Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature feature production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
Speaker 1: of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology,
Speaker 1: and today on the show we are getting guy and
Speaker 1: you can see we are talking about animal immune systems
Speaker 1: now as we hopefully exit the cold and flu season.
Speaker 1: I'm sure a lot of you have had some recent
Speaker 1: experience with your immune system, and despite how unpleasant it is,
Speaker 1: it is also really fascinating. So today is a special
Speaker 1: episode because I have a guest who is a naturalist,
Speaker 1: a teacher, and an author whose recent book, Sick is
Speaker 1: about amazing stories of the animal immune system. It would
Speaker 1: be a book that if I had got my hands
Speaker 1: on this book when I was a kid, it would
Speaker 1: be like my personal Bible. Is it is really fun
Speaker 1: even for adults. Welcome Heather Montgomery.
Speaker 2: Hey, I'm so excited to be here and talk to
Speaker 2: folks who are just as excited as I am to
Speaker 2: learn from the animal world. It's so amazing what's out there.
Speaker 2: If we open our eyes and start asking questions. Wow,
Speaker 2: I just get carried away with it.
Speaker 1: I feel like we're very much kindred spirits. Because I
Speaker 1: love the grossness of biology Obviously, I do love a
Speaker 1: beautiful butterfly. I love a beautiful bird, but I think
Speaker 1: I also enjoy appreciating just the you know, the poop
Speaker 1: of nature. It's so interesting and it's I mean, it's
Speaker 1: not only a great way to I think teach kids
Speaker 1: about it, because like, you know, you got to lean
Speaker 1: in a little bit to like the gross stuff to
Speaker 1: get kids interested. But honestly, I also believe that is
Speaker 1: true of adults. Like we may not like to admit it,
Speaker 1: but I certainly have never outgrown learning stuff about poop
Speaker 1: and fighting. It both kind of funny and really interesting.
Speaker 2: Right, isn't that funny that happens? Like when we grow up,
Speaker 2: we're supposed to not be interested in the things that
Speaker 2: we're innately interested in. I'm not sure why why, but
Speaker 2: it's like we're always attracted and repelled at the same
Speaker 2: time by these things, and those are the things that
Speaker 2: fascinate me. I'm kind of curious as to why people
Speaker 2: are so interested in the yanky stuff, but we are. Yeah,
Speaker 2: It's it's really cool.
Speaker 1: It is really interesting because it makes some sense that
Speaker 1: we are repelled by poop, because I mean, in some ways,
Speaker 1: it's very practical, right, poop can spread parasites, can spread disease.
Speaker 1: But it's so it's good that we're not, you know,
Speaker 1: that we grow out of the phase of playing in
Speaker 1: our own poop. However, it is still really interesting. I
Speaker 1: think that we are drawn to kind of like you know,
Speaker 1: you when you're on a hike and you see some
Speaker 1: animal dung and you see there's stuff poking out of it.
Speaker 1: I think people would be lying if, like they wouldn't
Speaker 1: admit that that's a little interesting, and you're kind of like, okay,
Speaker 1: I do kind of want to poke that with a
Speaker 1: stick and find out what's going on in there. It's
Speaker 1: both gross for good reason, but it's also really interesting exactly.
Speaker 2: That's actually what led me to write a whole book
Speaker 2: about poop, a different book.
Speaker 1: You know, it was a different book, yes, but it
Speaker 1: was like.
Speaker 2: The surprising site, right that we when we look at
Speaker 2: this stuff that's so gross, what we can actually learn
Speaker 2: about the world, whether it's animals, you know, or the
Speaker 2: rest of the world. All of the kind of big
Speaker 2: questions that come out of scat.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, absolutely, I mean it's it's a whole thing
Speaker 1: like in in research, it's so such an important actual
Speaker 1: kind of like research method is collecting and studying animal poop,
Speaker 1: which sounds you know, it sounds like not a fun job,
Speaker 1: but then when you think about it, like that is
Speaker 1: kind of cool because you get to be out in nature,
Speaker 1: you collect a bunch of dung, and then you bring
Speaker 1: it back for analysis. But there is so there is
Speaker 1: one poop story I want uh to talk about a
Speaker 1: little bit. It's in your book. Uh. It's I think
Speaker 1: one of the most endearingly gross stories about poop.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: It is about puppy poop and the mother's response to
Speaker 1: puppy poop. And it's it's really cute but also horrifyingly disgusting,
Speaker 1: and I don't it's one of those things where it's
Speaker 1: like perfectly combining cuteness with grossness exactly right.
Speaker 2: So, if you're a mom and you've got a whole
Speaker 2: litter of puppies and a you know together, what are
Speaker 2: they going to do? A lot of is boop? Right,
Speaker 2: and that's awesome, You're got to get rid of the stuff.
Speaker 2: Plus what if there's parasites in it, which they're likely
Speaker 2: are you know, if you're if you're not a pet
Speaker 2: and taken care of, and so how do you deal
Speaker 2: with that, because the puppy's immune system can't deal with
Speaker 2: it at all. So mom sacrifices and she laps it up.
Speaker 2: She carries it away from her babies through her own
Speaker 2: digestive system, which is atrocious but not really because her
Speaker 2: immune systems better handle these kinds of parasites. Plus she
Speaker 2: basically hauls away and she can't pick it up with
Speaker 2: her hands, right, so she basically hauls away through her
Speaker 2: system and deposits it elsewhere. And if she deposits it elsewhere,
Speaker 2: soon enough, the eggs haven't hatched for say, the round one,
Speaker 2: and so she gets rid of them. It's just like
Speaker 2: that in and of itself, that kind of behavioral adaptation
Speaker 2: is phenomenal to me, Like how that came about. It's
Speaker 2: just amazing gross but awesome too.
Speaker 1: You know, it's so gross, but it's so sweet because
Speaker 1: like obviously you know, it's this dog wanting to I mean,
Speaker 1: it's hard to talk about animals in terms of what
Speaker 1: they want, like because they have these instincts, right, and
Speaker 1: this mother dog doesn't know why she's drawn to eating
Speaker 1: her offsprings poop, but it is it is a It's
Speaker 1: still sweet because it's like this this instinct to protect
Speaker 1: your offspring to help them grow and develop. I mean,
Speaker 1: it makes sense, that's how evolution works. But it's also
Speaker 1: like it's one of the things that like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: like humans are not the only ones that deal with
Speaker 1: baby poop, like other animals deal with baby poop. A
Speaker 1: cute thing. I think Another kind of cute gross poop
Speaker 1: thing is that birds, a lot of bird species, they
Speaker 1: don't want to just have their baby birds poop and
Speaker 1: have the poop accumulate and the nests. So the baby
Speaker 1: bird poop is actually kind of comes in it. When
Speaker 1: it comes out, it's sort of encased in this like
Speaker 1: mucosal sack, and then it lifts its little butt up
Speaker 1: and presents this poop too. It's and the mom bird
Speaker 1: just like picks it up with her beak because you know,
Speaker 1: she doesn't have hands, and carries it outside the nest
Speaker 1: and deposits it outside the nest. So it's it's kind
Speaker 1: of gross but also really cute. And I have seen
Speaker 1: a video of someone who's taking care of a baby
Speaker 1: bird that was sadly abandoned, and this person has to
Speaker 1: take a pair of chompsticks and pick up the little
Speaker 1: poop package. Every time this bird feeds and then like
Speaker 1: presents its butt, presents this poop. It's really cute and
Speaker 1: also obviously a little gross.
Speaker 2: Isn't it phenomenal that that works that way. I actually
Speaker 2: challenge kids and adults sometimes because we're all just being kids,
Speaker 2: to watch a nest with binoculars and you can actually
Speaker 2: tell when the young have hatched and started to digest
Speaker 2: food or consume food because you'll start to see the
Speaker 2: mother and add too, carrying away the fecals. It's just crazy.
Speaker 1: So it's it's like, oh, yeah, other animals, I guess
Speaker 1: have to deal with quote unquote poopy diapers, except it's
Speaker 1: like a natural diaper.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it would be great if you know, we
Speaker 2: had national diapers for our young as well, but yeah,
Speaker 2: but we don't.
Speaker 1: No, we don't, we don't. So another major theme in
Speaker 1: your book is the immune system, which I mean, again,
Speaker 1: I as an adult, got to kick out of reading
Speaker 1: this book, but it is It is a great book
Speaker 1: for kids as well, and I think this is a
Speaker 1: great introduction to the immune system to kids because it's
Speaker 1: it seems overwhelming, right, like the immune system, it's so complicated,
Speaker 1: there's so many things. But I think it's also like
Speaker 1: when you think about the parts of the immune system,
Speaker 1: it gets a little bit easier to understand what's going
Speaker 1: on because there's actually two major parts of the immune system,
Speaker 1: and one is the innate or non specific immune system
Speaker 1: and the adaptive immune system. And the innate immune system
Speaker 1: we see every day when you look in the mirror,
Speaker 1: you look at other people. It's our skin, it's our mucus,
Speaker 1: it's our earwax, our hair, all of these things that
Speaker 1: are a barrier to pathogens. There's also on the cellular
Speaker 1: level innate immune cells, such as phagocytes that will actually
Speaker 1: basically eat pathogens, eat things that are not supposed to
Speaker 1: be there, break them down so that they are harmless.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they break it down and then that's when the
Speaker 1: adaptive immune system can come into play. So the adaptive
Speaker 1: immune system is the part of the immune system that
Speaker 1: actually launches a response specifically towards a type of pathogen
Speaker 1: that it recognizes. So when you learn about a virus,
Speaker 1: like you get infected with a virus, your body learns
Speaker 1: about it, then it launches an adaptive immune response, and
Speaker 1: this one is a little more precise and it can
Speaker 1: be stronger. It can in a stronger reaction. But it's
Speaker 1: really interesting because this adaptive immune system is in this
Speaker 1: kind of like ballet with viruses and bacteria, this evolutionary
Speaker 1: kind of arms race, and so both humans and animals
Speaker 1: have adaptive and innate immune systems, and the balances can
Speaker 1: be different. Some animals actually have a very weak adaptive
Speaker 1: immune system or a very weak innate immune system, and
Speaker 1: it kind of they balance each other out. Like the
Speaker 1: deep sea anglerfish has actually kind of done away with
Speaker 1: a lot of its adaptive immune system because the male
Speaker 1: deep sea anglerfish attaches itself to the female and actually
Speaker 1: kind of like fuses grafts itself onto the female. And
Speaker 1: if this adaptive immune system knew that this male was there,
Speaker 1: it would try to kill it, and that would put
Speaker 1: a kibosh on the who whole like mating strategy of
Speaker 1: these these fish. And so instead it's thought that it
Speaker 1: overcomes this weaker adaptive immune system with a stronger passive
Speaker 1: immune system, like a you know, thicker skin, more mucosal
Speaker 1: membranes and so, and also just the fact that they're
Speaker 1: not really running into each other a lot down there.
Speaker 1: So sparsely populated, but in general animals have both an
Speaker 1: innate and an adaptive immune system, and the innate immune
Speaker 1: system can be really really interesting. Uh. And I really
Speaker 1: love your examples in this book, especially when when we're
Speaker 1: talking about slime. So what is so many animals are
Speaker 1: slimy and it seems gross, but it's actually really interesting
Speaker 1: and really important. So what is I mean, what is slime?
Speaker 1: What is mucus? And what is what is it used for?
Speaker 1: And why is it so popular in nature?
Speaker 2: Oh, slime is awesome. Don't we love it? I mean,
Speaker 2: it is just great. We all have it. It's there,
Speaker 2: it's a part of of well I don't know an
Speaker 2: animal that it's not a part of. But the amazing
Speaker 2: thing is that slime protects us, you know, it's in
Speaker 2: our nose and it's one of those other than the skin,
Speaker 2: which is kind of the first barrier, right, But that
Speaker 2: slime is there to catch intruders as they come into
Speaker 2: the body and attack it. One of the stories I
Speaker 2: love is about the hagfish, which.
Speaker 1: People probably I love the hagfish.
Speaker 2: They're so gross and so slimy, right, and their slime
Speaker 2: does a number of different things, But it also includes
Speaker 2: licensimes and that when they the license homes are just
Speaker 2: these amazing attackers, right, So any bacteria or things like that,
Speaker 2: they just go at it, hack it, wack it, and
Speaker 2: smack it. And I just think that's pretty awesome to
Speaker 2: look at kind of across the Indu Kingdom, how similar
Speaker 2: adaptations are used, and also how every species has its
Speaker 2: own unique way of attacking these invaders. One of the
Speaker 2: stories I love to talk about is the ants, because
Speaker 2: ants don't give a lot get a lot of credit, right,
Speaker 2: I mean, there's little things, but amazingly scientists are studying
Speaker 2: ants in order to better understand our immune system. One
Speaker 2: of the things that happens, at least to my mind,
Speaker 2: when I'm understanding immune systems is it's so complex it's
Speaker 2: hard to hard to visualize, right, But when you think
Speaker 2: about an ant colony as an individual a super organism,
Speaker 2: you can kind of get a better sense of how
Speaker 2: a human body might work. For example, we've all seen yeah, yeah, right,
Speaker 2: Like we've all seen an ant hill. We see ants
Speaker 2: go in, right, and if you think about that ant hill,
Speaker 2: if you touch it, you know how they react. So
Speaker 2: thinking that that ant hill is kind of like our skin,
Speaker 2: the outside surface, Like if we attack it, they're gonna
Speaker 2: attack us, just like if something breaks our skin barrier,
Speaker 2: our immune system's gonna attack it. But then there are
Speaker 2: the normal places where things go into the ant hill,
Speaker 2: like the openings, you know, the entrance ways. But right
Speaker 2: there the entrance ways to that ant hill are guards,
Speaker 2: and those guards are gonna attack anything that tries to
Speaker 2: come in that is not the self, right, just like
Speaker 2: our nose that slim in our nose, it's gonna do
Speaker 2: the same thing, right, And as you go deeper into
Speaker 2: the ant hill, you have more and more protection. What
Speaker 2: was amazing to me is as I researched for this book,
Speaker 2: I discovered I never thought about the fact that ants
Speaker 2: are exposed to fungus all the time because they live
Speaker 2: in the soil, and fungus lives in the soil, and
Speaker 2: fungus would just love to like dive into an ant
Speaker 2: hill and create an epidemic because one little ant carrying
Speaker 2: fungus spores into the ant hill. Oh, they could go crazy.
Speaker 2: But you know, you've got those guards on the doorway
Speaker 2: that are gonna maybe catch those spores. But as the
Speaker 2: ant worker ant goes deeper or into the ant hill,
Speaker 2: there's there are other cleaner ants sanitation ants, right, And
Speaker 2: so what's fascinating to be is that these ants, these
Speaker 2: sanitation ants, remove these fungal spores, but yet don't get
Speaker 2: sick themselves. And I was like how, And so I
Speaker 2: looked into the research and it's just amazing. This guy,
Speaker 2: Christopher Poull is doing some awesome research with them. One
Speaker 2: of the things that happens in certain ants is they
Speaker 2: they actually put the spores in their mouths. Wait, leaning
Speaker 2: the ants they're putting the spores in their mouth It
Speaker 2: sounds really really like the.
Speaker 1: Wrong thing to get dangerous.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, but they have these pockets in their mouth,
Speaker 2: little pockets in their mouths that they stuff the spores
Speaker 2: into and then they carry the spores off into the
Speaker 2: garbage basically and get.
Speaker 1: Rid of them and spit it out. Yeah, that's amazing.
Speaker 2: And this story goes deeper and deeper because in this story,
Speaker 2: actually if the young, the pupa, the larvae are infected
Speaker 2: by spores, the sanitation ants actually destroy them, which sounds.
Speaker 1: Terrible, right, it's zombie apocalypse rules, you know.
Speaker 2: The zombie absolu And but it's such an analogy to
Speaker 2: our own bodies, where if we have cells that are
Speaker 2: infected guess what they have to die?
Speaker 1: Apoptosis is. It's it's really interesting because the cell death
Speaker 1: sounds really bad. Oh, cell death, it's the thing that
Speaker 1: keeps us alive. We need our cells to die. They
Speaker 1: can replenish. Obviously. If you have too much cellular death,
Speaker 1: that's a bad thing. But if you have no cellular death,
Speaker 1: that's actually what cancer basically is. It's when your cell
Speaker 1: doesn't know how to die. It's your cell loses the ability.
Speaker 1: There's a mutation that prevents it from uh from dying
Speaker 1: from this process called apoptosis, and that is really really bad.
Speaker 1: It's also what protects us from pathogens, because an infected
Speaker 1: cell can be like, oh, this isn't good actually, like
Speaker 1: destroy itself, and even through destroying itself, can can cause
Speaker 1: the virus to break apart, and then that can be
Speaker 1: picked up by other cells, which go, oh, this is
Speaker 1: an interesting thing to learn from and bring those little
Speaker 1: those little antigens, the parts of the virus that are
Speaker 1: that can be learned from. And so yeah, it's really
Speaker 1: interesting how like the the immune system does attack our
Speaker 1: own bodies sometimes and that's both important in life saving
Speaker 1: and can also cause a lot of problems, right like,
Speaker 1: if if our immune system attacks our own cells too strongly,
Speaker 1: that can actually kill us. And if they don't attack
Speaker 1: cells strongly enough, it's too weak of an immune response,
Speaker 1: and so then the virus can actually directly harm our
Speaker 1: cells and go and be and replicate unabated. But yeah,
Speaker 1: that bounds. I love the connection to the ants because
Speaker 1: you see these kind of very complex colony behaviors. Is
Speaker 1: very much like how the immune system works because with ants,
Speaker 1: you have a hierarchy. It's use sociality, right, Like, so
Speaker 1: you have very specific roles that each of the ants has,
Speaker 1: and you have like obviously the queen ants, which are
Speaker 1: the ones that are the only ones that can reproduce generally,
Speaker 1: but you also have different roles for the ants and something.
Speaker 1: It can also be a different role based on the
Speaker 1: time and the ants life or the same thing with bees,
Speaker 1: right like a bees life cycle, their role might change
Speaker 1: as it gets older. And so you see a very
Speaker 1: similar thing in the immune system where you have these
Speaker 1: immune cells and they have these It's kind of like
Speaker 1: a use social system within our own bodies. Because you
Speaker 1: have this hierarchical system, you have these very specific roles
Speaker 1: that each of the cells play and these rules they
Speaker 1: have to play by, and it's really interesting because we
Speaker 1: have to have to be a unified organism. There has
Speaker 1: to be that sacrifice in order to help the larger system, right,
Speaker 1: the entire ant colony or the entire human to function.
Speaker 1: And without that kind of sacrifice of these cells, we
Speaker 1: couldn't function as an entire organism, which I think is
Speaker 1: so interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Right. And the fact, one of the other things
Speaker 2: that I found interesting about the story of about the
Speaker 2: ants is that the worker ants basically are inoculating themselves
Speaker 2: against the disease. Those interesting. Yeah, So if they're exposed
Speaker 2: to a small amount scores, which they do, as you know,
Speaker 2: workers bring in spores from the environment than those workers
Speaker 2: and then those immune sorry, those sanitary ants, sanitization ants
Speaker 2: are immune.
Speaker 1: They develop immunity. That's incredible.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Again, it's just a great analogy because we can
Speaker 2: visualize that ant moving here and there and everywhere, and
Speaker 2: in fact, in our body and all animals, you know,
Speaker 2: the cells are kind of like those little ant. Can
Speaker 2: I go back to something you mentioned absolutely, and that
Speaker 2: is you mentioned how our immune systems sometimes kind of
Speaker 2: can react and overreact and how that affects our body,
Speaker 2: you know, speaking specifically about viruses, because that's something that
Speaker 2: we're all very interested in these days. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: the symptoms really are just our body reacting and overreacting.
Speaker 2: And that reminds me of the story of the bats,
Speaker 2: which just blows my mind.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. I love bats, and I let there well,
Speaker 1: I don't want to interrupt you, but I just they're
Speaker 1: so interesting to me, and especially when it comes to immunity,
Speaker 1: because they have such big requirements in terms of energy
Speaker 1: for flying. A mammal that can fly, it's it's an
Speaker 1: incredible feat. It's this warm blooded, thermal regulating animal that
Speaker 1: can also fly, and it has a relatively short evolutionary
Speaker 1: history of flight when you compare it to say, like insects,
Speaker 1: and so it's really really interesting. And the pressures, the
Speaker 1: metabolic and energy pressures on these bats are incredible, and
Speaker 1: so they have really interesting immune systems. And anyways, now
Speaker 1: I'm gonna let you you tell your story.
Speaker 2: No, that's great. I love it because one of the
Speaker 2: things about bats is there's still so many questions about them, right,
Speaker 2: like this idea that they can fly, but yet to
Speaker 2: do that requires this huge metabolic rate. How do they
Speaker 2: survive that? Because if we tried to do that, our
Speaker 2: body would crash in so many ways. Yeah, number one,
Speaker 2: because we'd be producing so much waste that our immune
Speaker 2: system would be going after that waste and and it
Speaker 2: would just be it would be it would be a
Speaker 2: storm of our immune system. Right. So scientists are really
Speaker 2: curious about how bads actually survive. I mean most people
Speaker 2: have heard that, you know, bats can carry many many
Speaker 2: viruses and that we can't in fact acquire viruses from
Speaker 2: bats and vice versa. But you know, how is that?
Speaker 2: How can they survive? I mean, there's so many bad species,
Speaker 2: there's bats across the entire world except for Antarctica, and
Speaker 2: how can they be surviving so many viruses? And come
Speaker 2: find out one of the one of the things is
Speaker 2: their innate immune system is strong, so strong that that
Speaker 2: may be driving the evolution of viruses, right because their bodies.
Speaker 2: In order for a virus to successfully infect that, it's
Speaker 2: got to be pretty amazing. The interesting story that I
Speaker 2: discovered as I was doing research for this book is
Speaker 2: that the innate While the innate immune system, the first
Speaker 2: immune system basically is so strong, the secondary or the
Speaker 2: adaptive required depending on who you're talking to, that immune
Speaker 2: system basically says, guess what, virus, if you made it
Speaker 2: past that first line? Okay, so what if the immune
Speaker 2: system decides to not react? And I'm saying this anthropomorphically obviously,
Speaker 2: but if the immune system isn't reacting in this storm,
Speaker 2: the symptoms aren't there, right, And in order to figure
Speaker 2: that out. The work that went into that was amazing
Speaker 2: because you had to actually look at what was happening
Speaker 2: on a cellular level to create that storm. This inflammation
Speaker 2: they call it the inflammazone And basically what's happening is,
Speaker 2: in comparison to other mammals, bats turned down like a dial,
Speaker 2: they turn down or they dial down that inflammation rate.
Speaker 2: And when you do that, you don't have the information.
Speaker 2: When you don't have the information, therefore you don't have
Speaker 2: the symptoms. Basically, they're kind of saying them, Oh, wait,
Speaker 2: you're really hurting me, virus, Why don't I just let
Speaker 2: you be? Like, we don't have to fight, which I
Speaker 2: think is a really cool message just to think about. Right,
Speaker 2: if you're not really killing me, Yeah, you know, we
Speaker 2: can deal, we can survive. Yeah, we can coexist, which
Speaker 2: is powerful.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really interesting. I mean, you do talk about
Speaker 1: this a bit in Sick, which again I love because
Speaker 1: this is so cool to like introduce these concepts of
Speaker 1: like the fact that we do have some viral DNA
Speaker 1: still with us, right, Like viruses don't always viruses in
Speaker 1: bacteria especially like are not always dangerous. They can actually
Speaker 1: start to incorporate themselves that there's like a there can
Speaker 1: be like a mutualistic symbiosis between animals and bacteria and
Speaker 1: even viruses, And it's so cool. And I mean, the
Speaker 1: other thing with bats is, like I think it's it's
Speaker 1: a really important thing for people to understand that the
Speaker 1: reason that bats can have these these viruses that can
Speaker 1: be dangerous for humans is not because they're dirty. They're
Speaker 1: actually very hygienic, uh, they but the fact that they
Speaker 1: have these this very different kind of immune system, this
Speaker 1: immune system that has adapted differently from urts. So like
Speaker 1: if they when they encounter a virus, right and they
Speaker 1: don't have they have successfully whittled down the viral load
Speaker 1: because of their incredible innate immune system, and then they
Speaker 1: don't have as strong of an inflammatory response, so then
Speaker 1: they survive. When we're introduced to that same virus, our
Speaker 1: innate response, our adaptive response is going to be much stronger,
Speaker 1: and so we can actually even though without our adaptive
Speaker 1: immune system we wouldn't get very far because we wouldn't
Speaker 1: be able to destroy viruses and pathogens that could replicate
Speaker 1: inside of us. It also means that we can have
Speaker 1: this massive inflammatory response, a cytokine storm, which is essentially
Speaker 1: like a game of dominoes gone wrong inside of your
Speaker 1: immune system, and it can be really damaging. So it's
Speaker 1: like the same immune response that can save your life, right,
Speaker 1: like a fever which is killing off a bacteria or
Speaker 1: virus which can save your life, can also kill you.
Speaker 1: But back to the concept of these viruses not always
Speaker 1: being bad for us, Like the the fact that we
Speaker 1: have like in our DNA now like from you know,
Speaker 1: millions of years ago, like viral DNA that has inserted
Speaker 1: itself into our DNA and then it just works out
Speaker 1: is incredible to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we think of that, you know, we have this
Speaker 2: bias that viruses are bad. Well, guess what, So much
Speaker 2: of our DNA is viral, which I had no idea
Speaker 2: how that happened, right, I didn't understand the entire concept
Speaker 2: of retroviruses, which okay, can we we can dive deeply
Speaker 2: into this I didn't get to let's do it. There's
Speaker 2: an entire chapter that didn't make it into this book
Speaker 2: because it was so complex, but it just am so
Speaker 2: fascinated by it. Right, So, retroviruses, all viruses, we most
Speaker 2: of us know that the virus has to enter the
Speaker 2: cell of the host to be replicated, right, but retroviruses
Speaker 2: go deeper than that. So once they enter the cell
Speaker 2: and their DNA is their their genetic material I should say,
Speaker 2: is replicated, then that genetic material actually enters the cell's nucleus,
Speaker 2: which is like whoa who, Well, like that's the safe house,
Speaker 2: you know, like the cell is one thing. But entering
Speaker 2: the nucleus, where like are the genetic material of the
Speaker 2: host exists, You're like entering the vault. And then they
Speaker 2: that retroviral genetic material inserts itself into the host's genetic material,
Speaker 2: which is like so mind blowing that that can actually happen.
Speaker 2: But if you think about it again, it's this concept
Speaker 2: that like, do we have to be a war? We're
Speaker 2: two there are two organisms here, and you can either
Speaker 2: be a war and one can win and the other
Speaker 2: can lose or you could coexist. And an amazing way
Speaker 2: that's happened. And every placental mammal, every placental mammal, so
Speaker 2: we think of that as you know us and other
Speaker 2: large organizers, but we all have retroviral DNA in us
Speaker 2: that allows us to give live birth.
Speaker 1: It's amazing, amazed.
Speaker 2: Okay, I have to tell this story about these kittens
Speaker 2: that came into my life as I was doing this research.
Speaker 2: There was a cat that got hit by a car
Speaker 2: and long story short, she was pregnant and she was
Speaker 2: not gonna make it, but she was doing well enough
Speaker 2: that she crawled up in my lap and gave birth
Speaker 2: to kittens. Wow, they were amazing. Well, I had never
Speaker 2: observed that, and I had been doing this research about placenta,
Speaker 2: so I got very interested in the placenta and how
Speaker 2: this happened. Turns out, you know, and a zygod an
Speaker 2: embryo is is going to be considered non self right right, Yes,
Speaker 2: an outside invader inside the mother. The question comes now
Speaker 2: in the world does a mother's body accept this invader
Speaker 2: in because they shouldn't. Like the immune system from the
Speaker 2: mother should attack this invader and kick it out well,
Speaker 2: who's really good at checking the immune system viruses. In
Speaker 2: order for a virus to enter our cell, it has
Speaker 2: to chrick us. It has to have that message on
Speaker 2: its surface, that protein that says, wait, wait, I'm part
Speaker 2: of you. It's okay, don't worry about me. I'm just
Speaker 2: along here.
Speaker 1: Fake the fake ID that sells carry around because we
Speaker 1: have these, we have essentially tiny cops inside of our
Speaker 1: bodies called natural kill our cells that will go around
Speaker 1: checking everyone's passport, checking everyone's papers. It's a little bit
Speaker 1: you know, it's a little authoritarian inside our bodies sometimes.
Speaker 1: And so a lot of viruses have created this like
Speaker 1: basically a fake ID to show the natural killerself like
Speaker 1: I'm legit. But yeah, that that can be applied to
Speaker 1: protecting our own offspring is amazing.
Speaker 2: Right. So if that if that future offspring didn't have
Speaker 2: that retroviral genetic material that therefore programmed the proteins on
Speaker 2: its surface to tell the mother, hey it's okay, let
Speaker 2: me in the placenta, would never happen, right, The attachment
Speaker 2: would never happen. And so every single one of us
Speaker 2: we should be thanking the viruses right because we were born.
Speaker 2: It's just amazing and a phenomenal thing. Kind of on
Speaker 2: a little another aside, but it's amazing. Is there's there
Speaker 2: are some lizards that do this as well. Wait, lizards,
Speaker 2: Lizards are not supposed to have licentius, but yet they
Speaker 2: did some of them down right, It's because this retroviral
Speaker 2: invasion has happened so many times across times.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's amazing. Yeah, it's so it's I mean,
Speaker 1: it's the same. I think that people are more familiar
Speaker 1: with this concept when it comes to bacteria, right, Like,
Speaker 1: we've got good bacteria and bad bacteria. Uh, and a
Speaker 1: lot of it is not even just good or bad bacteria,
Speaker 1: but the balance of bacteria, right Like, it's a specific
Speaker 1: balance of which bacteria you have and your own immune system.
Speaker 1: Right for some people, bacteria that's generally good and fine
Speaker 1: can be bad for someone else because their immune system
Speaker 1: reacts too strongly to it. So there are all these
Speaker 1: different factors that come into play. But that's the same
Speaker 1: thing with like viruses, right like most I mean, it's
Speaker 1: true that most times you catch some kind of virus,
Speaker 1: right like a cold or a flu, it's not good
Speaker 1: for you. It's not good necessarily good to get sick.
Speaker 1: You know, sometimes it's it's just a fact of life
Speaker 1: that you're going to get sick. Uh. And some times
Speaker 1: the timing of when you get sick can be really important,
Speaker 1: right Like, if you get certain viruses, you absolutely do
Speaker 1: not want to get as an infant because your immune
Speaker 1: system's too weak. But some if you do get as
Speaker 1: an infant, they're less serious when you're an adult. Now
Speaker 1: we have vaccines which make it a lot safer to
Speaker 1: introduce viral information to infants and to adults without us
Speaker 1: having to go through the risks of infection. But it's
Speaker 1: really interesting to see the way that you know, the
Speaker 1: that like viruses, like being introduced to a virus isn't
Speaker 1: always bad. Sometimes it depends on the timing of the virus.
Speaker 1: And then sometimes there can be a virus that actually
Speaker 1: aids in our evolution. But then again, I'm not suggesting
Speaker 1: that you go out and like French kiss someone who
Speaker 1: has COVID or the flu, because most times, most times
Speaker 1: that we encounter viruses, it's not necessarily going to be
Speaker 1: a good thing. It might not hurt us that badly,
Speaker 1: but it's certainly not gonna, you know, be the next
Speaker 1: stage in human evolution. But if that happens enough, like
Speaker 1: I think just the scale of evolution of millions of
Speaker 1: years of this happening, you know, once in a while
Speaker 1: there will actually be a useful mutation caused by this
Speaker 1: viral DNA, which again, it's it's really interesting when like
Speaker 1: that RNA and DNA essentially can like float around and
Speaker 1: then just be absorbed into the cell and then whoop,
Speaker 1: now it's part of our DNA. It's so weird. That
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like that should be how it works, right,
Speaker 1: that there can be free floating uh, you know, RNA
Speaker 1: or DNA that we can actually incorporate into our own
Speaker 1: genome and then pass on through our reproductive cells. That
Speaker 1: seems like that should not work, but it does, and
Speaker 1: that's probably I mean, that's like we're getting into sort
Speaker 1: of the origin of life, right like where you have
Speaker 1: these free floating strands of proteins that one you know,
Speaker 1: glob absorbs another glob and now it's become a more
Speaker 1: complex glob that has proteins that can start to actually
Speaker 1: construct new proteins, which is, you know, so hard for
Speaker 1: me to wrap my head around how that started.
Speaker 2: But and so hard for all of us, and I
Speaker 2: think science in general were hesitant to accept ideas, which
Speaker 2: is awesome, right, That's what makes science unique in that
Speaker 2: we consider new hypotheses and theories, but we have to
Speaker 2: have lots of evidence. And one of the really cool
Speaker 2: stories about that, of course, is our own mitochondria. This
Speaker 2: story started a very long time ago where people started wondering, weight,
Speaker 2: what's up with this mitochondria? The powerhouse, right, the cells
Speaker 2: like ourselves, didn't function without them because they're what converts
Speaker 2: the sugar into energy. But they're weirdos. They don't seem
Speaker 2: to belong in a cell. And for the long time,
Speaker 2: some scientists were very curious about this and saying, wait,
Speaker 2: there's something different, and other folks were like, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: you're what are you talking about? That's weird, you know.
Speaker 2: And for a long time, the the science behind my
Speaker 2: country where they came from, was ignored. But now we
Speaker 2: understand that they are very different. The mitochondria as an organelle,
Speaker 2: and you know, the theory is that they came from microbes.
Speaker 2: So if we had never incorporated this microbe, this other
Speaker 2: you know, into a cell, the complex cells with the
Speaker 2: U carry outs would never have evolved, which just so
Speaker 2: mind blowing. I mean, the whole idea of good versus
Speaker 2: bad is a thing, you know, right, like the story
Speaker 2: of the Turkey vultures. We talk about vultures because they
Speaker 2: are awesome.
Speaker 1: I mean I love them so yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2: They're amazing. I mean, like they stick their head in
Speaker 2: the grossest nest, the stuff, which we know is full
Speaker 2: of bacteria. And if we think about sticking our head
Speaker 2: into a dead body and eating it, of course we
Speaker 2: think everything in there, all that bacteria that's rotting it,
Speaker 2: it's got to be awful. But yet they don't get sick, right,
Speaker 2: they don't. They survive this stuff and they don't have
Speaker 2: any food poisoning and wow. And so a scientist decided
Speaker 2: to investigate that, like he's like, we've got to understand
Speaker 2: what's going into their body. And so he took a
Speaker 2: bunch of dead vultures. Sadly, there were a number of
Speaker 2: vultures that he swabbed their faces and their necks, and
Speaker 2: there he found like over seven hundred different bacterial species
Speaker 2: on them. Wait seven hundred can you imagine? And some
Speaker 2: of those were like really really intense. And he's like, okay,
Speaker 2: so what's going in their mouths, you know, is whatever's
Speaker 2: on their face and lo and behold when he looks
Speaker 2: in their guts, there's about seventy over just over set species.
Speaker 2: Like that's huge, and so I how did that happen?
Speaker 2: You know? And what's going on that we don't know? Right?
Speaker 2: That is such new science. We don't know. But what's
Speaker 2: intriguing to think about is the ones that are in
Speaker 2: the guts are the ones that we would freak out
Speaker 2: if they were in our guts. Like there's flesh eating
Speaker 2: bacteria in there, there's ecola, there's this stuff. We're like,
Speaker 2: whoa get away from us? Right, But yet they're surviving
Speaker 2: and thriving in there, and we would assume that that's terrible,
Speaker 2: but maybe not, you know, maybe they're actually supporting each other.
Speaker 1: Yeah, now, I mean that is what is so interesting, right, Like,
Speaker 1: you can have these very complex symbiotic relationships, and symbiosis
Speaker 1: is not always good and it's not always bad, right Like,
Speaker 1: Symbiosis just describes a close uh, basically a ballet between
Speaker 1: two species. It could be a parasite and a ghost,
Speaker 1: or it could be a mutualistic relationship. And sometimes these
Speaker 1: relationships can like change over time, right, something that was
Speaker 1: once like maybe at some point in the vulture's evolutionary
Speaker 1: history these bacteria did harm them, and then over time
Speaker 1: they evolved to coexist in a way where the bacteria
Speaker 1: were able to survive, but so was the vulture. And
Speaker 1: I mean it's so interesting because I mean, I do
Speaker 1: I love vultures, and I love how like all of
Speaker 1: the things that we see about them that seems to
Speaker 1: make them gross, right, Like they have these bald heads
Speaker 1: and it's like, oh, that's that's gross looking. That's for hygiene.
Speaker 1: That's so blood and stuff doesn't get stuck to their feathers.
Speaker 1: And then they poop on themselves. They poop on their
Speaker 1: legs and for us that'd be like the most gross
Speaker 1: thing you could do, But that's also for hygiene. They
Speaker 1: have this very like they like bird poop in general
Speaker 1: is a combination of urine and feces typically, and so
Speaker 1: like the turepoop has this very it's very acidic, and
Speaker 1: so it actually cleans their legs. And so it's like
Speaker 1: these things that we would consider disgusting about them, right
Speaker 1: Like they're eating they're eating a corpse. It's usually a
Speaker 1: rotting cadaver, or it's it's really disgusting. Well, they're actually
Speaker 1: taking a lot of like bacteria and nasty things out
Speaker 1: of the environment and then converting it into food, containing
Speaker 1: it and expelling it in a way that is less
Speaker 1: harmful to other animals, to other to the environment. So
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, these are actually amazing, Like we
Speaker 1: can think of them as like the sanitation experts of
Speaker 1: the animal kingdom. So everything that seems gross about them
Speaker 1: to us is actually this process of taking these bad
Speaker 1: things and then turning it into a process that like
Speaker 1: works for them and then is helpful for preventing the
Speaker 1: spread of disease and other animals.
Speaker 2: We should be thinking them every.
Speaker 1: Day, I personally do.
Speaker 2: I realized I misspoke. When Gary the scientist Gary Graves
Speaker 2: studied the vultures, he found over five hundred species on
Speaker 2: their heads. We get so many. You know, what we
Speaker 2: keep kind of coming back to is this idea of
Speaker 2: evolution and you know, microbes and germs and all of
Speaker 2: those things that we see is so bad. They're bad
Speaker 2: for individuals, yes, but for populations it's different, you know, Yeah,
Speaker 2: And so it's interesting to you know, our perspective as
Speaker 2: individuals is that these things are bad because they can
Speaker 2: kill individuals. But if we look in the evolutionary scope,
Speaker 2: that's different, right in terms of the diversity that we
Speaker 2: have on the planet. They've driven this evolution, and that's
Speaker 2: just a mind boggling idea.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, And without that diversity, I mean, what's this
Speaker 1: is what's interesting, right, is because we have all sorts
Speaker 1: of different selective pressures, from the very small like bacteria
Speaker 1: and viruses, to the very large like a meteor hitting
Speaker 1: the earth and changing the climate. And we can't like,
Speaker 1: like the the fact that like bacteria and viruses have
Speaker 1: driven this diversification of species, right, Like you know, you
Speaker 1: would think like, well, so what right, it causes a
Speaker 1: lot of suffering. So it's not they're not really good
Speaker 1: to have. But because you have such a diversity of species,
Speaker 1: then life can survive things like the climate suddenly changing.
Speaker 1: A metea is striking their earth and causing because now
Speaker 1: you have more of a like a genetic library for
Speaker 1: these different animals. And so you're going to have the
Speaker 1: mass extinction of a lot of animals, but you're going
Speaker 1: to have just enough that have the ability to survive this.
Speaker 1: And so much of that is driven by microbes, by
Speaker 1: things that are things that are harmful and bad but
Speaker 1: have driven this diversification of species that they actually are
Speaker 1: able to survive, you know, devastating events. Maybe not on
Speaker 1: the individual level, which is sad for the individual of course,
Speaker 1: but in terms of like just life on Earth, like,
Speaker 1: viruses and bacteria are not necessarily bad for life on
Speaker 1: earth like for individual lives. Yes, and so again, keep
Speaker 1: washing your hands, keep getting vaccinated. I'm not saying on
Speaker 1: an individual level it's good for us to get walloped
Speaker 1: by the flu or whatever. But yeah, in terms of
Speaker 1: just general life on Earth, these relationships that we have
Speaker 1: with with pathogens is actually really complex and it's not.
Speaker 2: All bad exactly. And there's the whole, the whole idea
Speaker 2: that we've lumped all microbes into this bad category. You know,
Speaker 2: it's very easy for us too, because we can't see them,
Speaker 2: and when we can't see them, we don't understand them.
Speaker 2: And that's why I'm so passionate about learning and teaching
Speaker 2: about this because the more we know, Wow, it opens
Speaker 2: our eyes to so many things that we didn't understand.
Speaker 2: This complexity that's there, These microbes that are in our
Speaker 2: bodies that we wouldn't survive without you know. That's nest.
Speaker 2: It's mind blowing.
Speaker 1: It's something you can't even if you can't directly see it,
Speaker 1: it's something you can feel. If you've ever had a
Speaker 1: bad stomach flu, which I have had recently, and essentially
Speaker 1: what happens with the stomach flu is your body is
Speaker 1: like hits the eject button because something is in there
Speaker 1: that's that's bad. Sometimes it's a virus, sometimes it's food poisoning,
Speaker 1: and so your body is like emergency, We've got to evacuate.
Speaker 1: We've got to get rid of this. So you're gonna
Speaker 1: vomit and you're gonna have diarrhea. Uh. And so that's
Speaker 1: why it's I mean, the number one thing when you
Speaker 1: have a stomach flu or food poisoning is hydration because
Speaker 1: like you're losing a lot of fluid food, you don't
Speaker 1: have to worry about as much. You will you will
Speaker 1: be hungry when you're hungry, it's going to take a
Speaker 1: little while. But yeah, so you should hydrate. But your
Speaker 1: your body is doing something important. It is it is
Speaker 1: getting rid of something that it thinks is really dangerous
Speaker 1: and could cut and could really severely hurt you. Is
Speaker 1: it always right? Maybe not, but it's it's doing the
Speaker 1: best job it can in terms of gauging. Okay, when
Speaker 1: do we need to just eject everything? But what happens
Speaker 1: is you actually lose like through that injection, Like after that,
Speaker 1: you might find that sometimes you get more kind of
Speaker 1: you feel kind of yucky a while after, like after
Speaker 1: you're done with the stomach flu, after you're done with
Speaker 1: the food poisoning, you still kind of maybe get maybe
Speaker 1: some like indigestion or some stomach issues. And it's like, well,
Speaker 1: because you flushed out a lot of good bacteria as well,
Speaker 1: and which is why you know, the immune response has
Speaker 1: to be so delicate and not always go off all
Speaker 1: the time whenever you are infected with them, you know,
Speaker 1: a tiny pathogen like because that that flushing out, you
Speaker 1: are flushing out also like good bacteria. So it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's good to like uh sort of uh try to
Speaker 1: you know, once you start to rehydrate and eat food
Speaker 1: and stuff and naturally, your your gut floora will repopulate.
Speaker 1: So it's not something you have to panic about or
Speaker 1: anything like that. But it is really interesting and it's
Speaker 1: also it's so interesting these there are things in medicine
Speaker 1: where we recognize right the power of this gut bacteria.
Speaker 1: So we have things like fecal transplants, which sounds horrifying,
Speaker 1: sounds sounds not like something that you would want to
Speaker 1: have happened, but it is apparently something that can be
Speaker 1: really important in terms of helping repopulate someone's gut with
Speaker 1: good bacteria, with something that can actually help them help
Speaker 1: a person like when you digest food. It can also
Speaker 1: protect you from other bacteria because bacteria, like any organism,
Speaker 1: are in competition with each other. So if you have
Speaker 1: a less harmful bacteria that is populating your gut, it
Speaker 1: will try to compete with and interfere with bacteria that
Speaker 1: might make you sick. So yeah, like bacteria is often
Speaker 1: our friend, it's just sometimes when it isn't, it's really noticeable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's nasty discussing. Yeah, fecal transplants are just amazing.
Speaker 2: I just I can hardly believe that that works, but
Speaker 2: it does. And once I met some folks who have
Speaker 2: had fecal transplants and successfully, you know, cure m it's
Speaker 2: just amazing what they what they can do. So when
Speaker 2: one of the things that amazes me is that even
Speaker 2: bacteria that we see as the bad guys like staphylococcus, right,
Speaker 2: which can be really a huge problem. But staff itself
Speaker 2: is infected. Some staff can exist on us in a
Speaker 2: very healthy way, and other staff that have has genetic
Speaker 2: material that's we're not really sure how it gets in there,
Speaker 2: but it has. It has additional genetic material from another
Speaker 2: organism that in fact is like it in self is infected.
Speaker 2: So we don't think about the fact that that all
Speaker 2: of these microupes are in their own world dealing with
Speaker 2: infections of themselves just wind.
Speaker 1: Blowing when you zoom out more like it's easier to
Speaker 1: comprehend that where when you have a mosquito, Mosquitoes do
Speaker 1: not make us sick, right, Mosquitoes are would actually be
Speaker 1: relatively harmless. They are parasites, but they would if if
Speaker 1: not for pathogens that actually infect the mosquitoes. Mosquitoes themselves
Speaker 1: would be pretty harmless to like a human, but because
Speaker 1: they themselves can be infected with with pathogens with like
Speaker 1: something that can actually be passed on to us, and
Speaker 1: in fact that it's the whole reason that they will
Speaker 1: infect the the the mosquito. The mosquito can then pass
Speaker 1: something along to us and so something that we see
Speaker 1: right like as this mosquito is like hurting us, it's like, well,
Speaker 1: it's not really the mosquito itself, it's whatever has hitched
Speaker 1: a ride on the mosquito. And then but then when
Speaker 1: you of course, like you go and sort of like
Speaker 1: all the evolutionary pressures and the sorts of like symbiotic
Speaker 1: relationships that affect like like organisms, you know, macro organisms,
Speaker 1: are those same things are happening on a microscopic level.
Speaker 1: Like that is not my I don't talk about it
Speaker 1: as much because it is not sort of my area
Speaker 1: of expertise, but it is still really really interesting.
Speaker 2: It is mind blowing. I came across a study of ticks,
Speaker 2: same concept, where a tick doesn't ask to be infected
Speaker 2: by lime disease. Right, that's not something they chose, right,
Speaker 2: they are infected. There's an amazing study of a lizard
Speaker 2: out in the western United States. Who if an infected
Speaker 2: tick bites this lizard. We don't understand everything that's going
Speaker 2: on here, but the tick when it leaves the lizard
Speaker 2: no longer has carries lime disease.
Speaker 1: Oh that's so interesting.
Speaker 2: So amazing, Right, So something's happening when the blood from
Speaker 2: the lizard enters the foregut of the tick that's affecting
Speaker 2: that disease causing microbe. Just mind blowing to think about it.
Speaker 2: You know, we think of ticks they're terrible, awful, but
Speaker 2: just like mosquitoes, they and of themselves don't cause that
Speaker 2: much damage.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, but they are too convenient of a
Speaker 1: little taxi, uh for like they like mosquitoes, ticks, fleas, rats,
Speaker 1: you know, all these these little animals that we think
Speaker 1: of as you know, gross, like you know, plague bearing animals.
Speaker 1: It's just because they're little taxis, right Like, they get
Speaker 1: around a lot. They're easy to hitch your right on,
Speaker 1: and you know, I mean it's like a flea hitching
Speaker 1: your right on a rat. But then you know the
Speaker 1: the bubonic plague hitching your right on the flea. It's
Speaker 1: it's these these other intermediary organisms have no idea that
Speaker 1: they are little cab drivers for disease. And it's not
Speaker 1: really their fault. Uh So it's I mean, it's not
Speaker 1: even the disease's fault when you get down to it.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's just it it is really interesting.
Speaker 1: Before we go, I guess I just wanted to circle
Speaker 1: back to kind of the initial question that we talked about, like,
Speaker 1: why do you think so called gross stuff is so
Speaker 1: fascinating to people?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: Because I certainly find it fascinating. I have never grown
Speaker 1: out of finding poop and puke and mucus to be
Speaker 1: really interesting. Now I don't want to necessarily see it
Speaker 1: much in real life, right, Like, if I step on
Speaker 1: dog poop, I'm not like, well, this is great. But
Speaker 1: in terms of being interested in stories about it, being
Speaker 1: interested in the science of it, what do you think
Speaker 1: is so compelling about it that kids and adults, even
Speaker 1: adults who don't want to admit it, finds so interesting.
Speaker 2: I think it's the questions, because I think questions are
Speaker 2: or and or curiosity all to linked together. That's what
Speaker 2: drives learning, and the human mind wants to learn, right,
Speaker 2: We're innately driven to learn and learn and learn. And
Speaker 2: when we find something such as poop or blood or
Speaker 2: something like that that society says, oh, no, gross, don't
Speaker 2: look at that, don't pay attention to it, We're like, wait,
Speaker 2: what you know? I want to know more? And the
Speaker 2: first question is why why am I not supposed to
Speaker 2: look at that? Right? It's a. It's a kind of
Speaker 2: a taboo subject, but why, And then that just drives
Speaker 2: us to learn more and more the human mind. It's
Speaker 2: an amazing thing when we ask those questions, when we
Speaker 2: look a little closer, that's when we discover all of
Speaker 2: this that we've been talking about today was all driven
Speaker 2: by questions. Somebody's question about something weird that happened, that
Speaker 2: they observed, and they dug a little deeper, and in
Speaker 2: the end, our minds get blown again and again as
Speaker 2: we look at the animal kingdom right as we discover
Speaker 2: these little bits and pieces. And what I'm so fascinated
Speaker 2: with is the fact that every single one of us
Speaker 2: can do that every day. All we have to do
Speaker 2: is look and start asking questions.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Well, thank you so much for coming on. Where
Speaker 1: can people find your book? What's it called? And I
Speaker 1: think that it's a really fun book. I think it's
Speaker 1: especially good for older kids. But look, I read it,
Speaker 1: I'm an adult and I still enjoyed it. So where
Speaker 1: can people get your book?
Speaker 2: Well? First, thanks for that. I'm honored that you read
Speaker 2: it and enjoyed it so much. This book is called
Speaker 2: Sick the Twist and turns behind animal germs and you
Speaker 2: can find it online bookstores. It will not be available
Speaker 2: until February twentieth, and it's also available if you want
Speaker 2: to look at any of my books at Heather L.
Speaker 2: Montgomery dot com.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and can you pre order it or is it?
Speaker 2: Yes, it can be pre ordered any online booksseller.
Speaker 1: Fantastic. I have so much respect for these kinds of
Speaker 1: books and science education because I think it's so important
Speaker 1: to help drive sort of what kids are interested in.
Speaker 1: And if kids are interested in gross stuff, and it's like, well,
Speaker 1: maybe we should maybe we should pay attention to that
Speaker 1: and respect that rather than you know, seeing that as
Speaker 1: not an appropriate thing. So thank you so much again
Speaker 1: for coming on today, and thank you to the listeners
Speaker 1: for listening to the show. A happy new year everyone.
Speaker 1: I'm so excited about a whole new year of podcasting.
Speaker 1: And if you are enjoying the show and you leave
Speaker 1: a rating or review, I deeply appreciate it. I read
Speaker 1: all of your reviews, every single one. Print them all out,
Speaker 1: make a book, read it every night to myself. And
Speaker 1: thank you to the Space Classics for their super awesome song.
Speaker 1: Exolumina Creature Feature is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts like the one you just heard, Visit Day, I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, app Apple Podcast, or Hey guess what wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows. I am not your mother.
Speaker 1: I cannot tell you what to do, how you decide
Speaker 1: to live your life. I will see you next Wednesday.
Speaker 2: M hmm