WEBVTT - Listener Questions #33 0:00:07.960 --> 0:00:11.280 From the lung of a snake. The tongue worm steals 0:00:11.280 --> 0:00:15.040 a blood meal? Has it been so for millions of years? 0:00:15.480 --> 0:00:19.959 What do fossils reveal? They just keep getting. 0:00:19.720 --> 0:00:22.280 Longer and more Shakespearean? 0:00:22.400 --> 0:00:25.160 I noticed, Yeah, I'm trying very nice. 0:00:25.760 --> 0:00:29.040 We nail down light and let the meter chase time. 0:00:29.680 --> 0:00:33.560 Now rulers run late, but the clocks are sublime. 0:00:35.640 --> 0:00:39.479 Kelly, pray, tell what are parasites three that you find 0:00:39.600 --> 0:00:42.040 the most creepy? 0:00:44.360 --> 0:00:47.600 Whatever questions keep you up at night, Daniel and Kelly's 0:00:47.680 --> 0:00:50.240 Shakespearean answers will set it all right. 0:00:51.200 --> 0:00:54.800 Isn't Shakespearean in like iambic pentameter? Not whatever the heck 0:00:55.240 --> 0:00:57.560 you call what we're doing. 0:00:57.840 --> 0:01:01.640 My criticisms of your poetry may not be entirely accurate. 0:01:01.680 --> 0:01:07.080 I admit, okay, Welcome to Daniel and Kelly's extraordinary universe, 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:13.680 not Daniel and Kelly's literate universe. This is listener questions 0:01:13.959 --> 0:01:26.440 number thirty three. 0:01:27.840 --> 0:01:30.679 Hi, I'm I'm a particle physicist, and I'm not a 0:01:30.720 --> 0:01:31.800 professor of English. 0:01:32.520 --> 0:01:36.520 Hi. I'm Kelly Wiener Smith. I study parasites and space, 0:01:36.560 --> 0:01:39.240 And when I was at a literature festival, I actually 0:01:39.319 --> 0:01:43.600 asked a scotsman. Well, Robert Burns is dead, right, and 0:01:44.080 --> 0:01:47.240 uh he died about one hundred and fifty years ago. 0:01:47.520 --> 0:01:52.160 So the answer is yes. I married a man with 0:01:52.200 --> 0:01:56.040 a degree in literature, and I embarrass him regularly. 0:01:56.640 --> 0:01:59.000 And I've heard that he's not a fan of our poetry. 0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:03.680 He skips past. Oh oh, yeah, the start of our 0:02:03.760 --> 0:02:05.160 listener questions episodes. 0:02:05.920 --> 0:02:08.600 All right, but today we are not talking in tongues, 0:02:08.760 --> 0:02:12.520 but we are talking about tongues. I've noticed that you've 0:02:12.720 --> 0:02:14.400 licked some very interesting topics for. 0:02:14.480 --> 0:02:19.280 Today, Kelly, that's right, and our first question is by Jacob, 0:02:19.320 --> 0:02:22.640 who wants to know about tongue worms. So let's go 0:02:22.720 --> 0:02:24.360 ahead and hear his question. 0:02:24.840 --> 0:02:28.200 I'd love an episode or chapter on tongue worms. An 0:02:28.240 --> 0:02:31.160 approximately four hundred and fifty five million year old lineage 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:35.160 is mind bending. I keep wondering what impacts something that 0:02:35.200 --> 0:02:38.720 ancient has had on the evolution of vertebrates. My naive 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:42.120 intuition is that if a host parasite relationship lasts that long, 0:02:42.320 --> 0:02:45.160 natural selection must have pushed both sides towards some kind 0:02:45.200 --> 0:02:48.360 of stable arrangement, almost like an evolutionary game that has 0:02:48.360 --> 0:02:51.799 found a robust equilibrium with strategies on both sides that 0:02:51.880 --> 0:02:53.000 keep getting re selected. 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:57.519 Wow, who wouldn't love an episode on tongue worms. That's 0:02:57.639 --> 0:02:58.959 nightmare fuel for sure. 0:02:59.320 --> 0:03:02.120 He was really excited about tongue worms. We had a 0:03:02.280 --> 0:03:05.720 very enthusiastic conversation about whether or not we meant the 0:03:06.120 --> 0:03:11.760 pentastomid tongue worms or the isopods that eat the tongues 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:14.919 of fish. Maybe those were the tongue worms that Jacob meant, 0:03:15.000 --> 0:03:20.120 but anyway, no, he meant the linguadolids the tongue the 0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:22.480 kinds of parasites that you often find in snakes. 0:03:22.760 --> 0:03:26.600 Oh fascinating. Yeah, all right, so tell us what are 0:03:26.680 --> 0:03:29.320 these things and why have they been around for four 0:03:29.440 --> 0:03:31.880 hundred and fifty million years? 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:35.000 All right, so here we go. All right, so pentastoma 0:03:35.240 --> 0:03:38.440 that means five mouths, but you know what, fun fact, 0:03:38.640 --> 0:03:42.000 they only have one mouth. They've got like five hangy 0:03:42.080 --> 0:03:45.360 things on their head side. But actually only one of 0:03:45.360 --> 0:03:47.200 those things is a mouth, and the other five are 0:03:47.240 --> 0:03:50.360 like hooks. I think we weren't quite so good at 0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:53.240 figuring out what the hangy things were initially, So we 0:03:53.320 --> 0:03:55.640 said five mouths, but only one of them is a mouth. 0:03:55.720 --> 0:03:57.480 All right, but give me a mental picture of this thing. 0:03:57.560 --> 0:03:59.720 How big is it? Is it long? And thin? Is 0:03:59.760 --> 0:04:02.960 it little blob? Is it gooey? It's gooey, isn't it? 0:04:03.560 --> 0:04:06.320 I mean probably kind of gooey. I mean it depends 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:08.800 depends on what stage you're talking about. So they can 0:04:08.880 --> 0:04:12.160 be as long as like fifteen centimeters. Whoa pretty long. 0:04:12.320 --> 0:04:17.480 They're wormy. They're probably related to crustaceans, and so crustaceans 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:23.000 we're talking about like crayfish, shrimp, crabs, stuff like that, right, 0:04:23.000 --> 0:04:26.359 But they are like sort of very differently shaped. They're long, 0:04:26.760 --> 0:04:29.480 they're wormy. They've got like a head projection that has 0:04:29.520 --> 0:04:32.719 like hooks on either sides that they can like hold 0:04:32.800 --> 0:04:36.360 on to the inside of the lungs of like snakes. 0:04:36.839 --> 0:04:38.440 And then they've got like a little mouth thing in 0:04:38.480 --> 0:04:41.599 the inside so that they can like suck on blood. 0:04:42.640 --> 0:04:45.560 And so they're basically snake shaped, so like a snake 0:04:45.680 --> 0:04:47.760 might have a snake parasite in it that looks like 0:04:47.800 --> 0:04:50.640 a snake. And then does that just continue, Is there 0:04:50.640 --> 0:04:52.680 a parasite inside that one, a parasite inside that one, 0:04:52.760 --> 0:04:55.680 until you get down to like quark length snake parasites 0:04:56.160 --> 0:05:00.719 add infinitum. Yes, it's snake parasites all the way down, 0:05:01.320 --> 0:05:03.440 all right. So you got a snake with a snake 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:06.320 parasite in it, and it's got these grabby things on 0:05:06.600 --> 0:05:09.160 its mouth so that it can hook into the lungs 0:05:09.160 --> 0:05:11.000 of the snake. I thought we were talking about tongues. 0:05:11.600 --> 0:05:15.279 Yeah, So they they don't have that much to do 0:05:15.360 --> 0:05:18.120 with tongues really, but they still get called tongue worms. 0:05:18.160 --> 0:05:20.279 And so they tend to be found in like the 0:05:20.440 --> 0:05:23.520 naso pharyngeal region, so they can be like up in 0:05:23.560 --> 0:05:26.000 the nose, they can be in like the trachea, they 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:28.640 can be in the lung sort of region. You tend 0:05:28.640 --> 0:05:33.920 to find them in like lizards, turtles, snakes, crocodiles, like herps. 0:05:34.440 --> 0:05:36.640 And essentially what they do is like they use those 0:05:36.640 --> 0:05:38.760 hooks they hold on and then they bite into the 0:05:38.839 --> 0:05:41.120 lungs and they suck out a bunch of blood. 0:05:41.360 --> 0:05:44.400 Wow. So if a snake like has a big sneeze, 0:05:44.520 --> 0:05:47.120 it could like chew out one of these guys. 0:05:47.320 --> 0:05:49.680 Ah. So here's the fun thing. So they're probably not 0:05:49.720 --> 0:05:53.040 gonna hut you out the parasite, but they might be 0:05:53.200 --> 0:05:55.200 hutcheing out the parasite's eggs. 0:05:55.440 --> 0:05:56.560 Oh, gosh. 0:05:57.640 --> 0:06:02.720 So the parasite breeds inside and it produces eggs, and 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:05.240 sometimes the host will like cough up the eggs and 0:06:05.320 --> 0:06:07.839 swallow the eggs, and then the eggs will get out 0:06:07.880 --> 0:06:10.400 of the body through like the feces of the host. 0:06:10.640 --> 0:06:12.600 I'm gonna think about that every time I cough from 0:06:12.640 --> 0:06:14.160 now on, Kelly, Thank you very much. 0:06:14.560 --> 0:06:17.400 Yeah, you're welcome. There's some other parasites that do that too, 0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:18.920 and they infect humans. 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:19.800 Oh yeah, yay. 0:06:20.240 --> 0:06:22.440 Well, but sometimes the parasites will get into the environment 0:06:22.520 --> 0:06:25.240 directly because the animal will just like cough them right 0:06:25.240 --> 0:06:29.400 out into the environment. Super gross. The way these parasites 0:06:29.640 --> 0:06:33.280 harm their host, it doesn't seem like they cause anemia, 0:06:33.320 --> 0:06:35.200 which is to say, it's not like they're drinking so 0:06:35.400 --> 0:06:39.080 much blood that that's how the host dies. But as 0:06:39.080 --> 0:06:42.800 you can imagine having an animal with hooks hooking into 0:06:42.839 --> 0:06:46.080 your lungs and then nibbling into your lungs, that causes 0:06:46.080 --> 0:06:49.320 a bunch of like gaping wounds in your lungs. Yeah, 0:06:49.320 --> 0:06:53.320 and those gaping wounds then get infected by bacteria or fungus, 0:06:53.320 --> 0:06:56.720 and so animals can die from like pneumonia or some 0:06:56.760 --> 0:06:59.560 of these parasites. As I mentioned can get to be 0:06:59.600 --> 0:07:03.559 like many centimeters long, and they literally like can choke 0:07:03.760 --> 0:07:06.359 the animal to death by just like taking up a 0:07:06.360 --> 0:07:08.120 bunch of their lungs or a bunch of their trachea. 0:07:08.600 --> 0:07:09.920 So not cool. 0:07:10.120 --> 0:07:10.560 Wow. 0:07:10.680 --> 0:07:13.640 Sometimes the parasites have an intermediate host in the life 0:07:13.680 --> 0:07:18.280 cycle where they'll like live inside of an insect, and 0:07:18.320 --> 0:07:20.080 so they'll have like a stage where they don't do 0:07:20.120 --> 0:07:22.040 any reproduction. They're just kind of hanging out in the 0:07:22.080 --> 0:07:24.080 insect waiting for the insect to get eaten by like 0:07:24.120 --> 0:07:27.240 a snake or something. And once the snake eats it, 0:07:27.240 --> 0:07:30.000 it will hatch out of the insect, migrate out of 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:32.600 the snake's gut until it finds the lungs, and that 0:07:32.640 --> 0:07:35.640 migration can cause some damage, and then it becomes an 0:07:35.680 --> 0:07:38.280 adult and does the chewing on the lung thing again. 0:07:38.400 --> 0:07:41.080 All right, so this thing is pretty gross, but you know, 0:07:41.120 --> 0:07:44.680 it's up there in the pantheon of parasites doing its thing, right, 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:47.960 We're not judge here. But Jacob wanted to know about 0:07:47.960 --> 0:07:49.240 their evolution. 0:07:49.040 --> 0:07:51.400 Right, yeah, and so this is where it gets a 0:07:51.440 --> 0:07:54.480 little bit complicated. So Jacob was super excited because this 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:57.840 is a very old parasite. So one of the papers 0:07:57.880 --> 0:08:00.760 that I was reading said that it is the oldest 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:05.360 metazoan parasite that we know about, and so metazoin means multicellular, 0:08:05.760 --> 0:08:07.560 and you're yawning, And I don't know how you can 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:11.480 yawn when I am bringing the most exciting facts in 0:08:11.520 --> 0:08:15.400 the world. Dan the oldest multicellular parasite. 0:08:14.800 --> 0:08:19.080 We know No, oh my god, no jet lag. 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:22.840 No, I totally understand. And so anyway, we have found 0:08:23.400 --> 0:08:27.720 pentastomid larva. So this is like, you know, a juvenile 0:08:27.720 --> 0:08:31.920 stage of the parasite. They were found at the Cambrian 0:08:32.440 --> 0:08:36.680 Ordo Vsian boundary layer. Maybe I said that right, maybe 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:39.760 I didn't. But this is about like four hundred and 0:08:39.800 --> 0:08:43.040 eighty five million years ago, and the fossils that they 0:08:43.080 --> 0:08:48.680 found weren't associated with any host, and so what does 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:51.719 that mean. Maybe that means that this stage was just 0:08:51.800 --> 0:08:53.959 kind of hanging out in the environment waiting for a 0:08:54.080 --> 0:08:56.160 host to come by and then it was gonna like 0:08:56.559 --> 0:09:00.600 swim up and grab the host. Or maybe it means 0:09:00.600 --> 0:09:03.240 that actually, a really long time ago they were free 0:09:03.280 --> 0:09:07.480 living and later they became parasitic. But it's hard for 0:09:07.559 --> 0:09:10.680 us to tell because the fossil wasn't connected to a host. 0:09:10.800 --> 0:09:13.920 All right, So we have fossils of the same critter 0:09:14.400 --> 0:09:16.839 from four hundred and something million years ago. How certain 0:09:16.880 --> 0:09:19.240 can we be it's the same critter? I mean, fossils 0:09:19.280 --> 0:09:23.040 don't give you like details often. How sure are we? 0:09:23.400 --> 0:09:27.240 Yeah? So I have looked at fossils of parasites before 0:09:27.400 --> 0:09:30.760 and thought to myself, you really need to like squint 0:09:31.720 --> 0:09:35.760 and believe to think that that is a fossil of 0:09:35.800 --> 0:09:38.319 the thing you think that it is, or other thing 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:40.520 you're saying it is. So I opened up the paper 0:09:40.520 --> 0:09:42.440 and I looked at it, and I was like, that's 0:09:42.480 --> 0:09:45.200 a pretty good fossil, okay, Like wow, And so this, 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:49.720 I mean, like this really looks like a pentostomid larva. 0:09:50.080 --> 0:09:51.480 So it's like it's pretty good. 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:55.480 Okay. But it wasn't munching on snake lungs, So we 0:09:55.520 --> 0:09:57.640 don't know if that's what it was doing. Yet. It 0:09:57.640 --> 0:09:59.920 could be that it was just hanging out, not being 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:02.360 being a parasite, and then later figured out a new 0:10:02.360 --> 0:10:02.840 life plan. 0:10:03.080 --> 0:10:06.360 Well, okay, so here's the thing. It couldn't have been 0:10:06.400 --> 0:10:11.280 hanging out chewing on snake lungs because tetrapods like lizards 0:10:11.920 --> 0:10:15.320 weren't even going to be existing for another one hundred 0:10:15.320 --> 0:10:19.800 million years. Oh, so tetrapods weren't an option, but maybe 0:10:19.840 --> 0:10:24.040 it could have been parasitizing something else. Oh and so 0:10:24.240 --> 0:10:27.560 then we find a four hundred and twenty five million 0:10:27.640 --> 0:10:32.160 year old specimen that's an ostracod. And so this is 0:10:32.320 --> 0:10:36.720 an aquatic crustacean and it's got like a kind of 0:10:36.800 --> 0:10:41.560 hard outer shell, and this time the pentistomid was like 0:10:41.640 --> 0:10:46.960 attached to that. And so maybe it was infecting this 0:10:47.160 --> 0:10:50.560 aquatic crustacean that would be like different than what we 0:10:50.600 --> 0:10:53.360 see today. But maybe it was a parasite of something 0:10:53.400 --> 0:10:57.120 totally different a really long time ago. And so our 0:10:57.200 --> 0:11:00.360 best guess is that maybe what happened is they were 0:11:00.360 --> 0:11:05.880 infecting something totally different and then primitive fish came along 0:11:06.640 --> 0:11:09.079 and they started eating these ostra CODs. 0:11:09.480 --> 0:11:09.880 I see. 0:11:10.120 --> 0:11:12.880 And this is where we are doing some evolutionary storytelling. 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:16.400 This is our best guess at the moment. We're speculating. Yeah, 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:18.680 just to be clear, this is speculation. So we think 0:11:18.720 --> 0:11:21.760 that you get these early fish they start eating the 0:11:21.800 --> 0:11:24.560 ostracods and the pentostome It is like you know this 0:11:24.679 --> 0:11:27.000 thing where I get eaten, where my host gets eaten 0:11:27.120 --> 0:11:29.679 is kind of the pits, and so I'm going to 0:11:29.720 --> 0:11:31.559 start infecting the fish instead. 0:11:32.000 --> 0:11:39.360 Oh I see, flip. The scriptrisite is actually a victim here, right, yes, yeah, okay, 0:11:39.440 --> 0:11:41.320 what else can you expect it to do. It's being 0:11:41.360 --> 0:11:42.840 munched on. It's going to fight back. 0:11:42.960 --> 0:11:46.080 Yeah, that's right, that's right, And so it takes power 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:52.320 over the situation and it starts infecting this early vertebrate instead. 0:11:52.960 --> 0:11:55.920 And then over evolutionary time, you know, you start to 0:11:55.960 --> 0:11:59.440 get vertebrates that are moving on to land. And now 0:11:59.520 --> 0:12:02.600 you've got some pentistomids that are infecting some of the 0:12:02.880 --> 0:12:06.000 early vertebrates that are moving to land. So you get 0:12:06.040 --> 0:12:10.400 pentistomids in amphibians, which and we find those in amphibians today. 0:12:10.880 --> 0:12:14.120 Then the pentastomids are infecting the lizards and it just 0:12:14.160 --> 0:12:18.160 sort of like radiates with its hosts as they move 0:12:18.200 --> 0:12:20.240 on to land. Does that make sense? 0:12:20.400 --> 0:12:24.040 Yeah, exactly. Something in the water was munching on tasty 0:12:24.120 --> 0:12:27.679 bits hundreds of millions of years ago, not realizing that 0:12:27.720 --> 0:12:31.040 they were dooming all of their land based ancestors to 0:12:31.440 --> 0:12:34.480 coughing up that bit's eggs hundreds of millions of years later. 0:12:34.520 --> 0:12:39.360 It's incredible yeah, incredible, But again a story, right. 0:12:39.240 --> 0:12:41.600 It's a story. It might be the case, right, Is 0:12:41.640 --> 0:12:44.000 this the kind of thing we could ever know for sure? Like, 0:12:44.400 --> 0:12:46.520 what kind of thing could tell you more about this? 0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:49.559 Is it finding a fossil of one thing inside another thing? 0:12:49.600 --> 0:12:50.280 Do we ever do that? 0:12:50.760 --> 0:12:55.880 Ummm? Yeah? I mean we get lucky in that sometimes 0:12:55.920 --> 0:13:00.160 we will find copper lights and the coprolites will have 0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:05.040 cop right yep, sorry, fossilized poop, and the fossilized poop 0:13:05.120 --> 0:13:09.280 will have identifiable eggs. And so, for example, we get 0:13:09.320 --> 0:13:12.920 pretty lucky because some kinds of tapeworms have very hard 0:13:13.200 --> 0:13:16.720 hooks that they use to hang on to their hosts, 0:13:17.120 --> 0:13:19.400 and inside of the eggs you can sometimes see these 0:13:19.480 --> 0:13:23.120 very characteristic hooks, and so like, you know, an ancient 0:13:23.200 --> 0:13:26.400 shark might poop and you find the ancient shark poop 0:13:26.440 --> 0:13:28.480 and you see these eggs with hooks, and you're like, oh, 0:13:28.520 --> 0:13:31.320 that ancient shark had this certain kind of tapeworm what 0:13:32.400 --> 0:13:34.080 And then you throw a party because it's. 0:13:33.960 --> 0:13:39.000 Awesome and ancient parasite Poopay. 0:13:38.960 --> 0:13:41.439 That's right, that's what my people get excited about, as 0:13:41.480 --> 0:13:44.040 you know. So maybe you could find some similar evidence 0:13:44.120 --> 0:13:47.480 with pentastomids, but it is a little hard because they 0:13:47.520 --> 0:13:50.080 tend to be internal parasites. I don't know how much 0:13:50.160 --> 0:13:54.960 their hard structures fossilize in poop, like their eggs fossilized 0:13:55.000 --> 0:13:57.400 and poop. Maybe, but at the moment we don't have 0:13:57.440 --> 0:14:00.680 all of those connecting bits. But then jake question in 0:14:00.720 --> 0:14:04.920 particular was about coevolution between the vertebrate hosts and so, so, 0:14:05.000 --> 0:14:07.040 first of all, I'd like to note that, like Jacob 0:14:07.080 --> 0:14:09.960 was excited because these are super old parasites that have 0:14:10.000 --> 0:14:12.840 been around for like over four hundred million years, but 0:14:12.960 --> 0:14:16.040 the hosts haven't been around for that long, so coevolution 0:14:16.160 --> 0:14:18.800 has been happening for less long. So, for example, lots 0:14:18.840 --> 0:14:22.240 of folks are excited about these worms in snakes, but 0:14:22.320 --> 0:14:24.760 snakes have been around for like, you know, more than 0:14:24.760 --> 0:14:28.280 one hundred million years, but like around there, which is 0:14:28.280 --> 0:14:30.680 way less than the four hundred plus million years that 0:14:30.720 --> 0:14:33.880 we've had tongue worms around. So that's like a longer 0:14:33.880 --> 0:14:36.480 period for co evolution. But to be honest, so I 0:14:36.480 --> 0:14:41.400 started looking for papers on like coevolution pentastomid and host 0:14:41.760 --> 0:14:44.200 and I didn't find like a lot of reviews that 0:14:44.280 --> 0:14:47.000 had like looked at a bunch of you know, relationship 0:14:47.040 --> 0:14:51.120 between pentastomids and their hosts, and looked at what traits 0:14:51.120 --> 0:14:53.720 were changing. And to be honest, when I was taking 0:14:54.200 --> 0:14:58.480 parasitology or when I go to parasite conferences, I don't 0:14:58.480 --> 0:15:02.120 remember hearing about these paris much. So, like, first, thank 0:15:02.160 --> 0:15:03.960 you to Jacob for asking this question so that I 0:15:03.960 --> 0:15:06.960 had an opportunity to read about this stuff. But honestly, 0:15:07.040 --> 0:15:10.440 I think because these parasites tend to not be a 0:15:10.480 --> 0:15:12.800 big problem for our livestock, at least not in the 0:15:12.920 --> 0:15:15.680 United States. They tend to not be a problem for 0:15:15.720 --> 0:15:17.840 our pets, at least not in the United States. Although 0:15:17.840 --> 0:15:20.960 some dogs can sometimes get these parasites, they tend to 0:15:20.960 --> 0:15:23.640 not be a huge health problem for people again in 0:15:23.680 --> 0:15:26.200 the United States. In some areas where people eat snakes, 0:15:26.240 --> 0:15:29.280 they are a health problem. There in the US, we 0:15:29.280 --> 0:15:30.960 don't tend to spend a lot of money on them, 0:15:31.160 --> 0:15:33.400 and so I think there's not a bunch of money 0:15:33.400 --> 0:15:36.480 spent answering these kinds of questions, And so maybe I 0:15:36.520 --> 0:15:38.640 missed it, but I didn't find the kinds of studies 0:15:38.640 --> 0:15:41.520 that would need to be done to give Jacob the 0:15:41.640 --> 0:15:44.800 kind of answer that he was looking for. What I 0:15:44.800 --> 0:15:47.880 can say is that people have been releasing Burmese pythons 0:15:47.920 --> 0:15:51.280 in Florida, and there's a pentostom parasite from Asia that 0:15:51.400 --> 0:15:55.720 is spreading into our native snakes and is also spreading 0:15:55.800 --> 0:15:59.640 into our non native frogs that have come here from 0:15:59.680 --> 0:16:04.560 like and they have been hitching rides on cars because 0:16:04.600 --> 0:16:06.760 these are tree frogs that kind of stick to stuff. 0:16:07.200 --> 0:16:10.200 And it has been spreading out of Florida and it's 0:16:10.240 --> 0:16:13.640 spreading around the United States, and that's not great. And 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:15.760 so I don't know, maybe we're going to be caring 0:16:15.800 --> 0:16:18.080 a lot more about this parasite and in your future 0:16:18.160 --> 0:16:21.600 as it decimates our native cryptofauna. 0:16:21.800 --> 0:16:23.800 Do you think there's not a lot of study of 0:16:23.840 --> 0:16:27.480 this topic because it's impossible and the data is just 0:16:27.560 --> 0:16:30.960 so rare, or because people aren't curious about it, or 0:16:31.120 --> 0:16:33.520 just speculator for me about why you think this hasn't 0:16:33.520 --> 0:16:34.160 been explored. 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:38.880 I think it's because it's in species that are not 0:16:38.880 --> 0:16:41.400 not our pets, are livestock or us. They're just in 0:16:41.600 --> 0:16:46.880 like species that are financially not super important to us. 0:16:47.000 --> 0:16:49.920 I guess I mean, like, I love snakes, I love lizards, 0:16:49.920 --> 0:16:52.800 I love turtles, there's not loads of money in them, 0:16:52.920 --> 0:16:53.520 not until. 0:16:53.320 --> 0:16:55.280 We get some sort of snake lovers in congress. 0:16:55.680 --> 0:16:58.880 Sure, I mean, like, I yeah, yeah, something like that. 0:16:59.280 --> 0:17:00.880 I mean, I think there's a lot of money to 0:17:00.920 --> 0:17:04.080 study avian malaria or malaria in lizards in the hope 0:17:04.119 --> 0:17:07.760 that understanding it there might help us understand malaria in people. Yeah, 0:17:08.000 --> 0:17:12.040 but this is, you know, not a huge global health 0:17:12.320 --> 0:17:14.960 problem like something like malaria is, and so I think 0:17:15.000 --> 0:17:17.679 that there's less money to study it, unfortunately, But I 0:17:17.680 --> 0:17:19.479 hope we learn more about it because it's very interesting 0:17:19.520 --> 0:17:20.480 and very gross. 0:17:21.960 --> 0:17:25.120 All right, Well, let's hear if that answer scratched Jacob's itch. 0:17:25.200 --> 0:17:27.480 Oh you don't you set us up for a series 0:17:27.520 --> 0:17:29.719 of lick jokes earlier. You haven't come up with a 0:17:29.840 --> 0:17:34.320 lick joke to a because I tried, and I couldn't 0:17:34.359 --> 0:17:37.160 come up with anything that was appropriate and involves licking. 0:17:37.480 --> 0:17:40.240 All right, Well, I'm disappointed that that didn't involve as 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:44.119 many tongues as I was expecting. But let's hear if 0:17:44.119 --> 0:17:46.040 it licks Jacob in all the right places. 0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:49.960 Oh no, no, no, no, I'm sorry I couldn't answer 0:17:50.000 --> 0:17:52.679 your question, Jacob, I was licked? Is that? 0:17:53.480 --> 0:17:54.000 Here we go? 0:17:54.080 --> 0:17:54.680 There we go. 0:17:55.400 --> 0:17:58.720 All right, gosh, that's kind of gross and yet so 0:17:58.840 --> 0:18:01.560 extremely neat. I think I was hoping to find some 0:18:01.600 --> 0:18:05.639 deeper deeming quality there in parasites, but instead I found 0:18:05.640 --> 0:18:09.840 my favorite thing in the universe, curiosity and a question 0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:13.600 rarely asked. I'll definitely be developing a toy model. Who knows, 0:18:14.240 --> 0:18:16.880 maybe we've just inspired a listener out there to worm 0:18:16.920 --> 0:18:17.439 their way in. 0:18:17.560 --> 0:18:40.040 Also, all right, we're back, and our next question is 0:18:40.040 --> 0:18:43.840 about physics, and it comes from Alka. Alka didn't want 0:18:43.880 --> 0:18:46.520 to read it themselves, and so I asked Hazel to 0:18:46.600 --> 0:18:47.720 read the question for us. 0:18:48.200 --> 0:18:50.800 I recently read about the redefinition of L units in 0:18:50.840 --> 0:18:54.080 twenty nineteen. For the public, a visible kilogram, a visible 0:18:54.160 --> 0:18:56.800 meter was something everybody could relate to. That is not 0:18:56.880 --> 0:19:00.639 the case with the new improved SI. Now the distance 0:19:00.720 --> 0:19:03.399 light travel is in a vacuum in the time it 0:19:03.440 --> 0:19:05.680 takes the season one thirty three autum to change its 0:19:05.880 --> 0:19:09.040 transition frequency. And where the original idea was to have 0:19:09.080 --> 0:19:11.320 a meter be the circumference of the Earth divided by 0:19:11.320 --> 0:19:14.679 forty million within this calculated a bit, why not do 0:19:14.680 --> 0:19:18.120 it correctly now? And how arbitrary is this anyway? What's 0:19:18.160 --> 0:19:21.000 going on here? Is this an academic exercise for physicists 0:19:21.040 --> 0:19:23.120 with too much time on their hands and not enough 0:19:23.119 --> 0:19:26.840 funding for their worthwhile endeavors, or with a previous standard 0:19:26.960 --> 0:19:30.200 so hap hazard that we've had to redo every calculation 0:19:30.400 --> 0:19:31.879 and measurement that was done before. 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:34.800 Oh this is fun. I am so glad that there 0:19:34.840 --> 0:19:38.280 are people on this planet who get super excited about 0:19:38.320 --> 0:19:41.359 making sure that we have good standards for weights and 0:19:41.440 --> 0:19:46.399 other measurements. I couldn't be that person, but we need 0:19:46.440 --> 0:19:48.639 those people because. 0:19:48.280 --> 0:19:51.280 You're not organized in precise enough or what's the issue? 0:19:51.400 --> 0:19:55.520 I would get bored. I'd be like, we are close enough, 0:19:55.840 --> 0:19:58.480 and that is not I'm not the right kind of person. 0:19:58.600 --> 0:19:59.639 I'm not the right kind of person. 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:01.800 There is definitely a kind of person who works at 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:05.119 like the National Institute's for Standards and Technology. They have 0:20:05.160 --> 0:20:07.439 all the standards there. They even have Katrina tells me 0:20:07.720 --> 0:20:10.520 a standard peanut butter what you could buy is like 0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:13.680 an example, this is the definition of peanut butter. 0:20:14.520 --> 0:20:19.119 Okay, is that like the astronaut ice cream that has 0:20:19.160 --> 0:20:22.159 actually never been to space? Is it just a plot 0:20:22.280 --> 0:20:24.199 to get money from parents? 0:20:24.600 --> 0:20:24.679 No? 0:20:24.840 --> 0:20:26.760 I think you know, there's like a definition of things 0:20:26.800 --> 0:20:28.520 like you can only call it chocolate if it's got 0:20:28.520 --> 0:20:32.760 a minimum amount of cocoa. And so probably they produce, example, 0:20:32.880 --> 0:20:36.800 chocolate that people can use in their like chocolate detectors 0:20:36.920 --> 0:20:39.119 or something. And I'm sure there's rules about what you 0:20:39.119 --> 0:20:41.760 can call peanut butter and what it's called peanut cream 0:20:41.960 --> 0:20:44.879 or whatever, and so they have to produce something that 0:20:44.920 --> 0:20:47.800 they can, you know, put into their measuring devices. Anyway, 0:20:48.240 --> 0:20:50.240 that's how this ends up making peanut butter. 0:20:50.520 --> 0:20:53.199 All right, All right, peanut butter is delicious and I 0:20:53.240 --> 0:20:55.600 love it. But let's get back to the matter at hands. 0:20:56.200 --> 0:20:59.280 So Alca is asking about how we measure things, which 0:20:59.359 --> 0:21:02.679 is super fun because there's really interesting history here, but 0:21:02.840 --> 0:21:06.800 also there's deep physics and philosophy about how we measure things, 0:21:06.840 --> 0:21:09.280 what we measure, and what we define and what that 0:21:09.359 --> 0:21:11.439 all means. We're going to dig into all of that, 0:21:12.080 --> 0:21:14.320 and what they're referring to in their question is that 0:21:14.320 --> 0:21:17.720 we've changed these definitions we used to define a second. 0:21:17.720 --> 0:21:21.040 For example, it's one eighty six four hundredths of a 0:21:21.119 --> 0:21:23.879 rotation of the Earth, and you're like, well, that's a 0:21:23.880 --> 0:21:27.520 weird number. Where does that come from? That's twenty four hours, time, 0:21:27.680 --> 0:21:31.439 sixty minutes, time sixty seconds. That's literally the number of 0:21:31.480 --> 0:21:34.280 seconds in a day. So we were defining a second 0:21:34.280 --> 0:21:38.040 to be in terms of the Earth's rotation, right, So 0:21:38.040 --> 0:21:40.240 how long does it take the Earth to spend? Call 0:21:40.280 --> 0:21:43.400 that twenty four hours, and then divide those up into 0:21:43.440 --> 0:21:46.359