaker 1: of you and have minimal dimpling like that. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: lost some skin from like getting cut with some glass
Speaker 1: my ring finger, left ring finger, and it's healed. Did
Speaker 1: healed fine. But it's always going to be kind of
Speaker 1: dented and kind of wrinkly looking, like it's never gonna
Speaker 1: go back to how it was because it's not the
Speaker 1: same tissue, like you said, yeah, yeah, and that's you know,
Speaker 1: that's that's normal. And when you think in terms of
Speaker 1: our survival, it makes sense because you know, you don't
Speaker 1: need necessarily your tissue to look exactly the same if
Speaker 1: you're healing fast enough. But like if you're dealing with
Speaker 1: a big, like a big chunky bite from a shark,
Speaker 1: you don't Losing all of that tissue mass would be
Speaker 1: harmful in terms of like your mobility, especially as a dolphin.
Speaker 1: It makes sense that they would want to heal back
Speaker 1: from this relatively well. And I have shared an image
Speaker 1: with you I was. I did put a warning on
Speaker 1: it that it is dolphin um dolphin stuff. I think
Speaker 1: I might put this in the show notes, but I
Speaker 1: will put a lot of warnings on it so people know,
Speaker 1: because it shows pretty nasty, unpleasant looking, uh, injury on
Speaker 1: a dolphin from a shark bite. And each picture is sequential.
Speaker 1: So the last picture is the healed dolphin in the
Speaker 1: first pictures, it's initial injury. And looking at this it
Speaker 1: should it doesn't look like a surve livable wound. It
Speaker 1: looks you know, this looks like a dolphin that is,
Speaker 1: it's days are numbered. It's horrific. Yes, if you're wondering
Speaker 1: if you want to look at it, because it's in
Speaker 1: the show notes. Uh, don't like. I feel like Katie's
Speaker 1: uh suggested a lot of truly horrible things for you
Speaker 1: after this podcast is over and I have to be
Speaker 1: the voice of reason and dolphin. Okay, okay, So don't
Speaker 1: eat chicken bones and don't look at the bad dolphin pictures. Yes,
Speaker 1: don't look at the dolphin picture. Please you google dolphin injuries. No,
Speaker 1: don't do that. Uh so you put you on a
Speaker 1: watch list if you do that, well, I'm probably already
Speaker 1: want on one then. Oh um. But yeah, so the
Speaker 1: reason I'm showing you this is not just to you know,
Speaker 1: gross you out. Although that I gotta admit, maybe that's
Speaker 1: part of it, but it is to show you how
Speaker 1: incredibly good the dolphins healing is like it does. It's
Speaker 1: not that it doesn't have scar tissue. It does, definitely
Speaker 1: can see that in the last thing, but it it's
Speaker 1: healed over and not only has it healed, but it's
Speaker 1: filled in a lot of them missing tissue. So it
Speaker 1: looks basically like like the the heel site looks like
Speaker 1: it should have been just from a few scratches, not
Speaker 1: from a shark literally taking a huge chunk out of it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it looks like I don't know, you know, the underside
Speaker 1: of rug. You know, it's got the lake the material
Speaker 1: so it doesn't slide the inside of a dolphin looks
Speaker 1: like And it's interesting you'd say that because yeah, it's
Speaker 1: not like this super bloody tissue. And that seems to
Speaker 1: be that they're able to constrict the blood flow so
Speaker 1: they don't bleed out due to these wounds. In terms
Speaker 1: of how they're able to do this, obviously it's it's
Speaker 1: hard to know through pure observation. There are some theories
Speaker 1: that I read in terms of like being able to
Speaker 1: prevent blood loss. It may be through similar mechanisms that
Speaker 1: help them actually dive really deep, so they can decrease
Speaker 1: their heart rate and constrict blood from their peripheral tissues
Speaker 1: into the center of their bodies for deep dives, which
Speaker 1: helps them cope with the pressures of diving without risking
Speaker 1: the bins as they surface. But the blood constriction may
Speaker 1: also help them like not not bleed too heavily if
Speaker 1: they if it's shark takes a little nibble on them. Um,
Speaker 1: the stoke pain response is more of a mystery. It's
Speaker 1: just through observation. I don't know how they can possibly
Speaker 1: know that the dolphins not in pain. I bet it is,
Speaker 1: like I don't really know, you know. It's like you
Speaker 1: can't ask a dolphin like on a scale of zero
Speaker 1: to ten, like how bad is your shark bite? And
Speaker 1: the dolphins going like like, we don't know. Is there
Speaker 1: a way to an inter like their brain activity? Um,
Speaker 1: possibly we would have to first like figure out what
Speaker 1: their brain does while they're in pain, which brings us
Speaker 1: back to the evil scientist thing again, Right, you'd have
Speaker 1: to torture the dolphin to But I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 1: like there's probably something more elegant like Um, if you
Speaker 1: measure they're probably certain neurotransmitters associated with pain, like cortisol
Speaker 1: and production and stuff. That's like that is a response
Speaker 1: to feeling pain is and is the body's way of
Speaker 1: trying to cope with the pain. So maybe if you
Speaker 1: like take a blood sample and measure the level of cortisol,
Speaker 1: maybe that would tell you something. I don't know. I'm
Speaker 1: not a pain scientist, because as much as it sounds
Speaker 1: like I'm an evil scientist on the show, I'm actually
Speaker 1: not because I'm not a scientist. But um, in terms
Speaker 1: of preventing infection, that's actually maybe an easier thing to answer.
Speaker 1: Dolphin blubber which is the layer of fatty tissues and
Speaker 1: dolphins blubbers also found in whales and other aquatic mammals
Speaker 1: like eeals and walruses. So blubber contains antimicrobial and antibiotic compounds.
Speaker 1: These compounds are called organo halogens, and they contain chlorine
Speaker 1: molecules which actually works as a disinfectant again or or
Speaker 1: organo halogens. That one, No, that's a hair that's a
Speaker 1: hair band. Yeah, organo halogens. I can also see that
Speaker 1: being like a crowd rock, uh, like a craft work
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah, like everyone's stressed as name punk. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And in terms of how they heal so well without
Speaker 1: excess scar tissue or dimpling, researchers suspect it may be
Speaker 1: due to better regeneration of the tissue that they may
Speaker 1: have some of that salamander esque quality of being able
Speaker 1: to have their tissue revert back to that embryonic state
Speaker 1: and then heal um and so yeah, it's I think
Speaker 1: it's really interesting that, especially to see this in such
Speaker 1: a large animal, because I feel like it's usually the
Speaker 1: smaller animals that are able to do these amazing feats
Speaker 1: of regeneration. So having a big, highly intelligent animal being
Speaker 1: able to do this, it's like, it kind of makes
Speaker 1: me question why we're not better at it. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of things I feel like humans should be better
Speaker 1: at compared to dolphins. I'm just jealous of dolphins. They've
Speaker 1: got a lot to offer. I mean, they're cuter than us,
Speaker 1: They again care free living, don't have to pay taxes
Speaker 1: to go to the gym to stay in shape. They're
Speaker 1: constantly exercising. They're never not exercising, they're swimming all day.
Speaker 1: Maybe we should make them pay taxes though, like why
Speaker 1: is how is that fair? This is the platform of
Speaker 1: the Republican Party. They think going forward is tax the dolphins,
Speaker 1: don't tax me, tax and have the dolphins pick up
Speaker 1: the We're gonna make the dophins pay for it. We're
Speaker 1: gonna build a wall around the ocean and make the
Speaker 1: dolphins pay for it. Before we go, I want to
Speaker 1: read a really nice listener email. Um, so this is
Speaker 1: from Evan and he writes, my name is Evan. He
Speaker 1: him his and I want to say I love your podcast.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Evan. I spent many years working as a
Speaker 1: phish biologist for us FWS, working on e s A
Speaker 1: projects involved with fish. Some of the work I did
Speaker 1: for them required me reading up on some of the
Speaker 1: first written accounts on what people were finding in rivers
Speaker 1: in the Southwest. These were great biological writings that often
Speaker 1: gave us insight into a healthier stage of the river.
Speaker 1: And it was very interesting because many of the oldest
Speaker 1: biological descriptions for fish in the Southwest also contained a
Speaker 1: portion of the writing that described how they tasted and
Speaker 1: the best way to cook them. For a group of
Speaker 1: people trying to help save endangered species. We found it
Speaker 1: very funny that the original descriptions of these often involved
Speaker 1: how they tasted. So that was a long roundabout way
Speaker 1: of letting your gifts from this episode. No, so I
Speaker 1: think this was back. We did an episode and we
Speaker 1: speculated around, like is it okay to wonder how animals taste?
Speaker 1: Extinct animals or or other animals like tasted like dinosaurs.
Speaker 1: I think we're wondering how dinosaurs tasted. Anyways, Evan writes,
Speaker 1: so that that was a long roundabout way of letting
Speaker 1: your gifts from this episode. Know that it's okay to
Speaker 1: be thinking about how these species would taste. Uh. These days,
Speaker 1: I have more time to listen to podcasts. The business
Speaker 1: I started drinking horn Metery has me driving a lot.
Speaker 1: In your podcast is a great way to get through
Speaker 1: the miles and learn a bit while I'm at it.
Speaker 1: If Stitcher let me put up reviews, you would have
Speaker 1: a five star review from me. Keep up the good
Speaker 1: work from Evan. Thank you, Evan, really sweet, Yeah, and
Speaker 1: thank you. That is interesting to me that, like, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's unsurprising. I guess that early biologists are like, oh wow,
Speaker 1: a new animal, Let me put it in my mouth. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've never once thought like what is this animal taste?
Speaker 1: Like what is a dog tast? I don't want to
Speaker 1: find out. Well, not dogs, but if if you're like
Speaker 1: if you've got like a new type of fish, it's
Speaker 1: like pink and green, it's got weird spikes and like
Speaker 1: saw blades for eyeballs, Like I don't want to know.
Speaker 1: I'd want to know, like what's it hiding? What are
Speaker 1: you hiding? What kind of delicious flavors are you hiding? Right?
Speaker 1: Like I think Darwin ate a lot of the animals
Speaker 1: he discovered to well, you know, look, some people are
Speaker 1: afraid of research and knowledge, like me specifically. You're just
Speaker 1: you're just upset that I want to eat a bunch
Speaker 1: of undiscovered animals. I don't get what's there? What's there
Speaker 1: not to love? Keeps are normal, these are normal behaviors.
Speaker 1: These are feelings that everyone has, and it's my wanting
Speaker 1: to eat iguanas is valid. I'm gonna stop king shaming
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna allow you. I know I'm kidding again,
Speaker 1: Oh that's what someone says when it's definitely not a king,
Speaker 1: it's not a kid, it's it's not sexual in anyway.
Speaker 1: When sexual. Yeah. I think that's a good way. I
Speaker 1: think it's a good place in the podcast, don't I agree.
Speaker 1: I feel like we've gotten just to the point where
Speaker 1: this is still classy. We've just we've got We've come
Speaker 1: to the line of it and like if we cross it, no, Anyways,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining me today. I'm sorry
Speaker 1: for you know, um, eating chicken bones while we're recording,
Speaker 1: and for the pictures of all the weird things like
Speaker 1: self decapitation. But I hope you learned. Yeah, absolutely, And
Speaker 1: I think in the show notes for this episode you
Speaker 1: should put time codes for every single moment when you
Speaker 1: made me sick to my stomach, just so the audience
Speaker 1: can skip ahead to the fun partis Yes, exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: We will mark those down. Dave learned never to come on,
Speaker 1: Dave learned Katie sucks, marrilettic chicken bones. Well, where can
Speaker 1: people find you? Oh? At my house? Uh but even
Speaker 1: on the internet, right, Okay, so at Dave underscore shilling
Speaker 1: is me on Twitter? You can find out all the
Speaker 1: things that I'm thinking about at three in the morning,
Speaker 1: or just you know, jokes or promotion for all the
Speaker 1: things that I'm doing. Uh, please please just seek me out,
Speaker 1: find me, follow me and interact with me, because I
Speaker 1: want to be your friend very much. That sounded that's nice,
Speaker 1: that's lovely. Um. But so people can just show up
Speaker 1: at your house, no, please don't. Uh yeah, And you
Speaker 1: can find us on the internet at Creature Feature Pod
Speaker 1: on Instagram, at Creature feet pot on Twitter. That's f
Speaker 1: e a T, not f et. That is something very different.
Speaker 1: And if you want to write in your very own
Speaker 1: email to the show, you can write me at Creature
Speaker 1: Feature Product gmail dot com. Right in your complaints about
Speaker 1: all the chicken bone business. That's fine, Um, don't eat them.
Speaker 1: Don't eat them? Uh, disclaimer because I don't want people
Speaker 1: writing in I try to eat chicken bone now it's
Speaker 1: lodged in my brain, all right. And then also, yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed what
Speaker 1: you heard, please leave a rating and a review. That
Speaker 1: really helps. I read them all. It warms my heart
Speaker 1: and it helps out with the algorithm. If you didn't
Speaker 1: enjoy it, you know you don't have to leave. Say nothing.
Speaker 1: You can't say nothing. I won't stop you. But you're
Speaker 1: it's Look, it's America. You can do whatever you want
Speaker 1: thank you to this as Classics for the super awesome
Speaker 1: song Exo Lumina Creature features a production of I heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts like the one you just heard, visit
Speaker 1: the I heart Radio app podcast or Hey guess what
Speaker 1: wherever I'm not going to judge. See you next Wednesday.