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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's

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Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is Stuff you

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Speaker 2: should Know, part of our ongoing Amazing Animals edition. Maybe

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Speaker 2: the most robust rhinoceros like suite of all of our sweets.

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Speaker 3: Probably that are crime and punishment.

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Speaker 2: Sure, sure, but I think everybody can get behind you know,

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Speaker 2: sloths and elephants and not everybody's like sure.

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Speaker 3: Prison right or crime scene clean up?

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Speaker 2: Sure? Well that was a tough one. But today we're

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Speaker 2: adding to the animal one, and we're adding a good one. Chuck.

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Speaker 2: This is a great pick because thank you. We're talking

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Speaker 2: about naked mole rats. And they're one of those things

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Speaker 2: like narwhals where you're like, I've heard of it. I

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Speaker 2: know everybody's into him and everything, But unlike narwals, when

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Speaker 2: you do a little investigating into him, naked mule rats

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Speaker 2: are ridiculously interesting.

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Speaker 3: They are. And I think I mentioned this on an episode,

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Speaker 3: but where I got this idea it was long simmering

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Speaker 3: because the great Errol Morris documentary Fast, Cheap and out

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Speaker 3: of Control, which have you seen it? No, it's a

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Speaker 3: great documentary. It's been around for a long time. And

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Speaker 3: in that documentary he takes I think three disparate professions

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Speaker 3: gentlemen who performed these professions, and also ties it into

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Speaker 3: an old lion tamer guy from a circus with like

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Speaker 3: footage and telling his story. There's like a robot scientist,

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Speaker 3: a topiary gardener, the aforementioned lion tamer from footage, and

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Speaker 3: then this guy who is a naked mole rat scientist.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, what's his name?

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Speaker 3: I don't remember his name. I can picture his face

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Speaker 3: and looking at you know. When that documentary was, it

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Speaker 3: was pretty early on and kind of what we knew

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Speaker 3: about naked mole rat, so he was probably on the

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Speaker 3: leading edge, but.

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Speaker 2: On the leading edge, not the bleeding edge.

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Speaker 3: That's when I first sort of discovered the naked mole

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Speaker 3: rat and fell in love with what might be the

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Speaker 3: ugliest animal on earth.

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Speaker 2: For real, for real. Yeah. I saw somewhere that National

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Speaker 2: Geographic described them as bratwurst with teeth.

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Speaker 3: Oh Man, and apparently.

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Speaker 2: The guy who first described him, Edward Repel, back in

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Speaker 2: eighteen forty two. When he described him, other biologists were like, well, clearly, Repel,

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Speaker 2: you're dumb, because this has got to be a baby

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Speaker 2: of some sort of some other species, or these things

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Speaker 2: are diseased. They're not their own thing. And he said, no, really,

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Speaker 2: I think they're their own thing. And he turned out

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Speaker 2: to be right. But that just goes to show just

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Speaker 2: how weird looking they are that even biologists were like,

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Speaker 2: what is this thing?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, like any naked animal, and there are a handful.

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Speaker 3: Is strange looking to people that are accustomed to mammals

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Speaker 3: with fur. Yeah, I should say mammals, but the naked

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Speaker 3: mole rat is I mean, boy, this thing is like

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Speaker 3: only a mother could love, is the saying. I think

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Speaker 3: a face and body for sure.

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Speaker 2: They all have the same mother pretty much, I do know.

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Speaker 3: Look at you.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll get into that later. But dropping it in,

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Speaker 2: let's talk a little bit about the taxonomic classification of

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Speaker 2: naked mole rats, shall we.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, uh, take it away, because they used to be

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Speaker 3: classified differently, but they finally settled on giving them their

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Speaker 3: own little space, now right.

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Speaker 2: I don't know that they settled on it. I think

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Speaker 2: it's proposed, and not everybody in the naked mole rat

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Speaker 2: research community agrees on it. But they are rodents. They're

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Speaker 2: in the order Rodentia. They're in the family bath there, Ergide,

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Speaker 2: I even practiced. That's so frustrating to have practiced it

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Speaker 2: out loud and still miffed it.

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Speaker 3: No, I think you got it, Beth Ergide.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I got it the second time, but it should

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Speaker 2: have rolled off my tongue for as much as I

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Speaker 2: practiced it.

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Speaker 3: That never does.

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Speaker 2: So all of the family Bathi Ergiday are are located

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Speaker 2: in Sub Saharan Africa. Yeah, and uh, there's a bunch

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Speaker 2: of different kinds of mole rats. It's just the naked

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Speaker 2: morad is its own thing, and it's so distinct in

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Speaker 2: so many different ways that, like you were saying, some

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Speaker 2: naked morat scientists are like, there, we just need to

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Speaker 2: make their own family because right now they're a separate genus.

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Speaker 2: They're their own genus heterocephal Heterocephalida practice that one too,

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Speaker 2: But they're so different from the other members of the

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Speaker 2: family that they're like, we should not just classify them

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Speaker 2: as their own genus and species, We should classify them

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Speaker 2: as their own family. This one type of animals should

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Speaker 2: be its own family. Not everybody's on.

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Speaker 3: Board, Yeah, but I think everyone listening has a family

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Speaker 3: member that you know, they think maybe should be classified

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Speaker 3: as their own family.

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Speaker 2: Always naked buck teeth. Sure that family member rusty uncle Rusty.

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Speaker 3: Like you mentioned, the naked mole rats live throughout the

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Speaker 3: Horn of Africa, generally in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia, and

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Speaker 3: they are doing great. There are a lot of them.

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Speaker 3: This isn't one of those I feel like most of

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Speaker 3: the animals we cover have some sort of threatened designation,

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Speaker 3: but they're killing it and they're doing awesome. There's lots

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Speaker 3: of them.

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Speaker 2: One reason why is because the land that they live

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Speaker 2: under is so arid that it's not usually disturbed for

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Speaker 2: crop land, so they don't get into fights with farmers typically,

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Speaker 2: which would be a big problem for them because they

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Speaker 2: would eat all the farmers' crops and the farmers would

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Speaker 2: kill them all. So because they don't really dwell where

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Speaker 2: humans tend to dwell, that's a big mark in their

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Speaker 2: favor from what I.

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Speaker 3: Saw, totally they I mean, hopefully you've looked up a picture,

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Speaker 3: like pulled off to the side of the road or

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Speaker 3: something if you're driving, to see a picture of these things,

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Speaker 3: so you have an idea of what we're talking about.

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Speaker 3: If not, do so, because you might think they look

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Speaker 3: like maybe a newborn guinea pig or something. Maybe, I

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Speaker 3: mean that's being kind, I guess, and that's the adults. Yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 3: But they did diverge from guinea pigs they believe, about

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Speaker 3: fifty million years ago, so they're related in a way,

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Speaker 3: but they, like you said, they really are their own thing.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and they're pretty much not related to moles or rats.

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Speaker 2: It's their closest relative as guinea pigs, like you said.

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Speaker 2: And one of the things that really makes naked mole

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Speaker 2: rats special is that they are fossorial, which is a

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Speaker 2: type of animal that lives underground pretty much all the time.

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Speaker 2: They don't live underground and it's hot out and then

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Speaker 2: come out at night to feed or hunt. They live underground.

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Speaker 2: I'm sure plenty of them spend their entire lives underground,

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Speaker 2: and their lives are significant in length, as we'll see,

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Speaker 2: But that that's a big distinction because there's a lot

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Speaker 2: of animals that live underground but spend time above ground too.

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Speaker 2: Not naked mole rats.

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Speaker 3: No, they love it down there. And as we've covered

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Speaker 3: in what was the bios Spieliology episode, I think yeah,

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Speaker 3: and we also didn't we also do one on other

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Speaker 3: cave dwelling animals or was that that one? I think

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Speaker 3: it was that one, all right, either one or two

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Speaker 3: of those. But we you know, they have some features

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Speaker 3: that other animals who live generally deep underground for a

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Speaker 3: lot of their lives have, which is not really useless eyes.

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Speaker 3: I mean they have technically they have eyes. They can

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Speaker 3: sense bright and dark, but they're basically blind. And they

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Speaker 3: don't have ears really either. They have, you know, little

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Speaker 3: tiny ear flaps if they have anything at all. They're

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Speaker 3: about three to four inches long, except for the queen,

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Speaker 3: who can be a bit bigger. Yeah, talk about the

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Speaker 3: queen because it's very very interesting. And then they have

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Speaker 3: a little short tail, sort of a taper tail, and

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Speaker 3: then a little piggy snout. But what's really like when

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Speaker 3: you look at a naked mole rat, the first thing

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Speaker 3: you're going to notice is they're naked and really wrinkly

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Speaker 3: and funny looking. And then those chompers up front.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, because their teeth if you look closely, they come

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Speaker 2: out of their face, not their mouth.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, they can close their mouth which they still had

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Speaker 3: their teeth out.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's pretty cool. It's an adaptation that they came

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Speaker 2: up with where they can use their teeth to dig

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Speaker 2: while their mouth is close, so they keep dirt from

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Speaker 2: getting in their mouths.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's amazing, And you dug up some extra stuff

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Speaker 3: which is pretty remarkable about those teeth. And we're going

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Speaker 3: to talk a little bit about the teeth, probably a

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Speaker 3: lot about the teeth, but they basically function as a

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Speaker 3: sense organ. Scientists have found that the Sommo man I

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Speaker 3: practiced that one too, So mattisensory cortex that's not even

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Speaker 3: a hard one, which is involved in the sense of touch,

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Speaker 3: is very, very large, and about a third of it

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Speaker 3: is dedicated to those incisors. So they actually feel through

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Speaker 3: those teeth.

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Speaker 2: Yeah they yeah, like you said, it's a sense organ.

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Speaker 2: That's really cool. They also use them not only to

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Speaker 2: sense the world, but also to carry stuff around. They

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Speaker 2: can use them like needlenose pliers. They can move them

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Speaker 2: independently in all sorts of different weird directions. They I

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Speaker 2: don't know of any other animal that has teeth as

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Speaker 2: a sense organ. It's pretty cool.

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Speaker 3: No, how about those jaws too.

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Speaker 2: So, because their teeth are so important to them, not

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Speaker 2: just for eating, but for digging and creating their habitats

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Speaker 2: and for defense too, their jaws. I think twenty five

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Speaker 2: percent of their entire muscle mass of their body is

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Speaker 2: in their jaws, specifically in the jaw muscle, the deep

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Speaker 2: massiter muscle. If you make if you put three fingers

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Speaker 2: upward on your cheek so that you're kind of making

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Speaker 2: that scouts on or thing. Sure, the finger closest to

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Speaker 2: you is just touching your ear, the outside of your

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Speaker 2: ear or where your ear touches your face.

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Speaker 3: I'm doing it.

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Speaker 2: And then you start making a chewing sound or chewing motion.

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Speaker 2: Do you feel how it's like your cheek is pushing

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Speaker 2: out against your fingers.

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Speaker 3: Beneath I do.

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Speaker 2: That's your mass And then do one other thing. Leave

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Speaker 2: your fingers there, don't move, but slide them up a

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Speaker 2: little further to your temple, and then do the same thing.

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Speaker 2: Do you feel that muscle.

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Speaker 3: Moving, Yeah, that's the headache button exactly.

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Speaker 2: That's your MASSI muscle as well, So we have them too,

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Speaker 2: but only about one percent of our muscle mass is

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Speaker 2: invested in our jaws. A quarter of their muscle mass

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Speaker 2: is invested in their jaw and specifically in the mass complex.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's amazing, and that makes those teeth. Basically, like

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Speaker 3: it's sort of like a shovel chisel combination. They can shovel.

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Speaker 3: It is shovel. They have tremendous power. Just Snoop Dogg

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Speaker 3: has that train work. So I think we could suit

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Speaker 3: for that. Uh and we'll be like, hey, go after

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Speaker 3: the naked mole rat. Snoop, I saved those sideburns years ago. Uh.

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Speaker 3: So they use them. You know, they're they're scraping, they're

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Speaker 3: always digging, they're always carrying dirt. Like you mentioned, they

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Speaker 3: can close their little lips because they don't want to

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Speaker 3: get dirt in their mouths, and they're always just sort

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Speaker 3: of at work digging tunnels. They're like Charles Bronson in

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Speaker 3: The Great.

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Speaker 2: Escape, right pretty much that's who they've modeled their entire

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Speaker 2: society on.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and they do this in a little like an

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Speaker 3: assembly line.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: They will gnaw into the earth and they will pass

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Speaker 3: dirt back, and eventually that dirt forms what else, a

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Speaker 3: mole hill.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I saw those kind of like a conveyor belt.

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Speaker 2: So there's one mole or one naked mole rat at

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Speaker 2: the front doing all the digging, and there's a bunch

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Speaker 2: of mole rats following them that are sweeping like a

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Speaker 2: specific pile out and as they're sweeping it further and

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Speaker 2: further back, and as they're moving backward, they finally get

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Speaker 2: to the end, and then there's a larger mole rat

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Speaker 2: there's kicking it outside, forming that molehill you were talking about.

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Speaker 2: And then when the when the mole rat that's been

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Speaker 2: sweeping it to the guy who's kicking it out of

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Speaker 2: the tunnel, they climb back over the people in front

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Speaker 2: of them and go to the front of the line again.

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Speaker 2: So it is it's like this conveyor belt that's just tunneling,

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Speaker 2: like boring through the earth. And this is really hard

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Speaker 2: packed dry dirt too. It's not easy stuff to chew through.

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Speaker 3: No, they make easier work out of it when things

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Speaker 3: are a little wetter, but generally this dirt is fairly dry,

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Speaker 3: like you said, so it's pretty tough. And we mentioned

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Speaker 3: that they're a hairless. They do have some tiny, tiny

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Speaker 3: little hairs here and there. They have some sensory hairs

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Speaker 3: on their faces and tails, and a little bit of

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Speaker 3: hair between their toes, so they can sweep away that

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Speaker 3: dirt like you were talking about. But if you look

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Speaker 3: at a naked mole rat. I mean, the first thing

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Speaker 3: that you're gonna say is that things naked, and look

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Speaker 3: at those teeth, and I imagine a large one would

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Speaker 3: be terrifying because they're pretty small, like we said, just

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Speaker 3: a few inches.

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Speaker 2: Yes, did you watch the Smithsonian Naked mole Rat.

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Speaker 3: Camsh No, but there's so much of that in fast,

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Speaker 3: cheap and out of control. Okay, it's amazing.

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Speaker 1: I hadn't.

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Speaker 2: I had not seen them before, and they are really cute.

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Speaker 2: They're so studious and so serious about the digging around

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Speaker 2: and moving around.

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Speaker 3: That they're doing very hard.

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Speaker 2: Pushing this thing over there, and they just they're super

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Speaker 2: cute when you watch them. Apparently they're not very aggressive.

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Speaker 2: There's only specific instances where they show aggression, but for

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Speaker 2: the most part, they're pretty peaceful, even though to us

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Speaker 2: they would seem pretty rude because they climb over one another,

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Speaker 2: in part because they are very closely related, so you

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Speaker 2: know they're fine with that, but also because their habitats

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Speaker 2: are enormous, but they still live on top of each other.

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Speaker 2: Like a naked mole rat. Tunnel system can be comprised

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Speaker 2: of miles of tunnel that's spread out over like five

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Speaker 2: acres of land, and yet when they're when they live together,

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Speaker 2: they live in a really tight, close knit community that

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Speaker 2: they literally crawl on top of each other.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, they crawl all over each other like it's nothing

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Speaker 3: like they're crawling over like a rock or something. And

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Speaker 3: they are just as good at going backwards as forwards.

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Speaker 3: And when we say that, like we mean it. They

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Speaker 3: they've they've done little races and they found that naked

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Speaker 3: mole rats can go backwards just as fast as they

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Speaker 3: can go forwards and are just as coordinated, which isn't

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Speaker 3: super coordinated, but we're talking naked mole rats here. That's

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Speaker 3: in a smallish tunnel.

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Speaker 2: Well, I'm pretty stimulated, Chuck. Do you want to take

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Speaker 2: a break.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, let's take a break. Since you're stimulated.

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Speaker 2: I got a d stem stuff.

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Speaker 1: You should know, the stuff you should I should know.

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Speaker 2: I'm pretty distimmed.

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Speaker 3: I'm feeling all right now you're feeling good.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but I'm gonna get stimulated again, Chuck, because there's

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Speaker 2: so much more, Like we haven't even really tapped into

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Speaker 2: the most amazing stuff about naked mole rats, Like oh,

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Speaker 2: this is still this is neat, this is interesting, but

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Speaker 2: just wait, everybody just you.

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Speaker 3: Wait, should we talk about respiration?

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Speaker 2: I think we should.

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Speaker 3: Well, here's the deal. They are underground in these very

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Speaker 3: tight spaces and down there because there are so many

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Speaker 3: naked mole rats. I don't think we said, but they

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Speaker 3: live in colonies, and we'll get to the social structure

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Speaker 3: because it's very very interesting among mammals for sure, and

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Speaker 3: especially among rodents. But you know, seventy to two hundred

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Speaker 3: to three hundred naked mole rats living together in these

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Speaker 3: tightish quarters even though it's spread out. You know, they're

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Speaker 3: small tunnels because they're small animals and there's not a

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Speaker 3: lot of oxygen down there. They can get by on

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Speaker 3: a startlingly low amount of oxygen.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, in an environment that's also high in carbon dioxide.

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Speaker 2: Like you or I would suffocate to death in a

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Speaker 2: naked mole rat tunnel system.

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Speaker 3: Any animal would, I think, yeah, pretty much.

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Speaker 2: And the reason why is because they've become adapted to

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Speaker 2: that kind of environment, a low oxygen, high carbon dioxide environment.

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Speaker 2: And the way that they've adapted is they have they

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Speaker 2: have evolved a system that, aside from naked mole rats,

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Speaker 2: has only been found in plants.

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Speaker 3: That's right, So oh, I don't keep going.

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Speaker 2: So the toast pump. We all have fructose pumps, but

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Speaker 2: ours are all in our guts. The naked mole rats

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Speaker 2: have a fructose pump that uses a metabolic pathway that

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Speaker 2: takes fructose to be burned for energy in their brains.

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Speaker 2: And the reason fructose is so important is because it

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Speaker 2: can be burned anaerobically. You don't need oxygen to power

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Speaker 2: that system of energy creation or unlocking energy. I guess

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Speaker 2: from the fruit toase you can just do it without oxygen.

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Speaker 2: So they lower their metabolism enough that they don't need

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Speaker 2: much much oxygen. They can get by on the burning

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Speaker 2: fruit toase until there's more oxygen available. Again.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it can live in an atmosphere that is twenty

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Speaker 3: percent oxygen and eighty percent CO two, and they've been

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Speaker 3: able to survive for at least five hours with as

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Speaker 3: little as five percent oxygen. Five percent.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you couldn't do that. I think twenty percent is

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Speaker 2: like the andes. Five percent is not much at all. No,

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Speaker 2: So there's another thing I said that they were generally peaceful.

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Speaker 2: They're generally peaceful within the colony. Apparently there's a behavior

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Speaker 2: that queens have where they show up and just start

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Speaker 2: shoving workers around. Did you see that?

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Speaker 3: Yeah? And they're not quite sure aggressive at times.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's mostly just the queen and she's mostly

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Speaker 2: shoving workers. They thought maybe they were it was because

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Speaker 2: they were being lazy, but the worker is much more

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Speaker 2: likely to be shoved while they're working, which just seems obnoxious.

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Speaker 3: Maybe it's just a little reminder. Yeah, yeah, maybe.

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Speaker 2: But other than that, they aren't very aggressive unless you're

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Speaker 2: a naked molerat from another colony. And from what I saw,

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Speaker 2: if you stumble into a naked morat colony and you're

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Speaker 2: an outsider, they will kill you.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not pretty. If you're a predator as well,

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Speaker 3: they will band together and stack on one another and

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Speaker 3: reveal those teeth if a centipede or a snake or

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Speaker 3: something comes down there. And U yeah, and like you said,

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Speaker 3: if you're not a member of the family, and I

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Speaker 3: guess we should go ahead and say it like they're

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Speaker 3: all the same family, right. Isn't there a lot of

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Speaker 3: insects going on?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, let's talk about their incests, shall we. Sure, so

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Speaker 2: they inbreed. The reason why is because they have one

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Speaker 2: queen that's just part of their hierarchy, their social structure,

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Speaker 2: and the Queen has a very limited number of people

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Speaker 2: the breed with. She basically says you, you, and you

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Speaker 2: you're my breeding males. Everybody else not only like, don't

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Speaker 2: breed with the queen. Somehow, mysteriously, the Queen keeps worker

359
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Speaker 2: males and worker females from even like maturing sexually. Yes,

360
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Speaker 2: they have no idea how this is happening. Because if

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Speaker 2: you take a non breeding worker male in a non

362
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Speaker 2: breeding worker female out of their colony, within days they

363
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Speaker 2: develop like adult mature reproductive systems and can reproduce. Yeah,

364
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Speaker 2: like something going on.

365
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Speaker 3: A male literally will they have tiny kind of buried testicles,

366
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Speaker 3: But five days after they're out of that hole, those

367
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Speaker 3: testicles literally grow.

368
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Speaker 2: Yeah, you should see that on fast motion. It's really funny.

369
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Speaker 3: Please tell me that's not existent.

370
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Speaker 2: Oh but there's a gift out there somewhere. Yeah, okay,

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Speaker 2: I haven't seen it though.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's it's weird. It's the suppression of reproduce ability,

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Speaker 3: and it's it's the Queen. It's just the Queen and

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Speaker 3: all the other males have their hands up. And only

375
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Speaker 3: if you get to go in there and take care

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Speaker 3: of business.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so very frequently they're her own offspring. That's just

378
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Speaker 2: how it goes. For a couple of reasons. One, she

379
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Speaker 2: makes so many she has so many litters over her lifetime.

380
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Speaker 2: And then also they are there. They are very long lived.

381
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Speaker 2: I think in captivity they live up to thirty years

382
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Speaker 2: so far.

383
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Speaker 3: I saw longer too. I saw one that was like

384
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Speaker 3: close to forty.

385
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Speaker 2: So we've only been studying them in captivity for about

386
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Speaker 2: forty ish years, maybe fifty, so we don't really know

387
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Speaker 2: what they're actual Like the upper limit of their lifespan is.

388
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Speaker 2: We'll talk about that later. But a mouse, if it's lucky,

389
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Speaker 2: lives five years in captivity. These guys are living thirty

390
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Speaker 2: forty years, right, that's old.

391
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I saw the Queen's not in captivity. Can it's

392
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Speaker 3: usually like eighteen to twenty years okay, underground, which is

393
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Speaker 3: still remarkable.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's super remarkable. So during that time, because she's

395
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Speaker 2: creating so many letters and there's outsiders who come to

396
00:21:38,160 --> 00:21:42,159
Speaker 2: the colony get killed, she has to. It's inevitable she's

397
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Speaker 2: reproducing with her own kin. And so they found genetically, Chuck,

398
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Speaker 2: that the average genetic similarity between just any two members

399
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Speaker 2: of a colony is about point five in human terms.

400
00:21:58,600 --> 00:22:01,800
Speaker 2: Point five is what and their offspring has. These are

401
00:22:01,840 --> 00:22:05,640
Speaker 2: just brothers and sisters have zero point five similarity. Yeah,

402
00:22:05,800 --> 00:22:09,159
Speaker 2: I think between the queen and her offspring, it's like

403
00:22:09,240 --> 00:22:12,000
Speaker 2: point eight, and you're like, what is all this getting

404
00:22:12,000 --> 00:22:14,080
Speaker 2: at the highest number you can get to is one

405
00:22:14,119 --> 00:22:18,240
Speaker 2: point zero, and that's for identical twins that came from

406
00:22:18,280 --> 00:22:23,760
Speaker 2: the same egg. They're almost genetically perfectly identical. And the

407
00:22:23,880 --> 00:22:26,439
Speaker 2: queen and her offspring are like at point eight. So

408
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Speaker 2: they are super duper imbread.

409
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Speaker 3: Yeah, they're I mean, it's only them down there. What

410
00:22:33,480 --> 00:22:35,400
Speaker 3: happens underground stays underground, you know what I'm saying.

411
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Speaker 2: I guess.

412
00:22:36,000 --> 00:22:40,080
Speaker 3: So the other cool thing or another cool thing about

413
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Speaker 3: them living underground is that they're basically cold blooded. I

414
00:22:44,960 --> 00:22:49,680
Speaker 3: think scientifically technically they're probably not, but effectively they are

415
00:22:49,720 --> 00:22:55,880
Speaker 3: cold blooded mammals because they don't have self regulating body temperature.

416
00:22:56,760 --> 00:22:59,280
Speaker 3: They regulate their body temperature in a few ways, but

417
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Speaker 3: they basically call it behavioral regulation thermoregulation. They will work

418
00:23:04,680 --> 00:23:07,359
Speaker 3: harder sometimes to get there, you know, to get the

419
00:23:07,400 --> 00:23:10,480
Speaker 3: heat going. They will stack themselves on one another when

420
00:23:10,520 --> 00:23:14,199
Speaker 3: it's colder and they will go higher in the tunnel system,

421
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Speaker 3: closer to the surface to feel that sun's heat, but

422
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Speaker 3: still not go outside to warm up. When it's colder,

423
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Speaker 3: they will, I'm sorry, when it's warmer, they will go

424
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Speaker 3: deeper and have more space in between them and stuff

425
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Speaker 3: like that.

426
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Speaker 2: And yet despite all that, despite not being able to

427
00:23:29,440 --> 00:23:33,600
Speaker 2: regulate their own temperature, they still maintain about in the

428
00:23:33,680 --> 00:23:38,040
Speaker 2: eighties fahrenheit. That's how warm it is in a naked

429
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Speaker 2: mole rat tunnel system, and the humidity is like fifty

430
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Speaker 2: to sixty percent. It's balmy.

431
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Speaker 3: It's balmy. It's warm, and it's not balmy because it's

432
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Speaker 3: full of water. Because get this, I know you know this.

433
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Speaker 3: I'm talking to the people in podcast land. I know

434
00:23:54,680 --> 00:23:58,040
Speaker 3: they don't drink water. They don't say like they try

435
00:23:58,080 --> 00:24:01,200
Speaker 3: to seal off those tunnels. You know, it's not probably

436
00:24:01,200 --> 00:24:03,240
Speaker 3: not possible to completely seal them off, but they would

437
00:24:03,240 --> 00:24:05,440
Speaker 3: flood very easily if they didn't do as good a

438
00:24:05,520 --> 00:24:08,080
Speaker 3: job as they do already. Sure, but it's not like

439
00:24:08,080 --> 00:24:11,359
Speaker 3: they dig little water wells and let them fill up

440
00:24:11,359 --> 00:24:13,679
Speaker 3: and go lap it up. You know, through those teeth.

441
00:24:13,920 --> 00:24:17,080
Speaker 3: They don't drink water. They get water from what they eat.

442
00:24:18,040 --> 00:24:20,359
Speaker 3: We said they didn't go out to find food and stuff.

443
00:24:20,400 --> 00:24:22,480
Speaker 3: So you're wondering, like, what are they eating, like little

444
00:24:22,480 --> 00:24:25,399
Speaker 3: insects is stumble in there? No, No, they are eating

445
00:24:26,000 --> 00:24:30,600
Speaker 3: roots and bulbs and rhizomes and you know tubers, like

446
00:24:30,680 --> 00:24:34,879
Speaker 3: basically what part of the plant is underground. They're eating

447
00:24:34,920 --> 00:24:37,480
Speaker 3: that stuff and that's also where they're getting every bit

448
00:24:37,480 --> 00:24:38,240
Speaker 3: of water they need.

449
00:24:38,600 --> 00:24:42,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's pretty awesome. Again, like they live in the desert,

450
00:24:43,119 --> 00:24:46,119
Speaker 2: so this is where desert plants store their waters in

451
00:24:46,240 --> 00:24:49,720
Speaker 2: like big tubers and bulbs. And typically when a naked

452
00:24:49,760 --> 00:24:53,960
Speaker 2: mole rat goes out and stumbles into a tuber, they'll

453
00:24:54,119 --> 00:24:56,760
Speaker 2: start bringing it back to the rest of the colony.

454
00:24:57,119 --> 00:24:59,320
Speaker 2: Very very good like that. They really look out for

455
00:24:59,440 --> 00:25:02,840
Speaker 2: one another. But once in a while they'll find a

456
00:25:02,880 --> 00:25:06,840
Speaker 2: tuber that's like fifty pounds. It's just huge, and they're

457
00:25:06,920 --> 00:25:09,199
Speaker 2: no naked mole rat could do anything with that, So

458
00:25:09,240 --> 00:25:12,439
Speaker 2: they eat it in situ, and they do it in

459
00:25:12,480 --> 00:25:15,119
Speaker 2: such a way that when they'll bore a hole into

460
00:25:15,160 --> 00:25:19,400
Speaker 2: this giant tuber, eat the inside flesh and then come

461
00:25:19,440 --> 00:25:22,159
Speaker 2: back out and they'll plug the hole with dirt and

462
00:25:22,200 --> 00:25:25,480
Speaker 2: then they'll let the tuber like regenerate, let the plant

463
00:25:25,560 --> 00:25:27,800
Speaker 2: like regrow, and then they'll go back and do it

464
00:25:27,800 --> 00:25:29,480
Speaker 2: again once the plant's healthy again.

465
00:25:29,800 --> 00:25:34,639
Speaker 3: In that neat, it's amazing. And they're not doing this

466
00:25:34,720 --> 00:25:37,280
Speaker 3: in any kind of I don't think we mentioned like

467
00:25:37,320 --> 00:25:41,080
Speaker 3: their their sleep cycles. They're not. They work together like

468
00:25:41,280 --> 00:25:43,280
Speaker 3: very very well. And we'll talk about that structure more

469
00:25:43,320 --> 00:25:45,240
Speaker 3: in a minute. But it's not like they get up

470
00:25:45,240 --> 00:25:48,439
Speaker 3: in the morning. They don't know what morning is. They're underground. Yeah, so,

471
00:25:48,680 --> 00:25:51,080
Speaker 3: as far as anyone can tell, they don't have any

472
00:25:51,200 --> 00:25:54,320
Speaker 3: kind of regular sleep cycle going on. They just they

473
00:25:54,359 --> 00:25:56,679
Speaker 3: work when they're supposed to work, and they work till

474
00:25:56,680 --> 00:25:58,280
Speaker 3: they get tired and then they sleep.

475
00:25:58,400 --> 00:26:02,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's no morning under ground, isn't the grim.

476
00:26:03,000 --> 00:26:07,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, but that's a that's a song title of some

477
00:26:07,640 --> 00:26:09,160
Speaker 3: sort of death metal band. Probably.

478
00:26:09,520 --> 00:26:12,359
Speaker 2: I think you could make it the the titular song

479
00:26:12,440 --> 00:26:15,560
Speaker 2: title for the album.

480
00:26:14,600 --> 00:26:18,000
Speaker 3: The Naked Mole Rats. Sure, that's it. That's the name

481
00:26:18,000 --> 00:26:18,520
Speaker 3: of the man.

482
00:26:18,840 --> 00:26:20,840
Speaker 2: I guess No, I mean, like, there is no Morning

483
00:26:20,880 --> 00:26:24,720
Speaker 2: Underground is the name of the first single and the album.

484
00:26:24,840 --> 00:26:28,040
Speaker 3: And the album, and then in parentheses it says like

485
00:26:28,200 --> 00:26:33,680
Speaker 3: believe me or something like that. Sure, uh, or can

486
00:26:33,720 --> 00:26:35,320
Speaker 3: we talk I mean, we talked about what they eat,

487
00:26:35,359 --> 00:26:37,040
Speaker 3: but we should also talk about the other thing they

488
00:26:37,160 --> 00:26:37,800
Speaker 3: sometimes eat.

489
00:26:37,920 --> 00:26:39,199
Speaker 2: I'm kind of excited about this.

490
00:26:40,480 --> 00:26:41,040
Speaker 3: Take it away.

491
00:26:41,080 --> 00:26:42,280
Speaker 2: Then they eat poop.

492
00:26:43,440 --> 00:26:44,760
Speaker 3: They eat their own poop.

493
00:26:44,840 --> 00:26:47,440
Speaker 2: They eat their own poop, they eat others poop. Apparently

494
00:26:47,680 --> 00:26:51,080
Speaker 2: the adults of the colony will poop directly into the

495
00:26:51,080 --> 00:26:53,119
Speaker 2: mouths of the pups when they need it, when they

496
00:26:53,119 --> 00:26:55,959
Speaker 2: want it. And this all sounds gross, and it is.

497
00:26:56,080 --> 00:26:58,280
Speaker 2: I think even other types of mole rats are like,

498
00:26:58,400 --> 00:27:01,840
Speaker 2: good God, have you seen what our cousins do when

499
00:27:01,840 --> 00:27:05,480
Speaker 2: we're not around. But there's a good reason for this.

500
00:27:05,480 --> 00:27:08,359
Speaker 2: This is actually a big strategy. They have a gut

501
00:27:08,600 --> 00:27:12,680
Speaker 2: to digest these really hard tubers. This is not the

502
00:27:12,760 --> 00:27:14,639
Speaker 2: kind of like root vegetables you would get at a

503
00:27:14,680 --> 00:27:18,040
Speaker 2: grocery store. This is wild sub Saharan Africa tubers that

504
00:27:18,080 --> 00:27:21,120
Speaker 2: they're eating and trying to digest, and they can't possibly

505
00:27:21,160 --> 00:27:23,520
Speaker 2: digest it all the first time, so when they poop,

506
00:27:23,760 --> 00:27:27,399
Speaker 2: it's still chuck full of food, so they don't waste it.

507
00:27:27,480 --> 00:27:28,640
Speaker 2: They just eat the.

508
00:27:28,600 --> 00:27:32,240
Speaker 3: Poop, that's right. And they have a hind gut because

509
00:27:32,280 --> 00:27:35,760
Speaker 3: you know, herbivores often have things inside their body that

510
00:27:35,800 --> 00:27:39,320
Speaker 3: are going to help them digest this really vibrus plant matter,

511
00:27:39,680 --> 00:27:41,560
Speaker 3: and they do have a hind gut that is really

512
00:27:41,640 --> 00:27:43,959
Speaker 3: good for that, but it's still not good enough. And

513
00:27:44,000 --> 00:27:46,880
Speaker 3: so like you said, they eat, they poop, they eat

514
00:27:46,880 --> 00:27:49,280
Speaker 3: it again, and that pretty much takes care of it.

515
00:27:49,320 --> 00:27:51,080
Speaker 2: There's one other really cool thing about it, too.

516
00:27:51,280 --> 00:27:51,399
Speaker 3: Well.

517
00:27:51,400 --> 00:27:54,359
Speaker 2: There's two other cool things about eating poop. One, when

518
00:27:54,359 --> 00:27:57,879
Speaker 2: the adults poop into the pup's mouths, they're not just

519
00:27:58,040 --> 00:28:02,800
Speaker 2: feeding them, they're also transferfing gut microbiota, which will help

520
00:28:02,840 --> 00:28:07,480
Speaker 2: them protect them from disease, will help them digest stuff

521
00:28:07,520 --> 00:28:10,960
Speaker 2: even better. It's pretty neat. And then they also think

522
00:28:11,000 --> 00:28:16,199
Speaker 2: we talked about suppressing the reproductiveness of the others, like

523
00:28:16,240 --> 00:28:20,440
Speaker 2: the other females, the Queen can somehow repress them. They

524
00:28:20,480 --> 00:28:23,320
Speaker 2: don't know how she's doing that, but they do think

525
00:28:23,840 --> 00:28:28,080
Speaker 2: that the reason why other non worker females help raise

526
00:28:28,160 --> 00:28:32,159
Speaker 2: pops with no incentive whatsoever and with no reproductive organs

527
00:28:32,240 --> 00:28:35,879
Speaker 2: or hormones is that when they eat the queen's poop,

528
00:28:36,200 --> 00:28:39,360
Speaker 2: she passes just enough estrogen to them to make them

529
00:28:39,440 --> 00:28:41,000
Speaker 2: want to take care of the pipes.

530
00:28:41,960 --> 00:28:47,160
Speaker 3: That is astounding, it is. And there's one more part

531
00:28:47,200 --> 00:28:49,280
Speaker 3: to the poop. We mentioned, if you come in and

532
00:28:49,280 --> 00:28:54,080
Speaker 3: you're from another colony, you're in big trouble. They also

533
00:28:54,120 --> 00:28:57,200
Speaker 3: think that feeding the poop and also occasionally rolling in

534
00:28:57,200 --> 00:28:59,000
Speaker 3: the poop is a way that they can impart like

535
00:28:59,040 --> 00:29:00,760
Speaker 3: a colony smell that everyone's gonna have.

536
00:29:00,880 --> 00:29:03,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, so everybody will smell the same. So if somebody

537
00:29:03,240 --> 00:29:05,880
Speaker 2: shows up, you're like, you're not terry, and then they're

538
00:29:05,880 --> 00:29:08,760
Speaker 2: dead right, because they can tell from your smell because

539
00:29:08,760 --> 00:29:12,320
Speaker 2: their sense of smell is just ridiculously acute. That's basically

540
00:29:12,360 --> 00:29:15,640
Speaker 2: what they have. Smell, touch, and then hearing somehow because

541
00:29:15,680 --> 00:29:19,960
Speaker 2: they make more vocalizations than any other rodent on the planet,

542
00:29:20,160 --> 00:29:22,760
Speaker 2: and yet they basically don't have ears, So I'm not

543
00:29:22,800 --> 00:29:23,680
Speaker 2: sure how they do that.

544
00:29:24,440 --> 00:29:26,280
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean we can talk about that a little bit.

545
00:29:26,320 --> 00:29:29,560
Speaker 3: They have the queen has a toilet song when she

546
00:29:29,600 --> 00:29:33,600
Speaker 3: goes poo poo in her toilet chamber. And I guess

547
00:29:33,600 --> 00:29:35,720
Speaker 3: we should also say that they have different chambers for

548
00:29:35,760 --> 00:29:41,400
Speaker 3: different things. They have bathrooms and they have bedrooms. They

549
00:29:41,400 --> 00:29:43,720
Speaker 3: have these sort of expressway super highways that are a

550
00:29:43,760 --> 00:29:46,280
Speaker 3: little larger where they're just crawling all over each other

551
00:29:46,320 --> 00:29:49,040
Speaker 3: back and forth, but they have different rooms and one

552
00:29:49,040 --> 00:29:51,000
Speaker 3: of them is a bathroom and she sings a little

553
00:29:51,040 --> 00:29:54,640
Speaker 3: toilet song when she goes, and they think that might

554
00:29:54,720 --> 00:29:58,400
Speaker 3: be like, hey, I just pooped. Is anyone going to

555
00:29:58,440 --> 00:29:59,920
Speaker 3: come in here and eat this? Or'm not gonna have

556
00:29:59,920 --> 00:30:04,520
Speaker 3: to throw it at you. She also says, hey, you

557
00:30:04,600 --> 00:30:07,760
Speaker 3: three that I picked out earlier, I'm ready to have

558
00:30:07,840 --> 00:30:11,600
Speaker 3: intercourse with you. So here here's my song for that.

559
00:30:12,600 --> 00:30:15,680
Speaker 3: We mentioned those predators there sounds for predator invasions.

560
00:30:16,320 --> 00:30:16,440
Speaker 1: Uh.

561
00:30:16,560 --> 00:30:19,160
Speaker 3: And then you know, and this might lead us into

562
00:30:19,200 --> 00:30:22,959
Speaker 3: talking about the social structure, maybe after a break. But

563
00:30:23,080 --> 00:30:27,280
Speaker 3: they do have little chirps that will signal their social order,

564
00:30:27,320 --> 00:30:30,360
Speaker 3: which is still not quite figured out. But maybe we'll

565
00:30:30,400 --> 00:30:31,680
Speaker 3: take a break there and talk about that.

566
00:30:31,800 --> 00:30:34,200
Speaker 2: Let's do it, all right, We'll be right back.

567
00:30:40,400 --> 00:30:51,760
Speaker 1: Stop. You should know.

568
00:31:06,640 --> 00:31:09,520
Speaker 3: So we mentioned early on that they are a part

569
00:31:09,720 --> 00:31:15,480
Speaker 3: of the Bathier GID Is that right, Yeah, all right,

570
00:31:16,200 --> 00:31:20,760
Speaker 3: Bathier GID group. And they are generally pretty solitary there.

571
00:31:20,840 --> 00:31:22,960
Speaker 3: They may live with a few others here and there,

572
00:31:23,440 --> 00:31:25,800
Speaker 3: but they don't do what naked mole rats do, which is,

573
00:31:25,840 --> 00:31:27,960
Speaker 3: you know, colonies that can get up into the hundreds.

574
00:31:29,000 --> 00:31:31,520
Speaker 3: They are the closest thing that you can compare a

575
00:31:31,600 --> 00:31:34,600
Speaker 3: naked mole rat to is like an ant colony.

576
00:31:34,280 --> 00:31:38,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, or bees, like they're like, you find you sociality.

577
00:31:38,240 --> 00:31:41,640
Speaker 2: They're you social, I think you said before, you find

578
00:31:41,640 --> 00:31:44,160
Speaker 2: that in the insect world, not in the mammal world.

579
00:31:44,160 --> 00:31:46,840
Speaker 2: Apparently there's only other one kind of mole rat that

580
00:31:47,000 --> 00:31:52,760
Speaker 2: has you social hierarchy. But theirs is even like it's

581
00:31:52,880 --> 00:31:56,080
Speaker 2: just nothing compared to the rigidity of the naked mole rats.

582
00:31:56,480 --> 00:31:59,280
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you social means it is like you said,

583
00:31:59,280 --> 00:32:03,000
Speaker 3: it is rigid. It is very defined. Uh, but they

584
00:32:03,040 --> 00:32:09,120
Speaker 3: don't fully understand that structure and full they have some

585
00:32:09,160 --> 00:32:11,880
Speaker 3: little clues. I think some of the males vary in

586
00:32:11,960 --> 00:32:14,560
Speaker 3: size a little bit, and I think they think that

587
00:32:14,680 --> 00:32:17,120
Speaker 3: the ones that are a little bigger, maybe higher up

588
00:32:17,120 --> 00:32:20,560
Speaker 3: on the you know, social structure. They most of them

589
00:32:20,560 --> 00:32:25,080
Speaker 3: are workers, but some of them, it seems, are specifically soldiers. Yeah,

590
00:32:25,240 --> 00:32:27,920
Speaker 3: kind of are on the front lines when that scorpion

591
00:32:27,960 --> 00:32:28,360
Speaker 3: comes down.

592
00:32:29,040 --> 00:32:32,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, they have a division of labor. What else, Well,

593
00:32:32,280 --> 00:32:34,440
Speaker 2: I've got so there. So the fact that they're you

594
00:32:34,640 --> 00:32:38,000
Speaker 2: social is not intuitive because no one knew that there

595
00:32:38,040 --> 00:32:40,400
Speaker 2: were such a thing as mammals that were you social.

596
00:32:40,840 --> 00:32:43,680
Speaker 2: And I found out that they've only known that these

597
00:32:43,680 --> 00:32:47,040
Speaker 2: things were you social for since like the eighties or nineties,

598
00:32:47,560 --> 00:32:50,040
Speaker 2: and the way that they found out was really astounding

599
00:32:50,360 --> 00:32:53,880
Speaker 2: because some of these early naked morat researchers were like,

600
00:32:54,280 --> 00:32:57,880
Speaker 2: where are why aren't these these morats pregnant? Like I

601
00:32:57,880 --> 00:33:00,720
Speaker 2: have not seen a pregnant female because they didn't know

602
00:33:00,760 --> 00:33:03,440
Speaker 2: that it's just the queen that's creating the litters, right.

603
00:33:03,960 --> 00:33:07,800
Speaker 2: And there was a biologist named Richard Alexander who described

604
00:33:07,840 --> 00:33:13,280
Speaker 2: a hypothetical you social mammal species, and somebody who was

605
00:33:13,360 --> 00:33:16,600
Speaker 2: a researcher named Jennifer Jarvis, who is a naked mole

606
00:33:17,000 --> 00:33:20,680
Speaker 2: rat researcher, was like, buddy, you just described naked mole rats,

607
00:33:20,680 --> 00:33:23,080
Speaker 2: and I think you just solved this puzzle, this mystery

608
00:33:23,400 --> 00:33:26,400
Speaker 2: that there are actually a you social mammal species. And

609
00:33:26,440 --> 00:33:29,080
Speaker 2: that's how we figured it out, just totally by chance.

610
00:33:29,680 --> 00:33:31,720
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, we mentioned the queen a few times.

611
00:33:31,760 --> 00:33:33,880
Speaker 3: The queen is obviously at the top of that you

612
00:33:34,160 --> 00:33:39,160
Speaker 3: social structure, and much like bees that we've talked about

613
00:33:39,280 --> 00:33:44,600
Speaker 3: a lot, that queen runs the show. There is almost

614
00:33:44,640 --> 00:33:46,960
Speaker 3: always only one queen. I think in rare cases there

615
00:33:47,000 --> 00:33:49,320
Speaker 3: can be a couple of queens. But when it's time

616
00:33:49,360 --> 00:33:52,000
Speaker 3: for a new queen to take the crown, there's a

617
00:33:52,000 --> 00:33:56,520
Speaker 3: big fight. The females sometimes will kill each other to

618
00:33:56,560 --> 00:33:59,640
Speaker 3: become queen. Oh yeah, but it's a violent affair to

619
00:33:59,680 --> 00:34:03,720
Speaker 3: become queen, and they think that this is one of

620
00:34:03,720 --> 00:34:06,360
Speaker 3: the reasons, one of a few reasons why the queen

621
00:34:06,760 --> 00:34:10,480
Speaker 3: ends up larger is because you may start out a

622
00:34:10,520 --> 00:34:13,600
Speaker 3: little larger if you're the one defeating the other females.

623
00:34:14,520 --> 00:34:17,720
Speaker 3: And then this is another remarkable naked mole rat fact.

624
00:34:18,200 --> 00:34:23,080
Speaker 3: Once you become queen, your body literally gets longer, your

625
00:34:23,120 --> 00:34:24,719
Speaker 3: spine linkedins.

626
00:34:24,920 --> 00:34:28,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, like I saw a picture I think ed added

627
00:34:28,680 --> 00:34:32,240
Speaker 2: it in this article. Any of like the first litter queen,

628
00:34:32,719 --> 00:34:36,080
Speaker 2: you know, five litter queen, ten litter queen, and that

629
00:34:36,440 --> 00:34:39,520
Speaker 2: like I think the ten litter queen her spine is

630
00:34:39,520 --> 00:34:42,520
Speaker 2: about at least one and a half times the length

631
00:34:42,600 --> 00:34:44,759
Speaker 2: of what it would have been during her first litter.

632
00:34:44,840 --> 00:34:48,239
Speaker 2: That's how significantly their body changes so that they can

633
00:34:48,280 --> 00:34:51,000
Speaker 2: have larger and larger litters over time.

634
00:34:51,800 --> 00:34:56,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's remarkable. And how many so they can

635
00:34:56,680 --> 00:34:59,600
Speaker 3: have up to like ten litters total throughout their life.

636
00:35:00,080 --> 00:35:02,480
Speaker 2: I think it can get even even larger than that

637
00:35:02,600 --> 00:35:05,600
Speaker 2: I've seen, and I think that the number of pups

638
00:35:05,600 --> 00:35:08,360
Speaker 2: in the litter the record is twenty seven.

639
00:35:09,280 --> 00:35:09,800
Speaker 3: Oh wow.

640
00:35:10,040 --> 00:35:12,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they're having a lot, and they can have

641
00:35:12,400 --> 00:35:16,359
Speaker 2: tons of litters over their lifetime and then as many

642
00:35:16,400 --> 00:35:19,239
Speaker 2: as you know, twenty seven in a single litter. They're

643
00:35:19,280 --> 00:35:22,560
Speaker 2: really reproducing. There's a lot of pressure on them to produce,

644
00:35:22,600 --> 00:35:23,120
Speaker 2: you know what I.

645
00:35:23,000 --> 00:35:26,480
Speaker 3: Mean, Oh totally. You know, we mentioned that they almost

646
00:35:26,600 --> 00:35:30,279
Speaker 3: never never go outside of the cave system and the

647
00:35:30,280 --> 00:35:32,520
Speaker 3: tunnel system. The very few times that they've seen it

648
00:35:32,560 --> 00:35:35,840
Speaker 3: happen is like they call it, like a mini migration

649
00:35:36,000 --> 00:35:39,920
Speaker 3: where they will see one maybe try to go to

650
00:35:40,000 --> 00:35:43,520
Speaker 3: a different colony. I don't know if they figured out

651
00:35:43,520 --> 00:35:47,320
Speaker 3: why they would leave their colony, but periodically that will happen,

652
00:35:47,680 --> 00:35:51,120
Speaker 3: and they will travel at night of course, because if

653
00:35:51,239 --> 00:35:53,080
Speaker 3: they went out in the sun in the desert during

654
00:35:53,080 --> 00:35:56,840
Speaker 3: the day, they would probably fry like little sausages with teeth,

655
00:35:56,960 --> 00:35:57,680
Speaker 3: Like you said, for.

656
00:35:57,600 --> 00:36:02,000
Speaker 2: Sure brought worst. So they also think that one of

657
00:36:02,040 --> 00:36:04,480
Speaker 2: the main reasons that they would ever leave the colony

658
00:36:04,560 --> 00:36:08,080
Speaker 2: and go up top is to form a new colony,

659
00:36:08,719 --> 00:36:13,160
Speaker 2: kind of like a peaceful I guess, a peaceful coup.

660
00:36:13,200 --> 00:36:16,520
Speaker 2: A bloodless coup that actually leaves the existing queen in place,

661
00:36:16,920 --> 00:36:19,520
Speaker 2: because you know bees do that when they swarm. That's

662
00:36:19,560 --> 00:36:22,600
Speaker 2: a bunch of bees in a colony that's gotten overcrowded,

663
00:36:22,880 --> 00:36:27,480
Speaker 2: going and forming their own colony. Apparently, as you social mammals,

664
00:36:27,520 --> 00:36:30,680
Speaker 2: that's what naked mole rats do as well. Sometimes.

665
00:36:31,080 --> 00:36:35,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's pretty interesting, and I guess we should

666
00:36:35,120 --> 00:36:41,440
Speaker 3: talk about. The final remarkable fact about naked molerats is

667
00:36:41,480 --> 00:36:46,759
Speaker 3: that they don't age in the sense that we think

668
00:36:46,800 --> 00:36:51,160
Speaker 3: about aging. Right, they get older on the calendar, but

669
00:36:51,320 --> 00:36:56,360
Speaker 3: they have shown a remarkable lack of like their body

670
00:36:56,520 --> 00:37:00,440
Speaker 3: and their organs and like their tissue and stuff like

671
00:37:00,480 --> 00:37:03,480
Speaker 3: that showing signs of traditional aging.

672
00:37:03,960 --> 00:37:06,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, which I mean they get up to thirty, like

673
00:37:06,520 --> 00:37:09,320
Speaker 2: six times the average age of a mouse or the

674
00:37:09,719 --> 00:37:12,720
Speaker 2: far end age of a mouse, and they're just not aging,

675
00:37:12,760 --> 00:37:18,200
Speaker 2: no inflammation, Their bones don't deteriorate. They just are ageless.

676
00:37:18,760 --> 00:37:22,040
Speaker 2: And people researchers who started to notice this are like,

677
00:37:22,120 --> 00:37:26,320
Speaker 2: what is going on? And they have kind of zeroed

678
00:37:26,400 --> 00:37:31,719
Speaker 2: in on one particular molecule called the high A lurinon

679
00:37:32,680 --> 00:37:37,279
Speaker 2: And you might be familiar with higher luronic acid, which

680
00:37:37,480 --> 00:37:41,440
Speaker 2: people love to put in like their facial moisturizers and

681
00:37:41,440 --> 00:37:44,480
Speaker 2: stuff like that, because it's found in skin, well, it's

682
00:37:44,480 --> 00:37:47,000
Speaker 2: also found in naked mole rat skin and it's found

683
00:37:47,000 --> 00:37:50,480
Speaker 2: in aces. They have ten times the amount that humans do,

684
00:37:50,920 --> 00:37:55,560
Speaker 2: and the molecules of high A luranon that they do

685
00:37:55,600 --> 00:37:57,840
Speaker 2: have are like five times larger in size.

686
00:37:58,360 --> 00:38:04,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, so they have more, bigger, high alurn molecules and

687
00:38:04,400 --> 00:38:07,840
Speaker 3: they think that it's possible because they're very resistant to

688
00:38:08,680 --> 00:38:10,840
Speaker 3: They found out at first they were very resistant to

689
00:38:11,120 --> 00:38:14,920
Speaker 3: tumors in cancer, and so they're like in the naked

690
00:38:14,960 --> 00:38:18,480
Speaker 3: mole rat does the is that the secret to curing cancer?

691
00:38:18,920 --> 00:38:21,200
Speaker 3: And I don't think that anyone is like saying that

692
00:38:21,200 --> 00:38:24,160
Speaker 3: they're right around the corner from figuring that out. But

693
00:38:24,280 --> 00:38:27,319
Speaker 3: they have gotten this high allurn and they have put

694
00:38:27,360 --> 00:38:31,200
Speaker 3: it in mice and that they because mice are very

695
00:38:31,239 --> 00:38:33,520
Speaker 3: cancer prone, which is one reason we study mice when

696
00:38:33,520 --> 00:38:36,440
Speaker 3: we study cancer. But they have found that these mice

697
00:38:37,239 --> 00:38:41,319
Speaker 3: do much better and they live longer, and they it's

698
00:38:41,360 --> 00:38:44,359
Speaker 3: almost like an immediate shot of youth when they get

699
00:38:44,360 --> 00:38:44,760
Speaker 3: this stuff.

700
00:38:44,840 --> 00:38:47,239
Speaker 2: Yeah. When they transfer the high alert and on synthase

701
00:38:47,320 --> 00:38:51,040
Speaker 2: two gene into mice, they really benefit from it. And

702
00:38:51,080 --> 00:38:55,719
Speaker 2: then on the cancer front, when they when they suppress

703
00:38:55,960 --> 00:39:00,239
Speaker 2: the tumor suppressing genes that are found in mammals, in

704
00:39:00,280 --> 00:39:03,759
Speaker 2: the naked mole rats, they still don't get tumors, but

705
00:39:04,280 --> 00:39:09,000
Speaker 2: when they suppress the gene that expresses high alurinon, they

706
00:39:09,080 --> 00:39:11,960
Speaker 2: start to get tumors. So they've pretty much zeroed in

707
00:39:12,000 --> 00:39:15,240
Speaker 2: on high alurinon as some sort of an anti tumor agent.

708
00:39:15,480 --> 00:39:19,160
Speaker 2: And it's a gooey sugar and they've shown that when

709
00:39:19,160 --> 00:39:22,680
Speaker 2: you remove it from a petri dish of naked molerat cells,

710
00:39:22,800 --> 00:39:25,920
Speaker 2: the cells will goop together, but they won't stick together

711
00:39:25,960 --> 00:39:27,800
Speaker 2: as long as there's high alurinon in there.

712
00:39:28,560 --> 00:39:31,319
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's in it's in there. Like you said,

713
00:39:31,360 --> 00:39:34,120
Speaker 3: they're connected tissues. So it's one of the reasons they

714
00:39:34,160 --> 00:39:39,080
Speaker 3: have that loose, kind of stretchy, weird looking skin is

715
00:39:39,120 --> 00:39:42,319
Speaker 3: because of this high lurinon And we went over we

716
00:39:42,880 --> 00:39:44,640
Speaker 3: drove right by. One of the facts that you duck

717
00:39:44,719 --> 00:39:48,719
Speaker 3: up this pretty amazing is that in their is it

718
00:39:48,840 --> 00:39:52,719
Speaker 3: their body can move inside their skin without their skin.

719
00:39:52,640 --> 00:39:56,120
Speaker 2: Moving, they can turn about halfway around within their skin.

720
00:39:56,160 --> 00:39:59,239
Speaker 3: It's that loose, so like they could be doing that

721
00:39:59,280 --> 00:40:00,880
Speaker 3: in front of your face, and you would not know

722
00:40:00,960 --> 00:40:03,320
Speaker 3: it because their skin is just static.

723
00:40:03,400 --> 00:40:05,279
Speaker 2: Yeah, you'd be like, wow, why is their head over

724
00:40:05,320 --> 00:40:07,440
Speaker 2: there all of a sudden righter still will seem to

725
00:40:07,480 --> 00:40:10,360
Speaker 2: be facing forward, doesn't make any sense.

726
00:40:11,080 --> 00:40:13,839
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that skin comes in handy when they're calling

727
00:40:13,880 --> 00:40:17,040
Speaker 3: around those tunnels and slipping by each other and stuff

728
00:40:17,080 --> 00:40:19,520
Speaker 3: like that. I mean, there are reasons why their skin

729
00:40:19,640 --> 00:40:22,680
Speaker 3: is like that, and it's just remarkable these old guys.

730
00:40:22,760 --> 00:40:26,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they think that the anti aging, anti tumor

731
00:40:26,960 --> 00:40:31,920
Speaker 2: traits that they've developed over time are just a byproduct

732
00:40:32,400 --> 00:40:36,960
Speaker 2: of the actual adaptation, which is super loose skin that's

733
00:40:37,080 --> 00:40:39,480
Speaker 2: created by cells that aren't allowed to stick together.

734
00:40:40,320 --> 00:40:43,640
Speaker 3: Yeah. And they've also found out that they don't experience

735
00:40:43,680 --> 00:40:48,799
Speaker 3: pain like other mammals do, and you would, of course

736
00:40:48,840 --> 00:40:50,360
Speaker 3: the first thing you think of is like, pain is

737
00:40:50,360 --> 00:40:52,000
Speaker 3: a good thing, because that tells you when you've got

738
00:40:52,000 --> 00:40:53,759
Speaker 3: your hand on a hot stove or what have you.

739
00:40:53,920 --> 00:40:57,239
Speaker 2: That's not the first thing I think of. It's not, no,

740
00:40:57,440 --> 00:40:58,560
Speaker 2: I think of that's great.

741
00:40:58,600 --> 00:41:02,080
Speaker 3: I don't like pain, oh sure, but it's a you know,

742
00:41:02,200 --> 00:41:04,080
Speaker 3: we have to have pain so we know when we're

743
00:41:04,640 --> 00:41:09,520
Speaker 3: experiencing something that could kill us. Granted, but they have

744
00:41:10,280 --> 00:41:14,080
Speaker 3: just enough of a pain receptor to like keep them

745
00:41:14,080 --> 00:41:17,759
Speaker 3: from dying stupidly, but not enough to actually feel pain.

746
00:41:18,000 --> 00:41:21,560
Speaker 3: And I saw this one fact, I guess from an

747
00:41:21,600 --> 00:41:24,439
Speaker 3: experiment that means like somebody actually did this. They said

748
00:41:24,440 --> 00:41:27,719
Speaker 3: that their skin doesn't respond to pain when you put

749
00:41:27,880 --> 00:41:33,080
Speaker 3: acid or cap sasan like what they put in like pepper,

750
00:41:33,360 --> 00:41:35,920
Speaker 3: you know, hot pepper stuff like in pepper spray, that's

751
00:41:35,960 --> 00:41:38,399
Speaker 3: cap season, and their skin doesn't react when you put

752
00:41:38,400 --> 00:41:39,239
Speaker 3: that stuff on their skin.

753
00:41:39,360 --> 00:41:42,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, or they don't even if their skin's showing signs

754
00:41:42,360 --> 00:41:45,080
Speaker 2: of burning. They're just like what, I didn't hear it.

755
00:41:45,239 --> 00:41:46,879
Speaker 3: No, their skin literally doesn't respond to ask.

756
00:41:46,920 --> 00:41:50,359
Speaker 2: Oh so the skin itself doesn't. The skin itself doesn't, Okay,

757
00:41:50,360 --> 00:41:52,120
Speaker 2: But I get the impression also that if you like

758
00:41:52,719 --> 00:41:55,480
Speaker 2: hurt one. I hate to even talk about this, but

759
00:41:55,480 --> 00:41:58,600
Speaker 2: if you hurt one, it wouldn't even notice it because

760
00:41:58,600 --> 00:42:01,719
Speaker 2: it's pain threshold is so high. And the reason they

761
00:42:01,760 --> 00:42:05,919
Speaker 2: think that this is the case is because their metabolism

762
00:42:06,000 --> 00:42:08,399
Speaker 2: is so fragile, a on such like a razor's edge,

763
00:42:08,680 --> 00:42:11,480
Speaker 2: that they think that their nervous system evolved to, like

764
00:42:11,560 --> 00:42:15,000
Speaker 2: you said, just give them enough pain signals to get by,

765
00:42:15,520 --> 00:42:18,520
Speaker 2: but not enough to really require a lot of extra energy.

766
00:42:18,560 --> 00:42:21,480
Speaker 2: They don't need that kind of sensation to survive.

767
00:42:22,480 --> 00:42:25,360
Speaker 3: Does that mean in some lab somewhere they draw straws

768
00:42:25,400 --> 00:42:28,000
Speaker 3: to see who has to thump the naked mole rat.

769
00:42:28,320 --> 00:42:30,399
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll bet that's a bummer day for you at

770
00:42:30,400 --> 00:42:33,360
Speaker 2: the office, would be for me.

771
00:42:35,560 --> 00:42:37,960
Speaker 3: I think that's all the amazing facts. I'm looking over

772
00:42:38,080 --> 00:42:41,200
Speaker 3: my notes. I don't think there's anything else, is there?

773
00:42:41,239 --> 00:42:43,439
Speaker 2: I don't think so. The only thing I would say

774
00:42:43,520 --> 00:42:46,640
Speaker 2: is go to the Smithsonian Naked mole rat camps as

775
00:42:46,680 --> 00:42:48,799
Speaker 2: soon as you can. They're very cute to watch.

776
00:42:48,920 --> 00:42:51,520
Speaker 3: Yeah, and watch fast, cheap and out of control. It's

777
00:42:51,560 --> 00:42:55,919
Speaker 3: a great documentary because he somehow managed manages to Errol

778
00:42:55,920 --> 00:43:02,960
Speaker 3: Morris does to tie each of these professions into a theme,

779
00:43:03,400 --> 00:43:07,799
Speaker 3: a common theme. It's really interesting And if you think

780
00:43:07,840 --> 00:43:11,200
Speaker 3: about it, it's robots that this guy's making that look

781
00:43:11,280 --> 00:43:15,480
Speaker 3: like insects. It's plants that a guy is shaping to

782
00:43:15,520 --> 00:43:16,400
Speaker 3: look like animals.

783
00:43:17,200 --> 00:43:19,239
Speaker 2: Wait, wait, are you spoiling it right now?

784
00:43:19,800 --> 00:43:23,759
Speaker 3: No, okay, these are just the jobs they have. The

785
00:43:23,880 --> 00:43:26,360
Speaker 3: naked mole rat guy. I'm trying to figure out how

786
00:43:26,400 --> 00:43:28,279
Speaker 3: that figured him that way. I can't remember, it's been

787
00:43:28,320 --> 00:43:31,719
Speaker 3: a while, but anyway, this guy's enthusiasm the scientists that

788
00:43:31,760 --> 00:43:34,279
Speaker 3: they found just just very contagious of how much he

789
00:43:34,320 --> 00:43:35,279
Speaker 3: loves hiss naked mole rat.

790
00:43:35,360 --> 00:43:36,759
Speaker 2: I could see it. I mean, you could do a

791
00:43:36,800 --> 00:43:40,879
Speaker 2: lot worse to pin your career to that animal as

792
00:43:40,880 --> 00:43:43,799
Speaker 2: a biologist. Like they are just coming up with some

793
00:43:43,840 --> 00:43:44,680
Speaker 2: amazing stuff.

794
00:43:46,040 --> 00:43:46,360
Speaker 3: Greed.

795
00:43:46,640 --> 00:43:49,880
Speaker 2: So since I mentioned amazing stuff and Chuck said agreed,

796
00:43:50,040 --> 00:43:51,560
Speaker 2: that means everybody, it's time for listener.

797
00:43:51,600 --> 00:43:56,120
Speaker 3: Now that's right. But I'm going to shout out that

798
00:43:56,200 --> 00:44:00,279
Speaker 3: naked mole rat guy. His name is Ray Mendez and

799
00:44:01,200 --> 00:44:05,799
Speaker 3: he's pretty amazing nice all right, So I'm gonna call this.

800
00:44:05,960 --> 00:44:07,640
Speaker 3: Let me see, I'm gonna open up the folder.

801
00:44:08,239 --> 00:44:10,879
Speaker 2: Oh boy, mail you guys, you don't know what this means.

802
00:44:10,880 --> 00:44:12,919
Speaker 2: When Chuck opens up the folder, it gets real.

803
00:44:15,360 --> 00:44:18,400
Speaker 3: Uh oh boy, that's an old one. I'm going to

804
00:44:18,440 --> 00:44:22,040
Speaker 3: read that one that might be out of date. I'll read, Oh, okay,

805
00:44:22,080 --> 00:44:24,439
Speaker 3: this is fairly recent. Hoya. I remember we talked about

806
00:44:24,440 --> 00:44:27,000
Speaker 3: the Georgetown Hoyas and were like, what the heck is

807
00:44:27,000 --> 00:44:29,400
Speaker 3: a hooya? We heard from a few Hoyas and this

808
00:44:29,600 --> 00:44:33,799
Speaker 3: was from Mark Mayer or Mark Meyer. Excuse me, Hey guys,

809
00:44:33,800 --> 00:44:36,520
Speaker 3: first time writer, a longtime listener, graduate of Georgetown, You

810
00:44:37,440 --> 00:44:40,880
Speaker 3: and I actually have some knowledge to give back. Your

811
00:44:40,920 --> 00:44:45,160
Speaker 3: answer to the question, was a hoya is? Exactly? Let

812
00:44:45,160 --> 00:44:48,960
Speaker 3: me explain. What I was taught was that Georgetown's nickname

813
00:44:49,400 --> 00:44:52,680
Speaker 3: came from the stone walls, named after the university's beautiful

814
00:44:52,680 --> 00:44:57,920
Speaker 3: walls or the football team's defense, depending on who you ask, okay,

815
00:44:58,480 --> 00:45:02,640
Speaker 3: defense the good Jesuits that we are our cheer was

816
00:45:02,680 --> 00:45:08,319
Speaker 3: the Latin translation of what rocks hoya saksa, and that

817
00:45:08,440 --> 00:45:12,080
Speaker 3: was eventually shortened to hoya's the mascot change, but the

818
00:45:12,200 --> 00:45:15,120
Speaker 3: nickname stuck. So if a Georgetown if you ask a

819
00:45:15,160 --> 00:45:18,239
Speaker 3: Georgetown student what a hoya is, the standard tongue in

820
00:45:18,280 --> 00:45:22,960
Speaker 3: cheek response is something like correct or exactly what is

821
00:45:23,120 --> 00:45:28,480
Speaker 3: a hooya? Because the word hoya literally translates to what

822
00:45:28,480 --> 00:45:29,360
Speaker 3: what is hoya?

823
00:45:29,440 --> 00:45:29,520
Speaker 2: Is?

824
00:45:29,520 --> 00:45:30,239
Speaker 3: How I should have read it?

825
00:45:30,320 --> 00:45:33,960
Speaker 2: And now I understand why people don't like Georgetown graduates.

826
00:45:34,120 --> 00:45:35,560
Speaker 2: I never knew, but now I do.

827
00:45:36,719 --> 00:45:39,560
Speaker 3: Mark says, this is some nineteenth century who's on first

828
00:45:39,600 --> 00:45:42,080
Speaker 3: type of fun. I hope this helps. Thanks for the

829
00:45:42,160 --> 00:45:48,520
Speaker 3: quality entertainment that has gotten me through countless Moe's drives

830
00:45:48,520 --> 00:45:52,160
Speaker 3: and runs. I guess mowing lawn. Sure, all right, that's

831
00:45:52,160 --> 00:45:52,960
Speaker 3: for Mark Meyer.

832
00:45:53,440 --> 00:45:56,600
Speaker 2: Thanks a lot, Mark, that was great knowledge you imparted.

833
00:45:56,640 --> 00:45:59,000
Speaker 2: Thank you very much. I can't wait till somebody asks

834
00:45:59,040 --> 00:46:01,400
Speaker 2: me what's a hoya? Can't wait?

835
00:46:01,480 --> 00:46:02,280
Speaker 3: Say exactly?

836
00:46:02,320 --> 00:46:04,640
Speaker 2: We can't wait. And if you want to be like

837
00:46:04,719 --> 00:46:06,879
Speaker 2: Mark and send us some info that we didn't know,

838
00:46:07,400 --> 00:46:09,719
Speaker 2: you can put it in an email and send it

839
00:46:09,760 --> 00:46:15,919
Speaker 2: off to stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.

840
00:46:16,120 --> 00:46:19,000
Speaker 3: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For

841
00:46:19,080 --> 00:46:23,239
Speaker 3: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

842
00:46:23,360 --> 00:46:25,200
Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows