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Speaker 1: One mom gives birth to two species. Hit the news today, Evolution,

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Speaker 1: You're crazy. That's all I have to say.

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Speaker 2: Do physicists see the universe in their mind's eye or

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Speaker 2: is it easier to understand it if they're mentally blind.

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Speaker 1: Might's live on your face and make there at night?

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Speaker 1: Why would evolution do that? It's just not right.

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Speaker 2: Whatever questions keep you up at night, Daniel and Kelly's

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Speaker 2: answers will make it all right.

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Speaker 1: Or it'll creepy out even more. Welcome to Daniel and

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Speaker 1: Kelly's Extraordinary Universe.

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Speaker 2: Hi. I'm Daniel, I'm a particle physicist, and I think

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Speaker 2: the universe is beautiful and creepy.

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Speaker 1: Hi. I'm Kelly Winnersmith. I study parasites and space, and

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Speaker 1: I think the universe is also beautiful and creepy. And

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Speaker 1: sometimes creepy is beautiful and it's all complicated.

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Speaker 2: Have you met a parasite, Kelly where you're like, hmm,

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Speaker 2: that's too gross. I wish this didn't exist in the universe.

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Speaker 2: Or can you find some beauty in every single riggly, crawling,

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Speaker 2: disgusting thing.

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Speaker 1: I can find some beauty in everything, but I would

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Speaker 1: rather not be in the room with ascris lumbricoids. It's

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Speaker 1: a really long, really thick nematod. It really grosses me out.

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Speaker 1: And when we talked about screwworm a couple of weeks back,

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Speaker 1: maybe come a month's back now.

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Speaker 2: I'm still scarred from that conversation.

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Speaker 1: Yes, well, I looked at the photos and that.

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Speaker 2: Was don't do that, people, no nobody else do that.

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Speaker 1: We actually had a listener writers to say they did that,

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Speaker 1: and they were like, I should have listened to you

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Speaker 1: when you told me not to.

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Speaker 2: I have not googled screwworm, and I think I've protected

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Speaker 2: my men health for that reason.

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Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, do not google screwworm. It is super gross. So, yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's some parasites that I don't want to be in

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Speaker 1: the room with. I once watched a presentation. I was

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Speaker 1: studying a parasite that lives on the brains of California, killyfish,

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Speaker 1: and so I spent like literally all day working with brains.

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Speaker 1: But then I was watching an anthropology talk and they

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Speaker 1: went to a country that was like selling monkey brains,

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Speaker 1: and there was a table filled with monkey brains and

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Speaker 1: I was looking at just the picture and the room

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Speaker 1: started to spin. WHOA, and I was like, I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: throw up, and I was like, but I can't have

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Speaker 1: everybody see me throwing up over brains. I work on brains,

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Speaker 1: and anyway, I like just kind of looked down and

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Speaker 1: hoped nobody could see me, and I managed to get

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Speaker 1: through it. But it's weird the things that set us off.

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Speaker 2: The universe certainly sets us off, and I have the

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Speaker 2: same kind of reaction to, you know, astrophysical stuff. On

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Speaker 2: one hand, a supernova is amazing. On the other hand,

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Speaker 2: it could like sterilize a whole portion of the galaxy

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Speaker 2: with incredible radiation. Right, it's terrifying. The universe is beautiful

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Speaker 2: and incredible, but also violent and destructive and crazy. So

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Speaker 2: it is an extraordinary universe we live in, isn't it.

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Speaker 1: It is? And it's also, i gotta say, a confusing

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Speaker 1: universe we live in. And that kind of brings us

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Speaker 1: to our first question, which was really hard to unpack.

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Speaker 1: This question was an amazing question from a listener, Jamie,

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Speaker 1: who often writes us and sends us articles to be

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Speaker 1: like does this make any sense? And it's always fun

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Speaker 1: to dig in and this paper was particularly fun. So

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Speaker 1: the headline is one mother for two species via obligate

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Speaker 1: cross species cloning in ants.

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Speaker 2: Well, one mom keeping birth to two different species. Thought

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Speaker 2: that was impossible. Anyway, let's hear Jamie's question and then

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Speaker 2: dig in.

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Speaker 3: Hello, professors, this is Jamie Feffer from Westfield, New Jersey.

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Speaker 3: I would be grateful for your help understanding an article

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Speaker 3: that I read in the New York Time. It reports

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Speaker 3: on a study in Nature where scientists said that queens

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Speaker 3: from one species of ant produced male offspring of a

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Speaker 3: different species.

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Speaker 4: The scientist then said that it's like a human having chimp.

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Speaker 3: Babies and then using the babies as a source of sperm,

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Speaker 3: for giving birth to human chimp hybrids as a source

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Speaker 3: of labor.

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Speaker 4: What on earth is going on here? Please? It sounds

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Speaker 4: like a chapter from one of professor Kelly's books. Thank

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Speaker 4: you very much.

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Speaker 2: All right, Kelly, so set us up for why this

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Speaker 2: is a fascinating question. My understanding of what a species

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Speaker 2: means is that individuals can mate and give birth to

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Speaker 2: like live offspring that isn't sterile. And so how can

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Speaker 2: you give birth to two different species? How's that possible?

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Speaker 1: Yeah? It's crazy, right, So okay, so you can get

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Speaker 1: like a donkey and a horse, they can mate together

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Speaker 1: and make a mule, and the mule is sterile. And

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Speaker 1: so you can get like pretty distantly related species that

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Speaker 1: mate and produce something different, like for.

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Speaker 2: Example, my dog has Chihuahua and German shepherd ancestry, and

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Speaker 2: nobody knows how that happened. And I also won't suggest

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Speaker 2: googling that, but you know it did happen and he exists.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, don't think too hard about it.

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Speaker 1: But so those are different breeds, not different species, and

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Speaker 1: so that the equivalent here would be like you know,

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Speaker 1: so I gave birth to two human children, it would

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Speaker 1: be like I gave birth to one human children and

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Speaker 1: then the next one was a chimpanzee. And and that's

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Speaker 1: confusing and unexpected.

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Speaker 2: I mean, you always expect every child is going to

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Speaker 2: be different, but not that different, that's.

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Speaker 1: Right, that's right, that's pretty different. And the species, so

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Speaker 1: we're talking about ants in this example, and species one,

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Speaker 1: this is the species that gives birth to two species.

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Speaker 1: She the queens not only give birth to their own species,

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Speaker 1: as you would expect, but they're also able to give

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Speaker 1: birth to males of a different species that they've been

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Speaker 1: separated from for five million years.

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Speaker 2: Wow. All right, so this is like dogs give birth

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Speaker 2: to dogs and occasionally a cat.

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Speaker 1: Yes, right, I mean I don't know how long dogs

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Speaker 1: and cats diverge. That's probably more than five million years.

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Speaker 1: But yes, your point stands, and so okay, so here's

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Speaker 1: what's happening. So first, aunt mating systems are crazy, right,

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Speaker 1: and we're not going to go into loads of detail

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Speaker 1: because it's super complicated. But what you need to know

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Speaker 1: is that females are diploids. So what that means is

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Speaker 1: that they have two sets of chromosomes, just like humans.

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Speaker 1: We have two sets of chromosomes, right, But to make males,

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Speaker 1: they only have one set of chromosomes. So a female

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Speaker 1: doesn't have to mate with another male. If she wants

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Speaker 1: to lay dude eggs, she just takes one set of

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Speaker 1: her chromosomes, sticks them in the egg, and now you've

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Speaker 1: got males. So she doesn't have to mate. She can

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Speaker 1: make males on her own.

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Speaker 2: But to make a female she needs a contribution from

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Speaker 2: another member of her species.

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Speaker 1: That's right, So to make a female worker, she needs

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Speaker 1: to mate with another male.

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Speaker 2: But having these complicated relationships between the parents and the kids,

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Speaker 2: doesn't that mean that like the siblings relationships are complicated,

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Speaker 2: and like your evolutionary interests are intermingled in complicated ways.

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Speaker 2: If I remember, like aunts have really complicated sibling math.

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Speaker 1: Yeah they do, Okay, So the bottom line is that

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Speaker 1: the sisters share about seventy five percent of their genetic

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Speaker 1: material with each other, whereas usually sisters share about fifty percent.

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Speaker 2: So like human sisters share fifty percent, you're saying.

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Speaker 1: That's right, yeah, and aunt sisters share seventy five percent.

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Speaker 1: And we think that this plays a role and why

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Speaker 1: ant colonies work so well together. So you can think

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Speaker 1: of aunt colonies as like a super organism. You've got

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Speaker 1: the queen who's laying a bunch of eggs, and then

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Speaker 1: all of the females work to support the queen, and

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Speaker 1: you would maybe not expect such selfless behavior unless individuals

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Speaker 1: were super closely related to each other, which means that

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Speaker 1: when the queen is making a lot more babies, they're

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Speaker 1: essentially making individuals who are very genetically similar to you.

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Speaker 1: And so from a genetic standpoint and from an evolutionary standpoint,

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Speaker 1: this is great news. So maybe you're willing to not

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Speaker 1: mate because your mom is making so many super genetically

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Speaker 1: related sisters and it's awesome. Does that kind of make sense?

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Speaker 2: Mm hmmm, that makes sense. Yeah, Okay, so that explains

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Speaker 2: like how the siblings are related to each other. Why

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Speaker 2: don't we need to understand that to understand how you

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Speaker 2: can give birth to another kind of species?

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Speaker 1: Okay, So the thing that you want to know is

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Speaker 1: that this ant that was all over the news recently,

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Speaker 1: when she's giving birth to a new species, she's giving

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Speaker 1: birth to sons in particular. Okay, And so here's what happened.

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Speaker 1: If you're in Europe and in Asia, you will find

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Speaker 1: these two species of ants. One of them is called

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Speaker 1: Mezsor ibericus, and one is Mesor structor. But we're never

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Speaker 1: going to keep those straight, so I'm going to call

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Speaker 1: them species one that's Ibericus and species two structor. All right,

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Speaker 1: In part of their range they overlap, and in part

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Speaker 1: of their range they don't. So there's some areas where

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Speaker 1: you just find species one, some areas where you just

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Speaker 1: find species two, and some areas where you find colonies

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Speaker 1: of species one and species two. In addition to all

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Speaker 1: of the ant reproductive weirdness with the females being diploid

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Speaker 1: and the males being haploid, this system has another weird trait,

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Speaker 1: which is called sperm parasitism. So here's what happens. The

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Speaker 1: workers in the nest are females, but instead of mom

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Speaker 1: mating with a male of her species, mom mates with

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Speaker 1: a male of a different species. Right, so they're closely

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Speaker 1: related enough that they can still mate with each other,

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Speaker 1: but they produce I believe, infertile offspring that become workers.

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Speaker 1: And so why would that evolve. The reason we think

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Speaker 1: that that evolved is because, yes, it's nice that all

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Speaker 1: the sisters are seventy five percent related to each other.

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Speaker 1: But every once in a while, one of the workers

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Speaker 1: will get it in their head and I'm being super

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Speaker 1: anthromorphic here, but they'll get it in their heads that

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Speaker 1: maybe it would be better if they just laid their

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Speaker 1: own eggs. And now you've got a competitor with the queen.

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Speaker 1: But if all of your workers are these hybrids that

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Speaker 1: are sterile, they can't make their own eggs anymore. And

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Speaker 1: so the queen essentially has this extra layer of control

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Speaker 1: over her colony because none of her workers are even

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Speaker 1: able to compete with her. It's just not even a question. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And so there are you know, a handful of different

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Speaker 1: ant species we know of that do this thing called

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Speaker 1: sperm parasitism, where they make these hybrid sterile workers by

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Speaker 1: mating with males of a different species.

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Speaker 2: And why exactly is it called parasitism?

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Speaker 1: I think the idea is that so for species two,

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Speaker 1: the males that are impregnating the queen, they're essentially wasting

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Speaker 1: their sperm, so they impregnate the queen of species one,

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Speaker 1: and all of those offspring are sterile, so they don't

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Speaker 1: go anywhere. So the males of species two have made

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Speaker 1: this sperm, paid the cost to make it, and it's

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Speaker 1: genetically evolutionarily not going to end up, you know, contributing

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Speaker 1: to more offspring for them.

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Speaker 2: And when Jamie asked you this question, do you think

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Speaker 2: he knew there was a parasite angle on it or

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Speaker 2: is that just like a happy bonus for everybody.

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Speaker 1: I don't know. It might have just been a happy bonus,

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Speaker 1: but I'm excited either way. Jamie knows us pretty well,

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Speaker 1: so maybe this was a gift for me.

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Speaker 2: I didn't realize that even sperms can be parasites. That's incredible.

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Speaker 1: Oh no, no, no, the sperm is being parasitized. Oh right, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: So the queen is essentially like extracting the sperm for

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Speaker 1: her own purposes. Wow, but not benefiting species too?

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Speaker 2: Is there an evil cackle that happens along the way?

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Speaker 2: You think.

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Speaker 1: I won't, but there's little ants, So it's gotta be

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Speaker 1: a little high pitched voice. Try that, Daniel.

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Speaker 2: I can't do that. I can't do that.

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Speaker 1: Okay, Well, all right, so that was amazing. That's already weird. Okay.

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Speaker 1: But so for species one, it has now actually become

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Speaker 1: a requirement that the queen mates with another species. She

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Speaker 1: can't produce these workers anymore unless she finds species two males.

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Speaker 2: The thing you thought you were going to do just

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Speaker 2: once turns out to be a habit, and then now

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Speaker 2: you can't live without it.

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Speaker 1: I know that's right. We've all been there, and so

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Speaker 1: for me it's coffee, But.

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Speaker 2: So for other people it's sperm paraticism.

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Speaker 1: That's right. That's right to each their own right. So okay,

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Speaker 1: so you might remember that I told you that there

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Speaker 1: are areas where you only find species one or you

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Speaker 1: only find species two. Right, So if species one has

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Speaker 1: to mate with species two, how does species one manage

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Speaker 1: to persist far away from species two? And there's one

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Speaker 1: spot where it's known that there's one thousand kilometers between

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Speaker 1: the nearest Species one and Species two nests. All right,

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Speaker 1: so there's no queens of species two in the area.

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Speaker 1: But if you find a Species one nest and you

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Speaker 1: dig it up, you'll find that there are still hybrid

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Speaker 1: individuals in there. So there's still the hybrid workers. And

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Speaker 1: so the question is how the heck is she managing

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Speaker 1: to produce these hybrids when there's no males of species

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Speaker 1: two around. Yeah, the answer is going to be that

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Speaker 1: she makes species two males, which is crazy. Right, So

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Speaker 1: let's go through the process that the scientists went through

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Speaker 1: to sort of study this. So first they opened up

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Speaker 1: species one nests and they looked very carefully at everybody

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Speaker 1: who was in there in an area where you shouldn't

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Speaker 1: find any Species two, and they did find some Species

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Speaker 1: two males in the nest, and they were like, okay,

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Speaker 1: that's really weird. And so then they looked at the

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Speaker 1: genetic information inside of species two and they found that

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Speaker 1: Species two had mitochondria from species one. And if you

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Speaker 1: know anything about mitochondria, you might remember that mitochondria are

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Speaker 1: only inherited from mom. So that means that these species

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Speaker 1: two males must have come from a mom of species

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Speaker 1: one because they've got her mitochondria. And they went over

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Speaker 1: to areas where you find species two normally like in

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Speaker 1: their own sort of colony, and they confirmed species two

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Speaker 1: males usually have mitochondria from species two moms. And so

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Speaker 1: this was weird.

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Speaker 2: So you can tell the difference between species two males

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Speaker 2: that come from species one or species two by their mitochondria.

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Speaker 1: Yes, wow, yeah, very cool. But they wanted to make

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Speaker 1: one hundred percent sure that the queens were the ones

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Speaker 1: who were laying the eggs that had the males, and

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Speaker 1: so they took queens and workers and they brought them

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Speaker 1: into the lab, and some of the workers that they

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Speaker 1: brought into the lab these were from species one. They

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Speaker 1: went ahead and they did lay some of their own eggs,

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Speaker 1: and what they found was that nine percent of the

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Speaker 1: eggs made by queens of species one produced males of

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Speaker 1: species two. Amazing, right, were weird. And when the workers

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Speaker 1: of species one made some eggs, none of them were

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Speaker 1: species two. It's just the queen who's doing this, Okay.

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Speaker 1: So then they monitored a colony that they brought into

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Speaker 1: the lab for a year and a half, and they

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Speaker 1: found that the mom produced Species one and Species two males.

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Speaker 1: They both survived to reproductive age, and they looked genetically

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Speaker 1: and they confirmed, Okay, one queen is definitely making species

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Speaker 1: one and Species two males. How is she doing that?

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Speaker 1: So one possibility here is that a lot of invertebrates

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Speaker 1: are able to store sperm, so you can mate with

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Speaker 1: a male, and a couple months later you can be like, oh,

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna take that sperm that I was storing, and

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Speaker 1: now I'm gonna fertilize my eggs, and even though there's

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Speaker 1: no males around, I can go ahead and have some

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Speaker 1: extra babies.

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Speaker 2: I didn't know it lasted that long. I thought I

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Speaker 2: had a short life span, like twenty four hours or

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Speaker 2: forty eight hours or something.

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Speaker 1: I don't know exactly how long it is, but it's

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Speaker 1: more than twenty four or forty eight hours. But by

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Speaker 1: having them in the lab for eighteen months, they were

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Speaker 1: able to, like pretty conclusively say, Okay, the females probably

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Speaker 1: aren't like flying one thousand kilometers to go find a

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Speaker 1: Species two male, mating with him and then coming back

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Speaker 1: like she's been in the lab the whole.

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Speaker 2: Time, or maybe they're like actually aliens and have wormhole

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Speaker 2: technology and they're like teleporting over there. That's right, not

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Speaker 2: a hypothesis they considered.

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Speaker 1: No, you know, they didn't have a physicist on the team, probably,

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Speaker 1: and I.

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Speaker 2: Know that you always need a physicist, right, maybe maybe

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Speaker 2: maybe Are you not even going to agree with me

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Speaker 2: on that one?

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Speaker 1: Yeah?

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Speaker 2: Heads your bed on that one, all right?

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Speaker 1: Probably almost certainly.

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Speaker 2: At least we should consider having a physicist on every project.

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Speaker 1: Sure, right, And are you going to consider having a

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Speaker 1: biologist on every project to make sure you all stay

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Speaker 1: down to Earth?

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Speaker 2: I already do? Oh, I already do, of course, okay, okay,

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Speaker 2: all right. So they saw this essentially happened in the

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Speaker 2: lab and controlled conditions, so they knew that she was

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Speaker 2: actually generating species to herself.

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Speaker 1: Yes, right. They also looked at like genetic diverse of

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Speaker 1: species two males in their native range and in these

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Speaker 1: species one nests, and they were very low diversity, which

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Speaker 1: you would expect, you know, if there was something weird happening,

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Speaker 1: and the males were just like a very small subset

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Speaker 1: of their genes were being passed through species one over time.

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Speaker 1: So here is what they think is happening. Females are

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Speaker 1: somehow cloning males and all cloning means. And you might

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Speaker 1: remember this from a past conversation where we talked about cloning,

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Speaker 1: like in our episode about the dire wolf that was

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Speaker 1: made by Colossal. So essentially, what you do is you

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Speaker 1: take an egg and you like extract the genetic information

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Speaker 1: from the egg, except you can leave the mitochondria in there,

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Speaker 1: and then you put new genetic information into that egg,

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Speaker 1: and then what hatches is the species or the individual

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Speaker 1: associated with the new genetic information. Does that make sense?

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Speaker 1: So somehow the females seem to be taking genetic information

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Speaker 1: from species two, plopping it into their own eggs, and

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Speaker 1: producing species two males. They don't know exactly how that's happening,

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Speaker 1: but the way that it could work in theory is

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Speaker 1: that you've got a queen from species one in an

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Speaker 1: area where the species overlap, She mates with the male

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Speaker 1: from species two and stores that sperm. She migrates away

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Speaker 1: from the area where the species overlap and goes and

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Speaker 1: starts her new colonies somewhere completely different. She uses that

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Speaker 1: sperm to make males, and then she mates with those

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Speaker 1: males to get her hybrid workers.

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Speaker 2: That's pretty ikey though, she's like meeting with her own sons.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I mean nature. Yeah, has a lot of

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Speaker 1: uncomfortable stuff happening.

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Speaker 2: I'm sure we can find some beauty in that. Also.

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Speaker 1: Nope, and so moving on and so hard. No so

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Speaker 1: uh okay. So she's got she can mate with these

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Speaker 1: males that she made, and now she's got her hybrid workers.

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Speaker 1: But when it's time to make a queen a new queen,

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Speaker 1: she can mate with the other male that are of

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Speaker 1: her species, and then those queens can mate with the

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Speaker 1: males of species two that are already in the colony

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Speaker 1: with them. They can acquire that sperm, and then they

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Speaker 1: can bring that sperm with them even farther away from

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Speaker 1: the initial area that they live, so even farther away

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Speaker 1: from where you usually find species two.

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Speaker 2: So this is a mechanism for extending your colonies beyond

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Speaker 2: the boundaries of species too. They like need species too,

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Speaker 2: but it's not always available, so they evolve this mechanism

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Speaker 2: to basically cut them out of the loop and make

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Speaker 2: them themselves right.

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Speaker 1: Yes, and then they also have this amazing ability to like,

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Speaker 1: instead of combining genetic information, they just take the male's

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Speaker 1: genetic information and like and clone them, which is totally crazy.

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Speaker 1: And to be honest, the authors were very clear, we

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Speaker 1: do not know the mechanism to explain what's happening here,

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Speaker 1: and so this is just like a hypothetical. But they

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Speaker 1: compared it to domestication. It's kind of like domesticating species

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Speaker 1: two and sort of taking it with you for your

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Speaker 1: own purposes. And I'm not quite sure that I buy

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Speaker 1: the comparison, but it's an interesting way to think about it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that is fascinating. They're sort of raising it and

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Speaker 2: co opting it for their own purposes in that sense.

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Speaker 2: But when we domesticate cats, there's no like interbreeding. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: I mean not usually that I'm aware of.

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Speaker 1: Oh oh more, absolutely not.

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Speaker 2: Okay, I mean when people say cat lady, I don't

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Speaker 2: think that's what they mean.

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Speaker 1: Right, Oh goshh not safe for work. So the authors

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Speaker 1: propose a new word, changing the subject. The new word

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Speaker 1: is xenoparis, meaning they quote need to produce individuals of

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Speaker 1: another species as part of their life cycle.

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Speaker 2: Wow.

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Speaker 1: Zeno means like strange or different, and parody means like

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Speaker 1: to give birth, so anyway giving birth to something different.

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Speaker 2: So does this mean we should again broaden our concept

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Speaker 2: of what a species is. That the lines are even

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Speaker 2: fuzzier than we thought before. The biology is amazing us

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Speaker 2: and how messy it is again.

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Speaker 1: So you let's hold that answer because I am working

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Speaker 1: on a whole episode on how do you define species?

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Speaker 1: And all of the weird things evolution does that makes

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Speaker 1: our job really difficult. It's going to be like a

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Speaker 1: philosophical discussion, which I think will be right up your alley. Yep, yeah, yes,

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Speaker 1: So tune in for the answer in a future episode,

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Speaker 1: and let's see if Jamie feels like I managed to

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Speaker 1: figure this paper out.

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Speaker 2: Wow, all right, let's hear from Jamie.

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Speaker 3: Thanks Jamie, thank you very much for explaining the article.

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Speaker 3: I'm glad there was at least some form of parasitism

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Speaker 3: in there. For Professor Kelly, I look forward to your

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Speaker 3: episode on defining a species.

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Speaker 4: A story like this makes me wonder if maybe our.

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Speaker 3: Categories are too rigid, or perhaps they don't apply to

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Speaker 3: all creatures equally. Thanks, though, I'm really grateful for the explanation.

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Speaker 1: All right, So from ants to ant Fantasia, which I

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Speaker 1: you know, reliably produced incorrectly. I'm sure.

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Speaker 2: Me ouch on that one there, Kelly, all right, so

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Speaker 2: we are answering questions today. We love getting questions from listeners.

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Speaker 2: If you have a question about the nature of the universe,

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Speaker 2: or really anything about this beautiful, incredible, disgusting cosmic violence

415
00:22:27,040 --> 00:22:29,280
Speaker 2: that we have and that we live in, please write

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Speaker 2: to us to questions at to Daniel and Kelly dot org.

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Speaker 2: We will get back to you. And here's a question

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Speaker 2: about visual imagery in the mind and how it enables

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Speaker 2: or disables people to do physics.

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Speaker 5: Hi, Daniel and Kelly. I recently found out that I

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Speaker 5: have a trait called a fantasia, which is the inability

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Speaker 5: to consciously pull up visual imagery in my mind. I

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Speaker 5: do dream, though, but finding out others can picture an

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Speaker 5: apple in their head with their eyes open or closed

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Speaker 5: was mind blowing. And I've gone most of my adult

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Speaker 5: life without even knowing this. Imagine my continued surprise when

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Speaker 5: I discovered that it's not limited to visual information, but

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Speaker 5: can also include auditory smell, and even taste. I enjoy

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Speaker 5: reading sci fi and fantasy, but my experience in your

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Speaker 5: experience must be worlds apart. And that leads me to

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Speaker 5: my question, as a physicist, how do you use imagery

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Speaker 5: on a day to day basis, are you writing equations

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Speaker 5: on a chalkboard? And if so, are you holding the chalk?

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Speaker 1: Thanks so much, Oh my gosh, this is such a

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Speaker 1: fascinating question. And this question reminded me of Temple grand

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00:23:41,280 --> 00:23:44,520
Speaker 1: And so when we got our son's autism diagnosis, I

437
00:23:44,600 --> 00:23:49,080
Speaker 1: read every biography I could find written or autobiography written

438
00:23:49,080 --> 00:23:51,040
Speaker 1: by someone who's autistic, so that I could try to

439
00:23:51,119 --> 00:23:53,520
Speaker 1: understand what his life would be like. And I guess

440
00:23:53,520 --> 00:23:58,119
Speaker 1: Temple Grandon has this amazing ability to sort of imagine

441
00:23:58,119 --> 00:24:01,680
Speaker 1: what it's like to be So she works with livestock

442
00:24:01,680 --> 00:24:04,760
Speaker 1: and tries to create ways to make their lives better

443
00:24:04,840 --> 00:24:07,800
Speaker 1: and have more humane practices. And she's amazingly good at

444
00:24:07,840 --> 00:24:10,520
Speaker 1: like envisioning what it must be like to be a

445
00:24:10,520 --> 00:24:12,840
Speaker 1: cow and what it is that they're seeing. And she

446
00:24:13,000 --> 00:24:16,359
Speaker 1: clearly can imagine things way better than I can. And

447
00:24:16,400 --> 00:24:18,920
Speaker 1: it sounds like this listener is on the other side

448
00:24:18,920 --> 00:24:21,760
Speaker 1: where they're able to envision even less than I can.

449
00:24:22,000 --> 00:24:24,600
Speaker 1: And I think this spectrum is totally fascinating.

450
00:24:25,000 --> 00:24:27,880
Speaker 2: It is really amazing, and it's something we only understood

451
00:24:28,000 --> 00:24:30,680
Speaker 2: like in the last you know, ten or fifteen years,

452
00:24:30,720 --> 00:24:35,640
Speaker 2: that there is a variation between people and their mental imagery. Essentially,

453
00:24:35,680 --> 00:24:37,879
Speaker 2: we've been communicating with each other about this kind of

454
00:24:37,880 --> 00:24:41,160
Speaker 2: stuff for thousands of years and not realizing that we're

455
00:24:41,200 --> 00:24:44,960
Speaker 2: having very different experiences internally. And I read this excellent

456
00:24:45,080 --> 00:24:48,240
Speaker 2: article in The New Yorker very recently about a fantasia

457
00:24:48,680 --> 00:24:52,000
Speaker 2: from late October. Really recommend it, and it begins with

458
00:24:52,080 --> 00:24:56,280
Speaker 2: the story of a physicist who, in his late thirties

459
00:24:56,359 --> 00:25:00,639
Speaker 2: or early forties, finally realizes that when everybody else is

460
00:25:00,680 --> 00:25:03,640
Speaker 2: talking about having images in their minds, they're being literal

461
00:25:03,680 --> 00:25:06,920
Speaker 2: about it. He thought forever that everyone was just sort

462
00:25:06,920 --> 00:25:09,160
Speaker 2: of like using metaphors like I mean, you say you're

463
00:25:09,160 --> 00:25:11,040
Speaker 2: thinking about that, you're seeing that in your mind, but

464
00:25:11,080 --> 00:25:14,439
Speaker 2: you're not literally like seeing it, right, And it was

465
00:25:14,520 --> 00:25:18,040
Speaker 2: only like recently the dude is like totally grown up

466
00:25:18,040 --> 00:25:21,120
Speaker 2: when he realized people are being literal, that some people

467
00:25:21,200 --> 00:25:25,359
Speaker 2: can close their eyes and imagine an apple from yesterday

468
00:25:25,440 --> 00:25:28,639
Speaker 2: and like see it'd be green and shimmery, and you know,

469
00:25:29,000 --> 00:25:32,520
Speaker 2: really visualize these things. He thought everybody was being figurative.

470
00:25:32,840 --> 00:25:34,640
Speaker 1: What do you think it would be like to realize

471
00:25:34,640 --> 00:25:37,280
Speaker 1: that as an adult? I mean, I think animal behaviors

472
00:25:37,320 --> 00:25:39,000
Speaker 1: think about this kind of stuff. All the time, like

473
00:25:39,200 --> 00:25:41,520
Speaker 1: you know, that animal could do something I can't, But

474
00:25:41,560 --> 00:25:43,760
Speaker 1: it must have been a crazy moment to realize.

475
00:25:44,000 --> 00:25:46,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I think everybody is a little different. And

476
00:25:46,680 --> 00:25:49,800
Speaker 2: as you're growing up, you discover like, wow, everybody thinks

477
00:25:49,840 --> 00:25:52,480
Speaker 2: that swimming is fun and I hate the beach, Or

478
00:25:52,600 --> 00:25:55,199
Speaker 2: everybody else loves chocolate but I think it's gross. Or

479
00:25:55,280 --> 00:25:58,960
Speaker 2: watermelon tastes like cilantro. So it's not unusual to find

480
00:25:59,080 --> 00:26:02,880
Speaker 2: something that makes you different. But it is amazing how

481
00:26:02,960 --> 00:26:05,840
Speaker 2: such fundamental parts of what we think about the human

482
00:26:05,920 --> 00:26:08,919
Speaker 2: experience can be different from person to person. And you know,

483
00:26:08,960 --> 00:26:11,159
Speaker 2: this is a question like philosophers have been debating for

484
00:26:11,240 --> 00:26:13,240
Speaker 2: thousands of years, like what is it like to be

485
00:26:13,280 --> 00:26:15,960
Speaker 2: a bat? Do we see the same color red? And

486
00:26:16,119 --> 00:26:19,480
Speaker 2: so sort of incredible that it's only recently people have

487
00:26:19,520 --> 00:26:23,680
Speaker 2: been studying this in detail. And this article goes into

488
00:26:23,680 --> 00:26:26,520
Speaker 2: the history of the study of it, which is only

489
00:26:26,520 --> 00:26:28,520
Speaker 2: about one hundred and fifty years old. Does a guy

490
00:26:28,560 --> 00:26:32,200
Speaker 2: Francis Galton, who's also sort of a famous eugenicist, Yeah,

491
00:26:32,280 --> 00:26:35,720
Speaker 2: did some early research and found a bunch of examples

492
00:26:35,720 --> 00:26:39,720
Speaker 2: of scientists who he says, quote, have feeble powers of

493
00:26:39,840 --> 00:26:44,800
Speaker 2: visual representation, so scientists in particular tend to not be

494
00:26:44,960 --> 00:26:48,119
Speaker 2: able to imagine things in their minds, which I think is,

495
00:26:48,480 --> 00:26:52,280
Speaker 2: you know, the impetus for today's question. And that's surprising

496
00:26:52,359 --> 00:26:56,040
Speaker 2: because it feels like visual imagery is so important to physics.

497
00:26:56,119 --> 00:26:59,919
Speaker 2: Like think of the story of Einstein coming up with relativity.

498
00:27:00,320 --> 00:27:02,880
Speaker 2: He says that he was imagining, or trying to imagine,

499
00:27:02,920 --> 00:27:05,760
Speaker 2: pulling up alongside a photon, and in realizing that that

500
00:27:05,840 --> 00:27:09,400
Speaker 2: was impossible, he understood how photons have no reference frame.

501
00:27:09,480 --> 00:27:12,960
Speaker 2: And Einstein's work is filled with these examples of trains

502
00:27:12,960 --> 00:27:15,600
Speaker 2: and passing each other in light, and clearly he's imagining

503
00:27:15,680 --> 00:27:19,680
Speaker 2: visual situations right. And in chemistry there's lots of examples

504
00:27:19,720 --> 00:27:22,360
Speaker 2: like how did somebody figure out the structure of benzene?

505
00:27:22,359 --> 00:27:24,600
Speaker 2: They had like a dream of a snake biting its

506
00:27:24,600 --> 00:27:28,600
Speaker 2: own tail. It's like very vivid visual imagery. So it's

507
00:27:28,640 --> 00:27:31,879
Speaker 2: easy to imagine that having vivid mental imagery would be

508
00:27:32,000 --> 00:27:33,760
Speaker 2: essential for doing science. Right.

509
00:27:33,960 --> 00:27:36,639
Speaker 1: Yeah, but Galton was wrong about a lot of things.

510
00:27:36,800 --> 00:27:40,280
Speaker 1: Was a lot of things, a lot of important things.

511
00:27:40,520 --> 00:27:42,160
Speaker 1: Was he wrong about this too?

512
00:27:42,440 --> 00:27:45,240
Speaker 2: So we don't have enough data to know and the

513
00:27:45,320 --> 00:27:48,040
Speaker 2: fields has really gone back and forth, like in the

514
00:27:48,080 --> 00:27:53,720
Speaker 2: early nineteen hundreds, the widespread belief among psychologists was that

515
00:27:53,840 --> 00:27:58,520
Speaker 2: mental imagery didn't exist. There's a movement of behaviorism led

516
00:27:58,560 --> 00:28:01,840
Speaker 2: by a guy named JB. Watson who says, quote, what

517
00:28:01,880 --> 00:28:04,600
Speaker 2: does a person mean when he closes his eyes or

518
00:28:04,680 --> 00:28:08,080
Speaker 2: ears and says, I see the house where I was born? Touching,

519
00:28:08,160 --> 00:28:11,240
Speaker 2: of course, but sheer bunk. We are merely dramatizing. The

520
00:28:11,320 --> 00:28:14,399
Speaker 2: behaviorist finds no proof of imagery in all of this.

521
00:28:15,400 --> 00:28:18,680
Speaker 2: So psychiatrists felt like, no, you're not really feeling these things.

522
00:28:18,680 --> 00:28:21,359
Speaker 2: You're not really seeing these things, which is bizarre because

523
00:28:21,359 --> 00:28:23,600
Speaker 2: some of them must have been experiencing it, right. But

524
00:28:23,640 --> 00:28:26,159
Speaker 2: you know, that was just the movement. It's science is

525
00:28:26,160 --> 00:28:28,680
Speaker 2: weird that way. It follows these trends and these fads,

526
00:28:28,720 --> 00:28:31,640
Speaker 2: and eventually it zigzags towards the truth. But it can

527
00:28:31,680 --> 00:28:33,360
Speaker 2: go down some weird rabbit.

528
00:28:33,080 --> 00:28:34,720
Speaker 1: Holes, yeah, and it can get stuck in them for

529
00:28:34,720 --> 00:28:35,119
Speaker 1: a while.

530
00:28:35,480 --> 00:28:38,240
Speaker 2: Yeah. And so it was only the early two thousands

531
00:28:38,760 --> 00:28:42,720
Speaker 2: when a Scotsman had a cardiac procedure and after that

532
00:28:42,800 --> 00:28:46,680
Speaker 2: discovered he could no longer picture anything like he used

533
00:28:46,680 --> 00:28:49,280
Speaker 2: to be able to. And then he had this procedure

534
00:28:49,320 --> 00:28:51,560
Speaker 2: done and all of a sudden, he like couldn't have

535
00:28:51,640 --> 00:28:54,400
Speaker 2: a mental image of you know, his wife's face when

536
00:28:54,440 --> 00:28:57,320
Speaker 2: she wasn't there. He like lost this ability.

537
00:28:57,880 --> 00:28:59,760
Speaker 1: What was the tie in with the cardiac procedure. Did

538
00:28:59,800 --> 00:29:02,280
Speaker 1: part of his brain not get enough oxygen as part

539
00:29:02,280 --> 00:29:02,960
Speaker 1: of the procedure.

540
00:29:03,280 --> 00:29:06,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, So he went to a neurologist, and this neurologist

541
00:29:06,200 --> 00:29:09,040
Speaker 2: had always been interested in this kind of stuff anyway,

542
00:29:09,720 --> 00:29:11,880
Speaker 2: and did a study and showed that part of this

543
00:29:11,920 --> 00:29:15,520
Speaker 2: guy's brain had been like weakened, probably because of this

544
00:29:15,600 --> 00:29:19,440
Speaker 2: cardiac event, and he was trying to call these mental

545
00:29:19,480 --> 00:29:21,640
Speaker 2: images up, but that part of his brain was not activating.

546
00:29:21,720 --> 00:29:23,160
Speaker 2: So he found the part of the brain that was

547
00:29:23,160 --> 00:29:26,440
Speaker 2: like activating when other people were making mental images, and

548
00:29:26,560 --> 00:29:29,520
Speaker 2: in this guy was now failing. Wow, And so he

549
00:29:29,560 --> 00:29:32,280
Speaker 2: wrote an article about it. It is like a new discovery.

550
00:29:32,800 --> 00:29:34,440
Speaker 2: And then a bunch of people wrote in and they

551
00:29:34,440 --> 00:29:37,960
Speaker 2: were like, oh, my gosh, that describes my experience. And

552
00:29:38,040 --> 00:29:40,360
Speaker 2: so it turned out this wasn't just like one random

553
00:29:40,400 --> 00:29:43,200
Speaker 2: scotsman who had an injury, but it was fairly common,

554
00:29:44,000 --> 00:29:47,960
Speaker 2: and so he decided to call this afhantasia. Fantasia was

555
00:29:48,000 --> 00:29:50,880
Speaker 2: defined by Aristotle as the ability to conjure an image

556
00:29:50,880 --> 00:29:54,400
Speaker 2: in your imagination, so a fantasia meaning you can't do it.

557
00:29:54,880 --> 00:29:58,080
Speaker 2: And Carl Zimmer wrote an article about this in Discover

558
00:29:58,240 --> 00:30:00,200
Speaker 2: magazine which got a lot more attention, and that a

559
00:30:00,240 --> 00:30:02,920
Speaker 2: lot more people wrote in and they were like, wow,

560
00:30:02,960 --> 00:30:04,560
Speaker 2: this is actually quite widespread.

561
00:30:05,080 --> 00:30:06,200
Speaker 1: Huge Curl Zimmer fan.

562
00:30:06,280 --> 00:30:09,640
Speaker 2: Let me just say, I know, and I love when

563
00:30:09,720 --> 00:30:13,719
Speaker 2: science journalism helps propel the science right gets the right

564
00:30:13,760 --> 00:30:15,840
Speaker 2: attention to it. People were like, hey, everybody should know

565
00:30:15,840 --> 00:30:18,640
Speaker 2: about this. This is kind of a thing. And a

566
00:30:18,680 --> 00:30:21,200
Speaker 2: lot of people, it turns out, discover that they have

567
00:30:21,320 --> 00:30:24,480
Speaker 2: this condition only when reading about it or hearing about

568
00:30:24,520 --> 00:30:27,479
Speaker 2: it described on the radio. Like their whole lives. They

569
00:30:27,480 --> 00:30:30,640
Speaker 2: had heard people talk about picturing things or imagining things,

570
00:30:30,720 --> 00:30:34,160
Speaker 2: or visualizing beaches or whatever, and they just assumed that

571
00:30:34,200 --> 00:30:36,480
Speaker 2: these were idioms, that they were like kind of being

572
00:30:36,560 --> 00:30:40,200
Speaker 2: a hyperbologic they were exaggerating, really that they weren't really

573
00:30:40,240 --> 00:30:43,880
Speaker 2: seeing it. And only when hearing this described that this

574
00:30:44,040 --> 00:30:46,840
Speaker 2: was a condition that you could have, that they'd been

575
00:30:46,920 --> 00:30:50,680
Speaker 2: deeply and profoundly misunderstanding everybody else's experience.

576
00:30:51,160 --> 00:30:53,440
Speaker 1: I wonder if they're more likely to doodle, because if

577
00:30:53,480 --> 00:30:55,320
Speaker 1: I'm trying to keep track of things in my head.

578
00:30:55,680 --> 00:30:57,520
Speaker 1: But I couldn't do that. I feel like I'd want

579
00:30:57,520 --> 00:30:59,440
Speaker 1: to doodle it out on paper to keep. And anyway,

580
00:30:59,440 --> 00:31:01,000
Speaker 1: I'm getting this. This is amazing, No.

581
00:31:00,960 --> 00:31:03,920
Speaker 2: It's fascinating. And in the article they interview some artists,

582
00:31:04,240 --> 00:31:07,280
Speaker 2: and there are some artists who have a fantasia, and

583
00:31:07,840 --> 00:31:10,280
Speaker 2: they hear other artists say like, the picture didn't come

584
00:31:10,320 --> 00:31:12,880
Speaker 2: out as crisply as it does in my mind. And

585
00:31:12,920 --> 00:31:14,640
Speaker 2: these artists with a fantastic are like, what are you

586
00:31:14,680 --> 00:31:19,200
Speaker 2: talking about? And there's the opposite condition called hyper fantasia,

587
00:31:19,640 --> 00:31:24,640
Speaker 2: where you have exceptionally detailed mental images, which sounds awesome,

588
00:31:24,640 --> 00:31:27,840
Speaker 2: but some people describe it as like graphic and inescapable,

589
00:31:28,280 --> 00:31:30,480
Speaker 2: you know where you like, if you watch a horror movie,

590
00:31:30,600 --> 00:31:33,920
Speaker 2: you just like can't escape having those terrible scenes in

591
00:31:33,960 --> 00:31:36,160
Speaker 2: your mind. You know, we don't fade the same way

592
00:31:36,200 --> 00:31:37,440
Speaker 2: we do for others.

593
00:31:37,600 --> 00:31:39,720
Speaker 1: I can totally imagine that not being good. Like those

594
00:31:39,760 --> 00:31:42,560
Speaker 1: pictures of Screwworm that I looked at, I've kind of

595
00:31:42,600 --> 00:31:44,960
Speaker 1: forgotten them. It would be awful if I could still

596
00:31:44,960 --> 00:31:45,680
Speaker 1: see them right now.

597
00:31:45,840 --> 00:31:49,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, somebody with hyperfantagia said that. For example, if somebody

598
00:31:49,040 --> 00:31:53,280
Speaker 2: just like mentions skateboarding. Then he gets like an avalanche

599
00:31:53,440 --> 00:31:56,560
Speaker 2: of vivid memories of every skateboarding experience he's ever had,

600
00:31:56,960 --> 00:31:59,400
Speaker 2: being like stuck in virtual reality and having like a

601
00:31:59,440 --> 00:32:03,200
Speaker 2: three sixty degree video of a thousand skateboarding experiences forced

602
00:32:03,200 --> 00:32:05,880
Speaker 2: on you. So they're sort of at the mercy of

603
00:32:05,960 --> 00:32:09,520
Speaker 2: what people say because his brain is so visual.

604
00:32:09,680 --> 00:32:12,720
Speaker 1: That feels like two problems though, like being able to

605
00:32:12,720 --> 00:32:16,200
Speaker 1: really visualize something and having too many memories coming in.

606
00:32:16,280 --> 00:32:17,720
Speaker 1: That seems like two things.

607
00:32:18,040 --> 00:32:20,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, So this is something we're still understanding. It's like,

608
00:32:20,960 --> 00:32:23,800
Speaker 2: it's the brain, so it's complicated. But it's amazing to

609
00:32:23,840 --> 00:32:27,120
Speaker 2: me that it's only recently we've even recognized that this

610
00:32:27,160 --> 00:32:29,720
Speaker 2: is an issue, that there really is a difference. And

611
00:32:29,760 --> 00:32:32,120
Speaker 2: there's this meme that's going around now online. You've probably

612
00:32:32,120 --> 00:32:34,040
Speaker 2: seen it, which shows like a person with like a

613
00:32:34,080 --> 00:32:36,560
Speaker 2: crisp image of an apple in their mind and then

614
00:32:36,600 --> 00:32:38,480
Speaker 2: gradations all the way down to a person with no

615
00:32:38,600 --> 00:32:40,640
Speaker 2: image at all. And you should look at that and

616
00:32:40,640 --> 00:32:42,520
Speaker 2: you should ask yourself, like what do I see in

617
00:32:42,560 --> 00:32:44,680
Speaker 2: my mind's eye? And there really is a huge spectrum.

618
00:32:44,720 --> 00:32:47,400
Speaker 2: There are people who just cannot visualize stuff in their brains,

619
00:32:47,560 --> 00:32:51,720
Speaker 2: and people can have like exceptionally crisp photo quality images

620
00:32:51,800 --> 00:32:53,960
Speaker 2: in their minds, which might feel weird to you as well.

621
00:32:54,000 --> 00:32:56,479
Speaker 2: And I thought about this myself, and I'm a very

622
00:32:56,560 --> 00:32:59,800
Speaker 2: visual person. I can really imagine a crisp apple, not

623
00:33:00,120 --> 00:33:03,880
Speaker 2: quite photorealistic, but with a lot of detail. How about you, Kelly,

624
00:33:03,880 --> 00:33:05,640
Speaker 2: what kind of images do you see in your mind?

625
00:33:05,920 --> 00:33:08,960
Speaker 1: I think of somewhere in between. Definitely not photorealistic, but

626
00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:09,840
Speaker 1: I can see stuff.

627
00:33:09,960 --> 00:33:14,560
Speaker 2: And this is fascinatingly connected to thinking about science, because

628
00:33:14,920 --> 00:33:17,240
Speaker 2: we talked earlier about how it might be really important

629
00:33:17,280 --> 00:33:19,760
Speaker 2: to have these visuals in your mind to do science.

630
00:33:20,200 --> 00:33:23,240
Speaker 2: But Oliver Sacks did this fascinating experience which you'd love, Kelly,

631
00:33:23,240 --> 00:33:27,120
Speaker 2: because it involved self experimentation. He had almost no mental imagery,

632
00:33:27,400 --> 00:33:30,760
Speaker 2: but then he decided to take heroic quantities of anphetamines,

633
00:33:31,280 --> 00:33:33,800
Speaker 2: and while he was doing this, he could see images

634
00:33:33,840 --> 00:33:35,840
Speaker 2: in his mind. It like activated this part of his

635
00:33:35,920 --> 00:33:38,720
Speaker 2: brain so he could do it, But then he could

636
00:33:38,760 --> 00:33:42,000
Speaker 2: no longer think about abstract stuff, so it was sort

637
00:33:42,040 --> 00:33:44,680
Speaker 2: of trade off. So it might be the people who

638
00:33:44,680 --> 00:33:49,280
Speaker 2: are exceptionally visual can't think as abstractly, and people who

639
00:33:49,280 --> 00:33:53,560
Speaker 2: think better abstractly can't think as visually, and so to

640
00:33:53,800 --> 00:33:57,800
Speaker 2: the question like what's crucial for doing physics, it might

641
00:33:57,920 --> 00:34:01,760
Speaker 2: be that not being construed by visual imagery makes you

642
00:34:01,840 --> 00:34:06,800
Speaker 2: better thinking about complex things like eleven dimensional manifolds that

643
00:34:06,840 --> 00:34:09,920
Speaker 2: you need to solve string theory. Right, Maybe being unshackled

644
00:34:10,239 --> 00:34:13,920
Speaker 2: from the reality of our intuition for the dominance of

645
00:34:13,960 --> 00:34:18,280
Speaker 2: our physical world and its implied limitations makes it easier

646
00:34:18,560 --> 00:34:21,680
Speaker 2: to think about complex numbers and all sorts of crazy things,

647
00:34:21,800 --> 00:34:23,839
Speaker 2: which a lot of us find counterintuitive because we don't

648
00:34:23,880 --> 00:34:26,879
Speaker 2: see them reflected in our reality. And so I think

649
00:34:26,920 --> 00:34:28,640
Speaker 2: the answer to the question is that there's a whole

650
00:34:28,680 --> 00:34:32,160
Speaker 2: spectrum of experience, and there's different kinds of physicists. Like

651
00:34:32,200 --> 00:34:35,800
Speaker 2: for me, when I think about physics, I think very geometrically,

652
00:34:36,000 --> 00:34:38,320
Speaker 2: even if we're talking about like weird abstract math, I

653
00:34:38,440 --> 00:34:40,800
Speaker 2: like see it in my mind as shapes, like fitting

654
00:34:40,800 --> 00:34:43,960
Speaker 2: together or not fitting together, or clicking or pulling on

655
00:34:44,040 --> 00:34:46,359
Speaker 2: each other. Like when I think about quantum fields, it's

656
00:34:46,480 --> 00:34:50,399
Speaker 2: very visual and geometric. And I always struggled with equations,

657
00:34:50,480 --> 00:34:52,920
Speaker 2: Like I can do the math, obviously, I know how

658
00:34:52,960 --> 00:34:55,840
Speaker 2: to manipulate equations, but I don't think in terms of equations.

659
00:34:55,880 --> 00:34:58,600
Speaker 2: I don't look at an equation and understand intuitively, have

660
00:34:58,640 --> 00:35:02,239
Speaker 2: to translate it in to sort of geometric concepts in

661
00:35:02,320 --> 00:35:04,680
Speaker 2: order to understand how the pieces are pulling on each

662
00:35:04,680 --> 00:35:07,480
Speaker 2: other and how they interplay with each other. So I

663
00:35:07,480 --> 00:35:09,840
Speaker 2: think this is probably a whole different spectrum, and different

664
00:35:09,960 --> 00:35:12,000
Speaker 2: kinds of brains are good at different kinds of things.

665
00:35:12,040 --> 00:35:14,680
Speaker 2: And I'm glad that we have a diversity of brains

666
00:35:14,719 --> 00:35:17,040
Speaker 2: in physics and in biology and in the world.

667
00:35:17,200 --> 00:35:20,640
Speaker 1: Absolutely, But now you've got me wanting a survey of

668
00:35:20,960 --> 00:35:24,279
Speaker 1: different fields and having them do that that like right

669
00:35:24,440 --> 00:35:27,880
Speaker 1: gradient of photorealistic apple to like hazy apple, and seeing

670
00:35:27,880 --> 00:35:31,000
Speaker 1: if different kinds of fields have different average scores on

671
00:35:31,040 --> 00:35:31,480
Speaker 1: that test.

672
00:35:31,800 --> 00:35:34,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, it would be fascinating exactly. But it's

673
00:35:34,960 --> 00:35:37,160
Speaker 2: good that we have all these different kinds of brains.

674
00:35:37,160 --> 00:35:39,719
Speaker 2: I wonder how hereditary it is, you know, I like, yeah,

675
00:35:39,840 --> 00:35:42,960
Speaker 2: if you have apple pictures as parents, does that mean

676
00:35:43,000 --> 00:35:46,000
Speaker 2: you can picture apples? And if not? And how random

677
00:35:46,000 --> 00:35:48,960
Speaker 2: it is? Anyway, It's amazing the way the world is

678
00:35:49,000 --> 00:35:50,840
Speaker 2: and the way we image it, and how bad we

679
00:35:51,000 --> 00:35:55,240
Speaker 2: are at understanding other people's internal experience and what else

680
00:35:55,800 --> 00:35:59,400
Speaker 2: are we not understanding because we're using these clumsy.

681
00:35:59,000 --> 00:36:01,920
Speaker 1: Words within our own species, right, and then you try

682
00:36:01,960 --> 00:36:04,120
Speaker 1: to figure out what's happening with another species, and it's

683
00:36:04,160 --> 00:36:05,920
Speaker 1: amazing we understand anything at all.

684
00:36:06,239 --> 00:36:29,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, we're back and we're answering questions from you,

685
00:36:29,400 --> 00:36:31,960
Speaker 2: from listeners just like you, who had a moment of

686
00:36:32,000 --> 00:36:35,320
Speaker 2: curiosity that they couldn't scratch themselves, and so they wrote

687
00:36:35,480 --> 00:36:38,440
Speaker 2: to us, and we are here to scratch that itch.

688
00:36:38,600 --> 00:36:40,879
Speaker 1: Well, speaking of scratching, we're going to talk about little

689
00:36:40,920 --> 00:36:42,040
Speaker 1: mites that live on your face.

690
00:36:42,400 --> 00:36:43,000
Speaker 2: Oh boy?

691
00:36:44,800 --> 00:36:48,839
Speaker 1: All right, So Luner on Discord had this question for us.

692
00:36:49,200 --> 00:36:50,960
Speaker 6: Good morning, Daniel and Kelly.

693
00:36:51,040 --> 00:36:51,480
Speaker 2: How are you?

694
00:36:51,640 --> 00:36:54,080
Speaker 6: This is a Lunar from Discord. So my question is

695
00:36:54,120 --> 00:36:58,320
Speaker 6: pretty simple. Why does a thing like demo dex folliculorum

696
00:36:58,600 --> 00:37:03,120
Speaker 6: actually exist? I understand nature is strange and life is beautiful,

697
00:37:03,200 --> 00:37:06,920
Speaker 6: but why do these things exist? Why do I now

698
00:37:06,960 --> 00:37:11,160
Speaker 6: know that there are ity bitty little mites living on

699
00:37:11,200 --> 00:37:14,200
Speaker 6: my face and getting jiggy with it all through the night.

700
00:37:14,280 --> 00:37:17,200
Speaker 6: It kind of sort of makes me want to bathe

701
00:37:17,440 --> 00:37:21,320
Speaker 6: in pesticide. So can someone put my mind at ease

702
00:37:21,560 --> 00:37:24,920
Speaker 6: and just let me know, let us know, let the

703
00:37:25,040 --> 00:37:28,520
Speaker 6: people know that these things aren't causing us any harm,

704
00:37:28,560 --> 00:37:31,120
Speaker 6: and they might just very well be living out their

705
00:37:31,120 --> 00:37:36,640
Speaker 6: best life. So what's up with these little face invaders? Thanks?

706
00:37:36,880 --> 00:37:39,239
Speaker 2: You know, I'm a big believer in scientific education and

707
00:37:39,320 --> 00:37:42,080
Speaker 2: knowing stuff, but wow, I'm not sure I really want

708
00:37:42,120 --> 00:37:43,960
Speaker 2: to know about all the growth stuff that lives on

709
00:37:44,000 --> 00:37:44,440
Speaker 2: my face.

710
00:37:44,680 --> 00:37:48,840
Speaker 1: Too bad? Here it comes, okay. So, Demodex is a

711
00:37:48,920 --> 00:37:52,440
Speaker 1: genus of mites, and mites are related to erechnids, so

712
00:37:52,480 --> 00:37:54,799
Speaker 1: they're related to spiders and takes, but like they're their

713
00:37:54,800 --> 00:37:57,920
Speaker 1: own sort of thing, and they live on our faces.

714
00:37:58,320 --> 00:38:00,560
Speaker 1: There are two species that you tell to find on

715
00:38:00,600 --> 00:38:07,439
Speaker 1: your face, Demodex follicularum and Demodex brevis follicularum. Lives in

716
00:38:07,880 --> 00:38:11,720
Speaker 1: like our smaller hair follicles and like your eyelashes and stuff,

717
00:38:11,719 --> 00:38:13,480
Speaker 1: and so your hair follicles are like you know, the

718
00:38:13,480 --> 00:38:15,520
Speaker 1: holes where the hair shaft sort of goes in there.

719
00:38:15,920 --> 00:38:19,200
Speaker 1: They live inside of them. There're a social species, and

720
00:38:19,239 --> 00:38:22,360
Speaker 1: they eat skin cells that they find in there. The

721
00:38:22,440 --> 00:38:26,200
Speaker 1: other species usually lives near oil glands and stuff in

722
00:38:26,280 --> 00:38:30,040
Speaker 1: hair follicles also, and they're eating like the greasy stuff

723
00:38:30,080 --> 00:38:31,800
Speaker 1: that are oil glands make.

724
00:38:31,840 --> 00:38:34,120
Speaker 2: So that mean that they're really small. They're like smaller

725
00:38:34,120 --> 00:38:35,520
Speaker 2: than the width of a hair, so they can like

726
00:38:35,640 --> 00:38:37,520
Speaker 2: crawl into these follicles and have a snack.

727
00:38:37,960 --> 00:38:40,839
Speaker 1: Super tiny, you can't see them. They're less than half

728
00:38:40,920 --> 00:38:44,400
Speaker 1: a millimeter. The brevist one is particularly small, so without

729
00:38:44,400 --> 00:38:46,919
Speaker 1: a microscope you can't see them. You can't feel them.

730
00:38:47,160 --> 00:38:50,280
Speaker 2: But if you have clear visual imagery, now you're thinking

731
00:38:50,280 --> 00:38:53,160
Speaker 2: about them and you're imagining them crawling all over your face.

732
00:38:53,400 --> 00:38:56,320
Speaker 1: Oh but they save the crawling over your face for nighttime.

733
00:38:56,520 --> 00:39:00,160
Speaker 1: So right now they are in your pores eating their

734
00:39:00,560 --> 00:39:04,640
Speaker 1: dead skin buffet and their greas buffet.

735
00:39:04,960 --> 00:39:06,760
Speaker 2: All you can eat dead skin buffet.

736
00:39:07,680 --> 00:39:13,640
Speaker 1: Whoo. But when you fall asleep, they come out of

737
00:39:13,680 --> 00:39:17,040
Speaker 1: your pores and your follicles and they made on your face.

738
00:39:17,239 --> 00:39:18,640
Speaker 2: They made on your face.

739
00:39:19,120 --> 00:39:20,520
Speaker 1: Wow, on your face.

740
00:39:21,120 --> 00:39:23,160
Speaker 2: I guess for some people that's good news, you know,

741
00:39:23,320 --> 00:39:26,400
Speaker 2: to eat your own. I don't know. There are so

742
00:39:26,520 --> 00:39:28,480
Speaker 2: many jokes we could make here, but we're not going

743
00:39:28,520 --> 00:39:31,239
Speaker 2: to because you're already imagining them, so we don't have to.

744
00:39:31,640 --> 00:39:34,760
Speaker 1: That's right, that's right. Okay, So we had a listener

745
00:39:34,840 --> 00:39:38,080
Speaker 1: ask us in the past, how do pinworms know it's nighttime?

746
00:39:38,960 --> 00:39:41,799
Speaker 1: How do face mites know it's nighttime? I looked this up,

747
00:39:42,239 --> 00:39:44,600
Speaker 1: and first of all, it turns out they can detect lights,

748
00:39:44,640 --> 00:39:47,160
Speaker 1: so probably even from inside your hair follicles, they can

749
00:39:47,200 --> 00:39:49,680
Speaker 1: tell if the lights are on or the lights are off, so.

750
00:39:49,640 --> 00:39:52,239
Speaker 2: They can just like notice it's getting dark, and they're like, ooh,

751
00:39:52,400 --> 00:39:53,840
Speaker 2: it's time for some romance.

752
00:39:54,040 --> 00:39:55,080
Speaker 1: That's right, that's right.

753
00:39:55,200 --> 00:39:58,040
Speaker 2: Somebody's turned down the lights, putting on the insect, putting

754
00:39:58,080 --> 00:39:58,759
Speaker 2: on the algorithms.

755
00:39:59,000 --> 00:40:01,280
Speaker 1: Right, try, I'll stop.

756
00:40:01,520 --> 00:40:04,959
Speaker 2: So we are keeping that, Matt, that's gold.

757
00:40:05,200 --> 00:40:08,279
Speaker 1: Oh no, all right, okay, So it could be the light.

758
00:40:08,719 --> 00:40:10,680
Speaker 1: But they also and this is sort of interesting. A

759
00:40:10,719 --> 00:40:13,799
Speaker 1: couple episodes back, many episodes back, now, maybe we talked

760
00:40:13,840 --> 00:40:17,200
Speaker 1: about circadian rhythms, and we talked about how circadian rhythms

761
00:40:17,239 --> 00:40:21,120
Speaker 1: are this like interplay between proteins that are made by

762
00:40:21,120 --> 00:40:23,560
Speaker 1: your genes, and some of them are made more at night,

763
00:40:23,600 --> 00:40:25,359
Speaker 1: and some of them are made more during the day,

764
00:40:25,680 --> 00:40:27,560
Speaker 1: and they help you keep these twenty four hour cycles.

765
00:40:28,320 --> 00:40:31,280
Speaker 1: Somebody looked a group of researchers looked at the genome

766
00:40:31,440 --> 00:40:34,200
Speaker 1: of demodecs that live on our face, and they're missing

767
00:40:34,239 --> 00:40:36,239
Speaker 1: a lot of the genes that you'd need to make

768
00:40:36,280 --> 00:40:40,680
Speaker 1: the proteins that make circadian clocks, and so they think

769
00:40:40,800 --> 00:40:44,040
Speaker 1: that actually the mites are sort of bathed in the

770
00:40:44,080 --> 00:40:47,600
Speaker 1: melatonin that we make, and so instead of trying to

771
00:40:47,640 --> 00:40:50,280
Speaker 1: do their own circadian clocks, they're like, oh, the human

772
00:40:50,360 --> 00:40:53,480
Speaker 1: is oozing melatonin. Time for them to go to bed,

773
00:40:53,520 --> 00:40:56,160
Speaker 1: time for me to get it on, and so they

774
00:40:56,160 --> 00:40:58,000
Speaker 1: don't need to do it on their own anyway. That's

775
00:40:58,040 --> 00:41:00,920
Speaker 1: just a hypothesis. But there are other parasites that sort

776
00:41:00,920 --> 00:41:04,120
Speaker 1: of queue into what host hormones are doing and use

777
00:41:04,160 --> 00:41:05,759
Speaker 1: that information for their own purposes.

778
00:41:05,880 --> 00:41:08,000
Speaker 2: So they don't have their own internal clock, but they

779
00:41:08,000 --> 00:41:10,960
Speaker 2: have all these external triggers that tell them like when

780
00:41:11,000 --> 00:41:12,040
Speaker 2: it's algreen.

781
00:41:11,680 --> 00:41:17,080
Speaker 1: Time exactly exactly, can't.

782
00:41:16,840 --> 00:41:19,160
Speaker 2: Get enough of your face baby?

783
00:41:19,560 --> 00:41:23,640
Speaker 1: Oh got all right, that's enough, that's enough. Okay. So

784
00:41:23,640 --> 00:41:26,000
Speaker 1: so where do your mites come from? This is an

785
00:41:26,040 --> 00:41:29,719
Speaker 1: interesting question. So actually most people, by the time their

786
00:41:29,719 --> 00:41:32,560
Speaker 1: adults have mites, right, and a lot of kids have

787
00:41:32,640 --> 00:41:35,000
Speaker 1: mites too, And so somebody did a study to try

788
00:41:35,000 --> 00:41:37,320
Speaker 1: to figure out So imagine that you have a family

789
00:41:37,360 --> 00:41:41,040
Speaker 1: living together. You have two moms and two kids. The

790
00:41:41,400 --> 00:41:44,320
Speaker 1: two kids, if they were breastfed by one of the moms,

791
00:41:44,920 --> 00:41:48,120
Speaker 1: they are much more likely to have her mites than

792
00:41:48,160 --> 00:41:50,399
Speaker 1: the mites from the other mom, because another place where

793
00:41:50,440 --> 00:41:54,800
Speaker 1: you find these mites is on nipples, and so the mites,

794
00:41:54,840 --> 00:41:57,280
Speaker 1: you know, probably like jump off the nipples and onto

795
00:41:57,320 --> 00:41:59,359
Speaker 1: your face, and so you get your face mites from

796
00:41:59,400 --> 00:42:01,600
Speaker 1: your mom. And if you were to look at the

797
00:42:02,080 --> 00:42:05,399
Speaker 1: other mom in that couple, her face mites probably are

798
00:42:05,440 --> 00:42:08,720
Speaker 1: more like her mom's face mites. Does that all make sense? Yes,

799
00:42:10,000 --> 00:42:11,879
Speaker 1: something else you can thank your mom for.

800
00:42:14,400 --> 00:42:16,520
Speaker 2: And are these bad in any way or are they

801
00:42:16,560 --> 00:42:18,080
Speaker 2: good or are they just totally neutral?

802
00:42:18,280 --> 00:42:22,120
Speaker 1: Yeah? Good question. So other species have demodex mites too,

803
00:42:22,280 --> 00:42:24,719
Speaker 1: some of them can be sort of parasite like, but

804
00:42:24,800 --> 00:42:28,360
Speaker 1: it looks like our mites are usually not a problem,

805
00:42:28,360 --> 00:42:31,040
Speaker 1: and maybe they're sort of evolving in a trajectory away

806
00:42:31,040 --> 00:42:33,839
Speaker 1: from parasitism. But for most of us, we've got these

807
00:42:33,880 --> 00:42:37,080
Speaker 1: mites on our face will never notice it. But if

808
00:42:37,120 --> 00:42:41,160
Speaker 1: you end up being immuno compromised, sometimes you will start

809
00:42:41,200 --> 00:42:43,920
Speaker 1: having problems with these mites. If you're immunocompromised, it seems

810
00:42:43,960 --> 00:42:46,880
Speaker 1: like they're able to reproduce even more, and if you

811
00:42:46,960 --> 00:42:51,120
Speaker 1: have roseaesia, they can make your skin feel even more uncomfortable.

812
00:42:51,160 --> 00:42:54,200
Speaker 1: They don't cause the roseasia. But if you already have

813
00:42:54,480 --> 00:42:57,480
Speaker 1: like a problem with your skin getting irritated, having a

814
00:42:57,480 --> 00:42:59,480
Speaker 1: bunch of mites on your face is probably not going

815
00:42:59,520 --> 00:43:02,319
Speaker 1: to help any thing. They also contribute to what I

816
00:43:02,320 --> 00:43:05,360
Speaker 1: think is called here's here's another opportunity for me to

817
00:43:05,480 --> 00:43:11,440
Speaker 1: mispronounce something. Love it bleferitis. Have you heard of bleferitis?

818
00:43:11,480 --> 00:43:13,880
Speaker 2: Daniel, never heard of it? Or maybe it's not pronounced

819
00:43:13,880 --> 00:43:15,239
Speaker 2: that way, but it doesn't ring a bell.

820
00:43:16,719 --> 00:43:19,040
Speaker 1: Okay, it's probably not pronounced that way. But so it's

821
00:43:19,120 --> 00:43:21,880
Speaker 1: essentially like, you get this like crusty stuff on your eyelids,

822
00:43:22,560 --> 00:43:25,680
Speaker 1: and they think that the mites living in your eyelashes

823
00:43:25,800 --> 00:43:28,279
Speaker 1: could be contributing to that. And this tends to particularly

824
00:43:28,320 --> 00:43:31,560
Speaker 1: be a problem in elderly folks, and so you know,

825
00:43:31,640 --> 00:43:34,880
Speaker 1: this also could maybe be an immuneo compromise sort of

826
00:43:34,920 --> 00:43:37,520
Speaker 1: situation contributing to it. But for most of us, the

827
00:43:37,560 --> 00:43:38,200
Speaker 1: mites aren't bad.

828
00:43:38,239 --> 00:43:40,480
Speaker 2: It's amazing you're gonna have this whole ecosystem living on

829
00:43:40,520 --> 00:43:43,879
Speaker 2: your face and snacking on your skin and not really

830
00:43:43,960 --> 00:43:46,640
Speaker 2: hurting you at all. They're just like friendly neighbors. Yeah,

831
00:43:46,640 --> 00:43:49,000
Speaker 2: are they benefit to help clean stuff up? Like all

832
00:43:49,000 --> 00:43:51,600
Speaker 2: this dead skin? Would it be bad? If you didn't

833
00:43:51,600 --> 00:43:52,640
Speaker 2: have somebody munching on it.

834
00:43:52,800 --> 00:43:55,520
Speaker 1: No, I don't think so. I didn't. I didn't come

835
00:43:55,520 --> 00:43:58,640
Speaker 1: across anything saying that the mites are helpful. And you know,

836
00:43:58,719 --> 00:44:01,160
Speaker 1: especially these days were we've got like soaps to wash

837
00:44:01,200 --> 00:44:04,120
Speaker 1: our face, we've got ways to exfoliate. I don't think

838
00:44:04,160 --> 00:44:07,600
Speaker 1: we really they're not really contributing to the cleanliness of

839
00:44:07,640 --> 00:44:10,880
Speaker 1: our faces. And you see similar things happening in dogs.

840
00:44:10,880 --> 00:44:14,640
Speaker 1: So dog species have their own demodex mites. And sometimes

841
00:44:14,640 --> 00:44:17,560
Speaker 1: you'll get bold patches on puppies because their immune systems

842
00:44:17,560 --> 00:44:20,480
Speaker 1: aren't good yet, they're just developing, and those bold patches

843
00:44:20,480 --> 00:44:22,239
Speaker 1: will be areas where the mites are sort of getting

844
00:44:22,280 --> 00:44:24,719
Speaker 1: out of control. But if you just wait long enough,

845
00:44:24,719 --> 00:44:26,560
Speaker 1: in a lot of cases, it'll clear up because the

846
00:44:26,560 --> 00:44:29,400
Speaker 1: puppies immune system will mature and they'll get those mite

847
00:44:29,400 --> 00:44:32,640
Speaker 1: populations back under control and that patch will sort of

848
00:44:32,640 --> 00:44:33,480
Speaker 1: grow back in again.

849
00:44:33,800 --> 00:44:34,160
Speaker 2: Wow.

850
00:44:34,480 --> 00:44:38,880
Speaker 1: But Daniel, I bet you are wondering does demodex poop?

851
00:44:42,440 --> 00:44:45,799
Speaker 2: I was wondering if we could complete the dk EU

852
00:44:45,920 --> 00:44:49,359
Speaker 2: bingo and have either poop or cannibalism. So which way

853
00:44:49,400 --> 00:44:49,839
Speaker 2: are we going?

854
00:44:50,000 --> 00:44:50,760
Speaker 1: We're going poop?

855
00:44:50,800 --> 00:44:51,160
Speaker 2: All right?

856
00:44:51,320 --> 00:44:53,200
Speaker 1: I didn't find any evidence that they eat each other.

857
00:44:54,880 --> 00:44:59,200
Speaker 1: And so for a long time, the going knowledge was

858
00:44:59,200 --> 00:45:02,200
Speaker 1: that demodexs do don't poop. They store up all of

859
00:45:02,239 --> 00:45:05,440
Speaker 1: the waste that they make. They only live about three weeks.

860
00:45:05,600 --> 00:45:08,200
Speaker 1: And so actually, if you live to be about seventy

861
00:45:08,239 --> 00:45:11,600
Speaker 1: three years old and your demodex each live three weeks,

862
00:45:11,880 --> 00:45:16,000
Speaker 1: you're probably host to something like twelve hundred generations of

863
00:45:16,080 --> 00:45:18,360
Speaker 1: mites wow, throughout your life, which is just crazy.

864
00:45:18,400 --> 00:45:21,760
Speaker 2: But I have an input output question. They have inputs, Yeah,

865
00:45:21,760 --> 00:45:24,840
Speaker 2: they have no outputs. Are they just getting bigger and

866
00:45:24,880 --> 00:45:26,719
Speaker 2: bigger and bigger or what's going on?

867
00:45:26,920 --> 00:45:28,640
Speaker 1: Well, so the idea was, you know, three weeks is

868
00:45:28,640 --> 00:45:30,359
Speaker 1: not a long time. They just they store it. They

869
00:45:30,360 --> 00:45:32,080
Speaker 1: do get a little bit bigger, and then when they die,

870
00:45:32,120 --> 00:45:34,960
Speaker 1: they just kind of like you know, release everything.

871
00:45:36,280 --> 00:45:38,520
Speaker 2: So they just like die in the big poopy corpse

872
00:45:38,520 --> 00:45:39,040
Speaker 2: in your face.

873
00:45:39,520 --> 00:45:43,919
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, that's right. But actually, some very good

874
00:45:44,000 --> 00:45:47,279
Speaker 1: slew thing in twenty twenty two with some great photos

875
00:45:47,719 --> 00:45:52,800
Speaker 1: found an anus. Yay, this is why you fund basic

876
00:45:52,880 --> 00:45:53,640
Speaker 1: science people.

877
00:45:54,239 --> 00:45:56,719
Speaker 2: I want to use very powerful telescopes to look for

878
00:45:56,840 --> 00:45:57,719
Speaker 2: tiny anuses.

879
00:45:58,320 --> 00:46:01,480
Speaker 1: Well, tiny anuses have been found. They also found a

880
00:46:01,520 --> 00:46:04,480
Speaker 1: tiny penis on their head, so that's where the males

881
00:46:04,480 --> 00:46:09,719
Speaker 1: have their their wieners. So anyway, all kinds of important information,

882
00:46:09,800 --> 00:46:13,520
Speaker 1: but we haven't actually answered the listener's question yet, which is.

883
00:46:13,560 --> 00:46:15,600
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, I have lust track. What was the question again?

884
00:46:16,080 --> 00:46:20,279
Speaker 1: Why why would you have this horrible thing? And I

885
00:46:20,360 --> 00:46:24,280
Speaker 1: actually I feel like it's obvious, like we are a

886
00:46:24,400 --> 00:46:29,320
Speaker 1: super abundant species. We are very close to our offspring,

887
00:46:29,360 --> 00:46:32,399
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes they sleep next to us, we breastfeed them.

888
00:46:32,920 --> 00:46:36,600
Speaker 1: It is very easy to imagine transmitting this, you know,

889
00:46:36,680 --> 00:46:39,359
Speaker 1: parasite or symbiant if it's not bad for us, like

890
00:46:39,440 --> 00:46:42,480
Speaker 1: this this critter from one organism to another. We are

891
00:46:42,520 --> 00:46:45,200
Speaker 1: a super abundant species. And you know, they're so tiny

892
00:46:45,239 --> 00:46:47,279
Speaker 1: that we don't even know they're there, so we're not

893
00:46:47,440 --> 00:46:50,400
Speaker 1: attacking them or anything like that. I mean, it seems

894
00:46:50,440 --> 00:46:54,600
Speaker 1: to me like we are a great ecosystem for a

895
00:46:54,640 --> 00:46:55,560
Speaker 1: little critter like.

896
00:46:55,520 --> 00:46:58,680
Speaker 2: This, And so you know, so you're why not basically.

897
00:46:58,640 --> 00:47:01,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Evolution and fills any niche that

898
00:47:01,920 --> 00:47:03,960
Speaker 1: it can find that it's got a path to, and

899
00:47:04,440 --> 00:47:06,680
Speaker 1: our faces were one of those paths.

900
00:47:07,120 --> 00:47:09,600
Speaker 2: And is there like a whole ecosystem, there are there

901
00:47:09,640 --> 00:47:12,759
Speaker 2: predators that gobble these things or do they live a

902
00:47:12,800 --> 00:47:14,000
Speaker 2: predator freed lifestyle.

903
00:47:14,480 --> 00:47:16,839
Speaker 1: I don't know, that's a question.

904
00:47:16,920 --> 00:47:18,120
Speaker 2: Because they sound delicious.

905
00:47:19,000 --> 00:47:24,120
Speaker 1: Sure, I feel like they probably have parasites also that

906
00:47:24,160 --> 00:47:24,920
Speaker 1: infect them.

907
00:47:24,840 --> 00:47:27,800
Speaker 2: Or something might exactly, maybe they have face mites.

908
00:47:27,960 --> 00:47:29,400
Speaker 1: Maybe they do have face mites.

909
00:47:29,640 --> 00:47:31,440
Speaker 2: It's face mites all the way down, isn't it.

910
00:47:31,600 --> 00:47:35,160
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, we figured it out. Yeah. So I

911
00:47:35,200 --> 00:47:38,879
Speaker 1: didn't find any stories about them having parasites or predators,

912
00:47:39,160 --> 00:47:41,520
Speaker 1: but I would love to know. And you know, we

913
00:47:41,600 --> 00:47:45,960
Speaker 1: are probably their biggest problem when we wash and exfoliate

914
00:47:45,960 --> 00:47:48,760
Speaker 1: our faces, but they hang in there inside our pores.

915
00:47:49,040 --> 00:47:50,880
Speaker 2: Well, we have brought you up to speed to the

916
00:47:50,920 --> 00:47:54,640
Speaker 2: forefront of human knowledge on face mites. Let's check in

917
00:47:54,719 --> 00:47:57,560
Speaker 2: with our listener and see if we have scratched the

918
00:47:57,719 --> 00:47:58,560
Speaker 2: lunars itch.

919
00:47:59,200 --> 00:48:03,120
Speaker 6: All right, hey, thank you very much for that excellent answer, Kelly,

920
00:48:03,280 --> 00:48:08,560
Speaker 6: and I greatly appreciate knowing that these little creatures are

921
00:48:09,160 --> 00:48:13,640
Speaker 6: just simply getting by. It's still a little bit weird

922
00:48:13,640 --> 00:48:17,680
Speaker 6: to know that they get up some interesting nocturnal activity.

923
00:48:17,719 --> 00:48:21,720
Speaker 6: At least someone's having fun. And thank you very much, Daniel.

924
00:48:21,800 --> 00:48:24,239
Speaker 6: I will never listen to Berry White the same way

925
00:48:24,280 --> 00:48:28,160
Speaker 6: again without having this certain mental image of little nights

926
00:48:28,800 --> 00:48:32,520
Speaker 6: and their heads having fun on my face. Thanks a lot, guys,

927
00:48:32,560 --> 00:48:35,759
Speaker 6: I appreciate it. Keep up the good works, you guys rock.

928
00:48:36,200 --> 00:48:38,960
Speaker 1: Thank you so much everybody for your questions. We appreciate

929
00:48:39,000 --> 00:48:41,520
Speaker 1: them so much. There are so many topics that I

930
00:48:41,680 --> 00:48:43,680
Speaker 1: would love to have the time to dig into, and

931
00:48:43,719 --> 00:48:46,600
Speaker 1: when you ask about them, I get to I appreciate

932
00:48:46,680 --> 00:48:48,040
Speaker 1: you all so much.

933
00:48:48,280 --> 00:48:50,240
Speaker 2: We do. We love hearing from you. I love opening

934
00:48:50,239 --> 00:48:53,360
Speaker 2: my email in the morning and seeing all the incredible

935
00:48:53,360 --> 00:48:57,799
Speaker 2: diversity of curiosity and questions and wondering and joy. We

936
00:48:57,880 --> 00:49:01,800
Speaker 2: love hearing from you. That makes this podcast conversation between

937
00:49:01,960 --> 00:49:04,640
Speaker 2: us and you, not just between me and Kelly. So

938
00:49:04,680 --> 00:49:06,080
Speaker 2: thanks everyone for joining in.

939
00:49:06,400 --> 00:49:17,000
Speaker 1: Thank you until next time. Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe

940
00:49:17,080 --> 00:49:20,200
Speaker 1: is produced by iHeartRadio. We would love to hear from you,

941
00:49:20,440 --> 00:49:21,480
Speaker 1: We really would.

942
00:49:21,640 --> 00:49:24,400
Speaker 2: We want to know what questions you have about this

943
00:49:24,600 --> 00:49:26,240
Speaker 2: Extraordinary Universe.

944
00:49:26,320 --> 00:49:29,279
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945
00:49:29,280 --> 00:49:32,279
Speaker 1: for future shows. If you contact us, we will get

946
00:49:32,320 --> 00:49:32,719
Speaker 1: back to you.

947
00:49:33,000 --> 00:49:36,520
Speaker 2: We really mean it. We answer every message. Email us

948
00:49:36,560 --> 00:49:39,759
Speaker 2: at questions at Danielankelly.

949
00:49:38,840 --> 00:49:40,879
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950
00:49:41,000 --> 00:49:44,839
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951
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952
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953
00:49:49,040 --> 00:49:50,560
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