Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature feature production of I Heart Radio. I'm
Speaker 1: your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology
Speaker 1: and evolutionary biology, and today on the show, we're talking
Speaker 1: about animals who can rebuild themselves like some kind of
Speaker 1: tea one thousand. I'm talking self decapitation, magical dolphin healing,
Speaker 1: and the incredible regeneration that's happening inside our very own bodies.
Speaker 1: Discover this more as we answer the angel question why
Speaker 1: can't we be parts? Salamander Joining me today is a
Speaker 1: TV writer whose articles and columns have been featured in
Speaker 1: The New Yorker Guardian and l A Times, who also
Speaker 1: writes on some show called Some More News. Dave Schilling, Hello, Wow,
Speaker 1: what a delightful intro. I always try to complement the
Speaker 1: hosts on their intro because it sets the tone of
Speaker 1: congeniality and friendships that I like to in gender one
Speaker 1: I go on a podcast, thank you all artificial, I'll
Speaker 1: just sort of a baby welcome down Hollywood. All. Just
Speaker 1: just peel my face off. Damn it, I knew it. Yeah, well, no,
Speaker 1: thank you very much. It's it's a treat to have
Speaker 1: you on here, because we are talking about animals who
Speaker 1: can regenerate themselves, which is inspired by a news story
Speaker 1: I saw about a cea slug, which I love it
Speaker 1: when there's nature news and it's just like, hey, look
Speaker 1: at this cea slug. It's headless, and it's like, yes,
Speaker 1: you've got me, You've got me right where you want me.
Speaker 1: I'm intrigued immediately. Yeah, It's like I normally kind of
Speaker 1: recoil at clickbait, but when it's when it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: check out this headless sea slug, I'm like, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I'll do it. It's moving around. That's good. I'm clicking
Speaker 1: on that for sure. Well I am the opposite, and
Speaker 1: in that I see it and I say, no, thank you. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's enough that you've described a ce cea slug without
Speaker 1: a head. I don't need to see it. I know
Speaker 1: what it looks like, and it's not for me. I
Speaker 1: can paint a mental picture of it. Right. What is
Speaker 1: your relationship with with squiggly animals? Not not a big fan.
Speaker 1: This is a great question. And when I told my
Speaker 1: girlfriend I was coming on this show, she said, you
Speaker 1: hate animals, and I'm I guess you're right. I do
Speaker 1: hate animals. I don't dislike them that strongly. But I
Speaker 1: was never an animal person because I didn't have pets
Speaker 1: growing up, which is strange because I grew up in
Speaker 1: one of the more rural and and uh agrarian parts
Speaker 1: of California. This little town calledmer said, everybody understood farming
Speaker 1: and did four h and you know that was part
Speaker 1: of the culture. I was just I wanted nothing to
Speaker 1: do with it. They smell bad, they lick you, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, they pissed wherever they want. I don't have that.
Speaker 1: I don't have those liberties that I can take where
Speaker 1: I can. Just jealous, So you're just jealous a little bit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: imagine if you could just kind of wander the earth,
Speaker 1: grazing off of the land, defecating wherever you please, not
Speaker 1: having to work, not having to fill out unemployment insurance forms,
Speaker 1: not having to put gas in your gas tank. You just,
Speaker 1: you know, amble down the road eating grass. I mean,
Speaker 1: you occasionally get slaughtered by some kind of predator, but
Speaker 1: I think it's worth it to not have to fill
Speaker 1: out forms, to never deal with bureaucracy again, and just
Speaker 1: occasionally get murdered by a lion. Yeah, let me think
Speaker 1: about this. What I prefer the abattoir or the d
Speaker 1: m V. I'm taking the roasted the TMB. I bet
Speaker 1: they never saw that coming. No, this is the first
Speaker 1: time anybody's ever maligned the DMV. Shocking, George Carlin level groundbreaking,
Speaker 1: you were a serbic satire. It'll be like one of
Speaker 1: those fun things like with a podcast where you have
Speaker 1: the Gift on and you're just like constantly grossing them
Speaker 1: out and they're not having a good time, but we
Speaker 1: we all we all share a good laugh. Yeah. I'd
Speaker 1: say one of my favorite podcasts is when they don't
Speaker 1: have a good time, when when the guests is visibly
Speaker 1: sick and iwice is like trying to navigate their psychosis.
Speaker 1: That's my favorite. Right when the gift is nauseous the
Speaker 1: whole time. That's that's the sort of or the the
Speaker 1: environment I'm trying to cultivate on this podcast. Isn't that
Speaker 1: what Joe Rogan does? Oh? You know, I don't know
Speaker 1: if that's intentional, but another one man, Joe Rogan, He's
Speaker 1: like the d m V of podcasts. Am I right?
Speaker 1: I hope that I hope that I learn and something
Speaker 1: today I might not revel in it. The way that
Speaker 1: you will. But I want to learn something. And I
Speaker 1: think as long as we're both open to learning, both
Speaker 1: going to be happy people. Yes, I think that, And
Speaker 1: this is a good message for the listeners to, like,
Speaker 1: we're gonna we're gonna learn some stuff about animals. Listen,
Speaker 1: you don't have to like the idea of self decapitation.
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to get you to like be calm
Speaker 1: about self decapitation, but to understand it more, you know,
Speaker 1: to get to know. I think understanding something makes us
Speaker 1: less afraid. So if you if I'm saying, you know, hey,
Speaker 1: look at this animal pulls off its own head and
Speaker 1: keeps on living. Your first reaction might be terror, But
Speaker 1: let's let's have that reaction turn into understanding and knowledge, empathy,
Speaker 1: empathize with this creature. Right right when a little girl
Speaker 1: like has her head do a three hundred sixty degree
Speaker 1: turn and then says like, I want to play with me,
Speaker 1: Like I think you need to learn, Like, do play
Speaker 1: with her? Find out like, you know, just explore the
Speaker 1: world around you. Yeah, she's literally just asking to connect's.
Speaker 1: She doesn't necessarily want to kill you, Yeah, like you
Speaker 1: just want to that kid in the shining with such
Speaker 1: a snob. These little girls ask them to come play
Speaker 1: with them. It's like, you know, they're like and play
Speaker 1: with us forever. That's awesome. Todd Browning's freaks one of us.
Speaker 1: They wanted to have a little gang, a little friends,
Speaker 1: so fun, fun times. So we're gonna have fun times
Speaker 1: with self decapitating sea slugs is the point. So self
Speaker 1: decapitating sea Slug. I feel like every topic on this
Speaker 1: show sounds like a good metal band name, and it
Speaker 1: just is a rule like it always it always happens.
Speaker 1: So yeah, self decapitating c slug good metal band name.
Speaker 1: We've actually talked about plenaryans on the show, which is
Speaker 1: a type of flatworm that can regenerate itself if you
Speaker 1: chop it up into little pieces. So if you chop
Speaker 1: off its head or cut it in half into little pieces,
Speaker 1: like Gordon Ramsey could just go to town on one
Speaker 1: of those things and it would keep regrowing itself. Just
Speaker 1: pretty great. Um. But the discovery of the sea slug
Speaker 1: is unique in that it it actually it's not just
Speaker 1: that it regenerates it self decapitates. It decapitates itself, which
Speaker 1: kind of sounds like a weird sea slug fetish um,
Speaker 1: but apparently it's not um. So first I want to
Speaker 1: thank New York Times science writer Annie Roth for her
Speaker 1: amazing article on this subject. So researchers discovered this self
Speaker 1: decapitation habit in lab raised Elisia marginata, which is a
Speaker 1: green and orange sea slug that looks kind of like
Speaker 1: a wavy, succulent plant. I actually originally misread its scientific
Speaker 1: name as margarita because it kind of looks like a
Speaker 1: margarita to me. It's like green and it's like a
Speaker 1: like sort of pink or orange e pink on the rims,
Speaker 1: so it's like it's like a refreshing Margarita's it's it's
Speaker 1: covered in salt. I think that would be bad for
Speaker 1: although it is a cease look, so it is naturally covered.
Speaker 1: Insult if you have if you have three of them,
Speaker 1: your pants just fall off. You know, it's just like
Speaker 1: a margarita. Anyway, Um, this guy, why does he do this?
Speaker 1: Why does he take his head off? That is an
Speaker 1: excellent question. Here's a question, like if you had the
Speaker 1: power to take off your own head just for you know,
Speaker 1: like would like would you? I mean, it wouldn't hurt you,
Speaker 1: like you wouldn't die, but you could do that. Would
Speaker 1: that be a fun superpower to have? Or would you
Speaker 1: just pass on that? I don't know what I would
Speaker 1: do with that super volleyball. Uh yeah, walk around the
Speaker 1: grove and freak people out it. Maybe you hide your
Speaker 1: head in in a closet and then you can observe
Speaker 1: other people doing things like you know, you can be
Speaker 1: a voideur of a sort like the Invisible Man, but
Speaker 1: it's your head. Um you could you could, uh you know,
Speaker 1: put your head in uh in like a like the
Speaker 1: an office of a movie studio, and you can get
Speaker 1: a bunch of spoilers the latest Marvel film. I don't
Speaker 1: think I would want to do that though, because then
Speaker 1: where could I go when my head was off, um, nowhere,
Speaker 1: because I don't have a head. So self defeating and
Speaker 1: self decapitating. Self defeating and self decapitating. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: though for me, if like I could just set my
Speaker 1: head up in front of the microphone and continue to
Speaker 1: podcast where my like, let my body roam around the
Speaker 1: apartment bonk into things, maybe like put some like food
Speaker 1: down my neck hole, you know what I mean. Like
Speaker 1: it seems you know, I can take a nice nap
Speaker 1: right now, Yeah, take a nap with my body and
Speaker 1: fold some laundry while I'm doing podcasts. Oh, I should
Speaker 1: fold laundry while I'm to podcast just with my normal body. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But what if, like you need to hit the stop
Speaker 1: button on the record or something, you call your body
Speaker 1: over and your body is like nah, I'm taking it out.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so your question is a very good Why
Speaker 1: would a ce slug want to self decapitate doesn't want
Speaker 1: to spook its friends? Well they looked into this, and
Speaker 1: there's actually something called self amputation or autonomy in other animals.
Speaker 1: So lizards will detach their tails and it's often used
Speaker 1: as a self defense mechanism. So if the lizard gives
Speaker 1: the predator the tail and escapes, she lost her tail,
Speaker 1: but she keeps her life and it's a good trade.
Speaker 1: But this habit of voluntarily amputating your whole body is new.
Speaker 1: And what's even more interesting is that like these specimens
Speaker 1: they saw doing this were in a lab, they weren't
Speaker 1: being pursued by a predator. So what was going on?
Speaker 1: So the restart True started studying the sea slugs self decapitations,
Speaker 1: because that's what do you do as a research. If
Speaker 1: you find an animal in your lab is cutting off
Speaker 1: its own head, you're like, Okay, you know, I guess
Speaker 1: we got to look into this now. So their research
Speaker 1: seems to indicate that the self decapitations are a purposeful
Speaker 1: way for the sea slugs to ditch their bodies when
Speaker 1: they become infected with parasites, which, oh, okay, this makes sense. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I get it. I actually, if I became infected with parasites,
Speaker 1: I think I would want to just get rid of
Speaker 1: my old body and grow a whole new one, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. Like I've done I find like
Speaker 1: like you have tape worms. It's like, all right, we
Speaker 1: gotta just like that's it. I would do that if
Speaker 1: I had like really bad gas, right, just get rid
Speaker 1: of the whole body, get a new another body. Uh.
Speaker 1: I did think of one excellent use of self decapitation.
Speaker 1: Let's say in the near future, when it's possible, you're
Speaker 1: at a party and you're hanging out and you know,
Speaker 1: having to drink or eating some snacks or like hanging
Speaker 1: by the ox cable and picking the songs because you're antisocial.
Speaker 1: Somebody comes by and says, oh, I'd like to talk
Speaker 1: to this person because they're interesting or cute or whatever. Well,
Speaker 1: if you want to get rid of a pesky party
Speaker 1: guest who is hassling you or is inane or boring
Speaker 1: or offensive, instead of you know, just being rude, you
Speaker 1: pop that old head off and freak them out. They're like,
Speaker 1: I want to talk to somebody without a head, and
Speaker 1: then they scamper away and then you pop the head
Speaker 1: back on. All right, that person hit the bricks and
Speaker 1: you're good to go. Yeah. No, I do like that.
Speaker 1: I like the escape sort of in your scenario. It's
Speaker 1: similar to autonomy and nature because they do it to
Speaker 1: escape predation, and in this scenario, you do it to
Speaker 1: escape an awkward situation. I think I would probably set
Speaker 1: up like one of those little miniature basketball hoops in
Speaker 1: my apartment or wherever, like the trash can hoops where
Speaker 1: you throw the trash in and it goes into a
Speaker 1: little bucket, but with my head. So if someone's like,
Speaker 1: how's it going, do you have any new projects going
Speaker 1: in on in your life? Like what's new? And like
Speaker 1: I don't want to answer because literally nothing is going
Speaker 1: on in my life and I don't know how to answer,
Speaker 1: like what's new with you, and I'm embarrassed just check
Speaker 1: my head into the hoop and go like who this is? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think we've we've setched out why this should be
Speaker 1: the next stage of human evolution and being able to
Speaker 1: take off your own head. Yes, And the way to
Speaker 1: do it if we're going to copy the sea slugs
Speaker 1: mechanism is they actually have it's a clean cut, which
Speaker 1: is interesting because they don't actually have little tiny sea
Speaker 1: slug guillotines that they use. It's they actually seem to
Speaker 1: dissolve the cells around this sort of amputation line so
Speaker 1: that their head just can kind of like you know,
Speaker 1: pop off of their body and they will regenerate from
Speaker 1: that like area from the stump, uh, an entirely new body.
Speaker 1: Within actually a few weeks, their body is starting to regrow,
Speaker 1: maybe not to its original size, but it is. They
Speaker 1: actually get a new body the old body actually, so
Speaker 1: it doesn't regrow a new head, but the old body
Speaker 1: does remain alive for like a few months, and yeah,
Speaker 1: it reacts to getting poked. It's eventually gonna die because
Speaker 1: there's no head and it apparently can't regrow ahead. So
Speaker 1: it's not like the sea slug becomes too sea slugs,
Speaker 1: but the body just kind of shambles around for a
Speaker 1: few months before finally decomposing, which you know is neat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I suppose. So it also looks like a potato chip here,
Speaker 1: like you know, one of those like those tara chips
Speaker 1: that are multiple colors, like looks like a tear chip
Speaker 1: er oh yeah, yeah, where it's like made out of
Speaker 1: some kind of yam instead of a potato and you
Speaker 1: convinced yourself it's as good as a potato chip, but
Speaker 1: it's not. It never is. It's disgusting. Yeah, like this,
Speaker 1: like I imagine this sea slug is if I would
Speaker 1: eat or her. Okay, I don't know though. That's seen
Speaker 1: from the from the Lion King where they're eating all
Speaker 1: those boogs. You know, this looks like one of the
Speaker 1: good ones, one of the good, the good ones that
Speaker 1: they Yeah, you know what this is. I think this,
Speaker 1: this sea slug is an ally for sure, one of
Speaker 1: the good ones. So another cool thing about these self
Speaker 1: decapitating sea slugs is they also practice kleptoplasty, which is
Speaker 1: when they steal chloroplasts from the algae they eat and
Speaker 1: then hijack them for their own solar power production. So
Speaker 1: the sea slugs can then derive energy from the sun
Speaker 1: like a plant because they've just stolen the plant's method
Speaker 1: of energy conversion. Uh. And so yeah, they are solar
Speaker 1: powered body regrowing auto decapitators, which I think is cool. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's also a great name for a metal band. It is. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's like nothing that I say on this show couldn't
Speaker 1: be turned into a metal band, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: I agree. I think you should get T shirts made
Speaker 1: up look like metal band t shirts, but they say
Speaker 1: self decapitating slugs instead of Danzig. I do like this.
Speaker 1: This is a good merch opportunity. Yeah, just have like
Speaker 1: the metal font and then a sea slug like on
Speaker 1: some drums. But it's just its head. So how's it
Speaker 1: playing the drums with the with the arms or bouncing
Speaker 1: from drum to drums. Oh, it's like the two little
Speaker 1: um It's little antenna are the things? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: stock exactly see I stocks is that they're called um
Speaker 1: or they're they're they're either called tentacles or right off wars. Actually,
Speaker 1: you're right, these are not ice stalks. In land snails,
Speaker 1: those are ice stalks, but in the sea slug they're
Speaker 1: they're called rhino four's they have they don't have the
Speaker 1: eyes on them, they have sensory organs. Though, who's the
Speaker 1: expert now? Could it be me? Yes? So now it's
Speaker 1: your podcast. This is the rules, all right, Katie. The
Speaker 1: next thing we're gonna talk about is the salamander that
Speaker 1: regrows limbs. This is true. But first we've got to
Speaker 1: take a commercial break. Oh wait, no, no, it's your
Speaker 1: podcast now, so you okay, all right, up next we're
Speaker 1: gonna talk about a salamander that recrows it's limbs. But
Speaker 1: first let's pause for a commercial break. And now you
Speaker 1: do the whole outro by memory, the whole outro by memory.
Speaker 1: While the sea slugs self decapitation is the most impressive
Speaker 1: form of self amputation, the award for drama has to
Speaker 1: go to crabs and other crustaceans, who, when faced with
Speaker 1: a dilemma, will with a flourish rip off their own
Speaker 1: arms to escape danger, or simply to ditch an injured claw.
Speaker 1: From a crab who rips off its own arm and
Speaker 1: throws it at a seagull to escape predation, to a
Speaker 1: crayfish who amputates its own injured claw after escaping a
Speaker 1: pot of boiling water. There are many dramatic escapes caught
Speaker 1: on video of crustaceans flipping their attacker the ultimate bird,
Speaker 1: by shucking off their entire arm. Eventually they'll be able
Speaker 1: to grow their arm back. In fact, some commercial fisher's
Speaker 1: de claw crabs as an allegedly more sustainable form of fishing.
Speaker 1: They'll catch the crab, rip the crab claw off, and
Speaker 1: chuck the live crab back into the ocean, albeit missing
Speaker 1: one or more of their arms. The thought is that
Speaker 1: by harvesting only the crab claw and tossing the rest
Speaker 1: of the crab back, the crab at least has a
Speaker 1: chance to regrow its limb continue to live and reproduce.
Speaker 1: And while it's an interesting idea, maybe it's tad diabolical,
Speaker 1: it's not yet proven that this really is sustainable, as
Speaker 1: limbit generation and crabs does take time and energy, so
Speaker 1: there's no guarantee they'll actually survive. The trauma also seems
Speaker 1: kind of mean to the crabs, but at the same time,
Speaker 1: I guess it's better than the whole crab being dead.
Speaker 1: I'm not a crab, or at least not yet, so
Speaker 1: I can't speak for the crabs. When we return, we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about the surprising acts of regeneration happening
Speaker 1: inside our own bodies. Humans can't regrow limbs. If I
Speaker 1: get in a fight, I can't simply throw my arm
Speaker 1: at someone run away while calling out my classic catchphrase,
Speaker 1: I gotta hand it to you. But as embryos, we
Speaker 1: have surprising superpowers. If we lose a limb bud as
Speaker 1: an embryo, the tiny nub from which a whole limb
Speaker 1: will grow, we can regenerate a new limb bud. This
Speaker 1: is due to the preponderance of stem cells we have
Speaker 1: as developing embryos, the undifferentiated cells that can become any
Speaker 1: cell that are growing bodies neat. But even as adults,
Speaker 1: we have some regenerative capabilities where you might least expect
Speaker 1: it are spooky skeletons. Are ready to talk about skeletons.
Speaker 1: I know it's not Halloween, but you know, yes, I
Speaker 1: wasn't here if I was back in. Yet we're back in.
Speaker 1: We're back in, and we're talking about skeletons. I would
Speaker 1: love to talk about a skeletons. Every time you think
Speaker 1: that you get out of out of talking about skeletons,
Speaker 1: I pull you back in. Yeah, just like in The Godfather. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I think our skeletons are really interesting because our
Speaker 1: kind of perception of skeletons is like, it's like the
Speaker 1: spooky stuff that gets left behind after we die. You
Speaker 1: can play it like a xylophone, but it's basically dead.
Speaker 1: It's it's not it's not living tissue. It's like, because
Speaker 1: it's not living tissue, it's the only thing that's left
Speaker 1: behind after after we were dead and get eaten by
Speaker 1: vultures and worms and stuff. But our bones are actually
Speaker 1: very much alive, which is kind of a weird thing
Speaker 1: to think about. I guess, like, you know, like we
Speaker 1: have this whole living skeleton inside of us. I think
Speaker 1: of of bones as, like you said, kind of a
Speaker 1: waste product of a dead person or or the things
Speaker 1: that are inside of me to keep me from turning
Speaker 1: into a pile of you. Yeah. Yeah, I don't. I
Speaker 1: don't really. I don't think about the fact that there's
Speaker 1: there's all kinds of information going on in there. It
Speaker 1: feels like sort of the rind of the human You know,
Speaker 1: when you eat a chicken, you got these leftover chicken
Speaker 1: bones and just you know, throw them out. You can
Speaker 1: know on that bad boy for for days and still
Speaker 1: get stuff out of it. Yeah. No, I actually crack
Speaker 1: open chicken bones and suck out the marrow, which uh
Speaker 1: some people find unpleasant to look at, So I don't
Speaker 1: start people. Do you do that? You crack them open
Speaker 1: and suck suck the marrow out. It's you can eat it.
Speaker 1: I mean you have to be careful. I don't necessarily
Speaker 1: recommend everyone do this because like, you don't want to
Speaker 1: get like a little if the bone is like cooked,
Speaker 1: Like you don't want to get a chunk of uh
Speaker 1: you know, pokey chicken bone down your throat, So be
Speaker 1: very careful. But you can't actually eat like the marrow
Speaker 1: inside bones. In fact, if you've ever had at a
Speaker 1: restaurant bone marrow, uh, it's it's actually really good. You
Speaker 1: can like have cow bone marrow where it's like spread
Speaker 1: on toast or something and it's, uh, it's actually really
Speaker 1: full of of protein and fat. So do you you
Speaker 1: live with another human being? Right? And you do this
Speaker 1: in front of them sometimes sometimes and what is this person?
Speaker 1: Your person think about this particular pthology, I guess is
Speaker 1: the probably he's just glad it's not him. You know,
Speaker 1: that's a good answer. Oh boy, I mean I licked
Speaker 1: my plate and my ex wife thought I was a
Speaker 1: absolute pig. But this is another level of making your
Speaker 1: meal um a little more. I guess what's the word
Speaker 1: waste free? Yes, yeah, just tell your wife. At least
Speaker 1: I don't eat the bone. I don't suck the marrow
Speaker 1: out of a chicken bone for fun anyway. Again, be
Speaker 1: very careful doing that. I don't want people to, like,
Speaker 1: you know, like everyone's going to try this now because
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, Katie does it must be cool, but
Speaker 1: don't choke on a chicken bone. Yeah, Katie's gonna tell
Speaker 1: you be careful. I'm gonna tell you don't do it.
Speaker 1: About that, how about don't how about whatever she said,
Speaker 1: do the opposite and then we'll be fine. Yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: all right now, I'm cool with that. So you might
Speaker 1: not think of your bones as being living tissue, but
Speaker 1: it very much is. So the part of the bones
Speaker 1: that we think of, like you know, the spooky skeleton
Speaker 1: plate like a xylophone, That is the ossified part of
Speaker 1: the bone made of calcium, and that is indeed left
Speaker 1: behind after the rest of our bodies decay, and that
Speaker 1: is basically the only non living part of the bone um.
Speaker 1: One of the functions of the skeleton is for skeletal support,
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, Dave, like, so we don't turn into
Speaker 1: a puddle of jello. I remember learning that in preschool
Speaker 1: where they showed us like what would happen to a
Speaker 1: human body if you've removed all the bones? And it
Speaker 1: turned into like a human pudding And it was vaguely traumatic,
Speaker 1: and maybe it explains why I am the way I
Speaker 1: am now on they showed you a human goop? Where
Speaker 1: did you? Where did you grow up? San Diego? Folks,
Speaker 1: if you're in California, if you work from californ you
Speaker 1: know with San Diego is where you dreams go to die.
Speaker 1: This is all checking out. The laid back surfer culture
Speaker 1: is just a front from the diabolical things going on beneath.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so that is one of the functions. It
Speaker 1: supports muscle tissue UM, but it also has other functions.
Speaker 1: So inside the bone is the marrow, the spongy living
Speaker 1: tissue that's very important for our bodies. So stem cells
Speaker 1: in the bone marrow actually foster cell production. So there's
Speaker 1: red and yellow bone marrow. Red marrow produces blood cells, platelets,
Speaker 1: and white blood cells, whereas yellow marrow stores fat and
Speaker 1: produces cartilage, fat and cells that will construct the bones themselves.
Speaker 1: And here's a question. So if bones are just you know,
Speaker 1: these kind of this dead framework that supports our bodies, like,
Speaker 1: how do we why don't we just have like a
Speaker 1: baby skeleton in us? Right? Like they we somehow go
Speaker 1: from being a baby with like a baby skeleton to
Speaker 1: being a full grown adult with like an adult skeleton.
Speaker 1: So the skeleton is growing with us somehow. And it's
Speaker 1: actually really interesting the way that this works. So bones
Speaker 1: are very dynamic and they go through an incredible process
Speaker 1: of planned destruction and renewal that continues throughout adulthood. And
Speaker 1: it's called bone remodeling. Again another metal band cover. Also,
Speaker 1: I feel like, you know, that would be in Nightmare
Speaker 1: Before Christmas or something. It's like, that's like the construction,
Speaker 1: the spooky ghost construction thing is bone remodeling. I was
Speaker 1: gonna say bone remodeling. It should be a TLC reality show, uh,
Speaker 1: sort of like house Hunters or you know those renovation shows,
Speaker 1: but they renovate your bones. Yes, exactly, I see. I
Speaker 1: see it's like, uh, your bones. See, here's the problem
Speaker 1: with your your bones. Your bones weren't built on a
Speaker 1: good foundation. So we're gonna need to take them all out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when I have to rip those bones out, they're not
Speaker 1: good bones. Bones bones in there that we got from
Speaker 1: crate and barrel. Oh god, we found so much asbestos
Speaker 1: in your bones. What's the resale value on your bones out? Uh?
Speaker 1: So there are cells that are responsible for breaking down
Speaker 1: your bones, and there are cells responsible for building up
Speaker 1: your bone mouth. So these cells like to break down
Speaker 1: your bones just to build them back up like a cult.
Speaker 1: So as kids, they're actually much more building than there
Speaker 1: is breaking down, which helps us grow bigger skeletons. In fact,
Speaker 1: like by the time you turn one years old, you'll
Speaker 1: have replaced a hundred percent of your skeleton. In comparison,
Speaker 1: as adults, we only replace about ten percent of our
Speaker 1: bone tissue every year. So as adults, like, once we're
Speaker 1: done growing, which they've both you and I have, it's
Speaker 1: all downhill from here. Um. Sadly, that breaking down and
Speaker 1: building process is pretty much at equilibrium for a while,
Speaker 1: but as we get even older, the breaking down process
Speaker 1: can sometimes outpace the building process, which is why sometimes
Speaker 1: as you get older you actually get shorter um. It
Speaker 1: can also lead to problems like osteoporosis or the weakening
Speaker 1: of the bones. So basically you have this very dynamic
Speaker 1: construction process with your bones, and there are the two
Speaker 1: cells that are responsible are called osteo clasts and osteo blasts.
Speaker 1: So osteo clasts are like the demolitions expert of the team.
Speaker 1: They come in. They're responsible for breaking down the mineral
Speaker 1: components and collagen of your bones and releases these broken
Speaker 1: down components into the blood, which is a process called resorption,
Speaker 1: So you're reabsorbing these minerals that you're breaking down. Then
Speaker 1: osteoblasts come in use those recycled minerals and deposited into
Speaker 1: a new layer of bone tissue, which is called ossification.
Speaker 1: It's also one of the reasons that it's important to
Speaker 1: have calcium because even though you are recycling the bone
Speaker 1: that you're breaking down, it's a lossy process, like you
Speaker 1: lose some of the calcium in minerals. So like to
Speaker 1: help strengthen your bones so that like when they're rebuilding it,
Speaker 1: they have enough materials to build strong layers of bone.
Speaker 1: It's good to have calcium and milk or ice cream
Speaker 1: or eating animal bones. Now, I'm kidding, yes, sucking on
Speaker 1: chicken bones. That's gonna keep you strong and healthy. That's
Speaker 1: what I tell my son here, suck on this thing.
Speaker 1: And he's like going to town on the chicken bone.
Speaker 1: And and he's he's a huge child, bigger than me
Speaker 1: nowile for an age and headsize. He sucks all the time.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, I like, yeah, that's good parenting. That's what
Speaker 1: they call it. Start like a start like a dad
Speaker 1: blog where it's just about your giant child who eats
Speaker 1: chicken bones. I don't want to be the bean dad,
Speaker 1: but it's the opposite, right, because bean dad denied his
Speaker 1: daughter sustenance of the can of beans, whereas chicken dad
Speaker 1: offers whole chickens to his son and allows the sun
Speaker 1: to go to town. No, I'm gonna make him slaughter
Speaker 1: that chicken himself, right exactly. They got to learn be
Speaker 1: a man. Uh. Toxic masculinity is the worst thing to
Speaker 1: happen to chickens, truly, So whild bone. While routine bone
Speaker 1: regeneration is no big deal for humans, we can't regrow
Speaker 1: whole bones after like our limbs, something happens to a limb.
Speaker 1: You know, our bones can heal. You know, if you've
Speaker 1: ever had at a broken bone, you know that whole process.
Speaker 1: But if a limb is amputated, the bone doesn't just
Speaker 1: grow back along with the whole arm. Some of our
Speaker 1: tissue does regenerate to some degree, like our skin regenerates
Speaker 1: to some degree. But again we're not growing back whole
Speaker 1: arms and so why can't we do this? While salamanders
Speaker 1: totally can. Uh. Salamanders can regrow whole body parts, bones
Speaker 1: and all if they are lost, so it's legs or tail,
Speaker 1: it can regrow. They are able to do this trick
Speaker 1: by basically turning the cells at a wound site into
Speaker 1: embryonic undifferentiated cells. So they revert to these embryonic cells
Speaker 1: which can then uh be differentiated into any type of
Speaker 1: tissue needed. But humans and other vertebrates can't do this
Speaker 1: except when we're embryos. So, like I said earlier, when
Speaker 1: we're embryos, we can regrow limb buds because we have
Speaker 1: all of those stem cells, all of those like b
Speaker 1: sickly can be anything they want. Cells like in the lego.
Speaker 1: Remember in lego the movie to where it's like I
Speaker 1: can be anything. I want to be the thing. It's
Speaker 1: like the cells but then they're turning into bones. Is
Speaker 1: this track? Do the kids like this? I don't know
Speaker 1: if kids like this, but I think it makes sense. Yeah, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm hip. I know the Lego movies. So also
Speaker 1: not just embryos. This is a cool trick that young
Speaker 1: children can do to certain extents. So young children can
Speaker 1: regenerate the tips of their fingers much more easily than
Speaker 1: adults can, so they can grow back the whole finger,
Speaker 1: whereas as adults, we can't grow back some of our
Speaker 1: like the very tip of our finger. Again, don't try
Speaker 1: this at home, guys. I cannot emphasize this enough. Please
Speaker 1: don't try it at home. But yeah, children are much
Speaker 1: better at growing back the tips of their fingers, uh,
Speaker 1: because they have there. Like when you're younger, you just
Speaker 1: have more ability to regenerate because you're growing, you have
Speaker 1: more of these undifferentiated cells. But I think, like one
Speaker 1: of the big questions is like why don't humans and
Speaker 1: other vertebrates for that matter, like have these regeneration skills
Speaker 1: that we see in salamanders who are a vertebrate, but
Speaker 1: are one of the rare vertebrates who can regrow like
Speaker 1: whole limbs or even lizards who can regrow their tails.
Speaker 1: There's like a mammal called the spiny mouse which can
Speaker 1: regrow its fingers. Actually a lot of I think a
Speaker 1: lot of mice can actually regrow their fingers. With the
Speaker 1: spiny mouses especially interesting because it allows like whole chunks
Speaker 1: of its skin and tissue to get pulled off. It's
Speaker 1: if it's being attacked by something and then it can
Speaker 1: regrow it. So we see this in a few animals,
Speaker 1: but not in a lot of them, and especially not
Speaker 1: in big animals like humans. It it seems like a
Speaker 1: no brainer, like why wouldn't we want to regenerate arms?
Speaker 1: Clearly the biological ability to do that exists, but we
Speaker 1: just don't have that, which seems like a downer. But uh.
Speaker 1: One of the theories is that scar tissue formation is
Speaker 1: actually a positive trait that helps quickly seal wounds. So
Speaker 1: if every wound site goes like the whole regeneration route,
Speaker 1: we may not be able to close over that wound
Speaker 1: fast enough to prevent infection. So if you have a
Speaker 1: really big wound and you're really quickly sailing it with
Speaker 1: a scar. That may actually improve your outcome in terms
Speaker 1: of preventing infection, especially if you have a longer lifespan,
Speaker 1: like something like a sea slug or a lizard or
Speaker 1: a salamander or a mouse may have a shorter lifespan
Speaker 1: in having and you know, are more preyed upon. So
Speaker 1: being able to have this limb regeneration is a more
Speaker 1: important evolutionary feature than to something like a human, where
Speaker 1: you know, we we have longer lives, and so if
Speaker 1: like every time we get like a wound or something,
Speaker 1: it's like this long process of regeneration, we just have
Speaker 1: this like baby arm that takes the weeks and weeks
Speaker 1: to grow back, may actually be more difficult for us
Speaker 1: to survive. Another issue is that regeneration of huge amounts
Speaker 1: of tissue can actually increase the risk of cancer because
Speaker 1: every time you have cell replication, there's a chance, very
Speaker 1: very tiny chance of a mutation. But every time you
Speaker 1: like spin that wheel, you may get a cancerous cell um.
Speaker 1: So like if you have a whole limb regenerating versus
Speaker 1: just like some of your skin healing, that's mean you're
Speaker 1: rolling the like cell mutation die a lot more so
Speaker 1: it may increase the risks of cancer. So like again,
Speaker 1: like if you know, these kinds of traits would have
Speaker 1: started popping up much earlier in our evolutionary tree, but
Speaker 1: it would make sense if like our ancestors, it's like
Speaker 1: they are starting to get longer lifespans and they're bigger,
Speaker 1: and so like that playing with that number of cells
Speaker 1: ended up just like if you were regenerating things, it
Speaker 1: would maybe end up giving you cancer before you know
Speaker 1: it could serve you any purpose. Right, that makes sense.
Speaker 1: They never would have thought that being able to regenerate
Speaker 1: your limbs could give you cancer. So I'm glad. I'm
Speaker 1: glad devolution for sparing us that particular indignity. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Which is the thing about wolverine, like he should be
Speaker 1: riddled with tumors. Yeah no, no, no no, no no, but wolverines,
Speaker 1: uh powers killed cancerselves. They don't know. It's so called salamanderine.
Speaker 1: I think that's not as cool looking. And he wouldn't
Speaker 1: have the claws. He would just he wouldn't have legs.
Speaker 1: He just kind of screwed around. Just have legs. They do.
Speaker 1: They're right, you're right, so trot around right there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that would be cute, like a wolverine with little baby
Speaker 1: legs and like fascinating. What about brains? Can we regenerate
Speaker 1: brain tissue? The standard knowledge is that only children generate
Speaker 1: new brain tissue as adults are brains stop developing. Recovering
Speaker 1: from brain injuries or stroke doesn't involve growing new brain tissue,
Speaker 1: but through the art of neural plasticity. Neural plasticity is
Speaker 1: the brain's ability to adapt by rerouting neural connections and
Speaker 1: creating new neural networks using old brain tissue. It's how
Speaker 1: you learn new things even as an adult, and proves
Speaker 1: our brains are surprisingly good at making do with what
Speaker 1: we've got. But the classic idea that we can't regenerate
Speaker 1: neurons as adult is being called into question by new research.
Speaker 1: When adult neurons are damaged, they don't simply die. They
Speaker 1: may revert back to an embryonic state, from which point
Speaker 1: they can regenerate and create new connections. The real reason
Speaker 1: that brain tissue doesn't regrow after brain and, according to
Speaker 1: new research, is not that neurons themselves can't feel, but
Speaker 1: that the injured tissues surrounding the neurons is too damaged
Speaker 1: to keep the neurons alive long enough for them to feel.
Speaker 1: So now the question medical researchers are tackling is how
Speaker 1: we might be able to intervene by implanting a bio
Speaker 1: scaffold in the injured part of the brain to foster
Speaker 1: neural feeling. Speaking of brains, let's talk about one of
Speaker 1: the world's brainiest aquatic mammals, the dolphins, who, as it
Speaker 1: turns out, shares more with wolverine than aquaman. Dolphins are
Speaker 1: relatively large, so they don't face many natural predators other
Speaker 1: than human boats and fishers. But of course there are sharks.
Speaker 1: And while the conflict between sharks and dolphins is by
Speaker 1: no means one sided, dolphins are smart enough to tip
Speaker 1: smaller or younger sharks over, which stuns them allows the
Speaker 1: dolphins to mercilessly attack. Dolphins do have to worry about
Speaker 1: attacks from large sharks like bowl sharks are great whites.
Speaker 1: So what do you do when your backyard is fall
Speaker 1: of sharks? So, Dave, I think we take for granted
Speaker 1: that we don't just have to encounter sharks all the time,
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Well, yeah, I mean they'd
Speaker 1: have a hard time handling the surface world roller skates
Speaker 1: on roller skates, put them in a radio flyer in
Speaker 1: and pull them. They just like are in a little
Speaker 1: wagon like and then pushing it with their little flippers
Speaker 1: going I'm gonna get you, gonna get you. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: get a lot of sharks taking pitch for that, because okay,
Speaker 1: sharks literally, yeah, you get it that that shark tank
Speaker 1: isn't just a bunch of sharks. And then they have
Speaker 1: two buttons. Button one is yes and button two is no,
Speaker 1: and then if they press no, you get fed to them.
Speaker 1: And that's you know, I feel like, you know, there
Speaker 1: was a time when you could have like these very
Speaker 1: deep cable channels where not a whole lot was on
Speaker 1: and you just leave it on. Like I wanted to
Speaker 1: extended cable channel called Shark Tank where it's sharks in
Speaker 1: the tank and every twenty minutes or so they throw
Speaker 1: chum into the tank and that would be relaxing. I think, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would enjoy that. Yeah, but I do love sharks,
Speaker 1: But I also love that sharks are in the ocean
Speaker 1: and not out of the ocean where I am. Um.
Speaker 1: The threat to humans in terms of sharks is always
Speaker 1: sort of over overestimated. Like, It's true that sharks do
Speaker 1: very occasionally attack people, but the simple fact is we
Speaker 1: are just not around them that much. It's very rare,
Speaker 1: and most of them, most sharks don't actually want to
Speaker 1: deal with us, like, they don't want anything to do
Speaker 1: with us. We don't we don't taste good like. They
Speaker 1: don't seem to like how we taste like. They'll often
Speaker 1: take a bite and be like, oh no, no, thank you.
Speaker 1: So like often shark attacks are accidental, But dolphins, on
Speaker 1: the other hand, are not only potential prey, but they're
Speaker 1: also competitions. So dolphins and sharks get into fights sometimes.
Speaker 1: And if you're a dolphin, you need some strategy for
Speaker 1: living in this environment where you have a bunch of
Speaker 1: body boys running around trying trying to chomp on you.
Speaker 1: Another bad name. Let's move a punk band, though not
Speaker 1: a metal band, you know what I mean? The boys. Um. So,
Speaker 1: dolphins seem to be able to heal very rapidly from
Speaker 1: severe shark bites and other injuries from observations, so this
Speaker 1: is a pretty new area of research. How do you
Speaker 1: study something like this? You can't just have a dolphin
Speaker 1: in a lab and then hurt it, you'd be a monster,
Speaker 1: and you go to jail. You'd go to dolphin jail
Speaker 1: and human jail. Like I think I think everyone could
Speaker 1: agree that just like hurting a dolphin, you know, intentionally,
Speaker 1: you just go to jail, go to you know, So
Speaker 1: we can't study it without being evil in a lab setting.
Speaker 1: So it's all based on observations of dolphins. So these
Speaker 1: observations seem to indicate that they can survive what seems
Speaker 1: like it should be mortal wounds from a shark, and
Speaker 1: they don't seem to bleed out. They seem actually really
Speaker 1: surprisingly stoic. They don't seem to show a huge pain
Speaker 1: response at least visually, and they can heal back with
Speaker 1: minimal changes to their body contour. So that means like
Speaker 1: there's not a big like crater in their body. Like
Speaker 1: if you've ever had like a nasty injury or something,
Speaker 1: you know that sometimes your skin doesn't heel back all
Speaker 1: the way to where it used to be. You can
Speaker 1: actually have little craters or or bumps or something like that.
Speaker 1: That that's normal because like scar tissue doesn't necessarily it's
Speaker 1: not the same as the tissue was beforehand, So it's
Speaker 1: really surprising to be able to heal from a grievous
Speaker 1: like a shark bite that takes a chunk out of
Speaker 1: you and have minimal dimpling like that. Yeah, I lost
Speaker 1: some skin from like getting cut with some glass ring finger,
Speaker 1: left ring finger, and it's healed. Did healed fine, But
Speaker 1: it's always going to be kind of dented and kind
Speaker 1: of wrinkly looking, like it's never gonna go back to
Speaker 1: how it was because it's not the same tissue, like
Speaker 1: you said, yeah, yeah, and that's you know, that's that's normal.
Speaker 1: And when you think in terms of our survival, it
Speaker 1: makes sense because you know, you don't need necessarily your
Speaker 1: tissue to look exactly the same if you're healing fast enough.
Speaker 1: But like if you're dealing with a big, like a
Speaker 1: big chunky bite from a shark, you don't Losing all
Speaker 1: of that tissue mass would be harmful in terms of
Speaker 1: like your mobility. Especially as a dolphin. It makes sense
Speaker 1: that they would want to heal back from this relatively well.
Speaker 1: And I have shared an image with you I was.
Speaker 1: I did put a warning on it that it is
Speaker 1: dolphin um dolphin stuff. I think I might put this
Speaker 1: in the show notes, but I will put a lot
Speaker 1: of warnings on it so people know, because it shows
Speaker 1: pretty nasty, unpleasant looking, uh, injury on a dolphin from
Speaker 1: a shark bite. And each picture is sequential. So the
Speaker 1: last picture is the healed dolphin in the first pictures,
Speaker 1: it's initial injury. And looking at this it should It
Speaker 1: doesn't look like a surve livable wound. It looks you know,
Speaker 1: this looks like a dolphin. That is, it's days are numbered.
Speaker 1: It's horrific. Yes, if you're wondering if you want to
Speaker 1: look at it, because it's in the show notes, Uh,
Speaker 1: don't like. I feel like Katie's uh suggested a lot
Speaker 1: of truly horrible things for you after this podcast is
Speaker 1: over and I have to be the voice of reason
Speaker 1: and this dolphin Okay, okay, So don't eat chicken bones
Speaker 1: and don't look at the bad dolphin pictures. Yes, don't
Speaker 1: look at the dolphin picture. Please google dolphin injuries. No,
Speaker 1: don't do that. So you put you on a watch list.
Speaker 1: If you do that, well I'm probably already want on
Speaker 1: one then. Oh um. But yeah, So the reason I'm
Speaker 1: showing you this is not just to you know, gross
Speaker 1: you out, although that I gotta admit maybe that's part
Speaker 1: of it, but it is to show you how incredibly
Speaker 1: good the dolphins healing is like it does. It's not
Speaker 1: that it doesn't have scar tissue. It does, definitely can
Speaker 1: see that in the last thing, but it it's healed
Speaker 1: over and not only has it healed, but it's filled
Speaker 1: in a lot of them missing tissue. So it looks
Speaker 1: basically like like the the heel site looks like it
Speaker 1: should have been just from a few scratches, not from
Speaker 1: a shark literally taking a huge chunk out of it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it looks like I don't know, you know, the underside
Speaker 1: of rug. You know, it's got the like the material
Speaker 1: so it doesn't slide the inside of a dolphin looks
Speaker 1: like And it's interesting you'd say that because yeah, it's
Speaker 1: not like this super bloody tissue. And that seems to
Speaker 1: be that they're able to constrict the blood flow so
Speaker 1: they don't bleed out due to these wounds. In terms
Speaker 1: of how they're able to do this, obviously it's it's
Speaker 1: hard to know through pure observation. There are some theories
Speaker 1: that I read in terms of like being able to
Speaker 1: prevent blood loss, it may be through similar mechanisms that
Speaker 1: help them actually dive really deep, so they can decrease
Speaker 1: their heart rate and constrict blood from their peripheral tissues
Speaker 1: into the center of their bodies for deep dives, which
Speaker 1: helps them cope with the pressures of diving without risking
Speaker 1: the bins as they surface. But the blood constriction may
Speaker 1: also help them like not not bleed too heavily if
Speaker 1: they if it's shark takes a little nibble on them. Um,
Speaker 1: the stoke pain response is more of a mystery. It's
Speaker 1: just through observation. I don't know how they can possibly
Speaker 1: know that the dolphins not in pain. I bet it
Speaker 1: is like I don't really know, you know. It's like
Speaker 1: you can't ask a dolphin like on a scale of
Speaker 1: zero to ten, like how bad is your shark bite?
Speaker 1: And the dolphins going like like, we don't know. Is
Speaker 1: there a way to on ter like their brain activity? Um,
Speaker 1: possibly we would have to first like figure out what
Speaker 1: their brain does while they're in pain, which brings us
Speaker 1: back to the evil scientist thing again, Right, you'd have
Speaker 1: to torture the dolphin to But I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 1: like there's probably something more elegant, like, um, if you
Speaker 1: measure there are probably certain neurotransmitters associated with pain, like
Speaker 1: cortisol and production and stuff that's like that is a
Speaker 1: response to feeling pain is and is the body's way
Speaker 1: of trying to cope with the pain. So maybe if
Speaker 1: you like take a blood sample and measure the level
Speaker 1: of cortisol, maybe that would tell you something. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm not a pain scientist, because as much as it
Speaker 1: sounds like I'm an evil scientist on the show, I'm
Speaker 1: actually not because I'm not a scientist. But um, in
Speaker 1: terms of preventing infection, that's actually maybe an easier thing
Speaker 1: to answer. Dolphin blubber which is the layer of fatty
Speaker 1: tissues and dolphins blubbers also found in whales and other
Speaker 1: aquatic mammals like deals and walruses. So blubber contains antimicrobial
Speaker 1: and antibiotic compounds. These compounds are called organo halogens, and
Speaker 1: they contain chlorine molecules, which actually works as a disinfectant
Speaker 1: again or organo halogens. That one, No, that's a hair
Speaker 1: that's a hair band, Yeah, organo halogens. I can also
Speaker 1: see that being like a crowd rock, uh, like a
Speaker 1: craftwork kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah, like everyone's stressed as
Speaker 1: a name punk. Yeah. And in terms of how they
Speaker 1: heal so well without excess scar tissue or dimpling, researchers
Speaker 1: suspect it may be due to better regeneration of the
Speaker 1: tissue that they may have some of that salamander esque
Speaker 1: quality of being able to have their tissue revert back
Speaker 1: to that embryonic state and then heal um and so yeah,
Speaker 1: it's I think it's really interesting that, especially to see
Speaker 1: this in such a large animal, because I feel like
Speaker 1: it's usually the smaller animals that are able to do
Speaker 1: these amazing feats of regeneration. So having a big, highly
Speaker 1: intelligent animal being able to do this, it's like, it
Speaker 1: kind of makes me question why we're not better at it.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of things I feel like humans should
Speaker 1: be better at compared to dolphins. I'm just jealous of dolphins.
Speaker 1: They've got a lot to offer. I mean, they're cuter
Speaker 1: than us. They again care free living, don't have to
Speaker 1: pay taxes to go to the gym to stay in shape.
Speaker 1: They're constantly exercising. They're never not exercising, they're swimming all day.
Speaker 1: Maybe we should make them pay taxes though, like why
Speaker 1: is how is that fair? This is the platform of
Speaker 1: the Republican Party. I think going forward is tax the dolphins,
Speaker 1: don't tax me, tax and have the dolphins pick up
Speaker 1: the We're gonna make the dophints pay for it. We're
Speaker 1: gonna build a wall around the ocean and make the
Speaker 1: dolphins pay for it. Before we go, I want to
Speaker 1: read a really nice listener email. Um, so this is
Speaker 1: from Evan, and he writes, my name is Evan. He
Speaker 1: him his and I want to say I love your podcast.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Evan. I spent many years working as a
Speaker 1: Phish biologist for us FWS, working on e s A
Speaker 1: projects involved with fish. Some of the work I did
Speaker 1: for them required me reading up on some of the
Speaker 1: first written accounts on what people were finding in rivers
Speaker 1: in the Southwest. These were great biological writings that often
Speaker 1: gave us insight into a healthier stage of the river.
Speaker 1: And it was very interesting because many of the oldest
Speaker 1: biological descriptions for fish in the Southwest also contained a
Speaker 1: portion of the writing that described how they tasted and
Speaker 1: the best way to cook them. For a group of
Speaker 1: people trying to help save endangered species, we found it
Speaker 1: very funny that the original descriptions of these often involved
Speaker 1: how they tasted. So that was a long roundabout way
Speaker 1: of letting your gifts from this episode. No, so I
Speaker 1: think this was back. We did an episode and we
Speaker 1: speculated around, like is it okay to wonder how animals taste?
Speaker 1: Extinct animals or or other animals like tasted like dinosaurs.
Speaker 1: I think we're wondering how dinosaurs tasted. Anyways, Evan writes,
Speaker 1: so that that was a long roundabout way of letting
Speaker 1: your gifts from this episode. Know that it's okay to
Speaker 1: be thinking about how these species would taste. Uh. These days,
Speaker 1: I have more time to listen to podcasts. The business
Speaker 1: I started drinking horn metery has me driving a lot.
Speaker 1: In your podcast is a great way to get through
Speaker 1: the miles and learn a bit while I'm at it.
Speaker 1: If Stitcher let me put up reviews, you would have
Speaker 1: a five star review from me. Keep up the good
Speaker 1: work from Evan. Thank you, Evan, really sweet, Yeah, and
Speaker 1: thank you. That is interesting to me that, Like, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's unsurprising. I guess that early biologists are like, oh wow,
Speaker 1: a new animal, Let me put it in my mouth. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've never once thought like what is this animal taste?
Speaker 1: Like what is a dog tast? I don't want to
Speaker 1: find out. Well, not dogs, but if if you're like
Speaker 1: if you've got like a new type of fish, it's
Speaker 1: like pink and green, it's got weird spikes and like
Speaker 1: saw blades for eyeballs, Like I don't want to know.
Speaker 1: I'd want to know, like what's it hiding? What are
Speaker 1: you hiding? What kind of delicious flavors are you hiding? Right?
Speaker 1: Like I think Darwin ate a lot of the animals
Speaker 1: he discovered to well, you know, look, some people are
Speaker 1: afraid of research and knowledge, like me specifically. You're just
Speaker 1: you're just upset that I want to eat a bunch
Speaker 1: of undiscovered animals. I don't get what's there? What's there
Speaker 1: not to love? Keeps are normal, These are normal behaviors.
Speaker 1: These are feelings that everyone has, and it's balid. My
Speaker 1: wanting to eat iguanas is valid. I'm gonna stop king
Speaker 1: shaming and I'm gonna allow you to I know, I'm
Speaker 1: kidding again. Oh that's what someone says when it's definitely
Speaker 1: not a king. It's not a king. Oh, it's it's
Speaker 1: not sexual in anyway when sexual. Yeah, I think that's
Speaker 1: a good way. I think that's a good place in
Speaker 1: the podcast, don't I agree. I feel like we've gotten
Speaker 1: just to the point where this is still classy. We've
Speaker 1: just we've got We've come to the line of it
Speaker 1: and like if we cross it, no, Anyways, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for joining me today. I'm sorry for you know, um,
Speaker 1: eating chicken bones while we're recording, and for the pictures
Speaker 1: of all the weird things like self decapitation. But I
Speaker 1: hope you learned. Yeah. Absolutely, And I think in the
Speaker 1: show notes for this episode you should put time codes
Speaker 1: for every single moment when you made me sick to
Speaker 1: my stomach, just so the audience can skip ahead to
Speaker 1: the fund parties. Yeah, exactly, exactly. We will mark those down.
Speaker 1: Day've learned never to come on, Dave learned, Katie sucks,
Speaker 1: marrilettic chicken bones. Well, where can people find you? Oh?
Speaker 1: At my house? Uh, but you mean on the internet, right, Okay,
Speaker 1: So at Dave Underscore shilling is me on Twitter? You
Speaker 1: can find out all the things that I'm thinking about
Speaker 1: at three in the morning, or just you know, jokes
Speaker 1: or promotion for all the things that I'm doing uh,
Speaker 1: please please just seek me out, find me, follow me
Speaker 1: and interact with me, because I want to be your
Speaker 1: friend very much. That sounded that's nice, that's lovely. Um.
Speaker 1: But so people can just show up at your house, no,
Speaker 1: please don't. Uh yeah, And you can find us on
Speaker 1: the internet at Creature Feature Pod on Instagram, at Creature
Speaker 1: feet Pot on Twitter. That's f E a T, not
Speaker 1: f et. That is something very different. And if you
Speaker 1: want to write in your very own email to the show,
Speaker 1: you can write me at Creature Feature Product gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: Right in your complaints about all the chicken bone business.
Speaker 1: That's fine, Um, don't eat them. Don't eat them? Uh,
Speaker 1: disclaimer because I don't want people writing in I try
Speaker 1: to eat chicken bone now it's lodged in my brain,
Speaker 1: all right. And then also, yeah, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for listening. If you enjoyed what you heard, please leave
Speaker 1: a rating and over review. That really helps. I read
Speaker 1: them all. It warms my heart and it helps out
Speaker 1: with the algorithm. If you didn't enjoy it, you know,
Speaker 1: you don't have to say nothing. You can't say nothing.
Speaker 1: I won't stop you, but you you're it's Look, it's America.
Speaker 1: You can do whatever you want. Thank you to this
Speaker 1: Based Classics for the super awesome song Exo Alumina. Creature
Speaker 1: features a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: like the one you just heard, visit the I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio appop podcast or Hey guess what wherever I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna judge you. See you next Wednesday.