1
00:00:07,840 --> 00:00:11,320
Speaker 1: There's a new comment approaching from deep space. Could we

2
00:00:11,400 --> 00:00:13,760
Speaker 1: get sick if it's dust gets in our face?

3
00:00:14,320 --> 00:00:19,040
Speaker 2: The jewel wasp parasitoid feels around its host brain. How

4
00:00:19,079 --> 00:00:22,720
Speaker 2: did evolution come up with this? It's totally insane.

5
00:00:22,680 --> 00:00:27,240
Speaker 1: Scientific theory, model, hypothesis or law. Do these words really

6
00:00:27,320 --> 00:00:29,040
Speaker 1: mean anything or naw?

7
00:00:29,680 --> 00:00:32,720
Speaker 2: Whatever? Questions keep you up at night. Daniel and Kelly's

8
00:00:32,720 --> 00:00:33,800
Speaker 2: answers will make it right.

9
00:00:34,240 --> 00:00:38,040
Speaker 1: Welcome to another Listener Questions episode on Daniel and Kelly's

10
00:00:38,159 --> 00:00:39,840
Speaker 1: Extraordinary Universe.

11
00:00:40,120 --> 00:00:41,680
Speaker 2: We've done twenty two of these.

12
00:00:55,480 --> 00:00:55,920
Speaker 3: Hello.

13
00:00:56,000 --> 00:00:59,640
Speaker 2: I'm Kelly Wiersmith. I study parasites and space, and all

14
00:00:59,680 --> 00:01:02,160
Speaker 2: of these questions today have a bit of biology in them,

15
00:01:02,200 --> 00:01:03,400
Speaker 2: so I'm pretty excited about it.

16
00:01:03,920 --> 00:01:06,800
Speaker 1: Hi. I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist, and I'll admit

17
00:01:06,840 --> 00:01:08,840
Speaker 1: there's a bit of biology in everything we do.

18
00:01:09,319 --> 00:01:11,800
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, but there's not physics in everything we do,

19
00:01:11,840 --> 00:01:12,880
Speaker 2: so that's good news.

20
00:01:13,360 --> 00:01:16,320
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, no, of course there physics is everything.

21
00:01:16,640 --> 00:01:16,920
Speaker 3: Yeah.

22
00:01:17,000 --> 00:01:18,560
Speaker 2: I guess I should have gone with chemistry, and then

23
00:01:18,560 --> 00:01:20,960
Speaker 2: we could have bonded even though we knew we were

24
00:01:21,000 --> 00:01:22,000
Speaker 2: wrong exactly.

25
00:01:22,040 --> 00:01:24,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, then we could confirm each other's biases.

26
00:01:24,280 --> 00:01:26,520
Speaker 2: Yep, yep, anyway, I blew it, I'm sor right moving on.

27
00:01:26,880 --> 00:01:28,920
Speaker 1: But today we're not here to talk about my biases

28
00:01:29,000 --> 00:01:32,520
Speaker 1: or about your biases. We're here to answer questions from you,

29
00:01:32,880 --> 00:01:35,600
Speaker 1: from people out there wondering how the universe works, trying

30
00:01:35,600 --> 00:01:37,880
Speaker 1: to make sense of it and scratching their heads a

31
00:01:37,920 --> 00:01:38,880
Speaker 1: little bit, And.

32
00:01:38,840 --> 00:01:41,000
Speaker 2: We try to help you scratch your heads for a

33
00:01:41,040 --> 00:01:43,800
Speaker 2: slightly shorter amount of time. And so if you have

34
00:01:43,880 --> 00:01:46,040
Speaker 2: a question that is keeping you up at night, send

35
00:01:46,080 --> 00:01:49,960
Speaker 2: it to us at questions at Danielankelly dot org. It

36
00:01:50,040 --> 00:01:52,600
Speaker 2: might take a few months for the answers to come

37
00:01:52,640 --> 00:01:55,320
Speaker 2: back to you and go online, but we answer every

38
00:01:55,400 --> 00:01:58,320
Speaker 2: question at least by email, and some of them even

39
00:01:58,400 --> 00:01:58,720
Speaker 2: make it.

40
00:01:58,680 --> 00:02:01,600
Speaker 1: On the show because we believe in the value of

41
00:02:01,680 --> 00:02:06,240
Speaker 1: human curiosity. I'm interested in particles, Kelly's interested in parasitoids.

42
00:02:06,320 --> 00:02:10,160
Speaker 1: But everybody's curious about something. And my favorite thing about

43
00:02:10,200 --> 00:02:12,880
Speaker 1: science is that we're all curious about different things, which

44
00:02:12,919 --> 00:02:15,120
Speaker 1: is why we get to learn about so many different

45
00:02:15,160 --> 00:02:18,120
Speaker 1: amazing things in the universe, even chemistry, and.

46
00:02:18,120 --> 00:02:20,160
Speaker 2: All of the questions that we get I feel like

47
00:02:20,200 --> 00:02:22,360
Speaker 2: are super fascinating and make me think about things in

48
00:02:22,360 --> 00:02:26,480
Speaker 2: different ways. So feel free to help expand our minds

49
00:02:26,520 --> 00:02:28,239
Speaker 2: by getting us to think about a new question.

50
00:02:28,520 --> 00:02:31,040
Speaker 1: That's right, and because this podcast is not just about

51
00:02:31,080 --> 00:02:34,000
Speaker 1: what we're curious about, it's about what everybody's curious about.

52
00:02:34,400 --> 00:02:37,720
Speaker 1: So join the conversation. Send us your questions to Questions

53
00:02:37,720 --> 00:02:40,200
Speaker 1: at Daniel and Kelly dot org.

54
00:02:40,440 --> 00:02:43,600
Speaker 2: And our first question today comes from Tim, who lives

55
00:02:43,600 --> 00:02:46,800
Speaker 2: in the greatest of these United States, which is of

56
00:02:46,840 --> 00:02:48,079
Speaker 2: course Virginia.

57
00:02:48,240 --> 00:02:50,440
Speaker 1: What did we say about confirming our biases today?

58
00:02:51,040 --> 00:02:53,160
Speaker 2: That it's great, That's probably what we said.

59
00:02:55,280 --> 00:02:58,520
Speaker 1: All right, let's hear from Tim, who, unfortunately it lives

60
00:02:58,520 --> 00:02:59,120
Speaker 1: in Virginia.

61
00:02:59,400 --> 00:03:02,960
Speaker 3: Oh, Daniel and Kelly, it's Tim from Virginia.

62
00:03:03,600 --> 00:03:09,840
Speaker 4: I was watching YouTube and watching videos about our newest

63
00:03:09,880 --> 00:03:14,760
Speaker 4: interstellar visitor, Atlas and Omama and.

64
00:03:14,680 --> 00:03:15,760
Speaker 3: What was the other one called?

65
00:03:16,000 --> 00:03:20,000
Speaker 4: Not Benue the other one? So anyway, this is Atlas,

66
00:03:20,080 --> 00:03:24,079
Speaker 4: is the third interstellar visitor that we've had in our

67
00:03:24,320 --> 00:03:27,959
Speaker 4: solar system. And they were talking about how it doesn't

68
00:03:28,000 --> 00:03:32,160
Speaker 4: pose a threat to Earth. But I was wondering, if

69
00:03:32,800 --> 00:03:35,080
Speaker 4: it leaves a debris field and its wake, what are

70
00:03:35,120 --> 00:03:40,400
Speaker 4: the chances that it has some sort of unknown virus

71
00:03:40,600 --> 00:03:44,520
Speaker 4: or bacteria or like maybe even like their version of

72
00:03:44,560 --> 00:03:48,240
Speaker 4: tartar grades which can survive in space that they just

73
00:03:48,280 --> 00:03:52,280
Speaker 4: deposit in our Solar system. That could possibly if a

74
00:03:52,440 --> 00:03:56,360
Speaker 4: planet goes through its trail, could get scooped up by

75
00:03:56,360 --> 00:04:01,040
Speaker 4: a planet and cause problems. Thought it might be a

76
00:04:01,040 --> 00:04:03,360
Speaker 4: fun question for both of you to answer. Thanks for

77
00:04:03,400 --> 00:04:03,840
Speaker 4: what you do.

78
00:04:04,240 --> 00:04:07,000
Speaker 2: Bie, Oh, this is a fun question. So not that

79
00:04:07,120 --> 00:04:13,160
Speaker 2: long ago you and I talked about umumout no ooh muama.

80
00:04:16,279 --> 00:04:18,880
Speaker 2: Recently you and I talked about o muamua and Avi

81
00:04:19,040 --> 00:04:22,440
Speaker 2: lobes hypothesis that it was an interstellar visitor and if

82
00:04:22,440 --> 00:04:24,880
Speaker 2: anybody wants more information they can go pull that up.

83
00:04:24,960 --> 00:04:27,400
Speaker 1: Hypothesis is being very generous to Avi.

84
00:04:27,800 --> 00:04:32,720
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, idea while smoking banana peels might be uh.

85
00:04:33,279 --> 00:04:36,719
Speaker 1: Better sensationless nonsense cooked up to sell his book.

86
00:04:37,040 --> 00:04:40,440
Speaker 2: Oh yeah yeah, we are not pulling any punches today.

87
00:04:40,480 --> 00:04:43,760
Speaker 2: And so Daniel remind us what do we know about

88
00:04:43,760 --> 00:04:44,919
Speaker 2: these interstellar visitors?

89
00:04:45,360 --> 00:04:48,160
Speaker 1: So most of the comments we see come from inside

90
00:04:48,279 --> 00:04:51,320
Speaker 1: our Solar system. They either come from the Kuiper Belt,

91
00:04:51,360 --> 00:04:55,200
Speaker 1: which is a big chunk of rocky, icy stuff out

92
00:04:55,200 --> 00:04:58,400
Speaker 1: there deep in the Solar System, or long period comets

93
00:04:58,440 --> 00:05:01,520
Speaker 1: come even further out from like the Ort Cloud, a

94
00:05:01,720 --> 00:05:07,480
Speaker 1: hypothetical never yet observed bunch of icy rocky blobs way

95
00:05:07,560 --> 00:05:11,560
Speaker 1: way way out past Pluto. And so most of the commets,

96
00:05:11,560 --> 00:05:13,520
Speaker 1: Haley's comment, and the other stuff that we see come

97
00:05:13,520 --> 00:05:16,559
Speaker 1: from inside our solar system. But you know, our solar

98
00:05:16,600 --> 00:05:19,599
Speaker 1: system is not alone in the galaxy, and every once

99
00:05:19,640 --> 00:05:22,760
Speaker 1: in a while an icy rocky chunk from another solar

100
00:05:22,760 --> 00:05:26,599
Speaker 1: system will drift over and enter our backyard. And until

101
00:05:26,640 --> 00:05:29,480
Speaker 1: this year, we'd only ever seen two of those. Omiamua

102
00:05:29,520 --> 00:05:33,360
Speaker 1: famous because it was the first and sort of surprised everybody.

103
00:05:33,520 --> 00:05:35,640
Speaker 1: We saw it pretty quickly after we turned down a

104
00:05:35,680 --> 00:05:38,920
Speaker 1: telescope capable of finding these things, which is always awesome

105
00:05:39,040 --> 00:05:41,200
Speaker 1: because we didn't know how often we would see these.

106
00:05:41,240 --> 00:05:43,440
Speaker 1: And when you see one immediately you're like, oh, wow,

107
00:05:43,520 --> 00:05:44,880
Speaker 1: maybe these aren't so rare.

108
00:05:45,200 --> 00:05:47,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I gotta say, one of my favorite facts

109
00:05:47,839 --> 00:05:50,040
Speaker 2: that I've learned while working with you is that the

110
00:05:50,240 --> 00:05:53,040
Speaker 2: ort cloud is a maybe it's a thing that we

111
00:05:53,360 --> 00:05:56,360
Speaker 2: think exists but haven't actually confirmed, and that I think

112
00:05:56,520 --> 00:05:59,479
Speaker 2: was something that you discussed in response to a listener's question.

113
00:05:59,600 --> 00:06:02,320
Speaker 2: And so anyway, love what I'm learning. Keep going.

114
00:06:02,600 --> 00:06:05,559
Speaker 1: So twenty seventeen, we saw O mum it was pretty weird.

115
00:06:05,640 --> 00:06:08,320
Speaker 1: It was like a bare object that was either long

116
00:06:08,360 --> 00:06:11,520
Speaker 1: and thin or very flat, and it was rotating weirdly,

117
00:06:12,000 --> 00:06:15,360
Speaker 1: and so the reflections were strange. Lots of speculation about it.

118
00:06:15,560 --> 00:06:17,960
Speaker 1: In the end, it looks like it was mostly the

119
00:06:18,040 --> 00:06:20,400
Speaker 1: nucleus of a comet that had already lost all of

120
00:06:20,400 --> 00:06:23,200
Speaker 1: its stuff and outgassed a little bit on the way

121
00:06:23,360 --> 00:06:25,120
Speaker 1: out of the Solar System, giving it a little bit

122
00:06:25,160 --> 00:06:29,760
Speaker 1: of acceleration. Then in twenty nineteen we saw the second one, Borisov.

123
00:06:30,120 --> 00:06:32,760
Speaker 1: This is a bigger object, more like a standard comet,

124
00:06:32,880 --> 00:06:36,440
Speaker 1: had a coma. It was outgassing. Still very cool to

125
00:06:36,480 --> 00:06:39,000
Speaker 1: see these things from deep in space. And you know,

126
00:06:39,040 --> 00:06:41,440
Speaker 1: this is awesome because, as you say, a lot of

127
00:06:41,480 --> 00:06:44,400
Speaker 1: our knowledge about the rest of the galaxy is hypothetical.

128
00:06:44,880 --> 00:06:48,039
Speaker 1: It comes either from just observation or from speculation and

129
00:06:48,040 --> 00:06:51,080
Speaker 1: from models. So to see something come and visit us,

130
00:06:51,120 --> 00:06:53,160
Speaker 1: we get to study in much more detail and learn

131
00:06:53,520 --> 00:06:56,000
Speaker 1: a lot about the rest of the galaxy. And so

132
00:06:56,040 --> 00:06:58,200
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty five we're very excited to see the

133
00:06:58,240 --> 00:07:00,000
Speaker 1: third one, which is called Atlas.

134
00:07:00,240 --> 00:07:02,160
Speaker 2: Well, and you must have been very excited because you

135
00:07:02,200 --> 00:07:07,520
Speaker 2: are really into aliens, and oh, Muhamoua was sent by aliens.

136
00:07:07,520 --> 00:07:10,160
Speaker 2: It was an interstellar ship, right, That's what I heard.

137
00:07:13,120 --> 00:07:15,360
Speaker 1: You know, there's a lot of really interesting stuff about

138
00:07:15,360 --> 00:07:19,160
Speaker 1: oh muha And it's totally reasonable to ask, like, does

139
00:07:19,200 --> 00:07:22,080
Speaker 1: this look like a natural object or is it weird?

140
00:07:22,160 --> 00:07:25,680
Speaker 1: And could it be artificial? That's totally legitimate, and we

141
00:07:25,720 --> 00:07:28,800
Speaker 1: should be excited and open minded about what we could

142
00:07:28,840 --> 00:07:31,920
Speaker 1: see and all the people out there excited to have

143
00:07:32,000 --> 00:07:34,320
Speaker 1: aliens come visit. I'm definitely near the top of the list,

144
00:07:34,560 --> 00:07:36,840
Speaker 1: But we also should be skeptical about it. And those

145
00:07:36,840 --> 00:07:39,960
Speaker 1: claims require a lot of evidence. And there's a lot

146
00:07:39,960 --> 00:07:43,000
Speaker 1: of push by the chair of the Harvard Physics Department

147
00:07:43,440 --> 00:07:46,080
Speaker 1: to call this thing aliens, and he wrote a whole

148
00:07:46,080 --> 00:07:48,680
Speaker 1: book about it, and we did a whole episode about it,

149
00:07:48,960 --> 00:07:51,840
Speaker 1: and there's lots of videos describing in detail how this

150
00:07:52,040 --> 00:07:56,400
Speaker 1: was not an effort sort of primed by scientific integrity unfortunately.

151
00:07:56,920 --> 00:07:59,520
Speaker 1: So we're very sure that oh Muamua is a comet

152
00:07:59,560 --> 00:08:02,280
Speaker 1: and it's and it's interesting and sort of planetary physics

153
00:08:02,320 --> 00:08:04,440
Speaker 1: sort of ways, but it's not an alien object.

154
00:08:04,760 --> 00:08:07,400
Speaker 2: Okay, got it. Thanks for clearing that up for me. Yeah,

155
00:08:07,400 --> 00:08:10,480
Speaker 2: And so tell me more about the twenty twenty five

156
00:08:10,560 --> 00:08:11,520
Speaker 2: Interstellar Visitor.

157
00:08:11,720 --> 00:08:14,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, so this is pretty fresh and new, and it's

158
00:08:14,000 --> 00:08:17,480
Speaker 1: still approaching us right It hasn't reached the closest point

159
00:08:17,760 --> 00:08:19,200
Speaker 1: to the Sun that it's going to reach.

160
00:08:19,240 --> 00:08:19,360
Speaker 3: It.

161
00:08:19,240 --> 00:08:21,760
Speaker 1: It's coming into the Solar system still, which is exciting.

162
00:08:22,040 --> 00:08:24,640
Speaker 1: When we found Omuumu was already on its way out

163
00:08:24,760 --> 00:08:27,840
Speaker 1: and moving really fast. So every day it got more

164
00:08:27,880 --> 00:08:30,640
Speaker 1: distant and smaller and harder to image. But this is

165
00:08:30,640 --> 00:08:32,679
Speaker 1: coming closer, and so we're getting better and better and

166
00:08:32,720 --> 00:08:36,199
Speaker 1: crisper and crisper photographs of it. So the first images

167
00:08:36,240 --> 00:08:38,040
Speaker 1: we had got of it, you can look these things

168
00:08:38,080 --> 00:08:41,079
Speaker 1: up online. These come from the two meter twin telescope.

169
00:08:41,120 --> 00:08:44,040
Speaker 1: These are ground based telescopes, and they show it like

170
00:08:44,080 --> 00:08:47,280
Speaker 1: a big, fuzzy blob. And from those pictures we couldn't

171
00:08:47,280 --> 00:08:49,480
Speaker 1: really tell what it was or how big it was.

172
00:08:49,920 --> 00:08:53,440
Speaker 1: We could tell it's something around twenty five to forty

173
00:08:53,520 --> 00:08:56,240
Speaker 1: kilometers across, but we didn't know how much of that

174
00:08:56,360 --> 00:08:58,160
Speaker 1: was like the actual thing, and how much of it

175
00:08:58,200 --> 00:09:01,280
Speaker 1: was like a dusty coma or gas being boiled off

176
00:09:01,280 --> 00:09:03,600
Speaker 1: of the surface by the Sun. So those were our

177
00:09:03,679 --> 00:09:05,920
Speaker 1: first measurements about it, and we knew where it was

178
00:09:06,000 --> 00:09:08,040
Speaker 1: and how fast it was going, so we could tell

179
00:09:08,080 --> 00:09:10,560
Speaker 1: it was coming from outside the Solar system, but we

180
00:09:10,600 --> 00:09:11,920
Speaker 1: didn't yet know what it was.

181
00:09:12,200 --> 00:09:14,960
Speaker 2: Is a coma just the like dust and stuff that

182
00:09:15,320 --> 00:09:17,640
Speaker 2: trails behind a comet.

183
00:09:17,520 --> 00:09:20,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, And most of that comes from the sun, right,

184
00:09:20,080 --> 00:09:24,360
Speaker 1: Solar radiation, the particles, the photons, the electrons, the protons

185
00:09:24,360 --> 00:09:26,760
Speaker 1: that come from the Sun will impact the comet and

186
00:09:26,800 --> 00:09:28,560
Speaker 1: boil some of that stuff off, and we'll dig into

187
00:09:28,600 --> 00:09:31,080
Speaker 1: that in a minute. But that's where the comet's tail

188
00:09:31,160 --> 00:09:33,840
Speaker 1: comes from. And the tail should grow as it gets

189
00:09:33,880 --> 00:09:36,200
Speaker 1: closer and closer to the Sun. And so right now

190
00:09:36,360 --> 00:09:38,600
Speaker 1: still pretty far from the Sun and the coma sort

191
00:09:38,640 --> 00:09:40,680
Speaker 1: of small, but we expect that as it gets closer

192
00:09:40,679 --> 00:09:43,240
Speaker 1: and closer and it heats up and the Sun fries

193
00:09:43,280 --> 00:09:46,439
Speaker 1: it more, it's going to get it longer and longer tail. Yeah.

194
00:09:46,600 --> 00:09:49,400
Speaker 2: Can we tell the difference between the junk that's getting

195
00:09:49,480 --> 00:09:52,480
Speaker 2: kicked off because of the Sun and the center of it.

196
00:09:52,520 --> 00:09:54,160
Speaker 2: Is it clear enough to differentiate?

197
00:09:54,440 --> 00:09:57,280
Speaker 1: We can, in fact, And so we have also space

198
00:09:57,360 --> 00:10:00,760
Speaker 1: based imaging. So we have Hubble, we have sphere X,

199
00:10:00,920 --> 00:10:03,559
Speaker 1: which is a deep infrared telescope, and we have James

200
00:10:03,600 --> 00:10:07,199
Speaker 1: Webb's based telescope. But before those space telescopes were able

201
00:10:07,200 --> 00:10:08,439
Speaker 1: to take a picture of it, there's a lot of

202
00:10:08,480 --> 00:10:11,400
Speaker 1: discussion about what is this thing. It turns out it's

203
00:10:11,400 --> 00:10:13,559
Speaker 1: coming in sort of close to the plane of the ecliptic,

204
00:10:13,559 --> 00:10:15,360
Speaker 1: which is the planet that all the planets are on.

205
00:10:16,000 --> 00:10:18,400
Speaker 1: And so our friend Abvi Lobe made a big deal

206
00:10:18,440 --> 00:10:20,960
Speaker 1: about this, and he suggested that this was evidence that

207
00:10:21,040 --> 00:10:24,520
Speaker 1: it was an alien visitor sent intentionally to visit our

208
00:10:24,600 --> 00:10:25,280
Speaker 1: solar system.

209
00:10:25,480 --> 00:10:26,760
Speaker 2: So he's still on the same kick.

210
00:10:26,840 --> 00:10:29,280
Speaker 1: He is still on the same kick, okay. And he

211
00:10:29,320 --> 00:10:32,120
Speaker 1: saw the fuzz around the object, and he misinterpreted that

212
00:10:32,400 --> 00:10:34,640
Speaker 1: to be like motion smears, like if you're taking a

213
00:10:34,679 --> 00:10:37,400
Speaker 1: slow picture of a fast moving object, it will smear,

214
00:10:37,640 --> 00:10:40,160
Speaker 1: because he didn't understand that astronomers already know about that

215
00:10:40,200 --> 00:10:43,080
Speaker 1: effect and build it into their telescopes with tracking to

216
00:10:43,120 --> 00:10:46,040
Speaker 1: avoid motion smearing. So he was arguing that it wasn't

217
00:10:46,080 --> 00:10:49,079
Speaker 1: a comet, that it was a bare object, maybe metallic,

218
00:10:49,160 --> 00:10:52,440
Speaker 1: and the fuzz was from motion smearing. Astronomers told him

219
00:10:52,480 --> 00:10:55,240
Speaker 1: how he was wrong, he mostly ignored them. Again, it's

220
00:10:55,320 --> 00:10:58,000
Speaker 1: not a discussion that's inspired by scientific integrity. He's just

221
00:10:58,080 --> 00:11:00,640
Speaker 1: trying to sell his books. And then we've got space

222
00:11:00,679 --> 00:11:03,320
Speaker 1: based telescopes to take a clear picture of it, and

223
00:11:03,440 --> 00:11:06,920
Speaker 1: you can see in those pictures a very bright core

224
00:11:07,200 --> 00:11:09,760
Speaker 1: and a fuzzier coma, so you can tell the difference

225
00:11:10,280 --> 00:11:13,480
Speaker 1: from the coma and from the core, and then SPHEREx

226
00:11:13,520 --> 00:11:15,079
Speaker 1: can do some really cool stuff where they see the

227
00:11:15,080 --> 00:11:17,280
Speaker 1: spectrum of light that comes off of it. So the

228
00:11:17,280 --> 00:11:20,720
Speaker 1: core of it is like two to four kilometers and

229
00:11:20,760 --> 00:11:23,160
Speaker 1: the rest of it is a fuzzy coma. And what's

230
00:11:23,160 --> 00:11:27,920
Speaker 1: really fascinating is that that fuzzy coma is mostly carbon dioxide.

231
00:11:28,360 --> 00:11:30,960
Speaker 1: So these things that are from deep space, they have

232
00:11:31,080 --> 00:11:33,040
Speaker 1: rocky cores, but there's a lot of ice on them,

233
00:11:33,559 --> 00:11:37,520
Speaker 1: and there's carbon monoxide ice, carbon dioxide ice, and then

234
00:11:37,720 --> 00:11:41,520
Speaker 1: water ice, and these things evaporate at different temperatures. Carbon

235
00:11:41,559 --> 00:11:44,960
Speaker 1: monoxide evaporates at a pretty low temperature like forty kelvin.

236
00:11:45,280 --> 00:11:47,760
Speaker 1: Doesn't take a lot of solar rays to fry off

237
00:11:47,800 --> 00:11:52,120
Speaker 1: all the carbon monoxide. Carbon dioxide at about one hundred kelvin,

238
00:11:52,200 --> 00:11:55,440
Speaker 1: and water at hundreds of kelvin. But we don't see

239
00:11:55,440 --> 00:11:58,000
Speaker 1: any carbon monoxide in the coma. So this thing is

240
00:11:58,040 --> 00:12:02,160
Speaker 1: probably a combination of CO two carbon dioxide and water,

241
00:12:02,480 --> 00:12:04,480
Speaker 1: and since it's still far out on the Solar System,

242
00:12:04,760 --> 00:12:08,439
Speaker 1: it's mostly outgassing the CO two which sublimates on the surface.

243
00:12:08,840 --> 00:12:11,000
Speaker 1: And when it gets closer, we'll probably see some water,

244
00:12:11,120 --> 00:12:13,080
Speaker 1: some water ice turn into steam.

245
00:12:13,640 --> 00:12:16,200
Speaker 2: Is there rock in there too, and that's just not

246
00:12:16,240 --> 00:12:17,880
Speaker 2: getting kicked out into the coma.

247
00:12:17,760 --> 00:12:21,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. Probably there's also rock out there. And you know,

248
00:12:21,800 --> 00:12:24,400
Speaker 1: Avi responds to this and saying he thinks actually the

249
00:12:24,440 --> 00:12:27,560
Speaker 1: thing glows on its own and it's not just reflecting light,

250
00:12:28,080 --> 00:12:30,920
Speaker 1: which astronomers pointed out was just him misreading a plot

251
00:12:30,960 --> 00:12:35,120
Speaker 1: in a paper, maybe intentionally, maybe not, who knows. Anyway,

252
00:12:35,120 --> 00:12:37,240
Speaker 1: you should mostly ignore all of his nonsense and pay

253
00:12:37,280 --> 00:12:39,720
Speaker 1: attention to the astronomers who actually know what they're talking about.

254
00:12:40,600 --> 00:12:42,920
Speaker 1: So it's a fascinating object. We're going to learn something

255
00:12:42,920 --> 00:12:45,680
Speaker 1: about deep space, and you know what things are made

256
00:12:45,679 --> 00:12:48,120
Speaker 1: out of. This thing is probably a chunk of ice

257
00:12:48,160 --> 00:12:50,920
Speaker 1: and rock from somebody else's ort cloud, right, some other

258
00:12:51,080 --> 00:12:53,920
Speaker 1: star has ort clouds, and we snagged a piece of

259
00:12:53,920 --> 00:12:56,480
Speaker 1: it because they lost it. It's going to be really interesting.

260
00:12:56,559 --> 00:12:58,160
Speaker 1: It's not going to come close to the Earth. So

261
00:12:58,200 --> 00:13:00,000
Speaker 1: if you're worried about this thing because it's a bit

262
00:13:00,280 --> 00:13:02,520
Speaker 1: chunk of ice and rockets about the same size as

263
00:13:02,559 --> 00:13:05,360
Speaker 1: the one that ended the dinosaurs. But it's not gonna

264
00:13:05,400 --> 00:13:07,720
Speaker 1: hit the Earth. In fact, when it makes its closest

265
00:13:07,720 --> 00:13:09,920
Speaker 1: approach to the Sun, we're gonna be on the other

266
00:13:10,040 --> 00:13:11,040
Speaker 1: side of the Sun.

267
00:13:11,240 --> 00:13:15,360
Speaker 2: That's reassuring. I like that, although I'm sure we'll see

268
00:13:15,360 --> 00:13:18,319
Speaker 2: it less well, and that's a bummer, but trade offs.

269
00:13:18,280 --> 00:13:20,240
Speaker 1: All right. So that's the setup. Tim has a really

270
00:13:20,240 --> 00:13:23,440
Speaker 1: fun question. He's wondering, like, what if this thing really

271
00:13:23,600 --> 00:13:25,960
Speaker 1: does come from aliens? What if it's like loaded with

272
00:13:26,080 --> 00:13:29,920
Speaker 1: their viruses or alien tartar grades and those things boil

273
00:13:30,000 --> 00:13:31,719
Speaker 1: off and they sort of make a path through the

274
00:13:31,760 --> 00:13:34,280
Speaker 1: Solar system and some of them come to Earth. Are

275
00:13:34,280 --> 00:13:35,079
Speaker 1: we in danger?

276
00:13:36,559 --> 00:13:37,199
Speaker 2: What do you think?

277
00:13:37,640 --> 00:13:41,240
Speaker 1: Awesome question. Yeah, well, we're not gonna pass through any

278
00:13:41,280 --> 00:13:43,480
Speaker 1: sort of dense part of its tail, Like we're gonna

279
00:13:43,480 --> 00:13:45,319
Speaker 1: be on the other side of the Sun when it turns around,

280
00:13:45,400 --> 00:13:47,679
Speaker 1: and it's gonna exit the Solar system. So it's not

281
00:13:47,720 --> 00:13:49,640
Speaker 1: like it's gonna leave a long wake that we're gonna

282
00:13:49,640 --> 00:13:53,359
Speaker 1: fly right through. But you know, it is leaving particles

283
00:13:53,360 --> 00:13:56,400
Speaker 1: and bits of itself in our solar system, and so

284
00:13:56,440 --> 00:14:00,120
Speaker 1: who knows if this thing actually is from aliens and

285
00:14:00,160 --> 00:14:03,719
Speaker 1: like seeded with all sorts of weird microbes, maybe they

286
00:14:03,720 --> 00:14:06,240
Speaker 1: designed this thing to like explode when it comes close

287
00:14:06,280 --> 00:14:08,520
Speaker 1: to the Sun and spray all of its stuff everywhere

288
00:14:08,559 --> 00:14:10,760
Speaker 1: through the Solar system, in which case some of them

289
00:14:10,800 --> 00:14:13,880
Speaker 1: will come to Earth and could potentially, you know, come

290
00:14:13,880 --> 00:14:16,840
Speaker 1: through the atmosphere and land on the surface and infect

291
00:14:16,880 --> 00:14:19,320
Speaker 1: people's brains and convince them to live in Virginia rather

292
00:14:19,320 --> 00:14:22,080
Speaker 1: than California. I mean, we're talking deep tragedies here.

293
00:14:22,200 --> 00:14:25,320
Speaker 2: Oh give me a break, man, That's where.

294
00:14:25,120 --> 00:14:27,280
Speaker 1: He was going, right. They might even convince them to

295
00:14:27,280 --> 00:14:30,240
Speaker 1: study chemistry. I mean, those aliens, who they're up to

296
00:14:30,280 --> 00:14:30,800
Speaker 1: no good.

297
00:14:31,360 --> 00:14:34,960
Speaker 2: I mean that would be a nefarious plot, absolutely so,

298
00:14:35,200 --> 00:14:36,840
Speaker 2: But do you think so? Okay, So, when we were

299
00:14:37,040 --> 00:14:38,960
Speaker 2: doing our tartar grade episode, which we did a little

300
00:14:39,000 --> 00:14:42,400
Speaker 2: while back, we showed that, yes, tartar grades are like

301
00:14:42,520 --> 00:14:44,800
Speaker 2: resistant to tons of things, but when you expose them

302
00:14:44,800 --> 00:14:47,920
Speaker 2: to the radiation in space, they do kick the dust. Yeah,

303
00:14:47,920 --> 00:14:51,080
Speaker 2: they can't survive that indefinitely, and I would have to

304
00:14:51,120 --> 00:14:54,600
Speaker 2: imagine there's not a lot that could survive in interstellar voyage.

305
00:14:55,240 --> 00:14:56,800
Speaker 2: But I guess we can't rule it out.

306
00:14:56,840 --> 00:14:58,680
Speaker 1: What do you think it depends? I mean, you could

307
00:14:58,720 --> 00:15:01,440
Speaker 1: survive an interstellar voyage if you're the core of one

308
00:15:01,480 --> 00:15:03,640
Speaker 1: of these objects, right, if you're shielded by a lot

309
00:15:03,640 --> 00:15:06,960
Speaker 1: of ice and rock, then yeah, you could survive the radiation.

310
00:15:07,440 --> 00:15:09,640
Speaker 1: You know, whether you could survive being frozen that long

311
00:15:09,840 --> 00:15:12,640
Speaker 1: and your metabolism could restart, you know, I think that's

312
00:15:12,680 --> 00:15:15,120
Speaker 1: a biological question. But I think we've seen that in

313
00:15:15,280 --> 00:15:17,200
Speaker 1: lots of critters here on Earth. So I think it's

314
00:15:17,240 --> 00:15:21,200
Speaker 1: plausible for things to be frozen at the core and

315
00:15:21,400 --> 00:15:25,240
Speaker 1: survive the interstellar trip and even the solar wind. But then,

316
00:15:25,240 --> 00:15:27,840
Speaker 1: you know, once it disperses in our solar system, you know,

317
00:15:27,880 --> 00:15:30,680
Speaker 1: then it's vulnerable again. And I think that's the most

318
00:15:30,760 --> 00:15:31,480
Speaker 1: dangerous point.

319
00:15:31,640 --> 00:15:33,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, when it gets kicked out of the coma or

320
00:15:34,000 --> 00:15:34,840
Speaker 2: kicked into the coma.

321
00:15:35,040 --> 00:15:37,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, and less of course they come out in you know,

322
00:15:37,400 --> 00:15:40,040
Speaker 1: tiny little microscopic alien ships, and so they have their

323
00:15:40,040 --> 00:15:42,960
Speaker 1: own shielding. I mean, if we're going to speculate here, like, let's.

324
00:15:42,720 --> 00:15:45,040
Speaker 2: Go all in, right, let's go lob style.

325
00:15:47,280 --> 00:15:50,080
Speaker 1: Let's pretend we're the chair of the Harvard Physics.

326
00:15:49,640 --> 00:15:52,560
Speaker 2: Department, that would be pretty solid.

327
00:15:53,800 --> 00:15:57,120
Speaker 1: Exactly, So Tim, this is a really exciting event. It's

328
00:15:57,160 --> 00:16:01,840
Speaker 1: super fascinating. There's no evidence that it's aliens, like the

329
00:16:01,880 --> 00:16:05,520
Speaker 1: astronomers want to believe that it's aliens, but so far,

330
00:16:05,600 --> 00:16:08,160
Speaker 1: there's nothing that points in that direction. But of course

331
00:16:08,200 --> 00:16:09,760
Speaker 1: you don't know. And it could be that it comes

332
00:16:09,800 --> 00:16:11,720
Speaker 1: deeper into the Solar system and we learn new stuff,

333
00:16:11,720 --> 00:16:14,440
Speaker 1: in which case we're all very happy to believe that

334
00:16:14,480 --> 00:16:17,000
Speaker 1: it's aliens if the data points that way. And in

335
00:16:17,080 --> 00:16:20,240
Speaker 1: that scenario, it's not going to directly leave a wake

336
00:16:20,280 --> 00:16:22,800
Speaker 1: for us to fly through, but it could disburse stuff

337
00:16:22,840 --> 00:16:24,720
Speaker 1: which eventually will come to Earth. I mean, there's a

338
00:16:24,720 --> 00:16:27,520
Speaker 1: lot of cosmic dust that falls to Earth every day,

339
00:16:27,960 --> 00:16:30,000
Speaker 1: so he could contribute to that. We could all be

340
00:16:30,080 --> 00:16:32,520
Speaker 1: breathing in bits of an alien package one day.

341
00:16:32,800 --> 00:16:36,680
Speaker 2: Could we have all already breathed in o mua mua bits?

342
00:16:37,080 --> 00:16:37,560
Speaker 1: Oh yeah?

343
00:16:37,600 --> 00:16:42,720
Speaker 2: Absolutely nice exciting. We are connected through space and time.

344
00:16:43,560 --> 00:16:45,920
Speaker 2: All right, let's see what Tim thinks of our answer.

345
00:16:45,960 --> 00:16:47,880
Speaker 2: Is he going to sleep well tonight or not? Let's

346
00:16:47,960 --> 00:16:48,480
Speaker 2: find out.

347
00:16:48,760 --> 00:16:51,720
Speaker 3: Hey, Daniel and Kelly, thank you for answering all of

348
00:16:51,720 --> 00:16:52,400
Speaker 3: my questions.

349
00:16:53,000 --> 00:16:55,960
Speaker 4: I can rest assured now knowing that Earth won't go

350
00:16:56,080 --> 00:16:59,680
Speaker 4: through an alien comments tail and gain a whole bunch

351
00:16:59,680 --> 00:17:00,800
Speaker 4: of microbes.

352
00:17:00,320 --> 00:17:03,400
Speaker 3: That will convert us to alien life forms. Keep up

353
00:17:03,440 --> 00:17:03,960
Speaker 3: with the good work.

354
00:17:04,200 --> 00:17:25,679
Speaker 1: Thank you. All right, we are back when we're answering

355
00:17:25,800 --> 00:17:28,720
Speaker 1: questions from listeners, questions we get every email and also

356
00:17:28,880 --> 00:17:32,560
Speaker 1: questions on our discord. If you love thinking about the

357
00:17:32,640 --> 00:17:34,880
Speaker 1: universe and hearing us chat about it, you might want

358
00:17:34,920 --> 00:17:37,720
Speaker 1: to chat with us. We are very active on our discord.

359
00:17:37,960 --> 00:17:39,879
Speaker 1: If you want to join, it's for everybody who's curious

360
00:17:39,920 --> 00:17:43,520
Speaker 1: about the universe. Go to our website www dot danieland

361
00:17:43,640 --> 00:17:46,040
Speaker 1: Kelly dot org. Well you'll find the link to join

362
00:17:46,080 --> 00:17:49,280
Speaker 1: the discord. So many fun, nice people talking about the

363
00:17:49,359 --> 00:17:53,080
Speaker 1: universe and asking questions. Kelly tell us about this question.

364
00:17:53,320 --> 00:17:54,959
Speaker 2: Well, at first, I'd like to just note that we

365
00:17:55,119 --> 00:17:58,080
Speaker 2: also have the best moderators, so you know, another good

366
00:17:58,119 --> 00:18:00,640
Speaker 2: reason to come join us. All right, So Marco from

367
00:18:00,680 --> 00:18:05,080
Speaker 2: Discord had this question about parasite manipulation of host behavior.

368
00:18:05,359 --> 00:18:08,040
Speaker 1: And Marco is not just another Kelly sock puppet account.

369
00:18:09,320 --> 00:18:11,560
Speaker 2: I mean, you'll never know, You'll never know.

370
00:18:13,760 --> 00:18:16,240
Speaker 5: Hi, Daniel and Kelly, I have a question about the

371
00:18:16,320 --> 00:18:19,480
Speaker 5: jewel wasp discussed in Ed Young's book An Immense World

372
00:18:20,440 --> 00:18:23,360
Speaker 5: Horrified as an understatement, as is the sentence. I had

373
00:18:23,359 --> 00:18:26,840
Speaker 5: a nightmare about this. In the book, Young describes how

374
00:18:26,840 --> 00:18:29,800
Speaker 5: the jewel wasp feels around for the cockroach brain with

375
00:18:29,840 --> 00:18:33,560
Speaker 5: its stinger, and I keep wondering about the evolutionary mechanisms

376
00:18:33,560 --> 00:18:37,240
Speaker 5: at play here. The wasp doesn't know what a brain is, obviously,

377
00:18:37,400 --> 00:18:39,520
Speaker 5: but how on earth could it have evolved the precision

378
00:18:39,560 --> 00:18:43,400
Speaker 5: to accomplish this. I'm well to side This strongly implies

379
00:18:43,400 --> 00:18:45,760
Speaker 5: that the wasp has not only absurd command of its

380
00:18:45,760 --> 00:18:48,399
Speaker 5: own body, but the body of the cockroach as well.

381
00:18:49,080 --> 00:18:51,679
Speaker 5: There's a ton of evolutionary time to miss the sweet

382
00:18:51,720 --> 00:18:55,000
Speaker 5: spots and the cockroaches back and head and not be successful.

383
00:18:55,800 --> 00:18:58,240
Speaker 5: There's a neat series I've been watching on octopuses, and

384
00:18:58,280 --> 00:19:01,480
Speaker 5: it discusses how these intelligent creed learn everything on their

385
00:19:01,520 --> 00:19:05,880
Speaker 5: own without parental support. Wasps aren't teaching their young where

386
00:19:05,920 --> 00:19:08,800
Speaker 5: to sting, So how does this amazing ability emerge from

387
00:19:08,840 --> 00:19:12,280
Speaker 5: this tiny little wasp brain? Just realized I've been listening

388
00:19:12,320 --> 00:19:14,560
Speaker 5: to the podcast long enough to realize the answer is,

389
00:19:14,640 --> 00:19:19,000
Speaker 5: we don't know. Thanks for everything, love the show. Can't

390
00:19:19,040 --> 00:19:20,840
Speaker 5: wait to hear the answer, all right.

391
00:19:20,720 --> 00:19:22,960
Speaker 2: So, first of all, I love that Marco clearly has

392
00:19:23,000 --> 00:19:26,840
Speaker 2: been paying attention and suspects that there's a high probability

393
00:19:26,880 --> 00:19:28,600
Speaker 2: the answer is going to be I don't know.

394
00:19:30,359 --> 00:19:32,439
Speaker 1: Good job, Mark, welcome to the forefront of science.

395
00:19:32,480 --> 00:19:36,359
Speaker 2: Everyone great, that's right, And so yes, the answer at

396
00:19:36,400 --> 00:19:38,119
Speaker 2: the very end for a lot of these questions is

397
00:19:38,200 --> 00:19:40,360
Speaker 2: going to be we don't know. But let's talk about

398
00:19:40,400 --> 00:19:42,280
Speaker 2: some of the things that we do know first, because

399
00:19:42,440 --> 00:19:44,520
Speaker 2: I love this system and I'm going to use it

400
00:19:44,560 --> 00:19:46,320
Speaker 2: as an excuse to tell you all about it.

401
00:19:46,400 --> 00:19:48,320
Speaker 1: Yes, so tell us about the jewel wasp and what

402
00:19:48,359 --> 00:19:51,240
Speaker 1: it does to poor cockroaches. Are we going to feel

403
00:19:51,240 --> 00:19:52,919
Speaker 1: sympathy for cockroaches at the end of this?

404
00:19:53,240 --> 00:19:54,840
Speaker 2: Oh maybe? And then I got to talk about the

405
00:19:54,880 --> 00:19:58,879
Speaker 2: parasitoids that manipulate web building behavior in spiders and actually

406
00:19:58,960 --> 00:20:02,479
Speaker 2: makes you feel sympathy for spiders. That's another day. I

407
00:20:02,520 --> 00:20:05,879
Speaker 2: love those systems. Their videos are just like nuts.

408
00:20:05,920 --> 00:20:09,000
Speaker 1: Anyway, all right, today we're pro cockroach. Tell us why?

409
00:20:09,080 --> 00:20:12,040
Speaker 2: Okay, well I'm gonna I'm actually gonna end up on

410
00:20:12,080 --> 00:20:15,399
Speaker 2: team Jewel Wasp. But anyway, so right, So jewel wasps.

411
00:20:15,400 --> 00:20:18,480
Speaker 2: They're beautiful, they're kind of iridescent. They need to lay

412
00:20:18,480 --> 00:20:21,080
Speaker 2: their eggs somewhere and provide their babies with a meal.

413
00:20:21,160 --> 00:20:23,840
Speaker 2: And so essentially what they're going to do is paralyze

414
00:20:23,840 --> 00:20:26,680
Speaker 2: a cockroach, hide it in a really great spot, lay

415
00:20:26,720 --> 00:20:29,280
Speaker 2: an egg on it. That egg is gonna hatch, eat

416
00:20:29,280 --> 00:20:31,679
Speaker 2: the cockroach from the inside, and then leave its carcass

417
00:20:31,720 --> 00:20:33,760
Speaker 2: when it's done. That's the big overview.

418
00:20:33,840 --> 00:20:36,560
Speaker 1: And the cockroach is alive while these things are growing

419
00:20:36,560 --> 00:20:37,119
Speaker 1: inside of it.

420
00:20:37,280 --> 00:20:39,840
Speaker 2: The egg is attached to the outside of its body.

421
00:20:39,840 --> 00:20:44,080
Speaker 2: But then the baby does eat its way in. Oh yes, yeah,

422
00:20:44,119 --> 00:20:45,240
Speaker 2: it's it's pretty gruesome.

423
00:20:45,280 --> 00:20:47,240
Speaker 1: And why does the cockroach have to be alive? Is

424
00:20:47,240 --> 00:20:49,440
Speaker 1: that so that it stays fresh and tasty the way

425
00:20:49,520 --> 00:20:51,919
Speaker 1: you like put like living lobsters into pots.

426
00:20:52,240 --> 00:20:56,040
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, I don't feel comfortable about that. Don't do

427
00:20:56,080 --> 00:20:58,000
Speaker 2: it myself. But anyway, so this would be like you

428
00:20:58,040 --> 00:21:00,600
Speaker 2: wouldn't want to leave the puid spinach for your baby

429
00:21:00,680 --> 00:21:02,879
Speaker 2: out on the counter for like a week. You know,

430
00:21:02,920 --> 00:21:05,159
Speaker 2: you want your cockroach and your spinach to be fresh,

431
00:21:06,880 --> 00:21:09,440
Speaker 2: all right, So here's here's how the process goes down.

432
00:21:09,760 --> 00:21:11,919
Speaker 2: So the jewel wasp and the cockroach get in a

433
00:21:11,920 --> 00:21:15,119
Speaker 2: tussle because the cockroach knows that the jewel wasp is

434
00:21:15,160 --> 00:21:18,399
Speaker 2: bad news. So the first thing that the jewel wasp does,

435
00:21:18,440 --> 00:21:20,640
Speaker 2: if it gets lucky enough and can get the angle right,

436
00:21:21,000 --> 00:21:23,800
Speaker 2: is it stings the cockroach in the thorax so like

437
00:21:23,840 --> 00:21:26,560
Speaker 2: the chest kind of region, and this will paralyze the

438
00:21:26,560 --> 00:21:29,919
Speaker 2: cockroach's front legs for up to five minutes. And so

439
00:21:30,040 --> 00:21:32,080
Speaker 2: this makes it so the cockroach can't fight back quite

440
00:21:32,080 --> 00:21:35,760
Speaker 2: as well, and the jewel wasp will deliver its second sting.

441
00:21:36,280 --> 00:21:38,560
Speaker 2: The second sting is in the head, so it goes

442
00:21:38,600 --> 00:21:41,000
Speaker 2: through the neck kind of moves through the tissues until

443
00:21:41,000 --> 00:21:44,119
Speaker 2: it finds the brain. It's got this like ovipositor that

444
00:21:44,160 --> 00:21:46,040
Speaker 2: delivers the sting, so it's almost like a needle at

445
00:21:46,080 --> 00:21:48,360
Speaker 2: the end, and so it puts this needle up into

446
00:21:48,359 --> 00:21:51,280
Speaker 2: the brain and it delivers another sting. And this sting.

447
00:21:51,440 --> 00:21:53,879
Speaker 2: I know it's nasty, this sting, but I love it.

448
00:21:54,400 --> 00:21:56,080
Speaker 2: This sting does a couple of different things.

449
00:21:56,400 --> 00:21:58,399
Speaker 1: It's nasty and just the way Kelly loves.

450
00:22:00,440 --> 00:22:04,639
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, nature's horrible but fascinating. And so now the

451
00:22:04,680 --> 00:22:08,679
Speaker 2: cockroach starts grooming itself furiously, and I think we're not

452
00:22:08,760 --> 00:22:11,800
Speaker 2: totally sure why that is happening. Maybe it's because they

453
00:22:11,800 --> 00:22:14,080
Speaker 2: want the meal to be like super fresh, no, like

454
00:22:14,160 --> 00:22:17,399
Speaker 2: bacteria infecting your meal, And so the cockroach cleans itself

455
00:22:17,480 --> 00:22:20,440
Speaker 2: up a lot. And then another interesting thing is that

456
00:22:20,480 --> 00:22:25,400
Speaker 2: the cockroach technically is capable of moving, but its desire

457
00:22:25,480 --> 00:22:29,639
Speaker 2: to initiate its own movement pretty much goes away. So

458
00:22:29,720 --> 00:22:32,680
Speaker 2: it can move, but it doesn't it's desire.

459
00:22:32,760 --> 00:22:35,440
Speaker 1: We're talking about what it's like to be a cockroach,

460
00:22:35,560 --> 00:22:37,920
Speaker 1: Like we're in the mind of the cockroach thinking about

461
00:22:37,920 --> 00:22:38,440
Speaker 1: what it wants.

462
00:22:38,720 --> 00:22:41,600
Speaker 2: So all right, I'm being a bit anthropomorphic about it.

463
00:22:42,359 --> 00:22:45,000
Speaker 2: I don't know what the cockroach is thinking. But whereas

464
00:22:45,200 --> 00:22:48,119
Speaker 2: usually cockroaches in an area where they know that there's

465
00:22:48,240 --> 00:22:51,480
Speaker 2: like something dangerous, ye would initiate movement and would get

466
00:22:51,480 --> 00:22:54,639
Speaker 2: out of there, this cockroach just kind of stands around.

467
00:22:55,359 --> 00:22:59,760
Speaker 2: But it's still capable of moving because the parasitoid will

468
00:22:59,800 --> 00:23:02,840
Speaker 2: like find a good nesting spot and then come back

469
00:23:03,320 --> 00:23:06,800
Speaker 2: and grab the cockroaches antenna and lead it to a

470
00:23:06,840 --> 00:23:08,919
Speaker 2: nesting spot, and the cockroach will follow.

471
00:23:09,200 --> 00:23:12,119
Speaker 1: It's like, yes, it's like driving it. Yeah, so this

472
00:23:12,200 --> 00:23:13,080
Speaker 1: way that way.

473
00:23:13,760 --> 00:23:15,960
Speaker 2: Yeah. The way it's usually talked about is like it's

474
00:23:16,000 --> 00:23:18,120
Speaker 2: like walking a dog on a leash or something like that.

475
00:23:18,240 --> 00:23:21,520
Speaker 2: It just follows and so then it gets moved into

476
00:23:21,560 --> 00:23:23,960
Speaker 2: this little like nook where everything can be hidden so

477
00:23:23,960 --> 00:23:26,560
Speaker 2: that nothing will eat the cockroach and also eat the baby,

478
00:23:27,240 --> 00:23:29,919
Speaker 2: because the cockroach can't fight back really anymore, and it

479
00:23:29,960 --> 00:23:32,560
Speaker 2: will the mom will put the cockroach in the nest,

480
00:23:32,800 --> 00:23:35,159
Speaker 2: lay the egg somewhere on the cockroach, I think, like

481
00:23:35,240 --> 00:23:38,359
Speaker 2: near its leg, and then seal up this little nest

482
00:23:38,400 --> 00:23:40,800
Speaker 2: site with you know, leaves and rocks and stuff like that.

483
00:23:41,200 --> 00:23:43,639
Speaker 2: And then the rest of the process takes about eight days.

484
00:23:43,680 --> 00:23:47,760
Speaker 2: The egg hatches, eats the inside of the cockroach, pupates inside,

485
00:23:47,800 --> 00:23:49,760
Speaker 2: so it goes through a couple developmental stages in the

486
00:23:49,800 --> 00:23:50,760
Speaker 2: body of the cockroach.

487
00:23:50,880 --> 00:23:53,520
Speaker 1: So it's basically laid the egg along with some food.

488
00:23:53,560 --> 00:23:55,800
Speaker 1: It's sort of like a chicken egg is the embryo

489
00:23:55,920 --> 00:23:58,680
Speaker 1: with the food, but the chicken provides it instead of

490
00:23:58,720 --> 00:23:59,960
Speaker 1: stealing it from a cockroach.

491
00:24:00,119 --> 00:24:02,439
Speaker 2: All right, Yeah, that's exactly right. And a lot of

492
00:24:02,440 --> 00:24:05,399
Speaker 2: parasitoids do this. There are parasitoids, you know. Just the

493
00:24:05,520 --> 00:24:08,360
Speaker 2: other day I saw a parasitoid dragging a giant spider.

494
00:24:08,440 --> 00:24:11,520
Speaker 2: It had paralyzed, and it was dragging it to its

495
00:24:11,560 --> 00:24:13,320
Speaker 2: nest so that it could then lay eggs on it

496
00:24:13,359 --> 00:24:17,320
Speaker 2: and keep its meal fresh. And so what's special about

497
00:24:17,320 --> 00:24:19,879
Speaker 2: this system, not from the perspective of the cockroach, of course,

498
00:24:20,200 --> 00:24:24,040
Speaker 2: but is that a lot of parasitoids will paralyze food

499
00:24:24,200 --> 00:24:27,720
Speaker 2: and then lay their eggs in or on it as

500
00:24:27,720 --> 00:24:29,960
Speaker 2: a meal for when they hatch. But you've got this

501
00:24:30,119 --> 00:24:33,040
Speaker 2: extra layer where the parasitoid is also able to like

502
00:24:33,160 --> 00:24:36,480
Speaker 2: direct the cockroach to go to a particular location, rather

503
00:24:36,520 --> 00:24:38,480
Speaker 2: than needing to like physically drag it there, which a

504
00:24:38,520 --> 00:24:41,040
Speaker 2: bunch of others have to do. Wow, amazing, yes, amazing.

505
00:24:41,119 --> 00:24:43,880
Speaker 1: So the cockroach like participates in its own demise.

506
00:24:44,240 --> 00:24:45,720
Speaker 2: It does it does?

507
00:24:45,960 --> 00:24:46,680
Speaker 1: It's complicit.

508
00:24:47,080 --> 00:24:50,400
Speaker 2: That's gross complicit. I don't know that. That's that word

509
00:24:50,440 --> 00:24:56,280
Speaker 2: has too much human baggage. It unwillingly, unwittingly does, does

510
00:24:56,320 --> 00:25:00,679
Speaker 2: the wasps bidding? Okay, So Marco was interesting in the

511
00:25:00,720 --> 00:25:04,320
Speaker 2: fact that when that second sting happens, and the sting

512
00:25:04,400 --> 00:25:08,000
Speaker 2: is happening in the brain, the wasp that is stinging

513
00:25:08,080 --> 00:25:11,160
Speaker 2: the brain, it's mom isn't there to teach it how

514
00:25:11,200 --> 00:25:14,200
Speaker 2: to do that. So how does it just know where

515
00:25:14,240 --> 00:25:16,520
Speaker 2: to sting in a brain? And at the end of

516
00:25:16,520 --> 00:25:18,760
Speaker 2: the day, the answer is going to be we don't

517
00:25:18,760 --> 00:25:20,280
Speaker 2: really know, but I'm going to give you a little

518
00:25:20,280 --> 00:25:22,720
Speaker 2: bit more detail about what is actually happening when it

519
00:25:22,760 --> 00:25:25,600
Speaker 2: stings the brain. So we talked about how it puts

520
00:25:25,600 --> 00:25:29,600
Speaker 2: its little like hypodermic needle esque but into the neck

521
00:25:29,720 --> 00:25:31,879
Speaker 2: of the wasp and it starts going up to the brain.

522
00:25:32,480 --> 00:25:34,400
Speaker 2: And there have been some experiments trying to figure out

523
00:25:34,440 --> 00:25:37,480
Speaker 2: what happens inside the cockroach's brain. So one thing they

524
00:25:37,480 --> 00:25:43,000
Speaker 2: did was they injected carbon fourteen radio labeled amino acids

525
00:25:43,040 --> 00:25:46,360
Speaker 2: into the stinger and then they look to see where

526
00:25:46,400 --> 00:25:49,159
Speaker 2: it ended up in the cockroach. And it does end

527
00:25:49,280 --> 00:25:52,080
Speaker 2: up in this area called the subsophageal ganglion, so it's

528
00:25:52,080 --> 00:25:54,280
Speaker 2: like kind of the bottom part of a cockroach's brain.

529
00:25:54,720 --> 00:25:58,080
Speaker 1: So injecting carbon fourteen labeled amino acids this is just

530
00:25:58,119 --> 00:26:01,000
Speaker 1: a way of tracing like where something go. Like add

531
00:26:01,040 --> 00:26:03,040
Speaker 1: like a little dye to so you can see where

532
00:26:03,040 --> 00:26:05,680
Speaker 1: something goes. But in this case, it's not a visual die.

533
00:26:05,720 --> 00:26:08,600
Speaker 1: It's like you're measuring the radioactive decays or how does

534
00:26:08,640 --> 00:26:08,920
Speaker 1: that work?

535
00:26:09,000 --> 00:26:09,880
Speaker 2: Yeap, that's exactly right.

536
00:26:10,040 --> 00:26:11,880
Speaker 1: Fascinating, Well, yeah, yeah.

537
00:26:11,680 --> 00:26:14,400
Speaker 2: Pretty cool experiment, Okay, And then they did some other

538
00:26:14,440 --> 00:26:18,440
Speaker 2: experiments to try to figure out what it is that

539
00:26:18,520 --> 00:26:21,320
Speaker 2: the wasp is queuing in on, to figure out where

540
00:26:21,320 --> 00:26:24,679
Speaker 2: it's supposed to deposit what we we call this the

541
00:26:24,720 --> 00:26:27,520
Speaker 2: stuff that gets deposited during the sting venom, which is

542
00:26:27,560 --> 00:26:32,000
Speaker 2: awesome anyway. So they've done things like humanly euthanize a

543
00:26:32,040 --> 00:26:34,919
Speaker 2: cockroach and then remove its brain and then give it

544
00:26:34,960 --> 00:26:37,280
Speaker 2: back to the wasp. And when you do that, the

545
00:26:37,359 --> 00:26:40,480
Speaker 2: wasp spends a bunch of time like searching and not

546
00:26:40,560 --> 00:26:43,840
Speaker 2: delivering its venom. It's like, what something is missing in here,

547
00:26:43,880 --> 00:26:46,159
Speaker 2: and so it's like it's definitely.

548
00:26:46,000 --> 00:26:47,040
Speaker 1: It's looking for the brain.

549
00:26:47,320 --> 00:26:49,040
Speaker 2: It's looking for the brain, and it gets kind of

550
00:26:49,040 --> 00:26:51,800
Speaker 2: confused when it's not there. And so then the scientist

551
00:26:51,920 --> 00:26:54,840
Speaker 2: looked a little bit closer at the ovipositor and they

552
00:26:54,840 --> 00:26:57,439
Speaker 2: found sensors on there, and some of the sensors are

553
00:26:57,520 --> 00:27:01,159
Speaker 2: mechanical receptors, so they like can touch things, and some

554
00:27:01,320 --> 00:27:04,920
Speaker 2: are chemical receptors. And so first they wanted to dive

555
00:27:05,040 --> 00:27:08,040
Speaker 2: into what happens with the mechanical receptors, and so they

556
00:27:08,440 --> 00:27:11,080
Speaker 2: took all the mechanical receptors off of the wasp, and

557
00:27:11,119 --> 00:27:13,080
Speaker 2: the wasp just kind of like searched around for a

558
00:27:13,119 --> 00:27:15,359
Speaker 2: really long time. It was super confused because it couldn't

559
00:27:15,359 --> 00:27:20,480
Speaker 2: feel anything. Then they humanely euthanized the cockroaches and they

560
00:27:20,520 --> 00:27:24,399
Speaker 2: put a very soft substance that wasn't very brain like

561
00:27:24,680 --> 00:27:27,160
Speaker 2: into the head of the cockroach, and the wasp also

562
00:27:27,240 --> 00:27:29,199
Speaker 2: searched around for a really long time and was like,

563
00:27:29,200 --> 00:27:32,320
Speaker 2: what is going on? But then they put a hard substance,

564
00:27:32,560 --> 00:27:35,879
Speaker 2: harder substance that's more like the brain, and the wasp

565
00:27:35,920 --> 00:27:39,960
Speaker 2: responded more quickly. So it doesn't have to be a brain,

566
00:27:40,040 --> 00:27:41,520
Speaker 2: but it's got to feel right.

567
00:27:42,119 --> 00:27:44,920
Speaker 1: So they're testing what the wasp wants to sting, and

568
00:27:44,960 --> 00:27:47,639
Speaker 1: they're like, how about a squishy brain having an actual brain?

569
00:27:47,720 --> 00:27:49,680
Speaker 1: How about some of it feels like a brain. They're

570
00:27:49,720 --> 00:27:52,399
Speaker 1: like exploring the space of what the wasp is willing

571
00:27:52,440 --> 00:27:53,919
Speaker 1: to engage with. That's fascinating.

572
00:27:54,119 --> 00:27:57,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And if you like kind of mix up

573
00:27:57,720 --> 00:28:01,480
Speaker 2: the brain and kind of change its consistency, like mixing

574
00:28:01,480 --> 00:28:04,120
Speaker 2: it up with like scissors or something, they also are

575
00:28:04,160 --> 00:28:06,359
Speaker 2: confused and are like, what the heck is going on here?

576
00:28:06,800 --> 00:28:09,719
Speaker 2: So it looks like the mechanical stuff really matters, And

577
00:28:09,760 --> 00:28:13,360
Speaker 2: so that suggests to me that there's some genetic coating

578
00:28:13,400 --> 00:28:15,840
Speaker 2: that gets passed from generation to generation, doesn't need to

579
00:28:15,840 --> 00:28:18,880
Speaker 2: be learned where they know, like it goes in the neck,

580
00:28:19,480 --> 00:28:22,760
Speaker 2: and then you look for something that feels a certain way.

581
00:28:23,200 --> 00:28:25,040
Speaker 2: And I don't think we've looked close enough in this

582
00:28:25,080 --> 00:28:28,600
Speaker 2: system to understand exactly how that happens. But we have

583
00:28:28,680 --> 00:28:31,040
Speaker 2: looked at other behaviors that are you know, what we

584
00:28:31,040 --> 00:28:33,800
Speaker 2: would say is innate. They just happen without learning.

585
00:28:34,080 --> 00:28:36,760
Speaker 1: So it's so important that it touches the brain that

586
00:28:36,800 --> 00:28:40,920
Speaker 1: the system has evolved requirements to ensure that it only

587
00:28:40,960 --> 00:28:43,080
Speaker 1: happens when there's like an actual brain there to be

588
00:28:43,080 --> 00:28:45,680
Speaker 1: delivered on, not just like randomly spraying this stuff in

589
00:28:45,680 --> 00:28:46,560
Speaker 1: the head of the cockroach.

590
00:28:46,720 --> 00:28:50,320
Speaker 2: Yah. So presumably the chemical cocktail that gets delivered into

591
00:28:50,360 --> 00:28:52,720
Speaker 2: the brain is expensive to make in some way, like

592
00:28:52,800 --> 00:28:55,760
Speaker 2: requires a lot of energy or certain nutrients or something.

593
00:28:56,080 --> 00:28:59,280
Speaker 2: So you don't want to go stinging things and wasting it.

594
00:28:59,800 --> 00:29:02,640
Speaker 2: And so if this cockroach seems like it's totally off

595
00:29:02,680 --> 00:29:05,400
Speaker 2: for some reason, then you abandon it.

596
00:29:05,520 --> 00:29:08,080
Speaker 1: Well, go go find the cockroads through the bigger taste

597
00:29:08,080 --> 00:29:08,600
Speaker 1: of your brain.

598
00:29:09,560 --> 00:29:12,800
Speaker 2: That's right, Well, there are other parasitoids that can test

599
00:29:12,960 --> 00:29:16,760
Speaker 2: and see, like, are there already parasitoid wasps living inside

600
00:29:16,760 --> 00:29:18,640
Speaker 2: of this insect because I don't want my babies to

601
00:29:18,640 --> 00:29:20,520
Speaker 2: have to compete with babies that had a head start.

602
00:29:20,600 --> 00:29:23,080
Speaker 2: And so there's all sorts of like crazy stuff that

603
00:29:23,200 --> 00:29:27,160
Speaker 2: happens when the wasp is like evaluating its host for quality.

604
00:29:27,240 --> 00:29:30,360
Speaker 1: All right, So this is really fascinating and very complex behavior.

605
00:29:30,400 --> 00:29:33,560
Speaker 1: And I feel like Marco's question is essentially, how does

606
00:29:33,600 --> 00:29:36,880
Speaker 1: the wasp evolve this kind of behavior? The mom is

607
00:29:36,920 --> 00:29:38,880
Speaker 1: not there to teach it, which means it must be

608
00:29:38,920 --> 00:29:42,520
Speaker 1: somehow innate, which suggests that it's like in the code

609
00:29:42,680 --> 00:29:45,120
Speaker 1: of the DNA, which means it comes from evolution, not

610
00:29:45,200 --> 00:29:48,600
Speaker 1: from like the wasp culture. How is such a complex

611
00:29:48,680 --> 00:29:52,600
Speaker 1: process ever evolved? It feels impossible to imagine that you

612
00:29:52,720 --> 00:29:56,120
Speaker 1: develop such an intricate system because it needs many parts

613
00:29:56,160 --> 00:29:57,000
Speaker 1: to work all at once.

614
00:29:57,240 --> 00:30:01,360
Speaker 2: Well, maybe your imagination is limited, Daniel, No, I'm just kidding. Yes,

615
00:30:01,360 --> 00:30:04,120
Speaker 2: it is very complicated. So one of the ways that

616
00:30:04,160 --> 00:30:06,560
Speaker 2: we look at the evolution of complex behaviors is that

617
00:30:06,600 --> 00:30:09,440
Speaker 2: we'll look at things that closely related species are doing,

618
00:30:09,760 --> 00:30:13,000
Speaker 2: and sometimes you can see the steps that build in

619
00:30:13,040 --> 00:30:16,440
Speaker 2: a more complicated behavior. So, for example, this system has

620
00:30:16,520 --> 00:30:19,160
Speaker 2: two stings, and one of them is a little bit

621
00:30:19,440 --> 00:30:21,920
Speaker 2: more complicated, but a lot of other parasitoids, as we've

622
00:30:21,960 --> 00:30:24,640
Speaker 2: already talked about, do one sting to paralyze their prey.

623
00:30:25,040 --> 00:30:28,200
Speaker 2: So you can see that as like a beneficial early step.

624
00:30:28,600 --> 00:30:31,840
Speaker 2: We have not in this system been able to work

625
00:30:31,880 --> 00:30:34,920
Speaker 2: out the order in which all of these complicated things

626
00:30:35,800 --> 00:30:37,480
Speaker 2: evolved and sort of built up.

627
00:30:37,720 --> 00:30:40,360
Speaker 1: So let me just make it explicit. You're suggesting that

628
00:30:40,440 --> 00:30:43,480
Speaker 1: it's a complex series of behaviors, but there probably are

629
00:30:43,720 --> 00:30:46,480
Speaker 1: simpler versions of it that are also beneficial. You don't

630
00:30:46,520 --> 00:30:49,360
Speaker 1: need all the complex pieces in order to gain some benefit,

631
00:30:49,600 --> 00:30:51,680
Speaker 1: and that would allow you to tell the evolutionary story.

632
00:30:51,760 --> 00:30:54,040
Speaker 2: Is that the argument that yep, that's exactly right, and

633
00:30:54,120 --> 00:30:57,040
Speaker 2: every intermediate step needs to be beneficial in order for

634
00:30:57,080 --> 00:31:00,880
Speaker 2: it to keep passing through the population, unless you've got

635
00:31:00,960 --> 00:31:03,160
Speaker 2: drift going on. But anyway, okay, so these are there

636
00:31:03,160 --> 00:31:06,920
Speaker 2: are beneficial steps, and you know, you can imagine something

637
00:31:07,080 --> 00:31:11,120
Speaker 2: like initially the jewel wasps only stung the cockroach once

638
00:31:11,240 --> 00:31:13,120
Speaker 2: and paralyzed it, and then you had to drag it.

639
00:31:13,160 --> 00:31:16,600
Speaker 2: But then there was one wasp that had some mutation

640
00:31:17,000 --> 00:31:19,920
Speaker 2: that made it extra stabby, and it stabbed once in

641
00:31:19,960 --> 00:31:22,360
Speaker 2: the thorax and once in the brain, and that did

642
00:31:22,440 --> 00:31:25,280
Speaker 2: something that made the cockroach a little bit easier to handle,

643
00:31:25,600 --> 00:31:27,560
Speaker 2: which meant the mom could lay more eggs and could

644
00:31:27,600 --> 00:31:30,560
Speaker 2: do this more times. And maybe that got passed on genetically,

645
00:31:31,160 --> 00:31:34,560
Speaker 2: and you can imagine generation after generation that's just honed

646
00:31:34,720 --> 00:31:35,880
Speaker 2: and more and more beneficial.

647
00:31:36,000 --> 00:31:39,000
Speaker 1: And maybe my imagination is limited, but does the phrase

648
00:31:39,120 --> 00:31:41,920
Speaker 1: extra stabby appear in the biological literature anywhere?

649
00:31:43,680 --> 00:31:46,120
Speaker 2: No, that that's just because I'm super creative. You know,

650
00:31:46,400 --> 00:31:51,080
Speaker 2: that was my creativity. I'm just kidding, You're very creative.

651
00:31:51,480 --> 00:31:53,680
Speaker 2: But yeah, so we don't know exactly the path that

652
00:31:53,760 --> 00:31:56,840
Speaker 2: this took, but you can imagine how it would have

653
00:31:56,880 --> 00:31:59,200
Speaker 2: built up, and then you know, it's possible somebody could

654
00:31:59,280 --> 00:32:02,120
Speaker 2: test this by looking at closely related wasp species and

655
00:32:02,160 --> 00:32:04,800
Speaker 2: maybe if you understood more mechanistically about how this was

656
00:32:04,840 --> 00:32:07,520
Speaker 2: all happening, you could understand how one step could happen

657
00:32:07,520 --> 00:32:10,680
Speaker 2: after another. But for this system, I would say, we

658
00:32:10,760 --> 00:32:12,880
Speaker 2: don't have a really good evolutionary answer.

659
00:32:12,920 --> 00:32:15,320
Speaker 1: I think that all makes sense that complex behaviors of

660
00:32:15,400 --> 00:32:18,080
Speaker 1: all from simpler behaviors that are also beneficial, and it

661
00:32:18,120 --> 00:32:20,600
Speaker 1: sometimes takes a while to figure out what path you

662
00:32:20,640 --> 00:32:23,520
Speaker 1: can take from simpler to more complex. I think the

663
00:32:23,560 --> 00:32:27,000
Speaker 1: thing that blows my mind is that these complex behaviors

664
00:32:27,040 --> 00:32:30,680
Speaker 1: feel kind of fragile, like everything has to work for

665
00:32:31,000 --> 00:32:32,840
Speaker 1: this to happen, and it feels like there's so many

666
00:32:32,840 --> 00:32:35,280
Speaker 1: ways for it to go wrong. It's incredible that it

667
00:32:35,320 --> 00:32:38,280
Speaker 1: relies on such a complex system. And then it mostly works.

668
00:32:38,600 --> 00:32:40,920
Speaker 1: And then I look at you know, like humans, I've

669
00:32:41,080 --> 00:32:44,280
Speaker 1: raised a child. It's complicated. It feels like there's so

670
00:32:44,280 --> 00:32:46,280
Speaker 1: many ways it can go wrong. And then I walk around,

671
00:32:46,280 --> 00:32:48,640
Speaker 1: I'm like, wow, all of these humans, they were raised

672
00:32:48,640 --> 00:32:52,560
Speaker 1: by people. It seems to mostly work. It's incredible. Yeah,

673
00:32:52,600 --> 00:32:55,960
Speaker 1: you know, biology seems so fragile, but it is pretty robust.

674
00:32:56,240 --> 00:32:58,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it is incredible. But you know, there's

675
00:32:58,320 --> 00:33:01,360
Speaker 2: plenty of times when jewel wasps go after cockroaches and nature,

676
00:33:01,360 --> 00:33:03,480
Speaker 2: and the cockroach wins and the jewel wasp doesn't get

677
00:33:03,520 --> 00:33:04,200
Speaker 2: to sting.

678
00:33:04,200 --> 00:33:07,000
Speaker 1: Or heay cockroache, hey cockroache.

679
00:33:06,640 --> 00:33:08,520
Speaker 2: Or you know, the jewel wasp dies for one reason

680
00:33:08,600 --> 00:33:11,080
Speaker 2: or another or just doesn't. Like, there's plenty of times

681
00:33:11,120 --> 00:33:14,360
Speaker 2: in nature where these things do fail, and those individuals

682
00:33:14,440 --> 00:33:16,840
Speaker 2: usually just get wiped out of the population, And just

683
00:33:16,840 --> 00:33:19,760
Speaker 2: so it doesn't sound like I'm saying, well, whenever we're

684
00:33:19,800 --> 00:33:22,959
Speaker 2: talking about complex behaviors, we always just imagine a picture.

685
00:33:23,520 --> 00:33:26,320
Speaker 2: There are systems where step by step we've sort of

686
00:33:26,320 --> 00:33:28,840
Speaker 2: figured this stuff out. And I'm working on finding a

687
00:33:29,280 --> 00:33:31,440
Speaker 2: behavioral geneticist to come on the show to talk to

688
00:33:31,520 --> 00:33:34,640
Speaker 2: us about those answers. So stay tuned.

689
00:33:34,880 --> 00:33:37,400
Speaker 1: All right, Well, I think that's a pretty good answer

690
00:33:37,400 --> 00:33:40,240
Speaker 1: for Marco. Let's inject that into his head and see

691
00:33:40,240 --> 00:33:41,520
Speaker 1: how his brain responds.

692
00:33:41,680 --> 00:33:44,120
Speaker 2: Did we lead you to the answer, Marco? I promise

693
00:33:44,200 --> 00:33:45,440
Speaker 2: we won't lay any eggs on you.

694
00:33:47,240 --> 00:33:50,320
Speaker 6: After hearing your answer, I admit I'm no less terrified

695
00:33:50,360 --> 00:33:52,880
Speaker 6: of jewel wasps. I can only hope I don't have

696
00:33:52,880 --> 00:33:55,920
Speaker 6: another fever dream frantically trying to keep one from stinging

697
00:33:56,000 --> 00:33:58,160
Speaker 6: the back of my head by jumping into water. I

698
00:33:58,200 --> 00:34:02,120
Speaker 6: can't find forever in awe of evolution, coming down to

699
00:34:02,240 --> 00:34:06,400
Speaker 6: random events and mind boggling numbers until some advantage emerges

700
00:34:06,480 --> 00:34:09,920
Speaker 6: and gets successfully encoded. I keep going back to a

701
00:34:09,960 --> 00:34:12,560
Speaker 6: couple of points you made. One is that without passing

702
00:34:12,600 --> 00:34:17,400
Speaker 6: down knowledge genetic coding instructions and organisms behavior, the LOSPs

703
00:34:17,440 --> 00:34:19,440
Speaker 6: are compelled to behave as they do the.

704
00:34:19,440 --> 00:34:20,760
Speaker 5: Evolution handles the rest.

705
00:34:21,280 --> 00:34:23,640
Speaker 7: As with most of the podcast episodes, we end up

706
00:34:23,640 --> 00:34:26,319
Speaker 7: with more questions like how did Kelly end up on

707
00:34:26,440 --> 00:34:29,560
Speaker 7: Team Jewel Wasp. I can't side with that freak show.

708
00:34:29,960 --> 00:34:33,400
Speaker 7: I fully support Wally's cute sidekick, not the Jewel Wasps.

709
00:34:33,920 --> 00:34:37,320
Speaker 7: That feels like siding with monstrous killers, or the seventeen

710
00:34:37,360 --> 00:34:40,640
Speaker 7: percent of people that prefer white chocolate not tolerate it

711
00:34:40,680 --> 00:34:44,800
Speaker 7: but like it better. It truly is an extraordinary universe.

712
00:34:45,360 --> 00:34:59,799
Speaker 3: Thanks Daniel and Kelly.

713
00:35:06,560 --> 00:35:08,920
Speaker 2: Next up, we have a question from southern Scotland. And

714
00:35:08,960 --> 00:35:10,440
Speaker 2: I am so excited because I got to go to

715
00:35:10,440 --> 00:35:13,200
Speaker 2: Scotland for the first time last month. I was in Edinburgh,

716
00:35:13,280 --> 00:35:15,480
Speaker 2: which is probably not where Ben is from. But Ben,

717
00:35:15,560 --> 00:35:18,640
Speaker 2: your country is beautiful. I loved it, and vegetarian haggis

718
00:35:18,719 --> 00:35:19,480
Speaker 2: a plus.

719
00:35:20,680 --> 00:35:22,800
Speaker 1: And I'm going to Scotland next week for a wedding

720
00:35:22,840 --> 00:35:23,759
Speaker 1: in Inverness.

721
00:35:24,400 --> 00:35:25,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you're gonna wear kilts.

722
00:35:26,120 --> 00:35:30,200
Speaker 1: I'm gonna wear a kilt exactly all right. But today

723
00:35:30,239 --> 00:35:33,480
Speaker 1: the question is not about Daniel's wardrobe at Scottish weddings.

724
00:35:33,920 --> 00:35:36,799
Speaker 1: It's about what these terms in science mean. So let's

725
00:35:36,800 --> 00:35:37,640
Speaker 1: hear Ben's question.

726
00:35:37,880 --> 00:35:41,160
Speaker 8: Hello, Daniel and Kelly. It's Ben here from Cukubree in

727
00:35:41,200 --> 00:35:44,319
Speaker 8: southern Scotland. I'd really like to know what you think

728
00:35:44,400 --> 00:35:48,399
Speaker 8: is the difference, if any, between a theory, a law,

729
00:35:49,239 --> 00:35:54,480
Speaker 8: a hypothesis and a model. I'm especially curious about Darwin's

730
00:35:54,560 --> 00:35:58,200
Speaker 8: theory of the origin of species. Is this a typical

731
00:35:58,239 --> 00:36:02,319
Speaker 8: scientific theory? Does it of predictive power? Can it be

732
00:36:02,360 --> 00:36:06,480
Speaker 8: refuted by experiment? I feel I really need the combined

733
00:36:06,520 --> 00:36:10,479
Speaker 8: advice of a particle physicist and the powascientologist to help

734
00:36:10,480 --> 00:36:14,200
Speaker 8: to settle these questions. I really enjoy your podcast.

735
00:36:14,600 --> 00:36:16,080
Speaker 2: Oh this is a really great question.

736
00:36:16,440 --> 00:36:18,360
Speaker 1: This is a really fun question. I'm really glad that

737
00:36:18,400 --> 00:36:20,960
Speaker 1: Ben asked it, because it's one of these questions where

738
00:36:21,000 --> 00:36:23,560
Speaker 1: if you ask philosophers or if you ask scientists, you'll

739
00:36:23,560 --> 00:36:26,120
Speaker 1: get a different answer. And if you ask different philosophers

740
00:36:26,160 --> 00:36:28,879
Speaker 1: and different scientists, you'll get lots of different answers. It's

741
00:36:28,880 --> 00:36:30,720
Speaker 1: something a lot of people are not very precise about.

742
00:36:30,760 --> 00:36:33,080
Speaker 2: Frankly, yeah, I think when I was an undergrad, I

743
00:36:33,120 --> 00:36:35,680
Speaker 2: remember in my biology class there were definitions of all

744
00:36:35,719 --> 00:36:38,680
Speaker 2: of these terms, and then I was very confused later

745
00:36:38,760 --> 00:36:40,440
Speaker 2: on when they were used in ways that were not

746
00:36:40,520 --> 00:36:44,560
Speaker 2: at all consistent with what was in that textbook. And anyway,

747
00:36:44,640 --> 00:36:45,840
Speaker 2: now I know we're all sloppy.

748
00:36:47,760 --> 00:36:51,080
Speaker 1: Well, you know, scientists are practitioners who are not experts

749
00:36:51,480 --> 00:36:53,880
Speaker 1: in the philosophy of science. We go out there and

750
00:36:53,920 --> 00:36:56,759
Speaker 1: we do science, and we say theory, we say law,

751
00:36:56,800 --> 00:37:00,319
Speaker 1: we say model. We haven't all taken philosophy classes or like.

752
00:37:00,480 --> 00:37:03,520
Speaker 1: The distinctions between these things are argued by nerds who

753
00:37:03,560 --> 00:37:06,560
Speaker 1: are super excited about it. You know, we're excited about

754
00:37:06,560 --> 00:37:08,440
Speaker 1: the biology or the chemistry or the physics or that

755
00:37:08,520 --> 00:37:10,920
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. And so when you hear scientists talk

756
00:37:10,960 --> 00:37:13,640
Speaker 1: about it, they're not often being very precise because they're

757
00:37:13,680 --> 00:37:17,319
Speaker 1: not experts in the definitions of these terms. Philosophers of

758
00:37:17,360 --> 00:37:19,640
Speaker 1: science are the folks who really narrow down on this.

759
00:37:19,800 --> 00:37:23,160
Speaker 1: But again, also philosophers of science disagree reasonably with each

760
00:37:23,160 --> 00:37:26,040
Speaker 1: other about how to describe this stuff. So I'll break

761
00:37:26,040 --> 00:37:27,399
Speaker 1: it down for you in a way that makes sense

762
00:37:27,440 --> 00:37:31,040
Speaker 1: to me, but definitely other people will have different definitions

763
00:37:31,120 --> 00:37:34,239
Speaker 1: of this. This is not definitive in any sense, and.

764
00:37:34,200 --> 00:37:36,359
Speaker 2: If I could just mention that, I also think another

765
00:37:36,360 --> 00:37:38,600
Speaker 2: thing that makes it complicated isn't just that most of

766
00:37:38,719 --> 00:37:40,920
Speaker 2: us don't actually know what these terms mean. It's that

767
00:37:41,000 --> 00:37:44,080
Speaker 2: even if we did, when you understand something, it's not

768
00:37:44,160 --> 00:37:47,040
Speaker 2: usually like there's a clear yeah switch that gets flipped

769
00:37:47,080 --> 00:37:49,359
Speaker 2: where you're like, oh, now we've entered law lands. Before

770
00:37:49,400 --> 00:37:52,000
Speaker 2: we were in hypothesis land. It's like you need to

771
00:37:52,040 --> 00:37:54,719
Speaker 2: slowly accumulate and it's not always clear when it's time

772
00:37:54,760 --> 00:37:57,560
Speaker 2: to like update to a new term. And so anyway,

773
00:37:57,560 --> 00:37:58,839
Speaker 2: that probably complicates things too.

774
00:37:59,200 --> 00:38:03,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, So let's start with laws. I think of

775
00:38:03,440 --> 00:38:06,759
Speaker 1: a law as something the universe actually does. There's some

776
00:38:06,880 --> 00:38:10,439
Speaker 1: truth out there, and one of the basic assumptions in

777
00:38:10,440 --> 00:38:14,560
Speaker 1: science is that the universe follows laws and we don't

778
00:38:14,600 --> 00:38:17,279
Speaker 1: know them, but we can do experiments and think about

779
00:38:17,320 --> 00:38:19,160
Speaker 1: it and all this sorts of stuff to try to

780
00:38:19,160 --> 00:38:22,319
Speaker 1: figure them out. So we think the universe follows some

781
00:38:22,360 --> 00:38:26,759
Speaker 1: sort of concise, simple fundamental rules, and those are the

782
00:38:26,880 --> 00:38:29,880
Speaker 1: laws of the universe, all right, still with me?

783
00:38:30,000 --> 00:38:30,160
Speaker 3: Yeap?

784
00:38:30,280 --> 00:38:32,600
Speaker 1: Cool? Now we don't know who those things are, but

785
00:38:32,640 --> 00:38:34,960
Speaker 1: we can have theories about it, so we went it

786
00:38:34,960 --> 00:38:39,680
Speaker 1: from law to theory. Theories are like our explanations for

787
00:38:39,760 --> 00:38:43,120
Speaker 1: how the universe works. So general relativity, for example, is

788
00:38:43,160 --> 00:38:46,480
Speaker 1: a theory about how matter bends space and how space

789
00:38:46,560 --> 00:38:50,120
Speaker 1: tells matter to move. Quantum mechanics is a theory that

790
00:38:50,200 --> 00:38:54,319
Speaker 1: tells us that space is filled with oscillating fields. These

791
00:38:54,320 --> 00:38:58,600
Speaker 1: are theories. They're like our explanatory frameworks to describe the

792
00:38:58,840 --> 00:39:01,320
Speaker 1: things that we see in the universe, and we hope

793
00:39:01,320 --> 00:39:04,200
Speaker 1: that those theories line up with the truth the laws

794
00:39:04,239 --> 00:39:07,440
Speaker 1: that are actually out there in the universe. And so theories,

795
00:39:07,480 --> 00:39:10,080
Speaker 1: it's kind of a fuzzy term, right, Theories are sort

796
00:39:10,120 --> 00:39:13,600
Speaker 1: of like our ideas. They include a bunch of evidence

797
00:39:13,600 --> 00:39:15,719
Speaker 1: and they come together to give like some sort of

798
00:39:15,760 --> 00:39:19,680
Speaker 1: coherent explanation for how something is working in the universe.

799
00:39:20,080 --> 00:39:22,839
Speaker 1: A theory is not just like a random guess, not

800
00:39:22,920 --> 00:39:26,439
Speaker 1: just like, hmm, maybe it's this, right, like a fan

801
00:39:26,560 --> 00:39:30,440
Speaker 1: theory to explain the ending of some movie you just saw. Right,

802
00:39:30,480 --> 00:39:33,080
Speaker 1: It's something that's really based in evidence and has been

803
00:39:33,239 --> 00:39:36,440
Speaker 1: tested and it's sort of part of our explanation of

804
00:39:36,480 --> 00:39:37,160
Speaker 1: the universe.

805
00:39:37,520 --> 00:39:39,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, lots of different labs have looked at it. It's

806
00:39:39,480 --> 00:39:41,920
Speaker 2: been looked at from lots of different angles. Predictions have

807
00:39:42,000 --> 00:39:42,560
Speaker 2: been tested.

808
00:39:42,680 --> 00:39:46,279
Speaker 1: Yeah, agreed, Yeah, so the whole like, you know, gravity's

809
00:39:46,360 --> 00:39:49,560
Speaker 1: just a theory, man, doesn't mean that like we don't

810
00:39:49,560 --> 00:39:52,160
Speaker 1: know anything about gravity, or it's just like one of

811
00:39:52,200 --> 00:39:55,120
Speaker 1: ten options to explain why we stick to the surface

812
00:39:55,160 --> 00:39:57,440
Speaker 1: of the Earth. Right, A theory can be something that's

813
00:39:57,560 --> 00:39:59,000
Speaker 1: very well developed and understood.

814
00:39:59,120 --> 00:40:01,279
Speaker 2: I don't know, was vity really the best pick. There

815
00:40:01,320 --> 00:40:03,400
Speaker 2: seems like there's a lot we don't know about gravity.

816
00:40:04,960 --> 00:40:06,480
Speaker 1: There is a lot we don't know about gravity. That's

817
00:40:06,480 --> 00:40:09,120
Speaker 1: the other thing about a theory is that they're never complete, right,

818
00:40:09,160 --> 00:40:13,200
Speaker 1: They're evolving, their changing. You know, gravity is a wonderful,

819
00:40:13,280 --> 00:40:15,600
Speaker 1: amazing theory, but there's definitely a lot we don't know about,

820
00:40:15,880 --> 00:40:17,560
Speaker 1: you know, what's going on at the center of black

821
00:40:17,600 --> 00:40:21,640
Speaker 1: holes or the early universe, or fundamentally how gravity works

822
00:40:21,640 --> 00:40:22,160
Speaker 1: for particles.

823
00:40:22,239 --> 00:40:22,359
Speaker 3: Right.

824
00:40:22,480 --> 00:40:26,040
Speaker 1: Definitely, it's a not complete explanation of the universe. It's

825
00:40:26,040 --> 00:40:28,919
Speaker 1: an explanation of part of the universe. And we don't

826
00:40:28,960 --> 00:40:31,400
Speaker 1: have a unified theory. We'd love to have one, because

827
00:40:31,400 --> 00:40:34,080
Speaker 1: we think there is one set of laws, but we

828
00:40:34,160 --> 00:40:37,040
Speaker 1: have sort of piecemeal theories that we think are approximating

829
00:40:37,040 --> 00:40:37,640
Speaker 1: those laws.

830
00:40:37,920 --> 00:40:41,440
Speaker 2: Excellent. I'm glad we have a scientist slash philosopher on

831
00:40:41,480 --> 00:40:42,040
Speaker 2: the show.

832
00:40:43,040 --> 00:40:45,000
Speaker 1: So there are laws out there. We try to build

833
00:40:45,080 --> 00:40:47,680
Speaker 1: theories about how the universe works and follow those laws.

834
00:40:47,880 --> 00:40:50,640
Speaker 1: What's a model in that sense, and model is a

835
00:40:50,760 --> 00:40:54,719
Speaker 1: very overloaded term in physics, we use model to mean

836
00:40:54,760 --> 00:40:58,520
Speaker 1: sort of a simplified version of a theory, because theories

837
00:40:58,600 --> 00:41:02,040
Speaker 1: are complicated. If you wanted to calculate the orbit of

838
00:41:02,080 --> 00:41:05,200
Speaker 1: the Earth around the Sun, you couldn't use general relativity.

839
00:41:05,239 --> 00:41:08,439
Speaker 1: Nobody knows how to do that calculation. General relativity really

840
00:41:08,440 --> 00:41:11,160
Speaker 1: really nasty. The only times we've ever been able to

841
00:41:11,200 --> 00:41:15,040
Speaker 1: solve problems with general relativity are in simplified settings, like

842
00:41:15,320 --> 00:41:17,960
Speaker 1: an empty universe, a universe with just a black hole

843
00:41:18,000 --> 00:41:20,880
Speaker 1: in it, a universe filled with uniform dust. None of

844
00:41:20,920 --> 00:41:24,640
Speaker 1: those correspond to our reality. Our reality is too complicated

845
00:41:24,680 --> 00:41:28,160
Speaker 1: to solve with the full theory, and so we build

846
00:41:28,160 --> 00:41:30,640
Speaker 1: a model. We can simplify the universe. We can say, like,

847
00:41:31,320 --> 00:41:35,040
Speaker 1: let's assume the universe is empty except for the Earth

848
00:41:35,080 --> 00:41:37,520
Speaker 1: and the Sun. Now, let's do the calculation, and we

849
00:41:37,600 --> 00:41:41,799
Speaker 1: hope that the calculation is still relevant to the real universe. Right,

850
00:41:42,200 --> 00:41:45,840
Speaker 1: we find a simpler version something we actually can crank

851
00:41:45,880 --> 00:41:49,719
Speaker 1: on and hope that the answer is still irrelevant. Or

852
00:41:49,840 --> 00:41:52,759
Speaker 1: we can simplify the calculations. We can say, well, let's

853
00:41:52,840 --> 00:41:56,399
Speaker 1: use an approximate version of the theory. You know, Einstein's

854
00:41:56,400 --> 00:41:59,920
Speaker 1: equations for general relativity. If things are far apart and

855
00:42:00,080 --> 00:42:02,600
Speaker 1: masses are not too high and they're slow moving, they

856
00:42:02,640 --> 00:42:05,120
Speaker 1: reduce to Newton's theory. And so you can use Newton's

857
00:42:05,160 --> 00:42:07,680
Speaker 1: theory for most stuff. You want to calculate whether your

858
00:42:07,680 --> 00:42:10,320
Speaker 1: cannon ball is going to fly over the castle walls,

859
00:42:10,320 --> 00:42:12,719
Speaker 1: you don't need to use general relativity. You're going to

860
00:42:12,800 --> 00:42:16,560
Speaker 1: get basically the right answer using a simpler model, right,

861
00:42:16,640 --> 00:42:19,480
Speaker 1: a model of general relativity, which is just Newton's equations.

862
00:42:20,000 --> 00:42:22,560
Speaker 1: And so, you know, spherical cows are a fun joke

863
00:42:22,600 --> 00:42:24,879
Speaker 1: because that's the kind of thing physicists do. We're like, well,

864
00:42:25,360 --> 00:42:28,439
Speaker 1: let's replace a complex situation with a simpler situation where

865
00:42:28,480 --> 00:42:30,680
Speaker 1: the answer is basically the same. And so a model

866
00:42:30,719 --> 00:42:33,600
Speaker 1: is a simplification. Either you've simplified the universe or you've

867
00:42:33,640 --> 00:42:36,560
Speaker 1: simplified the theory so that you can get some answers out.

868
00:42:36,880 --> 00:42:39,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, and models are great. They help you decide if

869
00:42:39,120 --> 00:42:40,319
Speaker 2: you know your simplification.

870
00:42:40,960 --> 00:42:41,160
Speaker 1: Yeap.

871
00:42:41,280 --> 00:42:44,000
Speaker 2: When you do a simplification, you're making assumptions that some

872
00:42:44,080 --> 00:42:46,440
Speaker 2: things don't matter that much. And so then when your

873
00:42:46,440 --> 00:42:48,319
Speaker 2: model gives you an answer and you test it, you

874
00:42:48,360 --> 00:42:50,400
Speaker 2: can see, oh, was I right? That the thing doesn't

875
00:42:50,400 --> 00:42:53,120
Speaker 2: matter that much? And you know, ideally it's an iterative process.

876
00:42:53,160 --> 00:42:55,399
Speaker 2: The model gives you a prediction you can test, You

877
00:42:55,440 --> 00:42:57,360
Speaker 2: actually go out and you test it, and then you

878
00:42:57,480 --> 00:42:58,680
Speaker 2: update your model as needed.

879
00:42:58,800 --> 00:43:01,640
Speaker 1: That's right, and it's import to understand that every calculation

880
00:43:01,800 --> 00:43:06,000
Speaker 1: anybody has ever done uses models, uses simplifications. All of

881
00:43:06,080 --> 00:43:09,880
Speaker 1: physics uses approximations. If you want to calculate how the

882
00:43:09,920 --> 00:43:12,040
Speaker 1: Earth goes around the Sun, in principle, you need to

883
00:43:12,040 --> 00:43:15,399
Speaker 1: include the gravitational tug from every single object out there

884
00:43:15,440 --> 00:43:18,520
Speaker 1: in the universe which is pulling on the Earth. Most

885
00:43:18,560 --> 00:43:21,600
Speaker 1: of those are negligible, and some rock out there in Andromeda.

886
00:43:21,600 --> 00:43:23,200
Speaker 1: It's really not going to change the path of the

887
00:43:23,200 --> 00:43:25,520
Speaker 1: Earth in a way we can measure, but in principle

888
00:43:25,680 --> 00:43:29,640
Speaker 1: it does, so we always do approximations. It's impossible to

889
00:43:29,680 --> 00:43:32,480
Speaker 1: ever do full calculations in any of our theories for

890
00:43:32,640 --> 00:43:37,120
Speaker 1: any situations. So all of science is approximate to some degree,

891
00:43:37,480 --> 00:43:39,360
Speaker 1: and that's where a lot of science happens is figuring

892
00:43:39,440 --> 00:43:42,160
Speaker 1: out how to be clever about it. What approximations can

893
00:43:42,239 --> 00:43:45,640
Speaker 1: I make so the answer is still useful and irrelevant right,

894
00:43:45,680 --> 00:43:47,719
Speaker 1: and I can get this done in a PhD length

895
00:43:47,760 --> 00:43:49,760
Speaker 1: of time and not be here for ten thousand years.

896
00:43:49,960 --> 00:43:53,919
Speaker 2: That can often be a very painstaking part of the process. Though,

897
00:43:54,239 --> 00:43:57,440
Speaker 2: What are my parameter estimates that are reasonable and useful

898
00:43:57,560 --> 00:43:59,120
Speaker 2: and that can be a lot of work.

899
00:43:59,160 --> 00:44:01,480
Speaker 1: That's right. And so that's what a model is. And

900
00:44:01,560 --> 00:44:03,840
Speaker 1: let me say that model is used very differently in

901
00:44:03,880 --> 00:44:06,399
Speaker 1: different fields. Like I talk to computer scientists and machine

902
00:44:06,480 --> 00:44:09,360
Speaker 1: learning people. For them, a model is like a trained network.

903
00:44:09,680 --> 00:44:12,319
Speaker 1: They talk about neural networks as my model or their

904
00:44:12,360 --> 00:44:15,319
Speaker 1: boosted decision tree is a model. They use model I

905
00:44:15,320 --> 00:44:18,319
Speaker 1: means something they very different than physicists do. And I

906
00:44:18,360 --> 00:44:21,239
Speaker 1: know biologists talk about like model systems. They're studying the brain.

907
00:44:21,280 --> 00:44:23,920
Speaker 1: They're doing it in mice, or they're doing it in rats,

908
00:44:23,960 --> 00:44:26,120
Speaker 1: or they're doing it in flies. To them, that's the

909
00:44:26,200 --> 00:44:28,839
Speaker 1: meaning of model, like which model system are you using?

910
00:44:29,000 --> 00:44:31,360
Speaker 2: But when someone says to you, you know, what do

911
00:44:31,400 --> 00:44:33,960
Speaker 2: you do? When you say, oh, I do modeling, they

912
00:44:33,960 --> 00:44:36,319
Speaker 2: know that that means that you are using equations to

913
00:44:36,360 --> 00:44:38,319
Speaker 2: try to capture the dynamics of a system and are

914
00:44:38,320 --> 00:44:40,640
Speaker 2: making predictions that way. So I think we use the

915
00:44:40,640 --> 00:44:44,279
Speaker 2: word model in a couple different ways, one of which

916
00:44:44,360 --> 00:44:45,400
Speaker 2: is model systems.

917
00:44:45,920 --> 00:44:48,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think that fits in because, like you're

918
00:44:48,560 --> 00:44:51,880
Speaker 1: using the mouse as a model system to understand Alzheimer's

919
00:44:52,160 --> 00:44:54,880
Speaker 1: because you can't and you shouldn't, do experiments on humans,

920
00:44:55,239 --> 00:44:56,920
Speaker 1: and so use the mouse brain as a stand in

921
00:44:57,000 --> 00:45:00,399
Speaker 1: as an approximation for the human brain. Because know, it's

922
00:45:00,440 --> 00:45:02,799
Speaker 1: not okay to do the things the humans that you

923
00:45:02,880 --> 00:45:04,239
Speaker 1: do to mice, and maybe it's not okay to do

924
00:45:04,320 --> 00:45:06,520
Speaker 1: to mice either, but it's maybe more okay. I think

925
00:45:06,560 --> 00:45:08,120
Speaker 1: it's the argument biologists make.

926
00:45:08,280 --> 00:45:10,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, depends on who you're talking to, but I

927
00:45:10,480 --> 00:45:11,919
Speaker 2: guess I'd prefer it happened on mice.

928
00:45:12,000 --> 00:45:15,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, And so the last term was hypothesis.

929
00:45:15,719 --> 00:45:19,040
Speaker 1: We test our model by generating hypotheses. We're saying, here's

930
00:45:19,040 --> 00:45:21,560
Speaker 1: my model of the universe. I think that this interstellar

931
00:45:21,600 --> 00:45:23,840
Speaker 1: comet is made of ice and co.

932
00:45:24,120 --> 00:45:24,359
Speaker 3: Two.

933
00:45:24,800 --> 00:45:28,400
Speaker 1: Let me generate a hypothesis about what James Webspace telescope

934
00:45:28,400 --> 00:45:30,520
Speaker 1: we'll see when we point it at it, and then

935
00:45:30,600 --> 00:45:34,000
Speaker 1: I can compare that hypothesis to what we actually see.

936
00:45:34,280 --> 00:45:36,560
Speaker 1: So the model predicts something that's our hypothesis, and then

937
00:45:36,560 --> 00:45:39,440
Speaker 1: we compare it to reality in order to learn whether

938
00:45:39,480 --> 00:45:40,719
Speaker 1: the model is correct or not.

939
00:45:41,120 --> 00:45:41,359
Speaker 2: Yep.

940
00:45:41,520 --> 00:45:45,520
Speaker 1: Cool. So we have laws, theories, models, and hypotheses. And

941
00:45:45,560 --> 00:45:47,840
Speaker 1: the last bit of Ben's question was a sort of

942
00:45:47,840 --> 00:45:50,759
Speaker 1: loaded question about Darwin's theory. I hear a lot of

943
00:45:50,760 --> 00:45:54,239
Speaker 1: this discussion online about how evolution is just a theory man,

944
00:45:54,600 --> 00:45:56,759
Speaker 1: and because it all happened in the past, it's not

945
00:45:56,800 --> 00:46:01,320
Speaker 1: really predicting anything. It's just descriptive, and therefore it's unfalsifiable

946
00:46:01,560 --> 00:46:04,680
Speaker 1: and not really scientifically valid. And I wonder if these

947
00:46:04,719 --> 00:46:07,239
Speaker 1: critiques are really done in good faith. You know, these

948
00:46:07,320 --> 00:46:10,160
Speaker 1: are folks attacking evolution, trying to use the language of

949
00:46:10,160 --> 00:46:11,799
Speaker 1: science to undermine it. But I don't think they really

950
00:46:11,840 --> 00:46:15,520
Speaker 1: believe in the scientific process personally. Yeah, agree, So let's

951
00:46:15,520 --> 00:46:18,520
Speaker 1: talk about it. Darwin's theory is definitely a theory. I mean,

952
00:46:18,600 --> 00:46:23,120
Speaker 1: it provides an explanation for how speciation happens. Right, There's

953
00:46:23,160 --> 00:46:26,040
Speaker 1: lots of evidence out there that it's pulled together. It

954
00:46:26,080 --> 00:46:29,000
Speaker 1: definitely qualifies as a theory, and in that sense, it's

955
00:46:29,000 --> 00:46:31,640
Speaker 1: not just like some dude's random guess, right, It's a

956
00:46:31,680 --> 00:46:35,360
Speaker 1: well established explanation for a huge variety of stuff that

957
00:46:35,400 --> 00:46:36,279
Speaker 1: we see out there.

958
00:46:36,480 --> 00:46:38,640
Speaker 2: What do you think, Yes, so for one hundred and

959
00:46:38,719 --> 00:46:42,359
Speaker 2: fifty years, we've been trying to decide if evolution through

960
00:46:42,440 --> 00:46:45,719
Speaker 2: natural selection is supported by the data. And you know,

961
00:46:45,760 --> 00:46:50,240
Speaker 2: there's probably evolutionary biologists in every department that does research

962
00:46:50,320 --> 00:46:53,319
Speaker 2: around the world, and we have found results that make

963
00:46:53,400 --> 00:46:56,240
Speaker 2: us think about evolution through natural selection in a different way.

964
00:46:56,520 --> 00:46:58,480
Speaker 2: But in one hundred and fifty years, none of us

965
00:46:58,520 --> 00:47:01,160
Speaker 2: have come up with a result that's like, oh, definitely,

966
00:47:01,200 --> 00:47:02,920
Speaker 2: we drop this theory. So we've got one hundred and

967
00:47:03,040 --> 00:47:06,520
Speaker 2: fifty years of researching coming up with predictions based on

968
00:47:06,560 --> 00:47:09,879
Speaker 2: this theory that are supported by future work. So yeah,

969
00:47:10,120 --> 00:47:10,799
Speaker 2: I agree with you.

970
00:47:11,080 --> 00:47:14,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, And Ben asks like, is this a predictive theory?

971
00:47:14,600 --> 00:47:16,480
Speaker 1: And I think the answer is absolutely. You know, it

972
00:47:16,520 --> 00:47:18,799
Speaker 1: predicts lots of things about what you should find out

973
00:47:18,840 --> 00:47:21,320
Speaker 1: there in the world. You should find fossils, you should

974
00:47:21,320 --> 00:47:25,000
Speaker 1: find simpler behaviors leading to more complex behaviors. You should

975
00:47:25,000 --> 00:47:29,279
Speaker 1: see real time evolution, you know, when communities respond to

976
00:47:29,440 --> 00:47:33,160
Speaker 1: changing circumstances. You should see a connection between the species

977
00:47:33,200 --> 00:47:36,440
Speaker 1: that we observe and the genetic information that leads to them.

978
00:47:36,800 --> 00:47:40,360
Speaker 1: This is I think a really powerful confirmation of natural

979
00:47:40,360 --> 00:47:43,319
Speaker 1: selection is finding the sort of mechanism the DNA, the

980
00:47:43,320 --> 00:47:47,719
Speaker 1: biochemistry that underlies all of this, and seeing confirmed in

981
00:47:47,800 --> 00:47:50,920
Speaker 1: the history of that evolution in the DNA, I think

982
00:47:50,920 --> 00:47:53,680
Speaker 1: it's super fascinating. You know, we can learn things about

983
00:47:53,719 --> 00:47:57,160
Speaker 1: like when community is diverged by seeing the differences in

984
00:47:57,200 --> 00:47:58,280
Speaker 1: their DNA.

985
00:47:58,239 --> 00:48:01,239
Speaker 2: Yep, yep. And you know, yeah, Darwin is clearly like

986
00:48:01,320 --> 00:48:04,640
Speaker 2: the best scientist of all time. Sorry, Daniel. And so

987
00:48:04,800 --> 00:48:07,520
Speaker 2: if you could be the scientist who finds the data

988
00:48:07,560 --> 00:48:11,960
Speaker 2: that refutes this theory, yeah, you could replace the name Darwin, right,

989
00:48:12,000 --> 00:48:13,279
Speaker 2: And so there's no.

990
00:48:13,840 --> 00:48:16,400
Speaker 1: Mainstream narrative the biology is trying to protect.

991
00:48:17,080 --> 00:48:18,319
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, that's right.

992
00:48:18,840 --> 00:48:22,560
Speaker 1: Now every scientist out there wants to overthrow the mainstream

993
00:48:22,640 --> 00:48:25,520
Speaker 1: narrative because that's how you become a famous scientist. And

994
00:48:25,560 --> 00:48:27,960
Speaker 1: also that's what we all want to do. We want

995
00:48:27,960 --> 00:48:30,680
Speaker 1: to learn the truth about the universe. We're driven by

996
00:48:30,680 --> 00:48:33,759
Speaker 1: our curiosity to reveal the truth, not to support some

997
00:48:33,800 --> 00:48:36,799
Speaker 1: sort of dogma. But you raised I think the last,

998
00:48:36,920 --> 00:48:39,399
Speaker 1: maybe the most important point is that the question about

999
00:48:39,400 --> 00:48:42,799
Speaker 1: whether this could be refuted. So can you, Kelly, imagine

1000
00:48:42,880 --> 00:48:47,440
Speaker 1: some evidence that hypothetically would undercut this theory of evolution.

1001
00:48:47,800 --> 00:48:50,799
Speaker 2: At this point, we have so much evidence. It's kind

1002
00:48:50,840 --> 00:48:53,680
Speaker 2: of hard to imagine something we could have missed and

1003
00:48:53,719 --> 00:48:56,920
Speaker 2: like one piece of information that would refute everything. So

1004
00:48:56,960 --> 00:48:58,840
Speaker 2: I think at this point, if you had a finding

1005
00:48:58,920 --> 00:49:05,319
Speaker 2: that like multi cellular life existed before we found unicellular life,

1006
00:49:05,320 --> 00:49:07,680
Speaker 2: like it just popped into existence or something, we would

1007
00:49:07,760 --> 00:49:09,920
Speaker 2: have to look really hard at, like have we collected

1008
00:49:09,960 --> 00:49:12,520
Speaker 2: all the data and all the different places, Like yeah,

1009
00:49:12,560 --> 00:49:14,680
Speaker 2: because there's this mountain of evidence and you've got this

1010
00:49:14,719 --> 00:49:17,759
Speaker 2: one thing that maybe doesn't fit. But I do think

1011
00:49:17,880 --> 00:49:21,319
Speaker 2: that if there were evidence out there, scientists would be

1012
00:49:21,360 --> 00:49:23,920
Speaker 2: open to considering it and looking at it and trying

1013
00:49:23,920 --> 00:49:26,480
Speaker 2: to understand if that makes us wrong, or if it's

1014
00:49:26,560 --> 00:49:30,319
Speaker 2: just a shady corner in the room of evolution that

1015
00:49:30,360 --> 00:49:32,359
Speaker 2: we haven't explored yet and we just need to move

1016
00:49:32,400 --> 00:49:34,160
Speaker 2: into that into that area instead.

1017
00:49:34,320 --> 00:49:37,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think the question is reasonable, Like we

1018
00:49:37,120 --> 00:49:39,959
Speaker 1: expect theories to do more than just describe the data

1019
00:49:40,000 --> 00:49:43,120
Speaker 1: we've seen. We want them to generalize. If they really

1020
00:49:43,160 --> 00:49:45,239
Speaker 1: are coming close to the truth the laws of the

1021
00:49:45,239 --> 00:49:47,600
Speaker 1: actual universe, they should be able to predict things we

1022
00:49:47,680 --> 00:49:50,600
Speaker 1: haven't seen. And Ben's question is like, well, hasn't this

1023
00:49:50,640 --> 00:49:52,600
Speaker 1: all this stuff happened in the past Yeah, a lot

1024
00:49:52,640 --> 00:49:54,040
Speaker 1: of the stuff has happened in the past, but we

1025
00:49:54,040 --> 00:49:56,520
Speaker 1: haven't seen it yet, and so we can predict, like

1026
00:49:56,960 --> 00:49:59,000
Speaker 1: I predict what I'm gonna find when I dig into

1027
00:49:59,040 --> 00:50:01,120
Speaker 1: the ground. Yeah, the stuff is already there and the

1028
00:50:01,160 --> 00:50:03,480
Speaker 1: events already occurred, but if we haven't seen it yet,

1029
00:50:03,480 --> 00:50:05,719
Speaker 1: then it's fair to predict it and to treat that

1030
00:50:05,840 --> 00:50:07,200
Speaker 1: as a test of the theory.

1031
00:50:07,360 --> 00:50:08,040
Speaker 2: Yep, agreed.

1032
00:50:08,120 --> 00:50:10,480
Speaker 1: All right, So Ben, let us know if we answered

1033
00:50:10,520 --> 00:50:13,000
Speaker 1: your question about the definition of these terms and their

1034
00:50:13,040 --> 00:50:16,319
Speaker 1: application to Darwin's theory of the origin of the species.

1035
00:50:16,480 --> 00:50:19,920
Speaker 8: Well, Daniel and Kelly, even though the classification of groups

1036
00:50:19,920 --> 00:50:24,000
Speaker 8: of ideas is obviously a complicated topic, I just knew

1037
00:50:24,239 --> 00:50:26,799
Speaker 8: that it would come up with some clear insights. Thank

1038
00:50:26,800 --> 00:50:29,600
Speaker 8: you very much, and it's good to hear that Darwin's

1039
00:50:29,600 --> 00:50:33,120
Speaker 8: amazing theories are currently being used by scientists to help

1040
00:50:33,160 --> 00:50:36,600
Speaker 8: both explain and predict many phenomena. I wish you all

1041
00:50:36,640 --> 00:50:38,880
Speaker 8: the best for your trip to Inverness, Daniel, and I

1042
00:50:38,920 --> 00:50:41,960
Speaker 8: hope the weather matches that in southern California so you

1043
00:50:41,960 --> 00:50:44,240
Speaker 8: can stay comfortable wearing that kills.

1044
00:50:44,440 --> 00:50:44,759
Speaker 3: All right.

1045
00:50:44,800 --> 00:50:46,840
Speaker 2: Well, that was a ton of fun. As always, I

1046
00:50:47,080 --> 00:50:49,719
Speaker 2: learned a ton hopefully the listeners learned a ton too.

1047
00:50:49,880 --> 00:50:52,480
Speaker 2: Please remember you can write us at Questions at Daniel

1048
00:50:52,480 --> 00:50:54,520
Speaker 2: and Kelly dot org. You can join us on our

1049
00:50:54,560 --> 00:50:58,040
Speaker 2: Discord channel. You can find us on Twitter and Instagram

1050
00:50:58,200 --> 00:50:59,000
Speaker 2: and Blue Sky.

1051
00:51:00,200 --> 00:51:02,799
Speaker 1: Out to us please and let curiosity drive you through

1052
00:51:02,800 --> 00:51:03,200
Speaker 1: your day.

1053
00:51:10,239 --> 00:51:14,080
Speaker 2: Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe is produced by iHeartRadio. We

1054
00:51:14,120 --> 00:51:15,520
Speaker 2: would love to hear from you.

1055
00:51:15,640 --> 00:51:18,560
Speaker 1: We really would. We want to know what questions you

1056
00:51:18,760 --> 00:51:21,400
Speaker 1: have about this Extraordinary Universe.

1057
00:51:21,520 --> 00:51:24,439
Speaker 2: We want to know your thoughts on recent shows, suggestions

1058
00:51:24,480 --> 00:51:27,480
Speaker 2: for future shows. If you contact us, we will get

1059
00:51:27,520 --> 00:51:27,920
Speaker 2: back to you.

1060
00:51:28,160 --> 00:51:31,680
Speaker 1: We really mean it. We answer every message. Email us

1061
00:51:31,719 --> 00:51:34,880
Speaker 1: at Questions at Danielankelly.

1062
00:51:34,000 --> 00:51:36,080
Speaker 2: Dot org, or you can find us on social media.

1063
00:51:36,200 --> 00:51:40,000
Speaker 2: We have accounts on x, Instagram, Blue Sky and on

1064
00:51:40,080 --> 00:51:42,040
Speaker 2: all of those platforms. You can find us at D

1065
00:51:42,480 --> 00:51:43,960
Speaker 2: and K Universe.

1066
00:51:44,200 --> 00:51:45,759
Speaker 1: Don't be shy, write to us