Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature feature production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
Speaker 1: of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and animal biology,
Speaker 1: and today on the show we're talking about zoe pharmacognosi.
Speaker 1: It's a mouthful for saying animals heal thyselves. These animals
Speaker 1: have figured out how to treat their own ailments with
Speaker 1: the medicine available to them in their habitats. Plus what
Speaker 1: can we learn from animals about human medicine? Dis Cover
Speaker 1: this and more as we answer the age old question
Speaker 1: does swallowing a rough leaf a day keep? Doctor zayis away.
Speaker 1: Joining me today is host of the podcast The House
Speaker 1: of Pod Doctor cave Hodo. Welcome.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, thank you so much. I am so excited.
Speaker 2: Can we first address that you are the host of
Speaker 2: Many Parasites? Can we talk about what's happening with you?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's nothing on uh, sort of the norm, right,
Speaker 1: No normal amounts of parasites, No tapeworms, as far as
Speaker 1: I'm aware, probably plenty of demodex. Now, some might argue
Speaker 1: that demodex are mutualistic, not parasiites. I disagree. I think
Speaker 1: they are probably you know a little bit parasitic.
Speaker 2: No, tenuous solum in your brain though.
Speaker 1: Not that I'm aware of. But it could be that
Speaker 1: I have a lot of it, and yet it is
Speaker 1: sort of a messing with my ability to recognize.
Speaker 2: You're doing very well, then, yeah, if you do have
Speaker 2: neurosister psychosis, you're you're holding up very well, my friend.
Speaker 1: I'm going to pretend I know what that is and
Speaker 1: say I don't have it.
Speaker 2: Good, Okay. This is a reference to the recent finding
Speaker 2: of a worm in RFK juniors. Yes, which, if there,
Speaker 2: it might be a ten solo. That's that's probably the
Speaker 2: pork larvae tapeworm. Right, it's hard to say.
Speaker 1: It's it's not usually in the brain, right, it usually
Speaker 1: is it? Is it a typical gut parasite or is
Speaker 1: this like a miss kind of case where it's not
Speaker 1: supposed to be in there at all?
Speaker 2: No, you could get it in the brain. In fact,
Speaker 2: neurosister circosis is not an uncommon, totally uncommon cause of
Speaker 2: adult onset seizures. It doesn't happen. No, I'm not a
Speaker 2: fan of it either. We don't see a lot of
Speaker 2: it here in the United States. I mean, it's in
Speaker 2: places where the food regulation might be a little different.
Speaker 2: So it's not very common finding here at all.
Speaker 1: Okay, that that's that's good, I guess. So the idea
Speaker 1: is that RFK when he was going around trying to
Speaker 1: convince other countries not to do vaccines, he did get
Speaker 1: a little bit of maybe the brain worms from the
Speaker 1: water or something. Is that the idea.
Speaker 2: I like to think that the g of the eighty
Speaker 2: three Samoans that died because of his influence going anti
Speaker 2: vax had somehow haunted him with a worm in his brain.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I have no proof of that, but in my heart
Speaker 2: I believe it.
Speaker 1: You know, sometimes science has to give way to just hope.
Speaker 1: And I also hope that it was bingeful ghosts of
Speaker 1: people killed by anti vax nonsense that got him that
Speaker 1: worm in the brain. And it's it is funny because
Speaker 1: it's like, I don't know, maybe it was an improvement
Speaker 1: on his personality. Usually the worm in the brain precedes
Speaker 1: the strange behavior, but I think that was before the enwormination.
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, I don't know if that's a word, but
Speaker 2: I like it.
Speaker 1: You know your doctors, so you probably would know if
Speaker 1: that's the word.
Speaker 2: You know what it is.
Speaker 1: It is now it is now we've just done it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So yeah, today we are actually talking about animal who
Speaker 1: practiced medicine on themselves. I mean, I'm sure you worked
Speaker 1: very hard going to medical school, residency, all these things now.
Speaker 2: But you know I got through with a lot of
Speaker 2: charming charisma. Yeah, I'm totally honest. It wasn't that much work.
Speaker 1: That would you say? The number one skill you need
Speaker 1: is just not sleeping?
Speaker 2: Oh that really helps. If you can find ways to
Speaker 2: not sleep, you will do much better in medicine. That's correct.
Speaker 1: Yep, natural and healthy. So yes, there's recent news that
Speaker 1: an orangutan was observed healing a wound on his face
Speaker 1: using plant medicine. So this was an observational case study
Speaker 1: published recently in the journal Nature titled Active Self Treatment
Speaker 1: of a facial Wound with a biologically active plant by
Speaker 1: a male Sumatran Orangutan by lommer at All at the
Speaker 1: Max Plunk Institute of Animal Behavior. So essentially, these researchers
Speaker 1: saw an orangutan get a pretty gnarly like wound gash
Speaker 1: on his face and then he tried to treat it
Speaker 1: with plants. So this was an orangutan in Sorry South
Speaker 1: et Cha Indonesia, and he would chew up the leaves
Speaker 1: of the acrcooning plant and then sort of smear the
Speaker 1: juices into the wound, which sounds really pleasant. And then
Speaker 1: it would take the chewed up leaves and then kind
Speaker 1: of like put that on top and cover up the wounds.
Speaker 1: And then after you know, several weeks, it seemed like
Speaker 1: the wound healed pretty well. And the interesting thing is
Speaker 1: that the leaves of this plant have not only been
Speaker 1: used in traditional medicine, but they also have these compounds
Speaker 1: that are believed to have some antibiotic, pain relieving, anti fungal,
Speaker 1: anti inflammatory properties. So it would appear, if this observation
Speaker 1: is correct, that this orangutan selected these this leaf which
Speaker 1: specifically may be better than any average leaf at helping
Speaker 1: heal a wound and putting it on this facial wound
Speaker 1: that he sustained.
Speaker 2: If I may ask the question I'll probably ask like
Speaker 2: thirty times in this episode, is is there a belief
Speaker 2: that this was a thought process that the orangutang, which,
Speaker 2: by the way, I love orangutangs. They're adorable. They're stars
Speaker 2: of some of my favorite movies in the eighties. If
Speaker 2: like the orangutang did this on purpose because they knew
Speaker 2: that this was a healing salve or something, or if
Speaker 2: there's some sort of evolutionary thing where it's like orangutangs
Speaker 2: happened to like the feeling. Some orangutangs developed this sensation
Speaker 2: they like to have a on their face and it
Speaker 2: feels good for them. They don't know why they're doing it,
Speaker 2: but the ones that did it tended to be healthier
Speaker 2: and live longer to pass on their genetics like natural
Speaker 2: selection type stuff. I mean, does this seem like the
Speaker 2: renda tank knew what it was doing? Is my question.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is an extremely good question, and it's
Speaker 1: kind of what we're trying to get behind today, like
Speaker 1: get to the root of and it's really hard to answer.
Speaker 1: The short answer is nobody knows, not yet anyways. But
Speaker 1: the long answer is that this is not the first
Speaker 1: case of apes seeming to use medicine. This is the
Speaker 1: first like modern like sort of recorded observation of an
Speaker 1: ape or an animal applying like a salve to a wound. Now,
Speaker 1: there could have been a lot of prior observations that
Speaker 1: just by locals that you know, were in Nature journal, right,
Speaker 1: But the other observations have been of apes doing this
Speaker 1: behavior called leaf swallowing, where instead of chewing up a leaf,
Speaker 1: they like roll it up or fold it and then
Speaker 1: swallow it whole, which seems odd because by doing that
Speaker 1: they're not actually getting much of the nutritional benefit of
Speaker 1: the leaf. They're already leaves are already extremely fibrous, it's
Speaker 1: very difficult to digest, so chewing the leaves is a
Speaker 1: bit of predigestion that helps them process the leaves, so
Speaker 1: swallowing it whole and then it comes out basically whole
Speaker 1: in their poop. So it's a really odd behavior. And
Speaker 1: so when researchers looked into it further examined the poop
Speaker 1: of these like chimpanzees, gorillas, or ringutans who did this behavior,
Speaker 1: they found that the poop would often contain parasites, so
Speaker 1: like you'd find a tape form or nematode parasites in
Speaker 1: the feces, and various research would find that there would
Speaker 1: be more expelling of these parasites, like in feces that
Speaker 1: had poop are well, feces generally contains poop, and poop
Speaker 1: that had leaves in it, it also would have a
Speaker 1: higher rate of these parasites in it. So the idea
Speaker 1: is that these leaves, which are usually really rough textured
Speaker 1: leaves not very pleasant to eat, necessarily are just because
Speaker 1: it's so rough and kind of like scratchy, almost a
Speaker 1: little abrasive when it'd go through the intestines, it would
Speaker 1: like physically scrape out some of the parasites that these
Speaker 1: apes would have.
Speaker 2: That is fascinating. But okay, so I guess the question
Speaker 2: is and I don't know how you do studies on apes.
Speaker 2: I only know limited amounts of how you do research
Speaker 2: on humans, but like, were they able to like ever
Speaker 2: be like, Okay, we know that the ape a has
Speaker 2: a parasitic infection because we tested their stool all and
Speaker 2: we know that ab does not, and we saw that
Speaker 2: more likely it was a a that would do this.
Speaker 2: Is that or do they all kind of just do
Speaker 2: it right like every now and then just swallow a
Speaker 2: leaf like that?
Speaker 1: This is the perfect question and it's one that I
Speaker 1: I had as well, and I was frustrated because I
Speaker 1: couldn't find any like really good studies of like we
Speaker 1: have a healthy h chimpanzee that has no parasites, and
Speaker 1: a chimpanzee with parasites, and we put these an array
Speaker 1: of leaves, which ones do they select? There's no study
Speaker 1: like that, right, I mean probably violates a lot of
Speaker 1: ethics because like to infect a champanzee with intestinal parasites.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but there's a lot of weird research.
Speaker 1: So but no, I couldn't. I mean, perhaps such as
Speaker 1: the study exists, I couldn't find it, So I suspect
Speaker 1: it's a precise study like that has not existed. There's
Speaker 1: been a study where they found that there's more leaf
Speaker 1: swallowing in a chimpanzee colony that is closer to human farms,
Speaker 1: and it's speculated that there's more incidence of parasitism in
Speaker 1: these apes because there's more sort of like with more
Speaker 1: human activity, there's more parasites, and so maybe these chimpanzees
Speaker 1: are getting more parasites and so doing more leaf swallowing.
Speaker 1: But that's there's so many confounding factors. There could be
Speaker 1: that they are there's not enough food in these areas
Speaker 1: for these apes, and so they're resorting more to swallowing
Speaker 1: leaves just to feel full, even if it's not as
Speaker 1: nutritionally beneficial. So the unsatisfying answer is that. No, there
Speaker 1: has not been, to my knowledge, any studies that have
Speaker 1: shown directly that a sick chimpanzee knows to have this
Speaker 1: plant to settle its stomach, or if it's something they
Speaker 1: do sort of just like you know, as a preventive thing,
Speaker 1: not knowing that it's necessarily preventing, uh, parasitism, but just
Speaker 1: they do it routinely, or whether they do it when
Speaker 1: they have a stomach ache and they're not feeling well.
Speaker 1: I don't know that there's Yeah.
Speaker 2: It makes I could see that last one making sense.
Speaker 2: I mean, when we talk about apes, it makes a
Speaker 2: lot more sense to me than if it was like
Speaker 2: a dog or something. But let me ask you another question.
Speaker 2: Do you have the same fear that I do, which
Speaker 2: is like, if this gets out, this news becomes more prominent,
Speaker 2: it's only a matter of time before there's some Instagram
Speaker 2: influencer saying swallow folded up leaves in your gi track,
Speaker 2: and then we get like bezors in people's stomachs because
Speaker 2: they're listening to some terrible influencer online. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: gonna happen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're gonna talk about how later in the show,
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about how to actually use inspiration from
Speaker 1: nature to make like medicine that is safe and effective.
Speaker 1: But yeah, you don't want to just see what the
Speaker 1: chimpanzee is doing and be like, well that's gonna work
Speaker 1: for me, because we're different animals, we have different constitutions. Also,
Speaker 1: modern humans have typically much better outcomes than say a
Speaker 1: wild chimpanzee. So it's not like the chimpanzee is choosing
Speaker 1: between this leaf and a pharmacy with uh, with medicines
Speaker 1: that have been tested for efficacy and safety. All they
Speaker 1: got is leaves. So it's understandable for them to do it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but yeah, things it is. There is just a common
Speaker 1: thing of like, well it's natural and it works for chimpanzees,
Speaker 1: And it's like, you know what else chimpanzees do. They
Speaker 1: eat their own poop sometimes. Do you want to do that?
Speaker 3: Yes, there are people on line that want to do that.
Speaker 3: Once a month, there's somebody online who's like promoting drinking
Speaker 3: their own urine. No, and like the health benefits of that,
Speaker 3: and someone will tag me in that, and I'm like,
Speaker 3: please stop tagging me in the videos of people drinking
Speaker 3: their own urine.
Speaker 2: I don't at this point I'm like, fine, fine, urine,
Speaker 2: just don't give it to kids.
Speaker 1: There are iCal transplants, but you don't. It's not just
Speaker 1: eating the poopoo.
Speaker 2: It's a very very.
Speaker 1: Specific process of eliminating the dangerous aspects of the poop,
Speaker 1: because if you just inject poop into you, you just
Speaker 1: get sepsis exactly true.
Speaker 2: And it's done usually via colonoscopy. They'll go in, you
Speaker 2: do a prep, you're all go through that whole process,
Speaker 2: and then they put in this, you know, medically clarified
Speaker 2: stool mixture. So yeah, I mean, uh, it's a weird.
Speaker 2: It's a weird job. It's a weird job. I have
Speaker 2: a weird job.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean I think that it's Yeah, there
Speaker 1: is a big difference between like taking inspiration from nature
Speaker 1: and investigating these things and just being like, I've seen
Speaker 1: an animal do this, so I'm just gonna eat it.
Speaker 1: But I think there is, especially in the US now,
Speaker 1: which it's very hard for me to explain these issues
Speaker 1: to my new European friends, but it's like when you
Speaker 1: tell people that something is definitely not safe to do,
Speaker 1: they're like, I'm gonna do that thing right now. Like
Speaker 1: with the with the eight five in one milk. It's
Speaker 1: just like, just like, I need the raw milk now,
Speaker 1: because you're telling me it's not safe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, state, right, come on, I'm America.
Speaker 1: So it's very concerning that the trust in public health
Speaker 1: is at a point where it's like, guys, just please
Speaker 1: don't drink raw milk, and people are panic buying raw
Speaker 1: milk to get get it before it's gone.
Speaker 2: I guess thank you for saying that. Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1: It's not good. So anyways, yes, I am definitely not
Speaker 1: saying that you should eat scratchy leaves and potentially create
Speaker 1: micro tears in your colon. Don't do that. We have
Speaker 1: better stuff for curing stomach ailments. Yeah, it is. It
Speaker 1: is really interesting because when like if you look at
Speaker 1: some of the compounds in the plant that the right,
Speaker 1: not the not the leaf swallowing chimpanzees, but the uh,
Speaker 1: the rington who put the chewed up leaf on his wound.
Speaker 1: It's like, uh, they it had these like specific things
Speaker 1: which I'm gonna really try to pronounce this and it's
Speaker 1: not gonna be good, but here we go, uh, ferano
Speaker 1: dite terpenoids and proto berberine alkaloids that you know, apparently
Speaker 1: like on their own they have some good like anti inflammatory,
Speaker 1: anti fungal effects, and so that it's very interesting that
Speaker 1: it's like it is using this leaf that cannot emphasize enough.
Speaker 1: Don't just go around to leaves putting it on your wounds.
Speaker 1: It's not gonna be great. But this ringutan does not
Speaker 1: have access to a hospital for orangutans, so this is
Speaker 1: what it's.
Speaker 2: Got to do. I would watch that show though, the
Speaker 2: Ingtang Hospital. I would if that was like the soap opera,
Speaker 2: I would watch that every day.
Speaker 1: What if that? Because you know how like it was
Speaker 1: sort of funny how Scrubs was the most accurate doctor show.
Speaker 1: But then like what if a ring atan er Oh
Speaker 1: sorry no? Or oh are a tan?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: Or oh are and get u tan. We're gonna we're
Speaker 1: gonna workshop this.
Speaker 2: And make this happen. Oh I love it. But it's
Speaker 2: like really realistic, Like so it's like it's like two
Speaker 2: ringgatank sing in a room talking about like acid base values.
Speaker 2: Like do you like the details of the really boring stuff.
Speaker 1: There's like no drama. Yeah, it's just like it's just
Speaker 1: sort of normal, like uh, hospital stuff, which I'm sure
Speaker 1: there's some drama, but it's extremely realistic. It's just everyone
Speaker 1: is a nerangutan.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like finding like a insurance to cover things
Speaker 2: like pain. By the way, thank you for I do
Speaker 2: agree with you. We've actually talked about this on the show.
Speaker 2: It had like a you know, a screenwriter, come on.
Speaker 2: We've had like on a couple of episodes we talked
Speaker 2: about like what movies are our shows are most accurate.
Speaker 2: And I do think Scrubs is. I mean it it
Speaker 2: speeds things up and it simplifies things in a way
Speaker 2: you have to for TV. But the pathos of it,
Speaker 2: like how it gets like the day daily routine of
Speaker 2: medicine correct is really good and I think it is
Speaker 2: probably the best in that category for that.
Speaker 1: This is this is what I've heard. I haven't spent
Speaker 1: a single day of my life as a doctor, so
Speaker 1: I wouldn't know personally, but you know, I have been
Speaker 1: you know, among doctors or or at a hospital, and
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem like everyone's just running around, you know,
Speaker 1: crying or making out all the time. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it does seem pretty realistic. And you know, so
Speaker 1: uh I am I am calling copyright on the earringatan
Speaker 1: show idea, nobody's steal it. It's gonna be gonna be
Speaker 1: a big hit.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: But yeah, in terms of your question about like whether
Speaker 1: is this just like a sort of like to what
Speaker 1: extent is this behavior something like is it instinctive? Is
Speaker 1: it just doing it because like they have like a
Speaker 1: tummy ache or pain and they know from experience that
Speaker 1: this kind of like helps. Uh, it's really hard to
Speaker 1: make that determination. But there have been studies that try
Speaker 1: to find out, like how these these behaviors even start
Speaker 1: in the first place, and studies that kind of look
Speaker 1: at captive chimpanzees compared to like wild chimpanzees, they find that, uh,
Speaker 1: there are cases where captive chimpanzee will spontaneously start, you know,
Speaker 1: trying things like leaf swallowing. So but they're not that
Speaker 1: many of them, so like a small number, like maybe
Speaker 1: one out of a group of like twenty might like
Speaker 1: start spontaneously swallowing leaves without having learned it. But then
Speaker 1: when you expose a group of naive chimpanzees to an
Speaker 1: older female who knows how to do this and then
Speaker 1: starts doing it, they start to do it at this
Speaker 1: high rate. So it seems like it's this combination of
Speaker 1: like some of them kind of have the ability to
Speaker 1: sort of innovate and go, like, I'm wondered what it'd
Speaker 1: be life if I, like if I tried swallowing this
Speaker 1: leaf whole, because when I chew it feels unpleasant, but
Speaker 1: when I swallow it whole, it feels kind of nice.
Speaker 1: But they're not that many of those. But then the
Speaker 1: other ones learn from those like kind of individuals who
Speaker 1: tend to be the ones that are more maybe a
Speaker 1: little more curious, a little more innovative. So it seems
Speaker 1: to be that there is a sort of a combination
Speaker 1: of like this instinctive like curiosity about things, of trying things,
Speaker 1: trying to consume them, and learning from others.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: It's still not clear whether they're doing it in response
Speaker 1: to having a tummy ache. I highly doubt they would
Speaker 1: have an understanding of intestinal parasites. I think the extent
Speaker 1: to it would be I have a tummy ache. When
Speaker 1: I swallow this plant, it feels better, And I think
Speaker 1: that's I think that's very probable. It's definitely not been proven,
Speaker 1: though that makes.
Speaker 2: Sense to me. I guess my basic lack of understanding
Speaker 2: and I apologize is I wasn't even really aware that
Speaker 2: apes could teach each other stuff. I know they could
Speaker 2: learn stuff, but I didn't know if that was like
Speaker 2: a common finding that like a mother ape could teach
Speaker 2: a baby ape something and they would be able to
Speaker 2: Has that been proven?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Can they teach each other sign language? I know they
Speaker 2: can learn sign language?
Speaker 1: Right, yes, they probably could. And I think that there's
Speaker 1: like I don't know that that's been shown specifically with
Speaker 1: sign language, but I think in a different like it was.
Speaker 1: I think these were bonobos that were being taught lexigrams,
Speaker 1: like not sign language, but like you know, pointing to
Speaker 1: various lexigrams. And I'm trying to remember the specific case,
Speaker 1: but I think it was like this younger bonobo who
Speaker 1: was like the son of an older one who had
Speaker 1: learned this, learned it really well, like learned it a
Speaker 1: lot better after being not only exposed to human tutors,
Speaker 1: but also to like previous older bonobos who had learned this.
Speaker 1: So and then there's also tons of instances observed cases
Speaker 1: in nature, so like even like macaques, Japanese macaques learned
Speaker 1: from what researchers believe is like a single female who
Speaker 1: learned how to wash yams in seawater, not to clean it,
Speaker 1: but to get the salt on it, which improved the
Speaker 1: flavor and introduced some nutritious salt to their diet. And
Speaker 1: so like once she started doing it, it passed on
Speaker 1: sort of like wildfire throughout these macaques. And so then
Speaker 1: there are these these macaque troops that learned from her
Speaker 1: how to wash these well season They learned how to
Speaker 1: season their food with salt. Yeah, and then there's like
Speaker 1: there's like culture in terms of urutans, there's different like
Speaker 1: nest building techniques because they learn that from their mothers,
Speaker 1: and so different regions with different groups of urnatans will
Speaker 1: have different methods of different construction methods used to build
Speaker 1: these nets, different construction methods used to build these nests.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think it's I think it's pretty settled
Speaker 1: that there's definitely learning that's happening and learning from generation
Speaker 1: to generation, and so I think it is. It's just
Speaker 1: it would be so interesting to me if we could
Speaker 1: isolate whether they have learned how to use this medicine
Speaker 1: for like tummy aches when they have them, how that's taught.
Speaker 1: And so that's why this new observation with the seringutan
Speaker 1: is so exciting because it's like clearly directed towards this wound. Right,
Speaker 1: it's not just like randomly rubbing something. He's putting it
Speaker 1: specifically on this spot that's bothering him. Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, I think it's fun and it's kind of the
Speaker 2: question for me is that, like, is there like if
Speaker 2: an ape swallows it? Was it because a long time
Speaker 2: ago there was an ape who had some genetic predisposition
Speaker 2: that made him like the taste of swallowing it, and
Speaker 2: then turns out he was healthier. But either way, Like,
Speaker 2: I think this is really fascinating. And then I mean,
Speaker 2: you're probably gonna get to it, but I have thoughts
Speaker 2: about how this might affect humans. I'm sure we're going
Speaker 2: to talk about this later in the episode, but I
Speaker 2: think this is a very interesting thing to monitor. I mean,
Speaker 2: because I don't know this realm of science that well.
Speaker 2: Is our studies like this really common? Or is it
Speaker 2: hard to study aipes because there we don't have that
Speaker 2: many in captivity and we don't have the numbers or
Speaker 2: the money or the interest in doing it. How how
Speaker 2: are studies like this done? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think I think that the interest in it is high,
Speaker 1: but the difficulty is also extremely high. So the expense,
Speaker 1: the difficulty, Uh, the ethics as well, because a lot
Speaker 1: of these a lot of these primates you know, are
Speaker 1: not you know, they are in vulnerable positions, like irengutans
Speaker 1: are very vulnerable. So if you wanted to go out
Speaker 1: and capture a bunch of ringutans so that you could
Speaker 1: have them in a controlled environment, it would be very
Speaker 1: un ethical and you'd be breaking a bunch of conservation
Speaker 1: laws right, right, So it is very difficult, I think,
Speaker 1: to do these studies.
Speaker 2: It's all observational I guess.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and observation in the wild that might seem easier,
Speaker 1: but first like being able to observe these animals who
Speaker 1: are very cautious, right for good reason, because they do
Speaker 1: often come into conflict with humans that can end up
Speaker 1: killing them. So they're very private, very cautious, very so
Speaker 1: that it's hard to observe these behaviors because they're so secretive.
Speaker 1: And so the fact that we just have this documented
Speaker 1: observation again, like it's very possible locals have noticed this
Speaker 1: behavior before, right, they just didn't get their findings published
Speaker 1: in Nature. So it's like but the reason maybe this
Speaker 1: behavior is more common, but we wouldn't necessarily know. It's
Speaker 1: actually why one of the largest animals, well the largest
Speaker 1: animal in the world, blue whales, right, we know so
Speaker 1: little about them, which is weird because it's like, well,
Speaker 1: they're so big, we should know everything about them, but
Speaker 1: we can't study them very easily because to get to
Speaker 1: where they are is very difficult to sort of follow
Speaker 1: them and observe them in their natural environment, very difficult
Speaker 1: to study them. How do you do an autopsy on
Speaker 1: a blue whale? How do you do an MRI of
Speaker 1: a blue whale? It's it's extremely difficult. So it's like,
Speaker 1: there are these animals that are that are a huge
Speaker 1: feature of our world, right, and then it's so hard
Speaker 1: to study them. And I think that is the case
Speaker 1: with a lot of great apes. We do a lot
Speaker 1: of studies on primates in general, right, like Reese's monkeys,
Speaker 1: there are tons of studies on them. Smaller, smaller primates
Speaker 1: can be more closely studied, but yeah, I think for
Speaker 1: things like gorillas, for chimpanzees, for orient Tan's, it is
Speaker 1: even bonobo's, Like there there are a lot of studies,
Speaker 1: but it's really hard to do studies, say on like
Speaker 1: an actual social group of them, which is why, like
Speaker 1: Jane Goodall had to kind of go undercover for so
Speaker 1: long just to get this information on chimpanzees.
Speaker 2: Well, okay, I hate to jump ahead because you might
Speaker 2: already be planned to discuss this. But since you brought
Speaker 2: up like whales, are there examples of marine animals like
Speaker 2: dolphins really intelligent and we know are really intelligent doing
Speaker 2: anything similar. I'm sure it's much much harder to observe
Speaker 2: those things. But are there examples of other animals other
Speaker 2: than apes doing this sort of stuff? Oh?
Speaker 1: Absolutely, I mean you've probably even like if you have
Speaker 1: a dog or cat, you know that sometimes they'll eat
Speaker 1: grass right to make themselves throw up. That's a that's
Speaker 1: a form of self medication. There's a lot of self medication.
Speaker 1: And in terms of marine animals, it seems to be
Speaker 1: that dolphins will do things like use I don't know
Speaker 1: if this is necessarily self medication rather than like self protection,
Speaker 1: but they'll like use a sponge, a sea sponge to
Speaker 1: protect their nose when they're rooting around, say in some
Speaker 1: really like sharp like areas where it's like sandy. But
Speaker 1: then there's a lot of coral, so maybe it's sharp.
Speaker 1: So if they're rooting around for food there, they want
Speaker 1: to like a nose protection because otherwise they're gonna get
Speaker 1: little cuts on their nose. They've also they've also been
Speaker 1: observed sort of like like slightly chewing sort of on
Speaker 1: like certain like fish or marine animals that are have
Speaker 1: a like a neurotoxin. But if it's only imbibed a
Speaker 1: little bit, it can kind of get you high. Uh,
Speaker 1: dogs have been absorbed like licking coads.
Speaker 2: Bumper for those animals that are used just to get
Speaker 2: high for their animals.
Speaker 1: No, I know, it's kind of weird. It's gotta be
Speaker 1: weird to have like a dolphin like chew on you
Speaker 1: or nuzzle you because it's trying to get high. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it is. It is harder, I think, in
Speaker 1: general to observe dolphins and whales, and so they may
Speaker 1: be doing very complicated self medication that we don't really understand.
Speaker 1: But we're gonna take a quick break and when we
Speaker 1: get back, we're gonna answer the question of whether you
Speaker 1: actually need to be smart to do medicine. Oh, I'll
Speaker 1: answer that right now, all right, So I don't mean
Speaker 1: this as a jab at you. But the question of like,
Speaker 1: do you need to be intelligent to use medicine to
Speaker 1: self medicate, and interestingly, in the animal world, the answer
Speaker 1: seems to be no. So like it makes sense that
Speaker 1: maybe a chimpanzee or a dolphin or an elephant might
Speaker 1: learn how to use things from their habitat to self medicate,
Speaker 1: to treat themselves to do something that feels good, and
Speaker 1: then maybe they learn it from their parents. Maybe it's
Speaker 1: trial and error. But there are animals that are just
Speaker 1: like don't They come with sort of a set of
Speaker 1: pre programmed instructions and they are able to do relatively
Speaker 1: complex and intelligent things without having much of a cognitive landscape.
Speaker 1: So we are talking about fruit flies, which are fascinating
Speaker 1: little animals, but I wouldn't give them the award for
Speaker 1: like smartest animal.
Speaker 2: I've never seen any work of art that they've created.
Speaker 2: I think they're probably not that smart.
Speaker 1: Smear on window it is is a famous.
Speaker 2: One, but that's also because it's probably some squash them,
Speaker 2: so it's probably the human that squashed them. But real quick,
Speaker 2: before we get to that, you mentioned the dog and
Speaker 2: the cat before and how they would eat the grass,
Speaker 2: and I love dogs and cats. I like cats in particular,
Speaker 2: I'm a cat guy, but I don't I would never
Speaker 2: put their intelligence on the level of an ape. It's
Speaker 2: harder for me to believe they're eating grass to throw
Speaker 2: up like a kitty epicac if they if, I find
Speaker 2: it hard to believe that they're doing that purposely.
Speaker 1: I mean. So, it's interesting because in terms of dog
Speaker 1: and cat intelligence, dogs have been a lot of our
Speaker 1: understanding of dogs have kind of changed in a lot
Speaker 1: of like you know how we were talking about the
Speaker 1: difficulty of using apes in studies. There's this sort of
Speaker 1: movement to use more dogs and fewer apes in studies
Speaker 1: because it's more ethical. And also we're finding a lot
Speaker 1: about dog intelligent that they are a lot smarter than
Speaker 1: they appear to be. When they like run into the
Speaker 1: room for food and then slam into a wall because
Speaker 1: they ran too fast, they seem very dumb. But they
Speaker 1: actually do seem to have a lot of intelligence, especially
Speaker 1: given that they co evolved with us, that it seems
Speaker 1: that they have kind of been selected for some social intelligence,
Speaker 1: so they're not they don't seem to be on the
Speaker 1: same level as like primates, like great apes in terms
Speaker 1: of tool use things like that, but their social intelligence
Speaker 1: is actually relatively high in terms of specifically grass eating.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because like it is true that like, uh,
Speaker 1: they may sometimes just eat grass, not necessarily because they
Speaker 1: have a tummy ache or anything, but just because they
Speaker 1: like the taste. So it's like, it's what's really funny
Speaker 1: in terms of dog behavior is like sometimes they'll do
Speaker 1: something that makes it seem like they have a problem problem, right, Like, all,
Speaker 1: my dog's been eating a lot of grass lady lately,
Speaker 1: maybe he has some kind of stomach problem. And while
Speaker 1: that could be true, could also be your dog's bored
Speaker 1: and then realize grass tastes kind of interesting because he's
Speaker 1: sick of his food. There have been cases. Yeah, just
Speaker 1: like so it's it is. I would say that you're
Speaker 1: correct in that cats and dogs maybe have a less
Speaker 1: less finesse when it comes to self medicating compared to
Speaker 1: say a chimpanzee. But you know, I think that they
Speaker 1: do crave certain things when they're feeling, you know, like
Speaker 1: that there's there are ways to sort of diagnose dogs
Speaker 1: with say like an iron deficiency, right if they start
Speaker 1: eating their poop a lot because they're like craving some something,
Speaker 1: so like they may be self medicating, but it may
Speaker 1: not be maybe more just like they have these cravings
Speaker 1: and they want to fulfill that, and so they don't
Speaker 1: necessarily have to be as intelligent as an ape to
Speaker 1: do it.
Speaker 2: And listeners, listen here, I don't I don't mean to
Speaker 2: besmirch the intelligence of cats. And I want to those
Speaker 2: letters from dogs because of this episode, please, But you know,
Speaker 2: it is interesting you're kind of describing what in medicine
Speaker 2: we call pika pika pica, like when there's a deficiency
Speaker 2: in something. Sometimes people and children and will be driven
Speaker 2: to eat certain things like ice or whatever because there's
Speaker 2: some craving there's iron or something that they're missing.
Speaker 1: And the women too, right sometimes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean the question of like pregnancy, and
Speaker 2: again I'm not ubi kind, so I can't I have
Speaker 2: to preface it with that. But I find that's an
Speaker 2: interesting topic too, Like cravings, how real is that? How
Speaker 2: much of that is a wives tale? And like what
Speaker 2: that might be due to if it's there. I think
Speaker 2: that's a really interesting topic too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because like if you're told to expect that, right, like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have cravings, and also you're going through all
Speaker 1: of these huge hormone changes and you're not feeling very good,
Speaker 1: and you're like, well, you know what, I do like
Speaker 1: ice cream, so maybe I'll have some of that. And
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, you're craving ice cream. It's like, who isn't?
Speaker 2: Yeah? And pickles are great, Yeah, I want pickles. I
Speaker 2: want ice cream.
Speaker 1: And if you're like hungrier right the normal, maybe you're
Speaker 1: like and you also are dealing with nausea. Like when
Speaker 1: I have like a stomach issue, I have cravings for
Speaker 1: food that is safe to me, right, Like, I really
Speaker 1: like a specific kind of sandwich or something, So I'm
Speaker 1: craving that because any other food sounds repulsive because I
Speaker 1: just had the stomach flu. So I feel like that
Speaker 1: may also be a factor. It's so hard to isolate
Speaker 1: those things when there's so much influence of like society
Speaker 1: and then also everything else going on in pregnancy, right, So,
Speaker 1: to do a really bad segue from pregnancy to fruit flies, fruitflies,
Speaker 1: when they're pregnant, they make some interesting decisions as well.
Speaker 1: That was actually a pretty good segue.
Speaker 3: Ye.
Speaker 1: Fruit flies seem to dynamically respond to their environment in
Speaker 1: terms of medicating their offspring. So fruit flies they eat fruit,
Speaker 1: and they can either eat fresh or rotting fruit. And
Speaker 1: you know, of course fruit is on sort of a
Speaker 1: spectrum of freshness. But if they eat the rotting fruit,
Speaker 1: like really really rotting fruit, as the sugars are breaking down,
Speaker 1: its creating a lot of ethanol. So they will get
Speaker 1: a lot of ethanol by eating say a very rotten
Speaker 1: banana versus a more relatively fresh banana. And having too
Speaker 1: much ethanol for fruitfly actually reduces its overall fitness. So
Speaker 1: in general they don't overindulge in the rotting in the
Speaker 1: rotting fruit. However, female fruit flies seem to dynamically make
Speaker 1: a decision of where they will lay their eggs based
Speaker 1: on whether they see a parasitoid wasp or not. So
Speaker 1: this was a study called Fruitflies Medicaid Offspring after seeing
Speaker 1: parasites by schlank at All at the University of Arizona.
Speaker 1: So researchers are always mean to bugs. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: fine because we learn a lot, but you know, they're
Speaker 1: just scaring these poor bugs. So they expose these fruitflies
Speaker 1: to basically they show them a parasitoid wasp, and so
Speaker 1: you know, the little fruitflies scream in terror, we can't
Speaker 1: hear them, and then they decide to lay their eggs
Speaker 1: on rotting fruit rather than fresh fruit. And so just
Speaker 1: to give a rundown of what is a parasitoid wasp,
Speaker 1: So a parasitoid rather than a parasite, is something that
Speaker 1: is both a parasite but then also ends up killing you.
Speaker 1: So like it is it functionally it eats you. So
Speaker 1: like both paris it's both parasite and predator. So a
Speaker 1: parasitoid wasp will lay her eggs in or on its victims,
Speaker 1: and then when those eggs hatch, the larva will eat
Speaker 1: that victim slowly, either from the inside out or from
Speaker 1: the surface, just sucking out your juices.
Speaker 2: Just oh, nightmare. Yeah, fuel, it's the worst. When people
Speaker 2: post videos of this, I have to watch it and
Speaker 2: I hate myself for it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's one where it's like a caterpillar exploding with larvae.
Speaker 1: It's not great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh my god.
Speaker 1: So these fruit flies obviously don't want this horrifying fate
Speaker 1: for their offspring. Now, when I say want, I always
Speaker 1: have to preface it with like when we're talking about
Speaker 1: like a dog or a chimpanzee, they can have actual
Speaker 1: wants and desires. When we're talking about fruitflies, I think
Speaker 1: that they have a very basic consciousness, but it's hard
Speaker 1: to say that they are reasoning like, uh oh, a parasitoid.
Speaker 1: I don't want my offspring to be victim to this.
Speaker 1: It's something that is much more like an instinct that
Speaker 1: is like a computer program, where it's like an if
Speaker 1: then statement. Right, if I see this, then I do this.
Speaker 1: So when they're shown a parasitoid wasp, they will lay
Speaker 1: their eggs on this rotting fruit, and that high ethanol content.
Speaker 1: If the parasitoid lays its eggs inside of these little
Speaker 1: fruit fly larva, that high ethanol content actually kills off
Speaker 1: the developing larva, and so it kills off that internal
Speaker 1: parasite and so right, And so the trade off being
Speaker 1: that if I don't see a parasitoid wasp, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to lay it on rotting fruit because that high
Speaker 1: ethanol content is actually not great for us, but we
Speaker 1: don't die. But if I see a parasitoid wasp, then
Speaker 1: I will risk that because the trade off is worth
Speaker 1: protecting my offspring from an almost certain fatal case of
Speaker 1: parasitoid wasp larvae, and they're so specific about it. They
Speaker 1: only do this when they see a female parasitoid wasp.
Speaker 1: They don't do this when they see a male parasitoid wasp.
Speaker 1: So they really are just kind of keyed for the
Speaker 1: most reasonable, most efficient kind of like, Okay, if I
Speaker 1: see this, this means imminent danger, and therefore I'm going
Speaker 1: to take the risk of laying my eggs on something
Speaker 1: with a high ethanol content.
Speaker 2: So, yes, this is fascinating to me because you know,
Speaker 2: in medicine there are some suggested parallels or at least
Speaker 2: something I find parallel, like, for example, that there is
Speaker 2: a thought that the evolution of sickle cell anemia is
Speaker 2: because it would be protective against malaria, that the malaria cell,
Speaker 2: the parasite that causes malaria, is halted in some way
Speaker 2: by sickle cells, so that therefore people who had the
Speaker 2: sickle cell trait could be more resistant to the disease.
Speaker 2: I'm not an evolutionary biologist, but I found that like fascinating,
Speaker 2: so like it totally makes sense to me that this
Speaker 2: could happen on some very small level, not like obviously purposeful.
Speaker 2: Because of the fruit flies are dumb. I'm not afraid
Speaker 2: to say it. I'm not afraid to say it. Cancel me, fruitflies, fruit.
Speaker 1: Fly furiously trying to type a negative review of the podcast,
Speaker 1: but it can't depress the key because it's too small.
Speaker 1: So no, I mean that is it is a really
Speaker 1: interesting example in humans because it is like sickle cell
Speaker 1: anemia is not ideal, right, it's not like having that
Speaker 1: trait is good in all aspects, right, but specifically in
Speaker 1: terms of preventing negative effects of malaria, it is good.
Speaker 1: So it's a trade off. When you're in a higher
Speaker 1: risk environment, you may want some kind of trade off
Speaker 1: of something and an adaptive trait that's not maybe ideal
Speaker 1: in all circumstances, but in this high risk environment it
Speaker 1: is the best choice, which is you know, I mean
Speaker 1: it isn't It's like it's also probably as a doctor,
Speaker 1: it's the same thing when choosing a treatment, a medical treatment, right,
Speaker 1: there may be some treatments that aren't like you would
Speaker 1: not give to a healthy person because they would be
Speaker 1: bad for a healthy person to take, But for say
Speaker 1: a cancer patient, this is the best possible treatment in
Speaker 1: this circumstance.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely correct, And so yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's funny because it's like it feels
Speaker 1: so intentional because when we do it, like when doctors
Speaker 1: do it, when we do it, it is intentional. But
Speaker 1: for these fruit flies, it is just they have been
Speaker 1: programmed by millions of years of evolution of of you know,
Speaker 1: those that survive end up surviving, and those that don't,
Speaker 1: well that's it, and creating this very complicated almost like
Speaker 1: you know, computer program telling it, guiding it how to
Speaker 1: find the most efficient and most probable way to ensure
Speaker 1: that their genetic offspring survive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's very cool. That is very cool.
Speaker 1: Yes, no, I love it. Fruit Flies also, I think
Speaker 1: are really cute. But I think everything is cool. Really yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean you know they got them.
Speaker 2: Do you like they do the thing where they clean
Speaker 2: their face, they're cleaning their heads.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's she's doing it. It's very good. I feel
Speaker 1: like I'm in the room with a fruit fly right now. Yes,
Speaker 1: Or gonna take a quick break, and when we get back,
Speaker 1: we're gonna ask the question, like our animals good doctors?
Speaker 1: All right, and we're back, and so the question is
Speaker 1: our animals good doctors? Well no, but we are gonna
Speaker 1: answer the more complicated question of like, what can we
Speaker 1: learn from animals in terms of actual medicine, although I
Speaker 1: don't I do not want to besmirch the noble profession
Speaker 1: of therapy dogs.
Speaker 3: They're good.
Speaker 1: They're good dog doctors, you know. Okay, So here here's
Speaker 1: a uh, this is an off the cuve question I
Speaker 1: have for you. There's a bunch of stuff about like
Speaker 1: dogs being able to sniff cancer, and I find that
Speaker 1: very interesting, but it also seems like medically it would
Speaker 1: be kind of uh. I mean, it seems like it'd
Speaker 1: be very difficult to use that as a diagnostic technique,
Speaker 1: to use dogs.
Speaker 2: I have not seen any evidence that that's real. I
Speaker 2: may have missed it, but I have not. I've heard
Speaker 2: of this. I've heard of things like dogs being able
Speaker 2: to trains bila stif out cancer and dogs or cats
Speaker 2: who can detect when someone's about to die in the
Speaker 2: nursing home and they go sit by them and there.
Speaker 2: I mean, you could I could handwave a lot of
Speaker 2: explanations for that what might be happening and the smells
Speaker 2: that they're picking up on a level that we never
Speaker 2: would be able to understand. But I have a hard time.
Speaker 2: I have a hard time buying that one. Unless I
Speaker 2: see something really reputable come out and explain what's happening,
Speaker 2: or show in testing that it's possible. I would have
Speaker 2: a hard time. My guess is there's probably people who
Speaker 2: have cancer and they're like taking medicine that might have
Speaker 2: might change something, might it might have a smell or
Speaker 2: something like that, and that stands out to the to
Speaker 2: the dog. I can't I can't quite see how you
Speaker 2: would like hold like a cancer in front of a dog, right,
Speaker 2: and they'd be like, go go get it, go get it,
Speaker 2: and they hunt down in the hup of body.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you shrink the dog real small, maybe you
Speaker 1: could get the dog to hunt down the cancer inside
Speaker 1: the body. Now, I mean there have been studies that
Speaker 1: show dogs can't like you. I mean, dog noses are
Speaker 1: incredibly powerful. So you can get them to smell out
Speaker 1: like compounds right that would be found in cancers, and
Speaker 1: to like, you know, give a positive signal to like
Speaker 1: I can smell this, right, and to select the thing
Speaker 1: that has that compound. The problem is with dog behavior,
Speaker 1: like first of all, whether a person who actually has
Speaker 1: cancer would have enough of that that could be smelled.
Speaker 1: And also, uh, when you have like dogs aren't good
Speaker 1: at just like most people won't have that, right. And
Speaker 1: so if you have a dog sitting at you know,
Speaker 1: at the front of a hospital smelling everyone who comes in,
Speaker 1: if they're not getting a positive signal, uh, they're eventually
Speaker 1: gonna stop caring because they're not getting any rewards. So
Speaker 1: it does like the dog behavior is not like a
Speaker 1: dog is not going to be motivated in the same
Speaker 1: way as a blood test, right, because the dog has
Speaker 1: its own motivations. And so to smell like a thousand
Speaker 1: people and it's like, yeah, I don't smell anything. Eventually
Speaker 1: the dog's gonna be like, well, even if I get
Speaker 1: a positive signal, I've lost I've lost the plot here.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, by the time you take that patient,
Speaker 2: he smells and they get that patient tested and then
Speaker 2: you're like, okay, we got the MRI and it does
Speaker 2: show that there's a mass here. Here's a treat. The
Speaker 2: dog will be like, what's this for?
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, exactly, Okay, I'm glad we're on the same
Speaker 1: page as saying dogs are not ready to be doctors.
Speaker 1: They're great, they're great at emotional therapy though and things
Speaker 1: like that. But so Yes. One thing that I really
Speaker 1: love about humans is that we will take a look
Speaker 1: at the most venomous, toxic, dangerous animal and go like, huh,
Speaker 1: could we like take that venom that makes us like
Speaker 1: lead out of our eyes and then turn it into
Speaker 1: medicine And we do it and it's it's amazing. So
Speaker 1: gilla monsters, which are sorry, HeLa monsters which are found
Speaker 1: in southwest US, have a potent venom that contains a
Speaker 1: number of peptides and toxins that results in a very
Speaker 1: nasty bite. They would be as venomous as like a rattlesnake,
Speaker 1: except that they don't deliver as much of that venom
Speaker 1: per bite, although they are much more tenacious than a rattlesnake.
Speaker 1: They will bite and hold and it can be very
Speaker 1: difficult to pry them off of you. But yeah, so
Speaker 1: it's typically not lethal, but it's still extremely painful. Uh,
Speaker 1: and it has killed some people. So definitely don't like
Speaker 1: relax Like if well, relax, but relax and drive yourself
Speaker 1: to the hospital or call someone to drive you to
Speaker 1: the hospital. Don't drive yourself to the hospital if you've
Speaker 1: got a gill a monster, heel a monster on your arm.
Speaker 1: What am I saying?
Speaker 2: Get someone to drive, don't bring that hospital.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, don't you know, try to make sure the
Speaker 1: heal monster is not attached to you when you go
Speaker 1: to the hospital. Anyways, the point is the bite is
Speaker 1: bad and you don't want to get it. But the
Speaker 1: venom is very interesting and it has so many compounds
Speaker 1: that in terms of being bitten by it is really
Speaker 1: bad for you. Causes all of these, uh you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of pain, a lot of bleeding, a lot
Speaker 1: of swelling. But because it is these compounds that can
Speaker 1: interfere with things, like you know, interact with yourselves. When
Speaker 1: they examined these, they were able to isolate a specific
Speaker 1: compound that is similar in structure, the g LP one hormone.
Speaker 1: So this it was called a it's called a extending four.
Speaker 1: I feel like this is just Pokemon names. Now.
Speaker 2: I can't I can't help you. If you're looking for
Speaker 2: me to help you with this, I'm a no one.
Speaker 1: Can no one can help.
Speaker 3: But like so.
Speaker 1: Just it's just imagine a bunch of protein shapes and
Speaker 1: they all have like weird pokemon names, and you're supposed
Speaker 1: to remember them, but it's nobody does. So, Uh, this
Speaker 1: it's it's a compound that is similar enough to this
Speaker 1: GLP one hormone that, among other things, controls blood sugar
Speaker 1: levels uh in humans, and so it's actually has use
Speaker 1: in helping to treat type two diabetes, which is amazing
Speaker 1: that you can do. You can like take this venom
Speaker 1: from this reptile that like it's developed. Like imagine being
Speaker 1: a helo monster where it's like I have developed this
Speaker 1: and them over many hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, uh,
Speaker 1: to mess with with you like to to hunt prey
Speaker 1: and to ward off predators or busy bodies like humans.
Speaker 1: And then we're like, oh, yes, please, let's uh, let's
Speaker 1: use that to treat ourselves of our diseases. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's gotta be kind of insulting.
Speaker 2: It's it's I think it's pretty cool. So GLP lukagon
Speaker 2: like peptide is a big part of you know, how
Speaker 2: we are our endocrine system works, and it's broken down
Speaker 2: pretty quickly in the human body when it's made indogenously.
Speaker 2: And I'm curious, you know, like you know if the
Speaker 2: function of the GLP like or the glucagon like peptides
Speaker 2: that the helo monster is making how they function in
Speaker 2: a different way. That's fascinating, and I could be like,
Speaker 2: I mean, you're probably gonna tell me it sounds like
Speaker 2: it could be very useful to humans.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean it can be used. This compound
Speaker 1: that has was originally derived from the Heala monster is
Speaker 1: used like in treating type two diabetes, uh to kind
Speaker 1: of help control the the blood sugar regulation after eating,
Speaker 1: because like type I mean, correct me if I'm wrong,
Speaker 1: but type two diabetes, one of the main issues is
Speaker 1: that the you know, like the ability to regulate blood sugar,
Speaker 1: especially after a meal no longer like there's almost this
Speaker 1: resistance right to insulin such that you can no longer regulate,
Speaker 1: so you can have these big spikes or big drops
Speaker 1: in blood sugar that can be dangerous.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. It's a it's a big part of
Speaker 2: the diabetes process. And I did not know that the
Speaker 2: WHI which medicine? Do you know that the brand name
Speaker 2: of the medicine that was derived from the Healo monster
Speaker 2: any chance, because I don't know. I don't know this story.
Speaker 2: I think that's incredible.
Speaker 1: Let's see, I'm looking at it too. I'm also I'm
Speaker 1: googling it. Medicine drug eccentotide.
Speaker 2: I don't know it, but I'm also not indocrinologists, so
Speaker 2: I guess that's not surprising.
Speaker 1: Let me just make sure if we're actually is accnotide
Speaker 1: like how because like exenatide.
Speaker 2: Let me look at it up here.
Speaker 1: I thought it was actually you cenotype exxenotide. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: looks like it's uh, looks like it is. It has
Speaker 1: been approved. It was approved for medical use in the
Speaker 1: US in two thousand and five.
Speaker 2: How do you spell it?
Speaker 1: E X E N A T I D E.
Speaker 2: Okay, Uh. Look, I'm trying to see if they have
Speaker 2: it in my so, you know, we have like our
Speaker 2: medical resources that we go to to look at medications.
Speaker 2: I'm wondering if they have it. Like the story of it,
Speaker 2: I think that's so fascinating.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a I mean I used to work at
Speaker 1: a It was like a scientific science communication company that
Speaker 1: did stuff for pharmaceutical companies, and I do remember having
Speaker 1: to carefully look up pictures of HeLa monsters for some
Speaker 1: kind of presentation, So perhaps that's what it was. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was a It's sold under the brand named Baieta,
Speaker 1: among others.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not why I will I have to say that,
Speaker 2: you know, as a I'm a GI doctor. As a
Speaker 2: GI doctor and GI and liver, I don't treat diabetes,
Speaker 2: and I think that the guys who do the end
Speaker 2: of prenologists, who really delve into the details of it
Speaker 2: like this, I think it's really fascinating, like hormonal stuff
Speaker 2: that's over my head. But I think this is just
Speaker 2: this is this is a fun example of like turning
Speaker 2: something that someone probably thought was silly research into something
Speaker 2: incredibly useful for humans. Ye, Like at some point someone
Speaker 2: was doing research on healo monsters and someone was saying,
Speaker 2: why are you wasting our government time and money, our
Speaker 2: taxpayer time and money on this thing? And look how
Speaker 2: it's helped in a very significant way. I assume I
Speaker 2: don't use the medication, but I assume it's a pretty
Speaker 2: significant benefit to humans.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's at least another sort of like tool in
Speaker 1: our arsenal tool to treat it. Yeah, exactly, And I
Speaker 1: mean it is. And this is a story that seems
Speaker 1: to be repeated, especially for like it's seems like the
Speaker 1: nastier the toxin is, like the more intriguing it can
Speaker 1: be in terms of like finding things that can actually
Speaker 1: be useful. I am not saying you should let yourself
Speaker 1: get bitten by any of these things. You will at
Speaker 1: worst die and at least be an incredible pain. So
Speaker 1: this is not how you are treated by this. They
Speaker 1: have to isolate the compound that is actually responsible for
Speaker 1: the good stuff and on all the bad things, like
Speaker 1: you know, coagulation that's happening inside your body that's not good.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so things like snake venom that can be
Speaker 1: really dangerous in nature like that, because like snake venom
Speaker 1: can contain both like anticoagulants and coagulants at the same
Speaker 1: time sometimes so it can like make you cause clotting,
Speaker 1: but also like internal bleeding, it can like cause dangerous
Speaker 1: drops in blood pressure.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: Researchers can isolate and synthesize these compounds and use them
Speaker 1: to actually treat either blood pressure conditions or blood clotting
Speaker 1: issues in humans, or heart related conditions or prevent hearted tacks.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like it's amazing because this thing that
Speaker 1: like if one of these snakes bites you, it could
Speaker 1: cause like a heart attack or dangerous clots. But then
Speaker 1: you isolate these compounds, you synthesize them, and then you
Speaker 1: can create a drug that can actually protect you. It's amazing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like, you know, the bigger the effect it
Speaker 2: has negatively, the more thought there is that there are
Speaker 2: such active components within it that could be teased apart
Speaker 2: and looked at that could be useful.
Speaker 1: That is yeah exactly, I know. But we like to
Speaker 1: see the silver lining in the deadly toxin the full
Speaker 1: kind of people exactly. One of my favorite examples is
Speaker 1: cone snails. Cone snails are these beautiful mollusks that they
Speaker 1: have these really pretty shells. Never pick one of them up.
Speaker 1: Just you can look up images of cone snails. They're
Speaker 1: they're quite nice and a lot of like beach comerce
Speaker 1: will sometimes pick one up and they lovely. But they
Speaker 1: have this harpoon that they shoot out, and it can
Speaker 1: be deadly in humans and at the very least incredibly painful,
Speaker 1: and it is meant to paralyze prey. But the thing
Speaker 1: that's interesting and kind of an oxymoron with this is
Speaker 1: while all this can be incredibly painful, it can also
Speaker 1: be numbing. And researchers looked into these specific com compounds
Speaker 1: in this. They call it conotoxin, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: the nose a little on the nose, but it's you
Speaker 1: don't want it on the nose though, Uh so it
Speaker 1: can actually because they they're there. The method of action
Speaker 1: is by interfering with receptors on nerves like nerve cells
Speaker 1: that can actually be used as an intense pain relieving drug.
Speaker 1: So it's interesting because it's a specific drug called I
Speaker 1: think zacona tide. Again, not very original name. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: it's but it's like, uh, it can only it's not
Speaker 1: like a pill you take it. It can only be
Speaker 1: I think like through a spinal a spinal dripper. It's
Speaker 1: not it's not like super convenient, but it's like, if
Speaker 1: you have like severe pain that is not responding to
Speaker 1: other treatments, like chronic pain that's not responding to other treatments,
Speaker 1: this is a possible treatment. And it's from this thing
Speaker 1: that like is just horrifying and causes horrifying injuries if
Speaker 1: you get struck by one in the wild.
Speaker 2: That is fascinating. I just looked it up. The cone
Speaker 2: sale venom peptide ultimately ultimately became pre alt, so I
Speaker 2: guess that's the brand name of it. I don't know
Speaker 2: what the generic is, but yeah, that's so cool. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and this cone I'm looking, I'm looking at a picture
Speaker 2: of it. It looks like the kind you would see
Speaker 2: on a beach though anywhere. That's that's a little scary.
Speaker 1: It's a little scary.
Speaker 2: I mean they warned me about picking up snails.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, so cone snails I think generally are found. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like the western Indo Pacific region. Yeah, if you
Speaker 1: see a really cool shell, maybe hesitate before picking it up,
Speaker 1: like you can. I think if you look up images
Speaker 1: of cone shells, it's a specific conical shape that they
Speaker 1: have to them that you can know to avoid, like
Speaker 1: if it's a clamshell, right, Like, that's okay?
Speaker 2: Can I can I bring up one more interesting fact
Speaker 2: about this? So the name pre alt b r I
Speaker 2: ALT is the name of the medication, and they named
Speaker 2: it that way because it's short for primary alternative to morphine. Interesting,
Speaker 2: they were very ambitious about that.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know how because it doesn't
Speaker 1: seem like this is super widely used. It seems like
Speaker 1: it's used in specific cases where someone has, like in
Speaker 1: track pull, chronic pain and they don't want to use morphine.
Speaker 1: So and it's you know, it's also not a super
Speaker 1: convenient method of delivery, so but still it's still really
Speaker 1: neat that It's like, this is this thing that is
Speaker 1: designed to kill prey and inflict pain upon threats, and
Speaker 1: yet we're like, yeah, but what if we put that
Speaker 1: in our spines?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, humans rock.
Speaker 1: Yeah. A couple of honorary mentions before we end the
Speaker 1: show is a shark skin which has is this very
Speaker 1: rough texture on this microscopic scale, which inhibits the growth
Speaker 1: of bacteria. And so there's this idea of creating artificial
Speaker 1: shark skin in hospital settings to discourage the growth of
Speaker 1: bacteria on surfaces. This is not a reality yet, but
Speaker 1: I am definitely looking forward to just like a shark
Speaker 1: themed hospital with everything made out of shark. Not real sharks,
Speaker 1: because we love the sharks and we don't want to hurt,
Speaker 1: but artificial shark skin.
Speaker 2: This is how a spider man villain is created.
Speaker 1: Just so you know, Doctor. Also, mosquito proboscises are so
Speaker 1: good at inserting into skin that is painless because they
Speaker 1: don't want to alert you to their presence that researchers
Speaker 1: have been looking into the design of their their proboscis
Speaker 1: is and they actually have an interesting design where it's
Speaker 1: like these two sharp points that like that are like twins,
Speaker 1: and then they kind of like do this like stepping
Speaker 1: motion down into the skin, and that somehow does it
Speaker 1: in a way that is very precise and less destructive
Speaker 1: because they don't want to cut these mosquitos. They don't
Speaker 1: want to hurt you because then you swat at them,
Speaker 1: so they want it to be painless, and having it
Speaker 1: be painless actually causes less damage, and then that's how
Speaker 1: they will suck blood. And so researchers are currently trying
Speaker 1: to figure out can we make really really precise syringes
Speaker 1: with these that could like limit damage, right, like in
Speaker 1: some kind of like I don't know because I'm not
Speaker 1: a doctor, but some kind of situation where you'd want
Speaker 1: a very precise injection or to make syringes less painful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, for nothing else, Like intramuscular injections, that'd
Speaker 2: be great. Yeah, you know, like an I AM injection
Speaker 2: of something. You know how well that would hold up
Speaker 2: being injected into a blood vessel. That might be a
Speaker 2: real challenge. Yeah, but I don't see any It seems
Speaker 2: very feasible that you could create a painless way to deliver,
Speaker 2: like a vaccine or a shot or something like that.
Speaker 1: Finally somewhere to apply my project of creating giant mutated mosquitoes.
Speaker 1: I haven't been able to get a government grant for
Speaker 1: it because they're like, why would we want that?
Speaker 2: And here's why, so short sighted of them.
Speaker 1: Well, before we go, I, if you have time, I'd
Speaker 1: like to play a quick game called the Mystery Animal
Speaker 1: Sound Game, where I play a mystery animal sound and you,
Speaker 1: the guests, and you the audience, try to guess who
Speaker 1: is making that sound.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know the show. I'm ready for you. I
Speaker 2: knew this was coming, so I prepared and I've listened
Speaker 2: to all the animals.
Speaker 1: You've listened to every You've listened to every That's well.
Speaker 2: I have a I have a book with my kid.
Speaker 2: I play a lot where my kids and I think
Speaker 2: like the.
Speaker 1: Dog goes bark, bark, quiz, how goes what? Yeah? That's good.
Speaker 1: That's very good. All right, So the hint for this
Speaker 1: one is all well that ends well, okay, So that
Speaker 1: did you hear that?
Speaker 2: That was terrifying?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I did hear it.
Speaker 1: It's pretty intense. It does sound uh like the coming
Speaker 1: of the Demon Apocalypse. But you got any guesses for
Speaker 1: who is making this sound?
Speaker 2: Okay? I was gonna say some sort of ape. The
Speaker 2: fact that you made the Shakespeare reference though, I'm trying
Speaker 2: to think, like, is there a Shakespearean this is.
Speaker 1: Wait, this is too smart for this. You're being too
Speaker 1: smart for me.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna say. I'm gonna say, macaw.
Speaker 1: That is a great guess because you are in the
Speaker 1: right general sort of order of things. This is a
Speaker 1: barn owl. See, you were going for like a Shakespeare
Speaker 1: thing far off. Yeah, I was just going all owls,
Speaker 1: Well that ends well, because owls, it's you're mistake. Yeah,
Speaker 1: You're mistake was assuming that this was a smart show.
Speaker 2: I don't think maccaw had anything to do with Shakespeare,
Speaker 2: so I don't. I don't know where I got that from.
Speaker 1: I mean I think in in what Taming of the
Speaker 1: Macaw that was that was one of them.
Speaker 2: I remember that.
Speaker 1: So it is a barn owl. So these guys are
Speaker 1: I think there's some of the more beautiful looking elegant owls.
Speaker 1: For being so elegant looking, they have this horrifying screeching call.
Speaker 1: It does sound like they are trying to summon satan
Speaker 1: to their evil cause. But instead it's actually just a
Speaker 1: sweet call that they're making. The male screech who invite
Speaker 1: females to his nest, and females use it to recrest
Speaker 1: food from their male partners, So it is a not
Speaker 1: an aggressive thing necessarily.
Speaker 2: So the is that not a thing? So those are yeah, no, that's.
Speaker 1: Now calls just different species of owls. You'll hear that
Speaker 1: from like bar owls to Okay, I know that sounds similar,
Speaker 1: but there's barn owls and there's bar owls. That's not confusing,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, a lot of owl species will have
Speaker 1: the who the hooting, but the barnew has this awful screech,
Speaker 1: which honestly though with the female barnow screeching for her
Speaker 1: mate to give her food, like, I really relate to that,
Speaker 1: Like as soon as I hear crinkling in the kitchen,
Speaker 1: like I'm in there just screeching at the top of
Speaker 1: my lungs for my husband to share whatever it is
Speaker 1: with me. So onto this week's mystery animal sound. The
Speaker 1: hint is this, it makes this sound with its body
Speaker 1: as it moves under your feet. Okay, so did you
Speaker 1: hear that like gurgling?
Speaker 2: Sound I did. I'm gonna suit I guess, Yeah, you
Speaker 2: can guess. That's the sound of a male graboid from
Speaker 2: the Build series Tremors.
Speaker 1: That is so close it's not correct, But you are,
Speaker 1: you are on the right track. I You'll find out
Speaker 1: what the answer to this question is. I'm next episode
Speaker 1: of Freaky Feature. Is it a graboid? Are Graboid's real?
Speaker 1: Perhaps I'm not saying no, Anything's possible. Well, stay tuned,
Speaker 1: Stay tuned well, Doctor keave Hoda, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for joining me today. Where can people find you?
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me? This is really fun. I
Speaker 2: really appreciate those those I learned a ton, so thank
Speaker 2: you so much. They can find me on my podcast.
Speaker 2: Where is all the podcast? And places will have it?
Speaker 2: Should have it? They don't let me know? I will.
Speaker 2: I will get it there for you. It is called
Speaker 2: the House of Pod. It is a Emmer adjacent medical
Speaker 2: podcast when we cover public health topics and where they
Speaker 2: intersect with the news and pop culture. And I know
Speaker 2: you might not think you like a medical show, but
Speaker 2: it's not that medical and it's fun. So give it
Speaker 2: a shot and you can follow me anywhere you do
Speaker 2: your social media. I'm still on Twitter, brave Man, be there.
Speaker 2: Yeah I don't. Yeah, it's a whole thing, but I
Speaker 2: am there, so you can find me there, and thank
Speaker 2: you again, thanks so much. This is a blast.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, and I highly recommend the podcast. I love
Speaker 1: this kind of podcast because, like, I'm very interested in medicine,
Speaker 1: and yet I am too squeamish and lazy to have
Speaker 1: ever really gotten into medicine. So I but I do
Speaker 1: love to listen and to read about it, and so
Speaker 1: I feel like it's a really accessible way if you're like,
Speaker 1: if it's like your hobby, right, I'm not saying you
Speaker 1: should go and do surgery as your hobby, but listening
Speaker 1: to medical podcasts as a hobby I think is very
Speaker 1: healthy and.
Speaker 2: We will not get you sued, very unlikely.
Speaker 1: Yes, thank you guys so much for listening. If you're
Speaker 1: enjoying the show and you leave a rating and review,
Speaker 1: it actually helps me. And I read every single one
Speaker 1: of them. I print them all out and I hand
Speaker 1: them out like flyers to people to be like, hey, look,
Speaker 1: people like me. This is evidence right here. And thanks
Speaker 1: to the Space Classics for their super awesome song Exo Lumina.
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Speaker 1: favorite shows. I'm not sure, mother, I can't tell you
Speaker 1: what to do. I can't tell you how to live
Speaker 1: your life. That's a you decision, baby. The next Wednesday,