Speaker 1: Welcome to How Stuff Works Now. I'm your host, Lauren Vogelbaum,
Speaker 1: a researcher and writer. Here at How Stuff Works. Every week,
Speaker 1: I'm bringing you three stories from our team about the
Speaker 1: weird and wondrous advances we've seen in science, technology, and culture.
Speaker 1: This week, sand is in such high demand and construction
Speaker 1: markets around the world that people are stealing tons of it.
Speaker 1: And unrelated, it turns out that white rhinos communicate via
Speaker 1: massive communal poop piles. But First, Senior editor Katherine Whitborren
Speaker 1: and our freelance writer Alia Hoyt take us behind the
Speaker 1: scenes of medical research. Clinical trials make amazing new treatments
Speaker 1: possible and safe, but here in the United States, they
Speaker 1: struggle to find participants. Here's why and what you can
Speaker 1: do to help. Dave Bexfield of Albuquerque, New Mexico, was
Speaker 1: diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in two thousand and six. Three
Speaker 1: years later, he applied for a clinical trial sponsored by
Speaker 1: the National Institutes of Health that involved a stem cell transplant.
Speaker 1: Bexfield says the trial saved his life. Within a few
Speaker 1: months of completion, in twenty ten, he could walk again
Speaker 1: without a cane or a walker. Participation levels in clinical
Speaker 1: trials are often very low, even for patients with terminal diseases.
Speaker 1: Doctor Julie M. Vos, immediate past president of the American
Speaker 1: Society of Clinical Oncology, told us that only about three
Speaker 1: percent of adopt patients with cancer participate in clinical trials.
Speaker 1: This low rate limits patient access to new interventions that
Speaker 1: could treat or even cure their cancer. In fact, analysis
Speaker 1: of cancer trials found that a whopping forty of them
Speaker 1: were unable to enroll the minimum number of participants. Another
Speaker 1: survey showed only thirty five percent of Americans said they
Speaker 1: were likely to enroll in a clinical trial. So why
Speaker 1: don't more people participate in trials, even if it might
Speaker 1: save their lives? Here are some reasons. Number one, they
Speaker 1: don't know what's available. People diagnosed with diseases often mistakenly
Speaker 1: assumed that their doctor will suggest appropriate clinical trials if
Speaker 1: they're out there. Although some physicians are very dialed into
Speaker 1: ongoing research, many aren't or simply don't have time to
Speaker 1: sit through all the opportunities for their patients. So in
Speaker 1: addition to asking your doctor directly about clinical studies, you
Speaker 1: can also check a number of online resources that can
Speaker 1: help you find them. The National Institute of Health website
Speaker 1: lists several databases, including clinical Trials dot gov, which allows
Speaker 1: users to search by condition or location. Breast Cancer Trials
Speaker 1: dot org is another disease specific option where you can
Speaker 1: be matched with an appropriate study. Search for finding clinical
Speaker 1: trials to learn more. Number two, the trial locations are inconvenient.
Speaker 1: Geography is a major problem with clinical trials because they
Speaker 1: tend to be in specific locations that are often not
Speaker 1: convenient to patients. Vicky Carr is our breast cancer survivor
Speaker 1: and patient advocate for Susan G. Coleman, who lives outside Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. For four years, she's taken a bus trip
Speaker 1: every four weeks for a trial that will hopefully prevent
Speaker 1: her cancer from returning and spreading. Another example, the multiple
Speaker 1: scross a study that Dave Bexfield participated in, required ten
Speaker 1: round trip flights from Albuquerque to Houston, including initial treatment
Speaker 1: and follow up trips. His cost eventually were covered by
Speaker 1: insurance company after a big fight. But not everyone has
Speaker 1: the luxury of taking so much time off work. But
Speaker 1: before you ride off a possibly life saving study, it's
Speaker 1: important to know the terms because some trials will pay
Speaker 1: for travel and hotel expenses. Number three, Patients worry about
Speaker 1: getting the placebo. A lot of people are afraid of
Speaker 1: going through all that trouble of participating in a trial
Speaker 1: to only wind up in the group that gets the
Speaker 1: sugar pill instead of the drug. But nowadays trials are
Speaker 1: designed to be more patient friendly. For instance, there might
Speaker 1: be several treatment groups and a single placebo group, so
Speaker 1: the chances of receiving the placebo may only be twenty
Speaker 1: five to thirty three percent. Crossover designs also allow every
Speaker 1: participant to receive the drug at some point during the trial.
Speaker 1: Another incentive is the open label extension trial. This is
Speaker 1: a special trial that allows participants who complete the main
Speaker 1: trial to have guaranteed access to the drug at the
Speaker 1: end of it. Also, in the case of cancer trials,
Speaker 1: people in either group will get at least the current
Speaker 1: standard of care for their condition. No one goes without treatment.
Speaker 1: Number four reason Patients also worry about safety. They hear
Speaker 1: the word clinical trial and figure that the drug being
Speaker 1: tested could really harm them, But by the time it
Speaker 1: gets to the stage of being tested on humans, the
Speaker 1: researchers have already tested this out on cells grown in
Speaker 1: a lab, as well as on animals. These are called
Speaker 1: preclinical studies. Clinical trials are done only after preclinical studies
Speaker 1: suggest that the treatment is likely to be safe and
Speaker 1: will work in people. The research must also be approved
Speaker 1: by the u S Food and Drug Administration. The researchers
Speaker 1: and doctors we spoke with for this story emphasize the
Speaker 1: need to have a wider pool of study subjects. Clinical
Speaker 1: trials need both men and women of all races and
Speaker 1: ages to be sure that a treatment will work on everyone.
Speaker 1: And by the way, you don't have to be sick
Speaker 1: to participate in a clinical trial. Lots of them are
Speaker 1: looking for healthy volunteers. Next up, staff writer Joe McCormick,
Speaker 1: who's also the co host of a podcast you might
Speaker 1: have heard of called Stuff to Blow Your Mind, presents
Speaker 1: a story from our freelancer Dave Ruse about the strange
Speaker 1: and very serious world of the sand mafia. As strange
Speaker 1: as it may sound, sand is one of the world's
Speaker 1: hottest commodities. The global construction boom has created an insatiable
Speaker 1: appetite for sand, the chief ingredient in making concrete. The
Speaker 1: problem is that sand isn't as abundant as it used
Speaker 1: to be, and when high demand and high value. Meet scarcity,
Speaker 1: you open the doors to smuggling. Meet the sand mafia.
Speaker 1: In India, illegal sand mining is the country's largest organized
Speaker 1: criminal activity. In inland villages, armed sand mafia's steel land
Speaker 1: in order to strip its top soil and extract the
Speaker 1: layers of valuable sand beneath along the posts. Pirate dredging
Speaker 1: vessels siphon sand from the seafloor in broad daylight, with
Speaker 1: bribed officials turning a blind eye. The Pilford sand fetches
Speaker 1: a good price on the black market, where it is
Speaker 1: sold to construction companies building high rises in mega cities
Speaker 1: like Mumbai. According to journalist Vince Bisser, who wrote about
Speaker 1: sand theft for Wired and The New York Times, people
Speaker 1: who resist the mafia are beaten or killed, including police officers.
Speaker 1: Filmmaker Dennis Dellastroc witnessed similar tactics in Morocco while shooting
Speaker 1: Sand Wars, a documentary about the global sand trade and
Speaker 1: its environmental impact. According to Dellastrac, quote, the sand of
Speaker 1: mafia in Morocco is the second most powerful criminal organization
Speaker 1: in the country. We saw people with shovels taking every
Speaker 1: last grain of sand from the beach where a few
Speaker 1: years ago you used to have a very thick and
Speaker 1: white beach. Now you have this lunar landscape. It's devastating.
Speaker 1: Environmental officials estimate that half of Morocco's construction sector is
Speaker 1: built with stolen sand. The irony, says Dellastroc, is that
Speaker 1: much of the stolen sand is used to build housing
Speaker 1: for foreign tourists who are flocking to Morocco precisely because
Speaker 1: of its beaches. If both legal and illegal sand mining
Speaker 1: persists at its current rate in places like Morocco, India,
Speaker 1: and across Asia, there may be few beaches left. The
Speaker 1: United Nations Environment Program reported in that quote, sand and
Speaker 1: gravel represent the highest volume of raw material used on
Speaker 1: Earth after water. Their use greatly exceeds natural renewal rates.
Speaker 1: Dellastrac claims that eight of everything built on our planet
Speaker 1: is built out of concrete, and concrete uses a whole
Speaker 1: lot of sand. It takes thirty thousand tons or more
Speaker 1: than twenty seven thousand metric tons of sand to construct
Speaker 1: one kilometer of highway. It takes about two hundred tons
Speaker 1: or about a hundred and eighty men trick tons to
Speaker 1: build the average concrete house. Reports Coastal Care, a nonprofit
Speaker 1: foundation dedicated to beach conservation. According to a report from
Speaker 1: the International Monetary Fund, the Birj Khalifa Tower in Dubai,
Speaker 1: the world's tallest building, required more than a hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty one thousand tons or about a hundred and ten
Speaker 1: thousand metric tons of concrete and over one point six
Speaker 1: million square meters of glass. Another industrial commodity that's a
Speaker 1: massive consumer of sand, Dubai represents another of the great
Speaker 1: tragic ironies of the global sand trade. This booming desert
Speaker 1: outposts surrounded by endless seas of sand dunes, must import
Speaker 1: most of its construction sand from Australia. That's because desert
Speaker 1: sand is too smooth and fine. The rough angular sand
Speaker 1: required to make concrete can only be found in or
Speaker 1: near water or an ancient seabed deposits underground. Of course,
Speaker 1: Dubai isn't alone in its hunger for concrete. According to
Speaker 1: a twenty fourteen UN report on global urbanization, fifty four
Speaker 1: percent of the world's population now lives in urban areas,
Speaker 1: including twenty eight mega cities, Sprawling urban areas with more
Speaker 1: than ten million people. The global sand trade generates seventy
Speaker 1: billion dollars a year to mine, dredge, extract, and ship
Speaker 1: enough raw material to meet the explosive demand for urban housing.
Speaker 1: How long though, until we run out of sand? It
Speaker 1: takes twenty thousand years for the natural process of sand
Speaker 1: formations as dellastrak. Ocean sand begins its journey high in
Speaker 1: the mountains, where erosive forces slowly break rocks into smaller
Speaker 1: and smaller pieces that are eventually carried by streams and
Speaker 1: rivers into the sea. The ocean floor contains a surprisingly
Speaker 1: thin layer of sand. Most large deposits are found on beaches.
Speaker 1: The scarcity of natural sand makes beaches and shorelines the
Speaker 1: ripest targets for both legal and illegal sand mining. The
Speaker 1: environmental impact of large scale sand excavation can be disastrous.
Speaker 1: More than two dozen small islands in Indonesia have disappeared
Speaker 1: due to runaway erosion caused by offshore dredging operations. In
Speaker 1: the United States, a sim x sand mining California's Monterey
Speaker 1: Bay is blamed by environmentalists for rapid coastal erosion. John
Speaker 1: gillis a retired history professor from Rutger's University and author
Speaker 1: of The Human Shore Sea coasts in history, says the
Speaker 1: most immediate human victims of sand mining and sand theft
Speaker 1: are poor fishing communities in the Third World. Quote as
Speaker 1: sand gains value in scarcity and becomes a commodity, you
Speaker 1: see what happens. It disrupts not just the biological systems
Speaker 1: of these places, but also the social systems, driving people
Speaker 1: away from their very tenuous hold on the shore. But
Speaker 1: if sand mining is left unchecked, the damage to coastal
Speaker 1: ecosystems could start swallowing up beaches closer to home. One
Speaker 1: more thing, documentary filmmaker Deleastra says that large scale recycling
Speaker 1: of industrial materials, especially glass and concrete, is one way
Speaker 1: to curb the appetite for natural sand. In Denmark, attacks
Speaker 1: on extracting raw materials has created an incentive for companies
Speaker 1: to recycle. In nineteen five, only twelve percent of construction
Speaker 1: and demolition waste was recycled. By two thousand four, that
Speaker 1: number was finally. This week, staff editor Christopher Hasiotis and
Speaker 1: our freelancer Justcelin Shields have a piece for us about
Speaker 1: one of the fascinating ways that non human animals lacking
Speaker 1: a verbal language communicate with one another. Via poop. Most
Speaker 1: of us agree it's nice to have a special, separate
Speaker 1: area where everyone can relieve themselves. It's objectively great that,
Speaker 1: instead of finding piles of human feces all over the
Speaker 1: airport or grocery store, we extend to one another the
Speaker 1: curb to see if crapping and mutually agreed upon spaces
Speaker 1: so civilized. The very humanness of this act might be
Speaker 1: why when a group of animals all use a shared
Speaker 1: public toilet where all now, isn't that interesting? But let's
Speaker 1: not fool ourselves. Plenty of animal species poop in latrines
Speaker 1: or middens, and it's not just us fancy pants primates,
Speaker 1: nor even just vertebrates. While the act of defecating in
Speaker 1: shared communal dung heaps is common in all manner of mammals,
Speaker 1: from molds to otters to elephants, some species of ants,
Speaker 1: for instance, make refuse chambers in their own nests. Un
Speaker 1: Lest we assume the public toilet is a modern invention,
Speaker 1: The oldest animal latrine ever discovered was created two hundred
Speaker 1: and forty million years ago by a herd of Dinodontosaurus,
Speaker 1: giant herbivorous reptiles that kind of resembled a modern rhino.
Speaker 1: This prehistoric pile of pooh was gargantuan, covering an area
Speaker 1: of almost ten thousand square feet or nine hundred square meters,
Speaker 1: with a poop density of around ninety four tirds per
Speaker 1: square meter. And speaking of the modern rhinoceros, the critically
Speaker 1: endangered white rhino can tell us a lot about what's
Speaker 1: probably going on when animals poop in huge communal piles.
Speaker 1: Why because white rhinos are seriously into smelling each other's crap.
Speaker 1: But let's back up a step. In the past, researchers
Speaker 1: have come up with lots of different reasons why a
Speaker 1: population of animals would want to create a communal midden
Speaker 1: rather than just go behind the nearest tree or wherever.
Speaker 1: Since we humans mostly confine our droppings to a specific
Speaker 1: area for sanitary reasons, some biologists have assumed that other
Speaker 1: animals might be doing the same. And sure, social insects
Speaker 1: like ants and spider mites probably do keep their biological
Speaker 1: waste and uneaten food separate from their communal living spaces
Speaker 1: with the intention of keeping harmful bacteria at bay. But
Speaker 1: many other animals, like the white rhino we're talking about,
Speaker 1: will regularly just stroll up to a giant pile of
Speaker 1: poop and give it a good, thorough investigatory snuffle. They're
Speaker 1: probably not all that worried about germs. So communal latrines
Speaker 1: have also been thought to mark borders of territories or
Speaker 1: even communicate to predators that this heart is large enough
Speaker 1: that lunch isn't going to serve itself to them on
Speaker 1: golden platters. But for some species, scientists think the purpose
Speaker 1: of communal latrines is for intraspecies communication. Period. Take Courtney
Speaker 1: Marnoik for example. She is an ecologist and doctoral student
Speaker 1: at the University of Quasulu Natal in South Africa, and
Speaker 1: she's the lead author of recent study investigating the role
Speaker 1: of dung in white rhino communication. White rhinos use communal
Speaker 1: defecation sites to communicate. She tells, how stuff works and
Speaker 1: this is the only reason they do this. They can
Speaker 1: identify age, sex, territorial state, estra state of the depositor,
Speaker 1: and even how long ago they were there. And although
Speaker 1: Marnoick didn't test for this in her recent study, she
Speaker 1: believes rhinos can recognize specific individuals through fecal scent. One
Speaker 1: interesting thing about white rhine no midden making behavior is
Speaker 1: that every rhino of every age in the area will
Speaker 1: all use the same dung heap, but the only one
Speaker 1: allowed to poop right in the very center of the
Speaker 1: pile is the resident dominant male. He's also the only
Speaker 1: one who kicks his dunge around afterwards, spreading his smell
Speaker 1: around the midden, but also carrying the smell of his
Speaker 1: own poop with him everywhere he walks. According to Marnock,
Speaker 1: lots of other animals, both herbivores and carnivores, used communal
Speaker 1: defecation sites for communication, sometimes only to mark territory and
Speaker 1: pick up signals from other animals, sometimes just for keeping
Speaker 1: track of estrus females, and often both, particularly for herbivores species.
Speaker 1: She says, there's this hypothesis that communal defecation sites could
Speaker 1: potentially be for parasite avoidance, basically, don't crap where you eat.
Speaker 1: She highly doubts that this is the case, though, and
Speaker 1: thanks communication is the reason for all species. So next
Speaker 1: time you're in a public bathroom, you might want to
Speaker 1: look around or take a sniff and see what the
Speaker 1: world's telling you. Oh and one more thing, completely unrelated
Speaker 1: to Rhino's but fascinating. Nonetheless, since we're talking about animal
Speaker 1: bathroom habits here, let's talk about sloths. Though they don't
Speaker 1: use shared latrines, they do only poop about once a week.
Speaker 1: In fact, it's the only reason they climb out of
Speaker 1: the tree. And because it takes up to a month
Speaker 1: for a sloth to digest its food, they're always very constipated.
Speaker 1: That's why each week, defecating sloths undergo what biologists describe
Speaker 1: as an ordeal akin to Chipper. Now, that's our show
Speaker 1: for this week. Thank you so much for tuning in.
Speaker 1: Further thanks for audio producer Dylan Fagin and our orial
Speaker 1: liaison Alison Laddermilk. Subscribe to now Now for more of
Speaker 1: the latest science news, and send this links to anything
Speaker 1: you'd like to hear his cover. Plus tell me what
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