1
00:00:01,840 --> 00:00:07,600
Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, brain Stuff,

2
00:00:07,640 --> 00:00:10,959
Speaker 1: I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and this is a special episode because

3
00:00:11,000 --> 00:00:14,240
Speaker 1: a while back, iHeartRadio and the Metaverse invited me to

4
00:00:14,280 --> 00:00:17,480
Speaker 1: come to a video that was released exclusively on Roadblocks

5
00:00:17,560 --> 00:00:20,319
Speaker 1: and Fortnite, and in it they let me go on

6
00:00:20,520 --> 00:00:24,000
Speaker 1: pretty much as much as I wanted about bacteria. It

7
00:00:24,079 --> 00:00:27,760
Speaker 1: was a dream I never knew I had, so that

8
00:00:28,000 --> 00:00:30,400
Speaker 1: was a thing that I did. But now we wanted

9
00:00:30,400 --> 00:00:32,840
Speaker 1: to bring that script and all of the weird stuff

10
00:00:32,880 --> 00:00:38,520
Speaker 1: in it to you, because, Okay, bacteria are tiny organisms

11
00:00:38,560 --> 00:00:41,479
Speaker 1: that only consist of a single cell, without so much

12
00:00:41,479 --> 00:00:43,960
Speaker 1: as a cell nucleus to direct them. Yet they do

13
00:00:44,080 --> 00:00:48,320
Speaker 1: incredible things. They're all around us and inside us doing

14
00:00:48,360 --> 00:00:51,239
Speaker 1: cool stuff of their own accord. But we humans have

15
00:00:51,320 --> 00:00:54,639
Speaker 1: also harnessed them to do all kinds of work for us.

16
00:00:56,560 --> 00:01:01,040
Speaker 1: We've talked here before about the dirt bacteria response for petrocore,

17
00:01:01,240 --> 00:01:04,240
Speaker 1: which is the smell after a rain, and the gut

18
00:01:04,280 --> 00:01:07,800
Speaker 1: bacteria that lets squirrels build muscle even while they hibernate,

19
00:01:08,360 --> 00:01:12,200
Speaker 1: and the cyanobacteria that turned Earth's ancient ocean's pink for

20
00:01:12,319 --> 00:01:17,200
Speaker 1: eons before green algae hit the scene. Also over on

21
00:01:17,240 --> 00:01:19,880
Speaker 1: another podcast I do called Sabor, we talk all the

22
00:01:19,920 --> 00:01:22,760
Speaker 1: time about how the byproducts of bacteria that are just

23
00:01:22,880 --> 00:01:25,840
Speaker 1: living their lives help produce some of our favorite foods

24
00:01:25,840 --> 00:01:30,040
Speaker 1: and flavors, from tangy cheeses to crunchy pickles to rich

25
00:01:30,160 --> 00:01:36,280
Speaker 1: chocolate and coffee. And that's just stuff that we've already covered. Today,

26
00:01:36,400 --> 00:01:39,760
Speaker 1: we're going to go on a tour of the bacterial microverse.

27
00:01:41,560 --> 00:01:44,960
Speaker 1: Let's start our tour on a perhaps uncomfortably personal level,

28
00:01:45,360 --> 00:01:50,440
Speaker 1: of the bacteria in your guts. Okay, the community of

29
00:01:50,440 --> 00:01:53,600
Speaker 1: microorganisms that lives on and inside you is known as

30
00:01:53,640 --> 00:01:59,280
Speaker 1: the human microbiome. It's perhaps surprisingly large. Back in twenty sixteen,

31
00:01:59,560 --> 00:02:04,200
Speaker 1: scientists estimated that on average, you probably have slightly more

32
00:02:04,240 --> 00:02:07,120
Speaker 1: bacterial cells in your body than you have cells of

33
00:02:07,160 --> 00:02:12,120
Speaker 1: your own. A healthy microbiome helps your skin stay clear,

34
00:02:12,400 --> 00:02:15,640
Speaker 1: your guts, digest food, your immune system, learn how to fight.

35
00:02:16,560 --> 00:02:19,840
Speaker 1: Healthy gut microbes even seem to help reduce people's anxiety

36
00:02:20,000 --> 00:02:24,639
Speaker 1: and improve their mood. And research suggests that our microbiomes

37
00:02:24,760 --> 00:02:28,000
Speaker 1: have their own circadium rhythms just like we do, and

38
00:02:28,040 --> 00:02:30,520
Speaker 1: that these daily rhythms have a lot of impact on

39
00:02:30,520 --> 00:02:34,800
Speaker 1: our hell circadium rhythms are in organisms patterns of activity

40
00:02:34,840 --> 00:02:39,160
Speaker 1: and arrest throughout any given day and night. Okay, a

41
00:02:39,160 --> 00:02:41,720
Speaker 1: few years back, there was a study done in mice

42
00:02:42,720 --> 00:02:46,760
Speaker 1: using cutting edge DNA sequencing technology. The research team found

43
00:02:46,800 --> 00:02:49,359
Speaker 1: that the microbial communities living in the guts of mice

44
00:02:49,600 --> 00:02:53,639
Speaker 1: have a pretty regular routine. Different types of bacteria hang

45
00:02:53,680 --> 00:02:56,239
Speaker 1: out in their own areas of the intestines in the morning,

46
00:02:56,680 --> 00:02:59,120
Speaker 1: move around during the day, and end up in a

47
00:02:59,160 --> 00:03:03,560
Speaker 1: different place at then do it all over again. So

48
00:03:03,880 --> 00:03:07,919
Speaker 1: each part of a mouse's gut experiences differences in numbers

49
00:03:07,960 --> 00:03:11,400
Speaker 1: and species of bacteria over a twenty four hour period.

50
00:03:13,000 --> 00:03:16,359
Speaker 1: And that's not all. And this migration affected organs in

51
00:03:16,400 --> 00:03:20,160
Speaker 1: the mice that weren't even close to the gut. For example,

52
00:03:20,400 --> 00:03:23,160
Speaker 1: the daily rhythms of those gut bacteria, depending on the

53
00:03:23,160 --> 00:03:26,359
Speaker 1: time of day, changed the liver's ability to do its

54
00:03:26,480 --> 00:03:30,840
Speaker 1: job producing useful stuff and getting rid of waste. This

55
00:03:31,040 --> 00:03:35,040
Speaker 1: isn't just super weird, which it is, It could eventually

56
00:03:35,080 --> 00:03:37,920
Speaker 1: help doctors understand how the time of day and the

57
00:03:37,920 --> 00:03:41,000
Speaker 1: health of your microbiome may make a difference in treating

58
00:03:41,040 --> 00:03:45,640
Speaker 1: some diseases. Also, the researchers found that the mouse's own

59
00:03:45,680 --> 00:03:49,640
Speaker 1: circadian rhythms were essentially driven by those of its microbiome.

60
00:03:50,320 --> 00:03:53,160
Speaker 1: There was no separating the two. They said that we

61
00:03:53,200 --> 00:03:56,080
Speaker 1: should all think of ourself and our microbiome as a

62
00:03:56,080 --> 00:04:02,680
Speaker 1: single supra organism. But as much as we're still learning

63
00:04:02,680 --> 00:04:06,360
Speaker 1: about the bacteria that are most personal to us, humans

64
00:04:06,360 --> 00:04:08,440
Speaker 1: have figured out a lot of ways to put other

65
00:04:08,480 --> 00:04:12,040
Speaker 1: bacteria to work. Even though most are too small to

66
00:04:12,080 --> 00:04:15,600
Speaker 1: be seen without a microscope, their strength is in their numbers.

67
00:04:16,400 --> 00:04:19,360
Speaker 1: If you can convince bacteria to produce a certain substance,

68
00:04:19,680 --> 00:04:22,240
Speaker 1: and you can get them to thrive, a colony of

69
00:04:22,279 --> 00:04:26,600
Speaker 1: bacteria will produce that substance for you. On an industrial scale.

70
00:04:27,160 --> 00:04:30,560
Speaker 1: Everything from flavorings used in the food industry to human

71
00:04:30,600 --> 00:04:36,880
Speaker 1: insulin is made this way. Take butter flavoring. Originally, butter

72
00:04:37,040 --> 00:04:40,400
Speaker 1: was butter flavored because of helpful bacteria cultures that aid

73
00:04:40,480 --> 00:04:44,599
Speaker 1: in transforming liquid milk into this solid fat, which is butter.

74
00:04:45,600 --> 00:04:49,400
Speaker 1: As those bacteria worked, they also happened to excrete compounds

75
00:04:49,440 --> 00:04:57,200
Speaker 1: that we humans experience as flavors. Butter flavor is bacteria poop. However,

76
00:04:57,400 --> 00:04:59,480
Speaker 1: a lot of butter sold these days, certainly in the

77
00:04:59,560 --> 00:05:03,000
Speaker 1: United States, is what's called sweet cream butter which has

78
00:05:03,040 --> 00:05:06,920
Speaker 1: not gone through a bacterial culturing process and thus doesn't

79
00:05:06,960 --> 00:05:11,080
Speaker 1: taste particularly buttery. Some of this is just sold as is,

80
00:05:11,320 --> 00:05:15,000
Speaker 1: but some of it has butter flavor added in, and

81
00:05:15,080 --> 00:05:18,400
Speaker 1: in order to make that butter flavoring, sometimes scientists create

82
00:05:18,440 --> 00:05:22,160
Speaker 1: it in a lab that's called artificial flavoring. But sometimes

83
00:05:22,200 --> 00:05:25,599
Speaker 1: they turn back to bacteria and use bacterial colonies to

84
00:05:25,640 --> 00:05:29,680
Speaker 1: produce the flavor molecules that can be labeled natural flavoring.

85
00:05:30,880 --> 00:05:33,799
Speaker 1: And of course we apply both of these types, natural

86
00:05:33,839 --> 00:05:37,240
Speaker 1: and artificial to all kinds of baked goods, candies, and

87
00:05:37,320 --> 00:05:43,719
Speaker 1: popcorn seasonings. But we bend bacteria to for experimental uses too.

88
00:05:44,520 --> 00:05:47,599
Speaker 1: For example, take the team up of glowing bacteria and

89
00:05:47,760 --> 00:05:52,440
Speaker 1: lasers to detect and then disarm land mines. There may

90
00:05:52,440 --> 00:05:55,480
Speaker 1: be more than one hundred million land mines lurking underground

91
00:05:55,520 --> 00:05:58,719
Speaker 1: in former conflict zones around the world, and for a

92
00:05:58,760 --> 00:06:01,360
Speaker 1: long time, the best way to remove them was by

93
00:06:01,520 --> 00:06:04,480
Speaker 1: sending a volunteer into a mine field with a metal detector.

94
00:06:05,200 --> 00:06:09,520
Speaker 1: Not ideal. That's why a team of researchers engineered E.

95
00:06:09,640 --> 00:06:13,400
Speaker 1: Coli bacteria that glow when they encounter vapors from buried

96
00:06:13,480 --> 00:06:17,599
Speaker 1: land mines and other unexploded devices. It turns out that

97
00:06:17,800 --> 00:06:20,800
Speaker 1: all land mines leak explosive vapors that build up in

98
00:06:20,839 --> 00:06:26,640
Speaker 1: the soil directly above these devices. The living bacteria are

99
00:06:26,680 --> 00:06:30,960
Speaker 1: placed inside tiny polymer beads that drones then scatter across

100
00:06:31,000 --> 00:06:34,960
Speaker 1: the minefields. When they encounter the land mines's emissions, the

101
00:06:35,000 --> 00:06:38,440
Speaker 1: bacteria begin to fluoresce, and the researchers can use a

102
00:06:38,520 --> 00:06:42,760
Speaker 1: laser based system to map the terrain and identify danger zones.

103
00:06:44,279 --> 00:06:47,400
Speaker 1: Once the land mines have been found, specially trained humans

104
00:06:47,440 --> 00:06:50,640
Speaker 1: are still the most effective at disarming them, though robots

105
00:06:50,640 --> 00:06:55,800
Speaker 1: have also been engineered for the task. Meanwhile, other researchers

106
00:06:55,800 --> 00:06:59,800
Speaker 1: in other labs are tackling whole other problems, like shortages

107
00:06:59,839 --> 00:07:05,680
Speaker 1: of blood for transfusions. So, okay, humans have various blood types.

108
00:07:05,960 --> 00:07:08,640
Speaker 1: If you need a transfusion, say you're injured in an

109
00:07:08,680 --> 00:07:11,880
Speaker 1: accident or you're in the operating room awaiting a procedure,

110
00:07:12,440 --> 00:07:15,320
Speaker 1: you need the right type of blood, either the same

111
00:07:15,320 --> 00:07:18,440
Speaker 1: type as your own or type O negative, which is

112
00:07:18,480 --> 00:07:21,760
Speaker 1: considered universal, which means that everyone's body will accept it.

113
00:07:23,560 --> 00:07:26,160
Speaker 1: You can't give someone a transfusion of just any old

114
00:07:26,160 --> 00:07:29,800
Speaker 1: type of blood. Because red blood cells come with different

115
00:07:29,800 --> 00:07:33,280
Speaker 1: types of sugar molecules on their surface, and this is

116
00:07:33,320 --> 00:07:38,160
Speaker 1: what makes transfusions troublesome. Type B blood, for example, naturally

117
00:07:38,240 --> 00:07:41,320
Speaker 1: contains antibodies that will make your immune system attack the

118
00:07:41,320 --> 00:07:45,040
Speaker 1: sugars that occur on type A blood cells and vice versa,

119
00:07:45,760 --> 00:07:48,560
Speaker 1: and you do not want your immune system attacking your

120
00:07:48,600 --> 00:07:52,239
Speaker 1: new blood. Type O blood has neither of these sugars

121
00:07:52,280 --> 00:07:55,560
Speaker 1: on its surface, so it isn't attacked by anyone's immune system,

122
00:07:55,760 --> 00:07:58,560
Speaker 1: which is why Type O is in such great demand.

123
00:08:00,440 --> 00:08:03,960
Speaker 1: So some researchers out of Vancouver figured that if they

124
00:08:03,960 --> 00:08:07,800
Speaker 1: could destroy those pesky sugars, they could create typo blood

125
00:08:07,800 --> 00:08:11,400
Speaker 1: from any type of blood. And to find that weapon

126
00:08:11,440 --> 00:08:13,920
Speaker 1: of sugary destruction, we're going to have to go back

127
00:08:14,160 --> 00:08:17,920
Speaker 1: into your gut. In the walls of our intestines, there

128
00:08:17,960 --> 00:08:22,160
Speaker 1: are bacteria known to feed on similar sugars. So the

129
00:08:22,200 --> 00:08:26,240
Speaker 1: researchers got some samples of poop, isolated the bacteria, sequenced

130
00:08:26,280 --> 00:08:29,280
Speaker 1: their DNA, and found the genetic code for the enzymes

131
00:08:29,320 --> 00:08:31,840
Speaker 1: that the bacteria used to break down those sugars when

132
00:08:31,880 --> 00:08:37,000
Speaker 1: they eat them, and it worked. Research is ongoing to

133
00:08:37,040 --> 00:08:40,280
Speaker 1: make sure it's safe and scalable, but this could help

134
00:08:40,320 --> 00:08:44,920
Speaker 1: make blood shortages a thing of the past. A side

135
00:08:44,920 --> 00:08:48,160
Speaker 1: note here, I've been talking a lot today about genetic engineering,

136
00:08:48,360 --> 00:08:51,320
Speaker 1: which is a little bit controversial in some circles, mostly

137
00:08:51,400 --> 00:08:56,160
Speaker 1: due to fears and misunderstandings about what it entails. But

138
00:08:56,240 --> 00:08:59,199
Speaker 1: the thing is, it's just a technology. Can it be

139
00:08:59,320 --> 00:09:03,679
Speaker 1: used to a response. Sure. Like any tool, genetic engineering

140
00:09:03,679 --> 00:09:07,320
Speaker 1: can be used for good or ill. Like the same

141
00:09:07,400 --> 00:09:10,000
Speaker 1: telephone technology that keeps you in touch with your grandma

142
00:09:10,240 --> 00:09:14,679
Speaker 1: can also be used to scam your grandma. Genetic engineering

143
00:09:14,760 --> 00:09:17,000
Speaker 1: is just another type of tool, and it can be

144
00:09:17,120 --> 00:09:22,960
Speaker 1: used for awesome stuff or to scam grandma. But okay,

145
00:09:23,080 --> 00:09:27,080
Speaker 1: back to bacteria. Of course, not all of them are helpful.

146
00:09:27,800 --> 00:09:29,640
Speaker 1: Figuring out how to deal with ones that can make

147
00:09:29,720 --> 00:09:32,880
Speaker 1: us sick is tricky because they're generally really good at

148
00:09:32,880 --> 00:09:35,760
Speaker 1: what they do, and again, their strength is in numbers

149
00:09:35,920 --> 00:09:38,920
Speaker 1: and in quick life cycles. In the course of a

150
00:09:39,000 --> 00:09:43,959
Speaker 1: human lifetime, generations upon generations of bacteria can evolutionarily adapt

151
00:09:44,040 --> 00:09:49,440
Speaker 1: to resist our best weapons against them, like antibiotics. So

152
00:09:49,800 --> 00:09:52,880
Speaker 1: as you may have heard, traditional antibiotics are becoming less

153
00:09:52,880 --> 00:09:58,040
Speaker 1: effective at helping us stop bacterial infections. Antibiotics work by

154
00:09:58,160 --> 00:10:00,960
Speaker 1: slowing down or killing bacteria to the point that your

155
00:10:00,960 --> 00:10:04,880
Speaker 1: immune system can fight off an infection. But the specific

156
00:10:04,920 --> 00:10:07,560
Speaker 1: ways that a lot of the classics work tend to

157
00:10:07,559 --> 00:10:12,359
Speaker 1: be easily foiled by evolution. For example, lots of antibiotics

158
00:10:12,400 --> 00:10:16,680
Speaker 1: destroy bacteria by basically poking holes in their outer cell walls.

159
00:10:17,360 --> 00:10:20,920
Speaker 1: The critter's stronger cell walls survive and multiply, and future

160
00:10:20,960 --> 00:10:26,160
Speaker 1: generations aren't as likely to be harmed by poking. This

161
00:10:26,240 --> 00:10:30,200
Speaker 1: is a major problem because, okay, look, humans only discovered

162
00:10:30,240 --> 00:10:34,120
Speaker 1: antibiotics in nineteen twenty eight, less than one hundred years ago.

163
00:10:34,280 --> 00:10:37,800
Speaker 1: The ability of antibiotics to fight bacterial disease seemed so

164
00:10:38,120 --> 00:10:41,200
Speaker 1: rad that for decades we threw them at everything, even

165
00:10:41,280 --> 00:10:45,440
Speaker 1: mild infections, or to prevent possible infections in healthy farm animals,

166
00:10:45,920 --> 00:10:49,200
Speaker 1: or as a placebo in patients who had viral infections

167
00:10:49,280 --> 00:10:54,400
Speaker 1: yet demanded medicine. That's how we've wound up with antibiotic

168
00:10:54,520 --> 00:11:00,000
Speaker 1: resistant infections like methylne resistance Straphylococcus aureus also called MRS

169
00:11:00,280 --> 00:11:03,640
Speaker 1: because that's a lot easier to say. This is a

170
00:11:03,679 --> 00:11:06,680
Speaker 1: germ that used to just cause skin infections but can

171
00:11:06,679 --> 00:11:11,480
Speaker 1: now be deadly in hospital patients. So scientists are looking

172
00:11:11,520 --> 00:11:14,560
Speaker 1: into all kinds of new sources of antibiotics that might

173
00:11:14,640 --> 00:11:18,600
Speaker 1: work in different ways, like compounds that they've isolated from

174
00:11:18,640 --> 00:11:22,840
Speaker 1: cockroach brains or frog skin or platypus milk. I would

175
00:11:22,880 --> 00:11:26,640
Speaker 1: not kid you about platypus milk. But researchers are also

176
00:11:26,760 --> 00:11:30,480
Speaker 1: talking about switching from the brute force tactics of antibiotics

177
00:11:30,559 --> 00:11:36,679
Speaker 1: to actually outsmarting bacteria. But okay, how do you outsmart

178
00:11:36,720 --> 00:11:40,079
Speaker 1: something that doesn't have a brain or even a cell nucleus.

179
00:11:41,040 --> 00:11:43,840
Speaker 1: It turns out that despite all of this, bacteria do

180
00:11:44,000 --> 00:11:48,920
Speaker 1: communicate with each other. They're not texting emoji. This is

181
00:11:48,960 --> 00:11:53,720
Speaker 1: called quorum sensing. A quorum is the minimum number of

182
00:11:53,800 --> 00:11:57,280
Speaker 1: team members that you need to get something done, like

183
00:11:57,559 --> 00:12:00,720
Speaker 1: play basketball, or turn on or off different bits of

184
00:12:00,720 --> 00:12:04,720
Speaker 1: genetic code that might, for example, make a bacterium more

185
00:12:04,840 --> 00:12:08,640
Speaker 1: or less virulent to an infected host, or maybe it

186
00:12:08,679 --> 00:12:12,400
Speaker 1: makes the bacterium form a protective spores around itself. A

187
00:12:12,440 --> 00:12:17,920
Speaker 1: bacteria can sense a quorum through signaling molecules. These are

188
00:12:18,000 --> 00:12:21,960
Speaker 1: called autoinducers. The bacteria create and then emit them, either

189
00:12:22,040 --> 00:12:26,160
Speaker 1: passively or actively, depending on the situation, and so as

190
00:12:26,200 --> 00:12:30,960
Speaker 1: the bacterial population grows, so does the concentration of autoinducers

191
00:12:31,080 --> 00:12:35,319
Speaker 1: in their environment. Once it reaches a concentration detectable by

192
00:12:35,360 --> 00:12:39,000
Speaker 1: the bacteria, the signal is received and the bacteria make

193
00:12:39,040 --> 00:12:44,040
Speaker 1: a change for the good of themselves and the colony.

194
00:12:44,080 --> 00:12:47,880
Speaker 1: Also a fun and or terrifying fact, bacteria are not

195
00:12:48,000 --> 00:12:51,920
Speaker 1: limited to communicating with their own species. Some of these

196
00:12:51,920 --> 00:12:56,559
Speaker 1: signals work among different species of bacteria. This isn't always cooperative.

197
00:12:56,960 --> 00:13:00,559
Speaker 1: Some bacteria seem to engage in quorum sensing space pionage

198
00:13:00,640 --> 00:13:06,079
Speaker 1: while competing for resources. Anyway, lots of different research teams

199
00:13:06,120 --> 00:13:09,200
Speaker 1: are studying quorum sensing and looking for ways to disrupt

200
00:13:09,200 --> 00:13:12,200
Speaker 1: it or to artificially stimulate it in order to pass

201
00:13:12,240 --> 00:13:16,880
Speaker 1: false information around bacterial colonies. So they're looking into the

202
00:13:16,960 --> 00:13:20,680
Speaker 1: chemicals and enzymes used in the process, plus mechanisms that

203
00:13:20,720 --> 00:13:26,520
Speaker 1: bacteria have for creating and detecting them. But okay, all

204
00:13:26,559 --> 00:13:29,240
Speaker 1: of the bacterial shenanigans that we have discussed so far

205
00:13:29,280 --> 00:13:33,720
Speaker 1: today are happening right under, or on or in our noses.

206
00:13:34,400 --> 00:13:37,320
Speaker 1: But there are whole other bacterial worlds out there, and

207
00:13:37,360 --> 00:13:42,360
Speaker 1: one of them is deep under our own. An international

208
00:13:42,360 --> 00:13:46,000
Speaker 1: group of over a thousand scientists spent ten years uncovering

209
00:13:46,000 --> 00:13:50,480
Speaker 1: the secrets of deep life, a stunningly diverse population of

210
00:13:50,520 --> 00:13:56,040
Speaker 1: microscopic organisms miles inside Earth's surface. Some of those bacteria

211
00:13:56,200 --> 00:14:00,000
Speaker 1: and other mostly single celled organisms, live off of little

212
00:14:00,160 --> 00:14:03,600
Speaker 1: more than the energy of surrounding rocks and can survive

213
00:14:03,679 --> 00:14:08,679
Speaker 1: in temperatures hotter than boiling water. The project is called

214
00:14:08,840 --> 00:14:12,720
Speaker 1: Deep Carbon Observatory, and it aims to understand how carbon,

215
00:14:12,960 --> 00:14:15,120
Speaker 1: of this element that is essential to life as we

216
00:14:15,160 --> 00:14:19,480
Speaker 1: know it, forms and moves within the Earth. They estimate

217
00:14:19,520 --> 00:14:22,040
Speaker 1: the amount of carbon underneath the surface is hundreds of

218
00:14:22,080 --> 00:14:25,440
Speaker 1: times more than the carbon in every human being combined.

219
00:14:27,120 --> 00:14:30,000
Speaker 1: During the course of their studies, the scientists drilled over

220
00:14:30,040 --> 00:14:31,880
Speaker 1: one and a half miles that's two and a half

221
00:14:31,920 --> 00:14:36,200
Speaker 1: kilometers into the seafloor. They captured samples and mines and

222
00:14:36,280 --> 00:14:40,200
Speaker 1: boreholes from depths more than twice that. They took the

223
00:14:40,280 --> 00:14:42,840
Speaker 1: data from hundreds of sites to get an idea of

224
00:14:42,880 --> 00:14:48,120
Speaker 1: one ecosystem in subterranean rock. Looks like the biosphere that

225
00:14:48,120 --> 00:14:50,600
Speaker 1: they've uncovered is thought to be twice the volume of

226
00:14:50,640 --> 00:14:55,800
Speaker 1: all of our oceans. This new world underneath the surface

227
00:14:56,040 --> 00:14:59,520
Speaker 1: may be even more diverse than life on Earth. Yet

228
00:14:59,560 --> 00:15:02,840
Speaker 1: these might robes are nothing like life on Earth. Many

229
00:15:02,880 --> 00:15:08,320
Speaker 1: have life cycles measured in geologic terms. The implications of

230
00:15:08,360 --> 00:15:12,160
Speaker 1: these findings are wide ranging. These organisms can live and

231
00:15:12,280 --> 00:15:16,280
Speaker 1: thrive in highly pressurized environments with few nutrients, and in

232
00:15:16,320 --> 00:15:20,360
Speaker 1: temperatures that would kill organisms on the surface. They may

233
00:15:20,400 --> 00:15:22,920
Speaker 1: now give us clues about the possibility of life in

234
00:15:23,000 --> 00:15:29,640
Speaker 1: other areas, including on other planets. But on this world,

235
00:15:29,800 --> 00:15:35,000
Speaker 1: where we, again, unfortunately often try to exterminate all bacteria.

236
00:15:35,080 --> 00:15:37,960
Speaker 1: A team of scientists is designing a germ bank where

237
00:15:38,000 --> 00:15:41,400
Speaker 1: microbes can be stored out of harm's way and possibly

238
00:15:41,600 --> 00:15:45,840
Speaker 1: used to ward off disease in the future. The vault's

239
00:15:45,880 --> 00:15:49,480
Speaker 1: official name is the Microbiotic Vault. It would be used

240
00:15:49,520 --> 00:15:52,320
Speaker 1: to preserve microbes that are at risk of being wiped

241
00:15:52,320 --> 00:15:55,480
Speaker 1: off the planet as civilization moves into areas where nature

242
00:15:55,520 --> 00:15:58,720
Speaker 1: once ruled. Microbes that we don't even know about yet,

243
00:15:59,280 --> 00:16:04,240
Speaker 1: and catalog variants of more familiar ones. After all, the

244
00:16:04,280 --> 00:16:07,120
Speaker 1: bacteria in and around us have co evolved with us

245
00:16:07,160 --> 00:16:10,720
Speaker 1: for hundreds of thousands of years. They help us make

246
00:16:10,760 --> 00:16:13,680
Speaker 1: our food and digest our food. They can help us

247
00:16:13,720 --> 00:16:17,600
Speaker 1: manufacture life saving medicines and discover new solutions to all

248
00:16:17,680 --> 00:16:20,720
Speaker 1: kinds of problems. The least we can do is return

249
00:16:20,760 --> 00:16:23,280
Speaker 1: the favor because we have so much more to learn

250
00:16:23,280 --> 00:16:30,720
Speaker 1: from them. Today's episode is based on a number of

251
00:16:30,840 --> 00:16:34,800
Speaker 1: articles on HowStuffWorks dot com, including using glowing bacteria and

252
00:16:34,880 --> 00:16:38,480
Speaker 1: lasers to detect landlines written by Loreel Dove. How close

253
00:16:38,480 --> 00:16:40,760
Speaker 1: are we to creating a universal blood type? Written by

254
00:16:40,840 --> 00:16:44,840
Speaker 1: John Donovan, How do bacteria Communicate? Written by Molly Edmunds.

255
00:16:45,400 --> 00:16:48,760
Speaker 1: Ten weirdest sources for antibiotics written by Patrick J. Kiger,

256
00:16:49,240 --> 00:16:52,160
Speaker 1: And scientists call for a Global germ Bank written by

257
00:16:52,200 --> 00:16:56,080
Speaker 1: Chris Opford. But there's also some additional material written by me.

258
00:16:56,800 --> 00:16:59,320
Speaker 1: For more about how bacteria poop makes our food, check

259
00:16:59,320 --> 00:17:03,120
Speaker 1: out my other podcast as Saver and Hey, thanks to

260
00:17:03,200 --> 00:17:06,720
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio for the opportunity to visit iheartland in the metaverse,

261
00:17:06,960 --> 00:17:09,600
Speaker 1: which gave me the excuse to write this strange script.

262
00:17:10,880 --> 00:17:13,879
Speaker 1: Brain Stuff is producted of iHeartRadio in partnership with Houstifforks

263
00:17:13,880 --> 00:17:16,400
Speaker 1: dot com. It is produced by Tyler klang A. Four

264
00:17:16,440 --> 00:17:19,240
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my heart Radio. Visit the iHeartRadio app,

265
00:17:19,359 --> 00:17:22,160
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.