WEBVTT - Creature Classic: Animals Are Sick! 0:00:06.240 --> 0:00:10.000 Welcome to Creature feature production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host 0:00:10.080 --> 0:00:15.080 of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology, 0:00:15.120 --> 0:00:18.080 and today on the show we are getting guy and 0:00:18.160 --> 0:00:22.119 you can see we are talking about animal immune systems 0:00:22.520 --> 0:00:26.439 now as we hopefully exit the cold and flu season. 0:00:26.480 --> 0:00:29.840 I'm sure a lot of you have had some recent 0:00:30.000 --> 0:00:35.919 experience with your immune system, and despite how unpleasant it is, 0:00:36.000 --> 0:00:40.919 it is also really fascinating. So today is a special 0:00:41.000 --> 0:00:44.320 episode because I have a guest who is a naturalist, 0:00:44.400 --> 0:00:48.960 a teacher, and an author whose recent book, Sick is 0:00:49.000 --> 0:00:54.320 about amazing stories of the animal immune system. It would 0:00:54.320 --> 0:00:58.280 be a book that if I had got my hands 0:00:58.360 --> 0:01:01.160 on this book when I was a kid, it would 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:04.839 be like my personal Bible. Is it is really fun 0:01:05.120 --> 0:01:08.120 even for adults. Welcome Heather Montgomery. 0:01:08.760 --> 0:01:11.080 Hey, I'm so excited to be here and talk to 0:01:11.120 --> 0:01:14.120 folks who are just as excited as I am to 0:01:14.240 --> 0:01:17.080 learn from the animal world. It's so amazing what's out there. 0:01:17.120 --> 0:01:19.840 If we open our eyes and start asking questions. Wow, 0:01:20.200 --> 0:01:21.520 I just get carried away with it. 0:01:22.680 --> 0:01:26.160 I feel like we're very much kindred spirits. Because I 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:29.960 love the grossness of biology Obviously, I do love a 0:01:30.000 --> 0:01:34.080 beautiful butterfly. I love a beautiful bird, but I think 0:01:34.400 --> 0:01:38.600 I also enjoy appreciating just the you know, the poop 0:01:38.720 --> 0:01:42.959 of nature. It's so interesting and it's I mean, it's 0:01:43.200 --> 0:01:47.520 not only a great way to I think teach kids 0:01:47.560 --> 0:01:49.640 about it, because like, you know, you got to lean 0:01:49.680 --> 0:01:51.560 in a little bit to like the gross stuff to 0:01:51.600 --> 0:01:55.280 get kids interested. But honestly, I also believe that is 0:01:55.320 --> 0:01:57.560 true of adults. Like we may not like to admit it, 0:01:58.080 --> 0:02:02.680 but I certainly have never outgrown learning stuff about poop 0:02:02.760 --> 0:02:06.600 and fighting. It both kind of funny and really interesting. 0:02:06.680 --> 0:02:09.360 Right, isn't that funny that happens? Like when we grow up, 0:02:09.400 --> 0:02:12.000 we're supposed to not be interested in the things that 0:02:12.040 --> 0:02:15.240 we're innately interested in. I'm not sure why why, but 0:02:15.320 --> 0:02:19.079 it's like we're always attracted and repelled at the same 0:02:19.120 --> 0:02:21.680 time by these things, and those are the things that 0:02:21.720 --> 0:02:24.320 fascinate me. I'm kind of curious as to why people 0:02:24.320 --> 0:02:27.560 are so interested in the yanky stuff, but we are. Yeah, 0:02:27.919 --> 0:02:29.480 It's it's really cool. 0:02:30.639 --> 0:02:33.560 It is really interesting because it makes some sense that 0:02:33.600 --> 0:02:38.160 we are repelled by poop, because I mean, in some ways, 0:02:38.200 --> 0:02:42.480 it's very practical, right, poop can spread parasites, can spread disease. 0:02:43.520 --> 0:02:46.480 But it's so it's good that we're not, you know, 0:02:46.840 --> 0:02:49.079 that we grow out of the phase of playing in 0:02:49.160 --> 0:02:53.280 our own poop. However, it is still really interesting. I 0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:56.320 think that we are drawn to kind of like you know, 0:02:56.520 --> 0:02:58.480 you when you're on a hike and you see some 0:02:58.720 --> 0:03:01.600 animal dung and you see there's stuff poking out of it. 0:03:02.120 --> 0:03:06.400 I think people would be lying if, like they wouldn't 0:03:06.440 --> 0:03:09.200 admit that that's a little interesting, and you're kind of like, okay, 0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:10.880 I do kind of want to poke that with a 0:03:10.919 --> 0:03:14.440 stick and find out what's going on in there. It's 0:03:15.240 --> 0:03:20.560 both gross for good reason, but it's also really interesting exactly. 0:03:20.880 --> 0:03:22.799 That's actually what led me to write a whole book 0:03:22.840 --> 0:03:24.679 about poop, a different book. 0:03:24.680 --> 0:03:26.880 You know, it was a different book, yes, but it 0:03:26.960 --> 0:03:27.280 was like. 0:03:28.720 --> 0:03:31.720 The surprising site, right that we when we look at 0:03:31.720 --> 0:03:34.200 this stuff that's so gross, what we can actually learn 0:03:34.240 --> 0:03:37.880 about the world, whether it's animals, you know, or the 0:03:37.920 --> 0:03:40.400 rest of the world. All of the kind of big 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:42.760 questions that come out of scat. 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:47.520 Yeah, no, absolutely, I mean it's it's a whole thing 0:03:47.640 --> 0:03:51.760 like in in research, it's so such an important actual 0:03:51.840 --> 0:03:56.680 kind of like research method is collecting and studying animal poop, 0:03:57.320 --> 0:04:00.320 which sounds you know, it sounds like not a fun job, 0:04:00.360 --> 0:04:02.480 but then when you think about it, like that is 0:04:02.560 --> 0:04:04.480 kind of cool because you get to be out in nature, 0:04:04.640 --> 0:04:07.160 you collect a bunch of dung, and then you bring 0:04:07.240 --> 0:04:10.960 it back for analysis. But there is so there is 0:04:11.040 --> 0:04:14.480 one poop story I want uh to talk about a 0:04:14.520 --> 0:04:17.760 little bit. It's in your book. Uh. It's I think 0:04:17.880 --> 0:04:21.360 one of the most endearingly gross stories about poop. 0:04:21.520 --> 0:04:21.640 Uh. 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:26.400 It is about puppy poop and the mother's response to 0:04:26.680 --> 0:04:32.000 puppy poop. And it's it's really cute but also horrifyingly disgusting, 0:04:32.040 --> 0:04:34.479 and I don't it's one of those things where it's 0:04:34.480 --> 0:04:39.799 like perfectly combining cuteness with grossness exactly right. 0:04:40.200 --> 0:04:42.360 So, if you're a mom and you've got a whole 0:04:42.480 --> 0:04:46.760 litter of puppies and a you know together, what are 0:04:46.800 --> 0:04:49.680 they going to do? A lot of is boop? Right, 0:04:49.960 --> 0:04:52.400 and that's awesome, You're got to get rid of the stuff. 0:04:52.400 --> 0:04:56.040 Plus what if there's parasites in it, which they're likely 0:04:56.240 --> 0:04:59.000 are you know, if you're if you're not a pet 0:04:59.040 --> 0:05:01.760 and taken care of, and so how do you deal 0:05:01.800 --> 0:05:05.120 with that, because the puppy's immune system can't deal with 0:05:05.160 --> 0:05:10.360 it at all. So mom sacrifices and she laps it up. 0:05:10.760 --> 0:05:14.520 She carries it away from her babies through her own 0:05:14.560 --> 0:05:18.840 digestive system, which is atrocious but not really because her 0:05:18.839 --> 0:05:22.800 immune systems better handle these kinds of parasites. Plus she 0:05:23.240 --> 0:05:25.159 basically hauls away and she can't pick it up with 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:28.200 her hands, right, so she basically hauls away through her 0:05:28.240 --> 0:05:32.160 system and deposits it elsewhere. And if she deposits it elsewhere, 0:05:32.520 --> 0:05:36.159 soon enough, the eggs haven't hatched for say, the round one, 0:05:36.760 --> 0:05:39.400 and so she gets rid of them. It's just like 0:05:40.040 --> 0:05:42.520 that in and of itself, that kind of behavioral adaptation 0:05:42.800 --> 0:05:46.560 is phenomenal to me, Like how that came about. It's 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:49.560 just amazing gross but awesome too. 0:05:49.640 --> 0:05:52.600 You know, it's so gross, but it's so sweet because 0:05:52.640 --> 0:05:56.920 like obviously you know, it's this dog wanting to I mean, 0:05:57.560 --> 0:05:59.520 it's hard to talk about animals in terms of what 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:03.160 they want, like because they have these instincts, right, and 0:06:03.480 --> 0:06:06.440 this mother dog doesn't know why she's drawn to eating 0:06:06.480 --> 0:06:10.560 her offsprings poop, but it is it is a It's 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:14.479 still sweet because it's like this this instinct to protect 0:06:14.520 --> 0:06:18.800 your offspring to help them grow and develop. I mean, 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:22.640 it makes sense, that's how evolution works. But it's also 0:06:22.800 --> 0:06:26.159 like it's one of the things that like, oh yeah, 0:06:26.200 --> 0:06:29.160 like humans are not the only ones that deal with 0:06:29.279 --> 0:06:32.800 baby poop, like other animals deal with baby poop. A 0:06:32.920 --> 0:06:36.599 cute thing. I think Another kind of cute gross poop 0:06:36.600 --> 0:06:40.720 thing is that birds, a lot of bird species, they 0:06:40.760 --> 0:06:44.440 don't want to just have their baby birds poop and 0:06:44.640 --> 0:06:48.039 have the poop accumulate and the nests. So the baby 0:06:48.120 --> 0:06:50.720 bird poop is actually kind of comes in it. When 0:06:50.720 --> 0:06:52.839 it comes out, it's sort of encased in this like 0:06:52.920 --> 0:06:57.080 mucosal sack, and then it lifts its little butt up 0:06:57.680 --> 0:07:01.640 and presents this poop too. It's and the mom bird 0:07:01.760 --> 0:07:03.520 just like picks it up with her beak because you know, 0:07:03.560 --> 0:07:06.400 she doesn't have hands, and carries it outside the nest 0:07:06.480 --> 0:07:09.640 and deposits it outside the nest. So it's it's kind 0:07:09.680 --> 0:07:12.360 of gross but also really cute. And I have seen 0:07:12.440 --> 0:07:15.160 a video of someone who's taking care of a baby 0:07:15.160 --> 0:07:20.440 bird that was sadly abandoned, and this person has to 0:07:21.080 --> 0:07:24.560 take a pair of chompsticks and pick up the little 0:07:24.600 --> 0:07:27.640 poop package. Every time this bird feeds and then like 0:07:27.680 --> 0:07:30.480 presents its butt, presents this poop. It's really cute and 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:33.160 also obviously a little gross. 0:07:33.320 --> 0:07:37.679 Isn't it phenomenal that that works that way. I actually 0:07:37.800 --> 0:07:40.960 challenge kids and adults sometimes because we're all just being kids, 0:07:41.200 --> 0:07:46.000 to watch a nest with binoculars and you can actually 0:07:46.080 --> 0:07:51.440 tell when the young have hatched and started to digest 0:07:51.520 --> 0:07:54.960 food or consume food because you'll start to see the 0:07:55.000 --> 0:07:59.360 mother and add too, carrying away the fecals. It's just crazy. 0:08:00.080 --> 0:08:03.120 So it's it's like, oh, yeah, other animals, I guess 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:05.760 have to deal with quote unquote poopy diapers, except it's 0:08:05.760 --> 0:08:07.200 like a natural diaper. 0:08:07.800 --> 0:08:09.640 Yeah, and it would be great if you know, we 0:08:09.720 --> 0:08:14.000 had national diapers for our young as well, but yeah, 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:14.679 but we don't. 0:08:15.160 --> 0:08:20.520 No, we don't, we don't. So another major theme in 0:08:20.560 --> 0:08:23.559 your book is the immune system, which I mean, again, 0:08:23.640 --> 0:08:26.239 I as an adult, got to kick out of reading 0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:28.080 this book, but it is It is a great book 0:08:28.120 --> 0:08:29.840 for kids as well, and I think this is a 0:08:29.880 --> 0:08:33.680 great introduction to the immune system to kids because it's 0:08:34.160 --> 0:08:38.200 it seems overwhelming, right, like the immune system, it's so complicated, 0:08:38.240 --> 0:08:40.520 there's so many things. But I think it's also like 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:44.560 when you think about the parts of the immune system, 0:08:44.600 --> 0:08:48.360 it gets a little bit easier to understand what's going 0:08:48.360 --> 0:08:51.200 on because there's actually two major parts of the immune system, 0:08:51.200 --> 0:08:55.199 and one is the innate or non specific immune system 0:08:56.040 --> 0:08:58.800 and the adaptive immune system. And the innate immune system 0:08:59.240 --> 0:09:01.440 we see every day when you look in the mirror, 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:05.240 you look at other people. It's our skin, it's our mucus, 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:08.960 it's our earwax, our hair, all of these things that 0:09:09.040 --> 0:09:14.680 are a barrier to pathogens. There's also on the cellular 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:19.880 level innate immune cells, such as phagocytes that will actually 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:24.560 basically eat pathogens, eat things that are not supposed to 0:09:24.600 --> 0:09:28.400 be there, break them down so that they are harmless. 0:09:28.440 --> 0:09:31.679 Sometimes they break it down and then that's when the 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:35.319 adaptive immune system can come into play. So the adaptive 0:09:35.360 --> 0:09:38.200 immune system is the part of the immune system that 0:09:38.240 --> 0:09:43.640 actually launches a response specifically towards a type of pathogen 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:47.920 that it recognizes. So when you learn about a virus, 0:09:47.920 --> 0:09:50.600 like you get infected with a virus, your body learns 0:09:50.640 --> 0:09:54.600 about it, then it launches an adaptive immune response, and 0:09:54.640 --> 0:09:58.800 this one is a little more precise and it can 0:09:58.840 --> 0:10:04.800 be stronger. It can in a stronger reaction. But it's 0:10:04.960 --> 0:10:09.040 really interesting because this adaptive immune system is in this 0:10:09.160 --> 0:10:13.719 kind of like ballet with viruses and bacteria, this evolutionary 0:10:13.800 --> 0:10:18.239 kind of arms race, and so both humans and animals 0:10:18.320 --> 0:10:24.280 have adaptive and innate immune systems, and the balances can 0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:28.080 be different. Some animals actually have a very weak adaptive 0:10:28.080 --> 0:10:32.160 immune system or a very weak innate immune system, and 0:10:32.200 --> 0:10:34.480 it kind of they balance each other out. Like the 0:10:35.640 --> 0:10:39.720 deep sea anglerfish has actually kind of done away with 0:10:39.800 --> 0:10:43.960 a lot of its adaptive immune system because the male 0:10:44.200 --> 0:10:48.120 deep sea anglerfish attaches itself to the female and actually 0:10:48.240 --> 0:10:51.320 kind of like fuses grafts itself onto the female. And 0:10:51.400 --> 0:10:56.480 if this adaptive immune system knew that this male was there, 0:10:56.960 --> 0:10:59.079 it would try to kill it, and that would put 0:10:59.120 --> 0:11:02.120 a kibosh on the who whole like mating strategy of 0:11:02.160 --> 0:11:05.120 these these fish. And so instead it's thought that it 0:11:05.160 --> 0:11:10.080 overcomes this weaker adaptive immune system with a stronger passive 0:11:10.080 --> 0:11:14.079 immune system, like a you know, thicker skin, more mucosal 0:11:14.400 --> 0:11:16.760 membranes and so, and also just the fact that they're 0:11:16.800 --> 0:11:19.920 not really running into each other a lot down there. 0:11:20.120 --> 0:11:24.880 So sparsely populated, but in general animals have both an 0:11:24.920 --> 0:11:28.440 innate and an adaptive immune system, and the innate immune 0:11:28.440 --> 0:11:32.960 system can be really really interesting. Uh. And I really 0:11:33.000 --> 0:11:37.480 love your examples in this book, especially when when we're 0:11:37.480 --> 0:11:41.120 talking about slime. So what is so many animals are 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:45.959 slimy and it seems gross, but it's actually really interesting 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:48.720 and really important. So what is I mean, what is slime? 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:51.160 What is mucus? And what is what is it used for? 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:53.640 And why is it so popular in nature? 0:11:54.160 --> 0:11:56.840 Oh, slime is awesome. Don't we love it? I mean, 0:11:56.960 --> 0:11:59.040 it is just great. We all have it. It's there, 0:11:59.440 --> 0:12:01.280 it's a part of of well I don't know an 0:12:01.320 --> 0:12:04.120 animal that it's not a part of. But the amazing 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:08.600 thing is that slime protects us, you know, it's in 0:12:08.640 --> 0:12:11.880 our nose and it's one of those other than the skin, 0:12:12.000 --> 0:12:14.200 which is kind of the first barrier, right, But that 0:12:14.400 --> 0:12:18.160 slime is there to catch intruders as they come into 0:12:18.240 --> 0:12:22.320 the body and attack it. One of the stories I 0:12:22.360 --> 0:12:24.000 love is about the hagfish, which. 0:12:23.840 --> 0:12:26.000 People probably I love the hagfish. 0:12:26.080 --> 0:12:29.600 They're so gross and so slimy, right, and their slime 0:12:29.679 --> 0:12:33.080 does a number of different things, But it also includes 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:39.480 licensimes and that when they the license homes are just 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:43.120 these amazing attackers, right, So any bacteria or things like that, 0:12:43.160 --> 0:12:44.839 they just go at it, hack it, wack it, and 0:12:44.920 --> 0:12:47.960 smack it. And I just think that's pretty awesome to 0:12:48.040 --> 0:12:51.840 look at kind of across the Indu Kingdom, how similar 0:12:52.400 --> 0:12:58.360 adaptations are used, and also how every species has its 0:12:58.400 --> 0:13:04.599 own unique way of attacking these invaders. One of the 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:07.400 stories I love to talk about is the ants, because 0:13:07.440 --> 0:13:09.439 ants don't give a lot get a lot of credit, right, 0:13:09.720 --> 0:13:13.880 I mean, there's little things, but amazingly scientists are studying 0:13:14.080 --> 0:13:18.960 ants in order to better understand our immune system. One 0:13:18.960 --> 0:13:21.400 of the things that happens, at least to my mind, 0:13:21.440 --> 0:13:24.920 when I'm understanding immune systems is it's so complex it's 0:13:24.960 --> 0:13:28.600 hard to hard to visualize, right, But when you think 0:13:28.640 --> 0:13:33.480 about an ant colony as an individual a super organism, 0:13:34.280 --> 0:13:38.160 you can kind of get a better sense of how 0:13:38.240 --> 0:13:42.120 a human body might work. For example, we've all seen yeah, yeah, right, 0:13:42.200 --> 0:13:44.200 Like we've all seen an ant hill. We see ants 0:13:44.240 --> 0:13:47.640 go in, right, and if you think about that ant hill, 0:13:47.840 --> 0:13:51.760 if you touch it, you know how they react. So 0:13:52.080 --> 0:13:54.880 thinking that that ant hill is kind of like our skin, 0:13:55.600 --> 0:14:00.440 the outside surface, Like if we attack it, they're gonna 0:14:00.440 --> 0:14:03.679 attack us, just like if something breaks our skin barrier, 0:14:04.280 --> 0:14:06.520 our immune system's gonna attack it. But then there are 0:14:06.559 --> 0:14:08.840 the normal places where things go into the ant hill, 0:14:09.000 --> 0:14:11.920 like the openings, you know, the entrance ways. But right 0:14:11.920 --> 0:14:15.840 there the entrance ways to that ant hill are guards, 0:14:15.880 --> 0:14:18.280 and those guards are gonna attack anything that tries to 0:14:18.280 --> 0:14:21.160 come in that is not the self, right, just like 0:14:21.200 --> 0:14:23.720 our nose that slim in our nose, it's gonna do 0:14:23.760 --> 0:14:26.720 the same thing, right, And as you go deeper into 0:14:26.720 --> 0:14:29.080 the ant hill, you have more and more protection. What 0:14:29.200 --> 0:14:32.320 was amazing to me is as I researched for this book, 0:14:32.360 --> 0:14:34.880 I discovered I never thought about the fact that ants 0:14:34.920 --> 0:14:38.000 are exposed to fungus all the time because they live 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:39.920 in the soil, and fungus lives in the soil, and 0:14:40.120 --> 0:14:43.040 fungus would just love to like dive into an ant 0:14:43.080 --> 0:14:48.280 hill and create an epidemic because one little ant carrying 0:14:48.320 --> 0:14:52.400 fungus spores into the ant hill. Oh, they could go crazy. 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:55.120 But you know, you've got those guards on the doorway 0:14:55.400 --> 0:14:58.360 that are gonna maybe catch those spores. But as the 0:14:58.400 --> 0:15:00.920 ant worker ant goes deeper or into the ant hill, 0:15:01.920 --> 0:15:06.360 there's there are other cleaner ants sanitation ants, right, And 0:15:06.440 --> 0:15:10.640 so what's fascinating to be is that these ants, these 0:15:10.640 --> 0:15:15.320 sanitation ants, remove these fungal spores, but yet don't get 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:18.280 sick themselves. And I was like how, And so I 0:15:18.320 --> 0:15:21.480 looked into the research and it's just amazing. This guy, 0:15:21.560 --> 0:15:25.120 Christopher Poull is doing some awesome research with them. One 0:15:25.160 --> 0:15:27.400 of the things that happens in certain ants is they 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:31.520 they actually put the spores in their mouths. Wait, leaning 0:15:31.680 --> 0:15:33.560 the ants they're putting the spores in their mouth It 0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:35.480 sounds really really like the. 0:15:35.440 --> 0:15:36.760 Wrong thing to get dangerous. 0:15:36.880 --> 0:15:39.480 Yeah, right, but they have these pockets in their mouth, 0:15:39.800 --> 0:15:42.520 little pockets in their mouths that they stuff the spores 0:15:42.560 --> 0:15:45.240 into and then they carry the spores off into the 0:15:45.280 --> 0:15:47.120 garbage basically and get. 0:15:47.040 --> 0:15:50.000 Rid of them and spit it out. Yeah, that's amazing. 0:15:50.200 --> 0:15:53.400 And this story goes deeper and deeper because in this story, 0:15:53.520 --> 0:15:58.360 actually if the young, the pupa, the larvae are infected 0:15:58.680 --> 0:16:05.280 by spores, the sanitation ants actually destroy them, which sounds. 0:16:05.040 --> 0:16:08.080 Terrible, right, it's zombie apocalypse rules, you know. 0:16:08.920 --> 0:16:12.840 The zombie absolu And but it's such an analogy to 0:16:12.960 --> 0:16:15.600 our own bodies, where if we have cells that are 0:16:15.600 --> 0:16:19.040 infected guess what they have to die? 0:16:19.320 --> 0:16:25.080 Apoptosis is. It's it's really interesting because the cell death 0:16:25.520 --> 0:16:29.080 sounds really bad. Oh, cell death, it's the thing that 0:16:29.200 --> 0:16:33.800 keeps us alive. We need our cells to die. They 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:37.720 can replenish. Obviously. If you have too much cellular death, 0:16:37.800 --> 0:16:41.040 that's a bad thing. But if you have no cellular death, 0:16:41.080 --> 0:16:44.680 that's actually what cancer basically is. It's when your cell 0:16:45.200 --> 0:16:48.800 doesn't know how to die. It's your cell loses the ability. 0:16:48.800 --> 0:16:53.680 There's a mutation that prevents it from uh from dying 0:16:54.320 --> 0:16:59.920 from this process called apoptosis, and that is really really bad. 0:17:00.440 --> 0:17:04.959 It's also what protects us from pathogens, because an infected 0:17:05.080 --> 0:17:09.199 cell can be like, oh, this isn't good actually, like 0:17:09.440 --> 0:17:15.400 destroy itself, and even through destroying itself, can can cause 0:17:15.600 --> 0:17:18.199 the virus to break apart, and then that can be 0:17:18.240 --> 0:17:20.679 picked up by other cells, which go, oh, this is 0:17:20.840 --> 0:17:24.040 an interesting thing to learn from and bring those little 0:17:24.160 --> 0:17:27.800 those little antigens, the parts of the virus that are 0:17:28.359 --> 0:17:31.080 that can be learned from. And so yeah, it's really 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:35.160 interesting how like the the immune system does attack our 0:17:35.200 --> 0:17:39.919 own bodies sometimes and that's both important in life saving 0:17:40.680 --> 0:17:43.800 and can also cause a lot of problems, right like, 0:17:43.920 --> 0:17:48.080 if if our immune system attacks our own cells too strongly, 0:17:48.520 --> 0:17:51.280 that can actually kill us. And if they don't attack 0:17:51.560 --> 0:17:55.440 cells strongly enough, it's too weak of an immune response, 0:17:55.640 --> 0:17:59.959 and so then the virus can actually directly harm our 0:18:00.240 --> 0:18:04.640 cells and go and be and replicate unabated. But yeah, 0:18:04.680 --> 0:18:09.320 that bounds. I love the connection to the ants because 0:18:09.880 --> 0:18:14.399 you see these kind of very complex colony behaviors. Is 0:18:14.560 --> 0:18:18.199 very much like how the immune system works because with ants, 0:18:18.280 --> 0:18:22.240 you have a hierarchy. It's use sociality, right, Like, so 0:18:22.280 --> 0:18:26.320 you have very specific roles that each of the ants has, 0:18:26.760 --> 0:18:29.760 and you have like obviously the queen ants, which are 0:18:29.760 --> 0:18:32.520 the ones that are the only ones that can reproduce generally, 0:18:32.920 --> 0:18:36.320 but you also have different roles for the ants and something. 0:18:36.600 --> 0:18:39.679 It can also be a different role based on the 0:18:39.720 --> 0:18:42.240 time and the ants life or the same thing with bees, 0:18:42.320 --> 0:18:46.000 right like a bees life cycle, their role might change 0:18:46.080 --> 0:18:48.840 as it gets older. And so you see a very 0:18:48.840 --> 0:18:51.640 similar thing in the immune system where you have these 0:18:51.680 --> 0:18:56.080 immune cells and they have these It's kind of like 0:18:56.119 --> 0:18:59.439 a use social system within our own bodies. Because you 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:04.119 have this hierarchical system, you have these very specific roles 0:19:04.119 --> 0:19:07.000 that each of the cells play and these rules they 0:19:07.040 --> 0:19:11.080 have to play by, and it's really interesting because we 0:19:11.200 --> 0:19:14.800 have to have to be a unified organism. There has 0:19:14.880 --> 0:19:20.760 to be that sacrifice in order to help the larger system, right, 0:19:20.840 --> 0:19:24.280 the entire ant colony or the entire human to function. 0:19:24.359 --> 0:19:27.199 And without that kind of sacrifice of these cells, we 0:19:27.280 --> 0:19:31.760 couldn't function as an entire organism, which I think is 0:19:31.800 --> 0:19:32.560 so interesting. 0:19:33.240 --> 0:19:36.040 Yeah. Right. And the fact, one of the other things 0:19:36.040 --> 0:19:38.760 that I found interesting about the story of about the 0:19:38.840 --> 0:19:43.960 ants is that the worker ants basically are inoculating themselves 0:19:44.280 --> 0:19:49.280 against the disease. Those interesting. Yeah, So if they're exposed 0:19:49.760 --> 0:19:54.520 to a small amount scores, which they do, as you know, 0:19:54.920 --> 0:19:59.880 workers bring in spores from the environment than those workers 0:20:00.119 --> 0:20:04.359 and then those immune sorry, those sanitary ants, sanitization ants 0:20:05.240 --> 0:20:06.280 are immune. 0:20:06.000 --> 0:20:07.760 They develop immunity. That's incredible. 0:20:08.200 --> 0:20:11.479 Yeah. Again, it's just a great analogy because we can 0:20:11.560 --> 0:20:15.280 visualize that ant moving here and there and everywhere, and 0:20:15.320 --> 0:20:19.760 in fact, in our body and all animals, you know, 0:20:20.560 --> 0:20:25.360 the cells are kind of like those little ant. Can 0:20:25.400 --> 0:20:28.560 I go back to something you mentioned absolutely, and that 0:20:28.920 --> 0:20:33.679 is you mentioned how our immune systems sometimes kind of 0:20:33.800 --> 0:20:38.440 can react and overreact and how that affects our body, 0:20:38.880 --> 0:20:42.959 you know, speaking specifically about viruses, because that's something that 0:20:43.000 --> 0:20:46.199 we're all very interested in these days. Yeah, you know, 0:20:47.800 --> 0:20:51.720 the symptoms really are just our body reacting and overreacting. 0:20:52.160 --> 0:20:54.440 And that reminds me of the story of the bats, 0:20:54.760 --> 0:20:57.320 which just blows my mind. 0:20:57.640 --> 0:21:01.040 Mm hmm. I love bats, and I let there well, 0:21:01.240 --> 0:21:04.040 I don't want to interrupt you, but I just they're 0:21:04.160 --> 0:21:07.320 so interesting to me, and especially when it comes to immunity, 0:21:08.000 --> 0:21:11.680 because they have such big requirements in terms of energy 0:21:11.760 --> 0:21:15.440 for flying. A mammal that can fly, it's it's an 0:21:15.480 --> 0:21:20.199 incredible feat. It's this warm blooded, thermal regulating animal that 0:21:20.240 --> 0:21:26.760 can also fly, and it has a relatively short evolutionary 0:21:27.160 --> 0:21:30.960 history of flight when you compare it to say, like insects, 0:21:31.359 --> 0:21:35.040 and so it's really really interesting. And the pressures, the 0:21:36.119 --> 0:21:40.119 metabolic and energy pressures on these bats are incredible, and 0:21:40.160 --> 0:21:43.600 so they have really interesting immune systems. And anyways, now 0:21:43.640 --> 0:21:45.320 I'm gonna let you you tell your story. 0:21:45.440 --> 0:21:48.119 No, that's great. I love it because one of the 0:21:48.160 --> 0:21:52.080 things about bats is there's still so many questions about them, right, 0:21:52.320 --> 0:21:55.080 like this idea that they can fly, but yet to 0:21:55.280 --> 0:21:59.120 do that requires this huge metabolic rate. How do they 0:21:59.160 --> 0:22:02.160 survive that? Because if we tried to do that, our 0:22:02.160 --> 0:22:05.240 body would crash in so many ways. Yeah, number one, 0:22:05.280 --> 0:22:08.399 because we'd be producing so much waste that our immune 0:22:08.400 --> 0:22:12.040 system would be going after that waste and and it 0:22:12.080 --> 0:22:13.959 would just be it would be it would be a 0:22:14.119 --> 0:22:18.879 storm of our immune system. Right. So scientists are really 0:22:18.960 --> 0:22:22.399 curious about how bads actually survive. I mean most people 0:22:22.400 --> 0:22:25.320 have heard that, you know, bats can carry many many 0:22:25.440 --> 0:22:31.359 viruses and that we can't in fact acquire viruses from 0:22:31.400 --> 0:22:34.440 bats and vice versa. But you know, how is that? 0:22:34.560 --> 0:22:37.240 How can they survive? I mean, there's so many bad species, 0:22:37.280 --> 0:22:40.680 there's bats across the entire world except for Antarctica, and 0:22:40.720 --> 0:22:45.000 how can they be surviving so many viruses? And come 0:22:45.160 --> 0:22:48.280 find out one of the one of the things is 0:22:48.400 --> 0:22:54.360 their innate immune system is strong, so strong that that 0:22:54.440 --> 0:22:58.879 may be driving the evolution of viruses, right because their bodies. 0:22:59.520 --> 0:23:03.640 In order for a virus to successfully infect that, it's 0:23:03.640 --> 0:23:07.639 got to be pretty amazing. The interesting story that I 0:23:07.680 --> 0:23:10.080 discovered as I was doing research for this book is 0:23:10.119 --> 0:23:14.920 that the innate While the innate immune system, the first 0:23:15.400 --> 0:23:20.080 immune system basically is so strong, the secondary or the 0:23:20.320 --> 0:23:23.680 adaptive required depending on who you're talking to, that immune 0:23:23.680 --> 0:23:27.119 system basically says, guess what, virus, if you made it 0:23:27.160 --> 0:23:31.560 past that first line? Okay, so what if the immune 0:23:31.600 --> 0:23:37.440 system decides to not react? And I'm saying this anthropomorphically obviously, 0:23:37.600 --> 0:23:44.320 but if the immune system isn't reacting in this storm, 0:23:44.640 --> 0:23:48.840 the symptoms aren't there, right, And in order to figure 0:23:48.880 --> 0:23:53.360 that out. The work that went into that was amazing 0:23:53.800 --> 0:23:56.560 because you had to actually look at what was happening 0:23:56.600 --> 0:24:00.959 on a cellular level to create that storm. This inflammation 0:24:01.040 --> 0:24:04.439 they call it the inflammazone And basically what's happening is, 0:24:04.920 --> 0:24:10.159 in comparison to other mammals, bats turned down like a dial, 0:24:10.600 --> 0:24:14.720 they turn down or they dial down that inflammation rate. 0:24:15.520 --> 0:24:17.680 And when you do that, you don't have the information. 0:24:17.720 --> 0:24:19.399 When you don't have the information, therefore you don't have 0:24:19.440 --> 0:24:23.400 the symptoms. Basically, they're kind of saying them, Oh, wait, 0:24:23.560 --> 0:24:26.280 you're really hurting me, virus, Why don't I just let 0:24:26.320 --> 0:24:28.600 you be? Like, we don't have to fight, which I 0:24:28.680 --> 0:24:31.320