Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature feature production of I Heart Radio. I'm
Speaker 1: your host of Mini Parasites Katie Golden. I studied psychology
Speaker 1: and evolutionary biology, and today on the show The Immune Platoon,
Speaker 1: how does your immune system work? And why are some
Speaker 1: animals immune systems wildly different? Discover this more as we
Speaker 1: answer the angel question. You can share your heart, but
Speaker 1: can you share your circulatory system? Joining me today is
Speaker 1: Philip Detmer, writer and creator of Kurtz kustok a k
Speaker 1: A in a Nutshell, which is a beautiful YouTube channel
Speaker 1: that teaches science and biology with absolutely gorgeous animations and
Speaker 1: clear entertaining narration. He's also the author of the book Immune,
Speaker 1: which is like going on to get to know you,
Speaker 1: meet and greet with your own immune system. Welcome Philip, Hey,
Speaker 1: thanks for having. The immune system is one of those
Speaker 1: things where you don't think about it too much day
Speaker 1: to day. Uh, you only think about it when you're
Speaker 1: actually sick, and then you're like, oh, right, this is
Speaker 1: a thing most people don't really have, like a concept
Speaker 1: of the immune system. If you try to visualize it, like,
Speaker 1: you don't see anything sort of accurate actually, because as
Speaker 1: you said, it's it's not a thing like, yeah, this
Speaker 1: is enormous complex stance of like trillions of things doing
Speaker 1: this stuff at the same time. I read the Immune
Speaker 1: Book and it's really really nice. I really like how
Speaker 1: clear the explanations are, because I think something like the
Speaker 1: immune system is so complex it can feel really intimidating.
Speaker 1: One thing I think is hard for people to imagine
Speaker 1: is like, where is the immune system. Do we have
Speaker 1: an organ that is the immune system? Do we have
Speaker 1: a little barracks filled with immune soldiers or they just
Speaker 1: like everywhere. What I found helpful is to imagine the
Speaker 1: immune system as an organ system, like like your cardiovascular system.
Speaker 1: That's basically sure, like you have your heart and you
Speaker 1: have like all your blood vessels all over and then
Speaker 1: the tiny tiniest blood vessels going pretty much everywhere. That's
Speaker 1: sort of how the immune system is. It's like an
Speaker 1: incredibly expansive organ system. It's just like completely saturating your body. Basically,
Speaker 1: do you have like your own immune system highway system,
Speaker 1: the little the lymphatic system that looks a little bit
Speaker 1: like your cadivascular system. You have dedicated like a few
Speaker 1: hundred dedicated immune organs like you asked for, like like
Speaker 1: a battle stations or something where like the soldiers gather
Speaker 1: like like your lymph nodes are that basically um, like
Speaker 1: spread all over your body. Um, you have like two
Speaker 1: bigger dedicated organs like the simus above your heart the
Speaker 1: size of like two chicken wings, which is like a
Speaker 1: like I call it the murder University because like this
Speaker 1: is like where immune system cells are trained, but like
Speaker 1: only two percent of the students survive education. It's kind
Speaker 1: of like the squid game, but for cells in your body. Yeah,
Speaker 1: similar survival, right, I think. And of course there's like
Speaker 1: an enormous amount of cells of the immune system basically
Speaker 1: patrolling every border you've got sitting all below the skin,
Speaker 1: sitting everywhere like just like blow all, um your more
Speaker 1: cos us just like patrolling your body like um, that's
Speaker 1: like like billions and billions in your blood right now.
Speaker 1: And I think the last aspects of the immune system, um,
Speaker 1: it's just like like sort of like passive defenses like
Speaker 1: like sort of like proteins that you can imagine as
Speaker 1: like mine fields can kill invaders just on their own,
Speaker 1: are basically in every fluid of your body, so in
Speaker 1: your blood and are the other disgusting stuff a booby
Speaker 1: trapped body, And so what is our immune system protecting
Speaker 1: us against because is I mean, obviously it's protecting us
Speaker 1: from getting sick or from getting infections. But those kinds
Speaker 1: of things like illness and infection comes from many different things, right,
Speaker 1: It's not just a virus that can make you sick.
Speaker 1: I mean basically, your immune system protects you from everything
Speaker 1: that is not you in a really basic way. You
Speaker 1: can think about immune system as as something that can
Speaker 1: distinguish between self and other, and everything that is other
Speaker 1: it wants to kill and destroy. It's like not happy
Speaker 1: about other. Like if you enter the body, you need
Speaker 1: like a very specific ah, what can you say, like
Speaker 1: like a like a password or a key card? Yeah, okay, perfect,
Speaker 1: Like if if you if you're like a prop for example,
Speaker 1: if you're like a healthy bacteria for like your cat microbiome,
Speaker 1: you need like a special code or password to have
Speaker 1: to be killed immediately. The immune system basically it wants
Speaker 1: to make sure, um that nothing that's not the body
Speaker 1: exists within the body except the few exemptions in our
Speaker 1: cut or so. I think a big misconception about commune
Speaker 1: system in regard to that is that it's like it's
Speaker 1: it's very it's great if it's very strong and very
Speaker 1: aggressive and wants to kill everything. But actually, like the
Speaker 1: the big thing about the immune system is that it
Speaker 1: seeks balance. So like one way to imagine the immune
Speaker 1: system would be like rugby players that like just like
Speaker 1: smash faces. And if your immune system is like that,
Speaker 1: that's not great. Like you want immune system to be
Speaker 1: more like ballet dancers, like like very carefully select where
Speaker 1: to step and then just like I like, um, not
Speaker 1: overly aggressive if it's not necessary. Yeah, because if the
Speaker 1: immune system is overly aggressive, it can actually hurt you,
Speaker 1: hurt your body unintentionally. People with autoimmune disorders, your immune
Speaker 1: system or even something as simple as like an allergy,
Speaker 1: your immune system is actually hurting you because it's overreacting
Speaker 1: to something that it doesn't really need to react so
Speaker 1: strongly to. And in fact, a lot of illnesses the
Speaker 1: suffering from that illness is from the immune system. And
Speaker 1: sometimes that's okay because that's just the immune system working
Speaker 1: and curing your body of the virus. But sometimes if
Speaker 1: that immune response is too strong, it can actually be
Speaker 1: pretty deadly, right, Yeah, Like even going further out, like
Speaker 1: in the last two years, the papers have come out
Speaker 1: to suggest that about half of all deadly of like, like,
Speaker 1: but half the people dying today are dying because of
Speaker 1: something that was initially caused by immune system overreaction. So
Speaker 1: basically what But it's like a little bit weird to
Speaker 1: like I think about is it? Like basically every every
Speaker 1: time your immune system gets active, it causes damage. Like
Speaker 1: an delated immune system is like technically not great, and
Speaker 1: your body does a lot of stuff to like, um,
Speaker 1: calm it down once it's activated. But yeah, like whenever
Speaker 1: you're you're you're sick and the immune system gets active,
Speaker 1: like damage happens, and that damage is often like the
Speaker 1: symptoms we associate with being sick. Yeah, Like one of
Speaker 1: the dangerous reactions your immune system can have to a
Speaker 1: pathogen or even something that's not harmful just an allergen
Speaker 1: is a cytokine storm, which is it's as far as
Speaker 1: I know, it's as kind of chaotic and frightening as
Speaker 1: it sounds, because it's you know, it's this chain reaction
Speaker 1: of an immune response that can cause a lot of
Speaker 1: inflammation and damage to your body where the immune system
Speaker 1: is just trying to basically do its job. And take
Speaker 1: care of your body and clear out any pathogens that
Speaker 1: could hurt you. But it in effect, what it does
Speaker 1: is it started this chain reaction of inflammation that is
Speaker 1: damaging your own tissues and making it difficult for your
Speaker 1: own body to function. Yeah, totally look like a cide.
Speaker 1: The kind storm is definitely one of the more creepy
Speaker 1: things that can happen to you. Should be briefly explained
Speaker 1: what cyto kinds are. Yeah, let's do that, and how
Speaker 1: about by let's how about you do that? Okay, Like
Speaker 1: it's okay, let's let's simplify a lot, so like we
Speaker 1: don't sit here for an hour. But like basically cydeo
Speaker 1: kinds a little proteins, little chemicals that, like especially mune
Speaker 1: cells used to communicate with each other. So for example,
Speaker 1: like a commune cell that is like agitated and like
Speaker 1: like aggressive and fighting will release cyto kinds that tell
Speaker 1: other immune cells, hey guys, get here, get your fast
Speaker 1: or it will just like generally show like hey, battlefield
Speaker 1: this direction um or they will like activate other immune cells.
Speaker 1: So it's like the all the communication happening within the
Speaker 1: immune system is like in large parts sales releasing chemicals
Speaker 1: picking up other chemicals or cyto kinds and then acting
Speaker 1: according to the type of cytokinds they picked up. So,
Speaker 1: for example, like like a cytokind storm, there's too many
Speaker 1: of those like messengers released at the same time in
Speaker 1: a in a too large of a scope, and it's
Speaker 1: basically activating immune cells where they should not get activated
Speaker 1: at place as where like there is no infection or
Speaker 1: where they shouldn't activate. And yeahs, as we discussed before,
Speaker 1: the immune system causes damage whenever it's activated. So a
Speaker 1: cytekind storm is a little bit your whole immune system army,
Speaker 1: and your whole body is like sort of like activated
Speaker 1: at once. Yeah, everyone's getting scrambled. Yeah, it's it panic
Speaker 1: that everybody's like everybody's getting their weapons out and shooting around,
Speaker 1: but like maybe there's nobody to shoot it, so a
Speaker 1: bunch of friendly fire. Yeah, that's into sting because the
Speaker 1: way you described cytokines actually reminds me of pheromones in
Speaker 1: bee colonies or aunt colonies and these other you social
Speaker 1: insects where when a bee stings you, it actually releases
Speaker 1: a chemical that signals to other bees that it has
Speaker 1: stung you, and it calls other bees sort of to
Speaker 1: come over, and also sting the thing that it's stung.
Speaker 1: So that's why sometimes a bee swarm can be very dangerous,
Speaker 1: especially for more aggressive b species, because at the more
Speaker 1: bees that sting you, the more of this pheromone is
Speaker 1: released that informs other bees, hey we're attacking this intruder
Speaker 1: right now, come over and you know, get your stings in.
Speaker 1: And so that can be very dangerous for you a
Speaker 1: human being when faced with a bunch of bees, and
Speaker 1: that can I guess happen in your own body as
Speaker 1: well with cytokines, so your immune cells are doing a
Speaker 1: similar thing to bees of like, hey, we're attacking this intruder.
Speaker 1: Here's it's chemical to tell other cells to come to
Speaker 1: my aid and to attack this intruder. And then if
Speaker 1: that gets out of hand, if you have too many
Speaker 1: of those cyta kinds, you just have pand ammonium of
Speaker 1: a bunch of soldiers just shooting at everything in their path,
Speaker 1: basically inside your own body. Yeah, that's a very good description.
Speaker 1: I think that's basically how how this works. Like a
Speaker 1: very stupid things reacting to chemicals and and that's actually
Speaker 1: isn't that one of the problems with people who get
Speaker 1: sick with COVID. Right, So, various infections, especially in the
Speaker 1: early stages, hugely rely on the cyto kinds of these
Speaker 1: communication methods to activate the immune system and prepare the
Speaker 1: battlefield for later fighting. So one thing that that seems
Speaker 1: to happen in COVID, according to some papers I read,
Speaker 1: is that like COVID suppresses decide the kind that basically
Speaker 1: would slow down the virus infection and gives immune system
Speaker 1: more time. But while it's the at that time, like
Speaker 1: at the same time, it's sort of boost the production
Speaker 1: of cytokinds that cause inflammation. And inflammation is basically just
Speaker 1: like blood vessels opening up a little bit and letting
Speaker 1: like fluid into the tissue. So what COVID seems to
Speaker 1: do is just like while basically avoiding being slowed down
Speaker 1: by cytokinds, it just like floods the lung swift water.
Speaker 1: Yeah and yeah, that's not great. And it's like one
Speaker 1: of one example where like a pathogen has like hacked
Speaker 1: the mutism system a little bit. That is one of
Speaker 1: the creepy things about the arms race between our immune
Speaker 1: systems and pathogens is that as pathogens evolved, like we
Speaker 1: are starting our our immune systems will evolve in response
Speaker 1: to new pathogens, like a new virus. But in the meantime,
Speaker 1: seeing it when the pathogen has the upper hand against
Speaker 1: the immune system, it's it's very frightening. It's it's something
Speaker 1: that makes you realize, oh yeah, no, we are in
Speaker 1: a constant arms race with things like viruses and bacteria,
Speaker 1: and sometimes they actually come out on top, which is
Speaker 1: kind of a both humbling and frightening kind of thing
Speaker 1: to witness. And one aspect of that is that, like
Speaker 1: not all of our immune systems are created equally, so
Speaker 1: just like like in a population, a certain amount of
Speaker 1: people will be extra vulnerable against certain diseases. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like we as a species need to survive a pathogen,
Speaker 1: but as an individual, yeah, it's definitely the best, yeah exactly.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so it is. It is something that's very interesting.
Speaker 1: So it's like our immune system, even though sometimes it
Speaker 1: overreacts and hurts our body, it is absolutely necessary to
Speaker 1: prevent us from being completely basically devoured from the inside
Speaker 1: out by things like viruses and unfriendly bacteria and other pathogens.
Speaker 1: If you think about it, like Basically, if you die,
Speaker 1: you can like like witness what happens to a body
Speaker 1: once there's no immune system anymore. It's just like yeah,
Speaker 1: like it's completely dissolved by micro organisms. Um, so yeah,
Speaker 1: that would be our faith without an immune system. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: The reason that bodies decay is that you're no longer alive,
Speaker 1: and so your immune system is no longer around to
Speaker 1: kill off the bacteria that want to eat you. In fact,
Speaker 1: like they're while your life. Some of the most dangerous
Speaker 1: diseases are things where say bacteria is able to survive
Speaker 1: your immune system, so like necrotizing fasciitis is something where
Speaker 1: a bacteria is eating away at you while you're alive,
Speaker 1: while your immune system tries desperately to stop it, but
Speaker 1: it's not fast enough. It is kind of terrifying to think,
Speaker 1: you know, what life would be like without our immune
Speaker 1: systems and without modern medicine to help when people are
Speaker 1: immuno compromised, and it's like the against the vast, vast
Speaker 1: majority of micro organisms or immune system is perfectly fine.
Speaker 1: Like most viruses a like have like no capacity to
Speaker 1: hurt us, like most bacteria don't have that, but like
Speaker 1: yet exactly those like those few quitters. I think that's
Speaker 1: like only like two hundred species of viruses that like
Speaker 1: can infect humans. I need to like please could not
Speaker 1: quote me, but like something in this area. Um um. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So like only once like a like a micro organism
Speaker 1: gains the ability to like like keep our immune system
Speaker 1: and check or like like deactivate part of that. Only
Speaker 1: then it becomes like dangerous to us. Most other things
Speaker 1: are basically like no challenge for immune system. In the
Speaker 1: book Immune, you often describe the immune system as beautiful.
Speaker 1: What do you mean by this? Because if I think
Speaker 1: about the lymphatic system or you know, lymph node or
Speaker 1: some white blood cells, you know, physically speaking, looking at it,
Speaker 1: it doesn't look that beautiful. I mean, come on, like
Speaker 1: like the lymphatic system super highway, stretching throughout your whole body,
Speaker 1: and I think that's magic. It's like so great. I mean,
Speaker 1: like the immune system. It's like often called like the
Speaker 1: second most complex biological system after the human brain. Um.
Speaker 1: And I think that's like and that's like that's like
Speaker 1: a description. I really I really like it's like just
Speaker 1: like unfasom fathomably complex. And I think that's like in
Speaker 1: that their lives like that immense beauty. I feel at least,
Speaker 1: how are we even my life? How is it possible
Speaker 1: like like our body like for for ourselves to defend it,
Speaker 1: Like our body is so enormously large. It's like like
Speaker 1: imagine you had to like defend like central Europe or
Speaker 1: like like the US. That's like the that's like the scope.
Speaker 1: If you were one immune cell, you can just like
Speaker 1: look at the whole US and say like, okay, I
Speaker 1: need to defend that, and like, um I can I
Speaker 1: need to be called maybe like too Florida today and
Speaker 1: to Texas tomorrow. It's like huge distances and the amount
Speaker 1: of connectivity and communication and like systems that are like
Speaker 1: cells and proteins and all that stuff defending you. They're
Speaker 1: like really like they're stupid, like lovely but stupid, Like
Speaker 1: like a cell is pretty useless, just like this mini
Speaker 1: protein robot that does its thing according to the chemicals
Speaker 1: that picks up and it's like code. But somehow, like
Speaker 1: like trillions of these stupid paths come together to organize
Speaker 1: this like incredible defense of of you of yourself, And
Speaker 1: I think that's beautiful. I don't know. On the more
Speaker 1: macro level makes me think about why I find ant
Speaker 1: colonies or b colonies so beautiful because like an aunt itself,
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean that's with no disrespect act an
Speaker 1: individual ant is pretty stupid. But then when you get
Speaker 1: a whole ant colony together, they have such complex and
Speaker 1: interesting behaviors like raft building, bridge building, and especially good example.
Speaker 1: Have that in the book at some point. But like
Speaker 1: stupid things doing smart things. Maybe that's why I love
Speaker 1: my dog so much, because she's a stupid talked out
Speaker 1: once in a while, that's a smart thing. So we've
Speaker 1: talked a little bit about human immune systems and why
Speaker 1: they're so amazing and beautiful, and now I want to
Speaker 1: talk about some weird exceptions to sort of the immune
Speaker 1: system rules. I mean, every animal will have a slightly
Speaker 1: different immune system. In fact, every individual has a slightly
Speaker 1: different immune system. We don't all come out with carbon
Speaker 1: copies of each other's immune systems. That's why some people
Speaker 1: will get sick more than others. You know, they're not
Speaker 1: just they're not just complainers that people can literally get
Speaker 1: more sick than you because their immune system doesn't respond
Speaker 1: in the same way that yours does. And then on
Speaker 1: the species level, of course, every species of animals has
Speaker 1: a different immune system. Some are more similar to ours,
Speaker 1: some are more different. One of the most interesting mammalian
Speaker 1: immune systems out there is that of bats. So I
Speaker 1: love bats, that's not a secret. They're adorable, misunderstood little
Speaker 1: cutie's that I want to love and cuddle, but you shouldn't.
Speaker 1: You shouldn't love and cuddle them, even though they are
Speaker 1: so cute. But they have really fascinating immune systems. Now, obviously,
Speaker 1: there are many, many species of bats. They're one of
Speaker 1: the most diverse groups of mammals with incredibly diverse morphology.
Speaker 1: But often they will have somewhat similar immune systems. So
Speaker 1: when I talk about bat immune system, I'm talking about
Speaker 1: a range of different species that share these characteristics. Bats
Speaker 1: get kind of a bad rap, I think. Obviously. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of the myths, like they nest in your hair,
Speaker 1: they suck your blood, which are just not really true.
Speaker 1: There's only one species of vampire bat out of like
Speaker 1: the three or four total species that has ever even
Speaker 1: been documented to drink human blood, and it's never enough
Speaker 1: to kill anyone. It's like literally less blood than you
Speaker 1: have to give when you go to the doctor's office.
Speaker 1: But but one of the things that people are maybe
Speaker 1: squeamish about bats are that they are seen as being
Speaker 1: dirty and disease written and that they're always the ones
Speaker 1: responsible for, say, zoonotic diseases, and which is the actual
Speaker 1: truth behind that is a little more complex than them
Speaker 1: just being like dirty and full of disease. So uh,
Speaker 1: because bats are actually really a combating disease. They have
Speaker 1: really incredible immune systems that can fight off pathogens that
Speaker 1: might kill other mammals. So you know how like you know,
Speaker 1: everyone's kind of points the fingers at bats for COVID
Speaker 1: and for other diseases like that sort of your general
Speaker 1: since from from people's perspectives on bats, I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: like they they probably did cause COVID, So that's it's
Speaker 1: a little bit fair. What what does make the immune
Speaker 1: system different? So they it's complicated, right, So like they
Speaker 1: have this is what I put you through at the
Speaker 1: first in the first half, But I really want to know, like,
Speaker 1: like I actually don't know a lot about bats, so
Speaker 1: I'm really curious to like to learn how they're different. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So so yeah, so they the reason that they may
Speaker 1: be anddidates for us finding zoonotic diseases in them. Like,
Speaker 1: if they do spread zoonotic diseases, it may not be
Speaker 1: because they're dirty or like more prone to diseases. Actually
Speaker 1: could be the opposite. That they have a much more
Speaker 1: effective immune system than other mammals. So diseases and pathogens
Speaker 1: actually have to struggle harder to survive inside a bat
Speaker 1: than they would another mammal because the bat's immune system
Speaker 1: is so strong but still like similar enough to like
Speaker 1: ours that if we have bad luck, they can jump
Speaker 1: over basically right right right. If these viruses have to
Speaker 1: mutate a bunch of times to try to even get
Speaker 1: a foothold in a bat species, these pathogens are just
Speaker 1: going through many more They have to mutate much more
Speaker 1: rapidly than if they were infecting another less robust immune system.
Speaker 1: And so just the that kind of casino of of
Speaker 1: viruses try to roll the die every time that it
Speaker 1: mutates to see, you know, whether it can get a
Speaker 1: foothold on some sell and some organism. They're just like
Speaker 1: doing this many more times because it's so much harder
Speaker 1: to survive inside a bat that I mean, that is
Speaker 1: a theory. I don't know. This is these are all
Speaker 1: kind of theoretical things because the we really need to
Speaker 1: study bad immune systems much more to really get a
Speaker 1: good understanding of it. Because the bad immune system is
Speaker 1: so robust, it doesn't necessarily mean that they're responsible for
Speaker 1: passing on zoonotic diseases or that this is just like
Speaker 1: one stop off on the road of like these diseases
Speaker 1: on their path to humans. But one of the theories
Speaker 1: is that, like the bad immune system is like a
Speaker 1: thunderdome for viruses, and so viruses have to basically become
Speaker 1: really tough to survive the bat. That's that's super interesting,
Speaker 1: if that's not too mean. If a question click, do
Speaker 1: you have maybe an example like like like which sort
Speaker 1: of which part of the defense, like anti irs defenses
Speaker 1: of bats are like so efficient. Yeah, absolutely so. One
Speaker 1: of the theories for why bats are so tough for
Speaker 1: a virus to survive is that, um, weirdly so, like
Speaker 1: their immune systems may be less strongly reactive as compared
Speaker 1: to humans. So remember when earlier you were actually talking
Speaker 1: about how you don't necessarily want an immune system that
Speaker 1: just nukes everything in its site because that kills your body. Um,
Speaker 1: you want a more gentle immune system. So that it
Speaker 1: can target pathogens and viruses but not destroy your own
Speaker 1: body in the meantime. Um. But of course the downside
Speaker 1: to that is if you have a more gentle immune system,
Speaker 1: then it's harder for you to combat viruses, so the
Speaker 1: virus might be able to replicate more. But one trick
Speaker 1: that bats have is that, in addition to their immune system,
Speaker 1: their thermal regulations, so their bod the temperature may play
Speaker 1: a key role in immune defense. So researchers have studied
Speaker 1: the immune response of palaces massive bats so that these adorably,
Speaker 1: very doofy looking bats. They're from Panama, they're insectivores, very
Speaker 1: very cute um. When they're infected with a harmless dummy pathogen,
Speaker 1: their immune system barely reacted, so they didn't have a fever.
Speaker 1: They didn't have a huge surge in white blood cells,
Speaker 1: which is really odd because we know bats are pretty
Speaker 1: good at fighting off pathogens. The researchers did surmise that
Speaker 1: this bats immune system was engaged because it lost some
Speaker 1: body mass, which is a sign that their immune system
Speaker 1: is consuming or an energy um. So one of the
Speaker 1: theories that researchers have come up with and have been
Speaker 1: studying is that bats rely on drastic change in body
Speaker 1: heat that they go through every day, uh in order
Speaker 1: to curb the replication of viruses. So basically they are
Speaker 1: creating a very hostile environment for pathogens by having such
Speaker 1: severe internal body weather. So like for many species of bats,
Speaker 1: when they are sleeping during the day, they enter a
Speaker 1: kind of miniature hypernation or torpore. So this is where
Speaker 1: their metabolism slows down and their body temperature drops in
Speaker 1: for a lot of species it drops down to about
Speaker 1: seventy seven degrees fahrenheit, which is twenty five degrees celsius,
Speaker 1: or in some species during the winter, their body temperature
Speaker 1: can drop to as low as fifty degrees fahrenheit or
Speaker 1: ten degrees celsius, which for a human, if your body
Speaker 1: is that cold, you're dead, so super interesting. So when
Speaker 1: they go out to hunt, it's body temperature shoots way
Speaker 1: up to around a hundred and four degrees fahrenheit or
Speaker 1: about forty degrees celsius, which would be a high fever
Speaker 1: in humans. So having a fever is really interesting, right
Speaker 1: because for when we're experiencing a fever, it's really not great,
Speaker 1: you know, if you have Also, if you have too
Speaker 1: high of a fever. It can be harmful to your body.
Speaker 1: It can um you know, cause like uh damage because
Speaker 1: you're essentially you're getting too hot for your your own safety.
Speaker 1: But in general, having a low grade fever or survivable fever,
Speaker 1: you are destroying whatever pathogen has infected your body. You're
Speaker 1: like boiling them alive. Right. One of the theories is
Speaker 1: that basically they turned into fridges during the day when
Speaker 1: they're sleeping because they're nocturnal, which slows down virus viral replication.
Speaker 1: And then during the night when they're active, they heat
Speaker 1: up to these little furnaces that maybe also is unfriendly
Speaker 1: towards viruses and pathogens. It seems are not great for
Speaker 1: us humans because like this way they can like basically
Speaker 1: breed viruses such like um don't suffer from our fever
Speaker 1: responses since we are not getting us hot right right.
Speaker 1: This is one of the theories is again like the
Speaker 1: bat is like this thunderdome, this incredibly hostile environment for
Speaker 1: viruses and pathogens such that they need to mutate to
Speaker 1: be tougher in order to even survive like a day
Speaker 1: inside of a bat. It seems like we are propagating,
Speaker 1: eradicating all bats. No, absolutely not no, no, no. I
Speaker 1: mean one of the issues obviously with eradicating all bats
Speaker 1: is that they do a lot more for us in
Speaker 1: protecting us from diseases than they could ever do harming
Speaker 1: us with diseases. Because of the fact that bats are
Speaker 1: insectivores and so the fact that the bats control populations
Speaker 1: of things like mosquitoes, flies, other potentially disease carrying insects,
Speaker 1: they are much much better for humanity than they would
Speaker 1: ever hurt us. They're also, uh pollinators, so they're responsible
Speaker 1: for huge amounts of cromp and plant pollination. So without
Speaker 1: bats we'd be completely doomed. We'd be screwed. Also, they're adorable,
Speaker 1: so how dare you? Okay, but it's it's a it
Speaker 1: seems like we will help hold off on eradicating all bets.
Speaker 1: Then good, good, yes. Uh. Some of the evidence suggests
Speaker 1: that the daily torpor so that many hibernation they do
Speaker 1: during the day maybe even more important for them to
Speaker 1: survive than the that kind of fever that they have
Speaker 1: when they're active, because that body temperature dropping so much
Speaker 1: really slows the pathogen's rate of reproduction to crawl, and
Speaker 1: so that may be why they're relatively delicate immune systems
Speaker 1: are able to be so effective, so they slow down
Speaker 1: the athogen with their body temperature, and then their immune system,
Speaker 1: with their very surgical precision, comes in and takes care
Speaker 1: of it, which I think is really interesting because in
Speaker 1: medicine we sometimes use what's it called cryotherapy, or when
Speaker 1: you lower a patient's body temperature down while they're fighting
Speaker 1: off infection or illness. So one of the theories is
Speaker 1: that the viruses get tougher when they're faced with bat
Speaker 1: immune cells, so it's more difficult for them to combat
Speaker 1: immune cells, so they have to learn to spread and
Speaker 1: infect cells more efficiently and quickly. But one of the
Speaker 1: issues is that these studies were done on bat cells
Speaker 1: outside of the bat's body, so you're they're missing a
Speaker 1: key component of how the bat's temperature can affect the
Speaker 1: immune system, so which when you're studying cells in a
Speaker 1: petri dish, you have to be forgiven for not being
Speaker 1: able to completely replicate a bats internal body system. But um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, it's we don't really have a complete picture
Speaker 1: of how bat immune systems impact zoonotic diseases, and in fact,
Speaker 1: one of the there is some controversy about like how
Speaker 1: responsible bats are for zooonotic diseases. And one of the
Speaker 1: arguments against them being as bad as they seem is
Speaker 1: that we will find more antibodies left over in living
Speaker 1: bats that are captured because they survived these immune system
Speaker 1: battles more often. So because they survive battling these diseases
Speaker 1: more often, we will simply find more of them with
Speaker 1: these antibodies UH. And so this concept that like, oh
Speaker 1: a lot of them are disease written and are always
Speaker 1: responsible for spreading things to humans, it could just be
Speaker 1: sort of a survivor bias, right, because other animals that
Speaker 1: are infected with it, they may die more quickly. And
Speaker 1: then so we when we're capturing animals and testing them
Speaker 1: for these antibody UH shapes and stuff, we don't find
Speaker 1: it because the ones that were in fact it did die,
Speaker 1: whereas these bats survive and have these antibodies. I wonder
Speaker 1: if we will learn how all of that works the
Speaker 1: next two years, Like, like COVID certainly has to have
Speaker 1: like given bad researchers more budget, right, Like yeah, maybe
Speaker 1: like one of the positive side effects of like this
Speaker 1: pandemic will be like increased budgets for stuff like that,
Speaker 1: so we can find I mean, these are like super
Speaker 1: interesting and crucial problems to sort of. One of the
Speaker 1: interesting things about the immune system is how it can
Speaker 1: be you know, obviously it's it's a huge blessing because
Speaker 1: it keeps us alive, it keeps us from getting eaten
Speaker 1: from the inside out, but it can also present us
Speaker 1: with a obstacle in modern medicine, so we have advanced
Speaker 1: as a species to the point where we can like
Speaker 1: shove someone else's organs inside another body, which is crazy,
Speaker 1: and nobody has sent the memo to our immune system
Speaker 1: to tell us that we're doing this. It's you know,
Speaker 1: it's something that our immune system could have never predicted
Speaker 1: that doctors would someday be like taking someone else's heart
Speaker 1: and putting it into a different person's body. When you
Speaker 1: think of it from the immune system's perspective, that's that's
Speaker 1: not something that it should have seen coming. Right, as
Speaker 1: we said, it's the very beginning. It's just like it
Speaker 1: just sees that something that's like not me, that's like
Speaker 1: something other, and I need to kill it. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what happens when you're trying to transplant something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for millions of years of our evolutionary history. It's it's
Speaker 1: you know, basically been functioning the same way and it's
Speaker 1: worked out pretty well. And now we introduce modern medicine
Speaker 1: and then we get all mad at the immune system
Speaker 1: when it starts rejecting organs, which I think is kind
Speaker 1: of unfair, but nevertheless, it is a big medical challenge
Speaker 1: because when you say do an organ transplant, the immune
Speaker 1: system doesn't have any way to understand this organ is
Speaker 1: being transplanted with all its foreign cells to help the
Speaker 1: body that you you can't communicate that to the immune system.
Speaker 1: It's not sentient, even though it is very complex. It
Speaker 1: can't tell the difference between the foreign tissues of a
Speaker 1: donated organ and a dangerous pathogen, so it will often
Speaker 1: attack something like a donated organ. And this has been
Speaker 1: like one of the biggest challenges to things like being
Speaker 1: able to do organ transplants. And even today with organ transplants,
Speaker 1: patients still have to take immuno suppressing drugs, often for
Speaker 1: their entire life right to cope with an organ transplant.
Speaker 1: One of the reasons why the immune system it's like
Speaker 1: so aggress I like attacks organs that like would save
Speaker 1: the life of the body is that they're just like
Speaker 1: they're made to to look for cells a little bit
Speaker 1: of So for example, like if you're if you have
Speaker 1: a virus infection, like many like the majority of the
Speaker 1: viruses at any given point will be in infected cells
Speaker 1: and not float around freely. So basically, if you're infected
Speaker 1: by a virus, your body wants to find the infected
Speaker 1: cells and kill them, which is like like another not
Speaker 1: a small thing to do, right, So, like you have
Speaker 1: cells inside yourself that have like the they have blank
Speaker 1: check to kill body cells. That's a very very dangerous power.
Speaker 1: Like you really want to have a few safeguards for that.
Speaker 1: So UM, and one of those safeguards, it's basically that
Speaker 1: the cells have like a little passport, and on that
Speaker 1: passport it says, hey, I'm you, I'm I'm part of
Speaker 1: this system, I'm this body. Please don't kill myself. UM.
Speaker 1: And you have cells in your body that do nothing
Speaker 1: but like go through your body, go to every cell
Speaker 1: and just like check their passports and like hey, everything
Speaker 1: all right, Like how's your day? Please show me your papers?
Speaker 1: And if like this cell is infected by a virus
Speaker 1: for example, um or if it is becoming cancerous like
Speaker 1: the okay, all the real mechanisms here, like way to
Speaker 1: complicate it for not but like super interesting, but let's
Speaker 1: just keep it with the passport. So like like if
Speaker 1: a cell is sick, the chances that their passport it's
Speaker 1: a little bit corrupted, is very high. So those cells
Speaker 1: that patrol your body all the time, if they find
Speaker 1: a cell where they're like not happy with like what
Speaker 1: the passport said, they just kill them immediately. Very authoritarian
Speaker 1: society and our immune system, the immune system is a
Speaker 1: police state and it does not care, like it doesn't
Speaker 1: like and actually like even more gruesome if you want to,
Speaker 1: because like they won't kill the cell, they will tell
Speaker 1: the cell to kill itself. Because that's also like another
Speaker 1: interesting thing tax in theory. So it is important how
Speaker 1: our cell dies because of ourselves infected by viruses, and
Speaker 1: like like the guardian cell, we'll just like rip it
Speaker 1: open and kill it. Then all the viruses inside the
Speaker 1: in fact itself will spread further. Right, So that's bad,
Speaker 1: you don't want that, But it's that you tell the
Speaker 1: cell to kill itself, and it's like been selves killed themselves,
Speaker 1: which like basically I think like every second a million
Speaker 1: of yourselves commit suicide something like that, like huge numbers,
Speaker 1: like like yourselves kill themselves all the time, and it's
Speaker 1: super important that they do. But when they kill themselves,
Speaker 1: they basically very politely back their remains into little bags
Speaker 1: that that can later be picked up by. Funnily enough, also,
Speaker 1: the immune system microphages just like clean up dead cells
Speaker 1: apoptos is right, yeah, exactly, And or we're blubbing where
Speaker 1: they just kind of like disintegrate into little bubbles and
Speaker 1: then the macrophages come in and then eat all the
Speaker 1: little bubbles. Yeah, it looks super funny too, if you
Speaker 1: find a video on the internet about that. Just yeah,
Speaker 1: like once cell become yeah, turning into little packages that
Speaker 1: it can be cleaned up. It'd be like in a
Speaker 1: zombie apocalypse if like when there's someone infected with the
Speaker 1: zombie virus and you have someone roaming around testing everyone
Speaker 1: for the zombie virus. It's like, oh, you've got the
Speaker 1: zombie virus, and they're like okay, and then like chop
Speaker 1: themselves up into little pieces and pack themselves up in
Speaker 1: the little bags for easy disposal. Yeah. It's like like
Speaker 1: sadly humans are not that cooperative. Yeah, but like like
Speaker 1: like like cells, just like they can be ordered to
Speaker 1: cool themselves. And it's it's great that it's like that.
Speaker 1: It works like that. Um, we're talking about immune cells,
Speaker 1: not don't don't anthropomorphize them to much. I get so excited. Okay,
Speaker 1: but I can now now I act like now we've
Speaker 1: talked super super briefly about the natural killer cell, which
Speaker 1: is like one of the best immune cells just because
Speaker 1: just because of its name and what it does, Like,
Speaker 1: the natural killer cell is one of those cells that
Speaker 1: do nothing but patrol your body and just like ask people, um,
Speaker 1: like what what's up? Um? And it's it has like
Speaker 1: an ingenious strategy. It's just amazing. So as you can
Speaker 1: imagine um, cancer cells and in fact, like cells infected
Speaker 1: by viruses. They figured that out the whole thing of
Speaker 1: the passport, right they think, oh, if we alter the passport,
Speaker 1: then the immune system and again like nobody's thinking anything.
Speaker 1: It's just like it's evolution but adaptation. Yes, this is
Speaker 1: fluff talk. It makes it like nobody is thinking anything here.
Speaker 1: But like let's say including like the viruses. Yeah, viruses
Speaker 1: and cancer cells think okay, wait, like if you corrupt
Speaker 1: the passport and we will we will we will be killed.
Speaker 1: That's not great. And so maybe instead we just don't
Speaker 1: show a passport. We just make sure that like all
Speaker 1: the cells patrolling don't see the passport and then they
Speaker 1: will ignore U because they can't find the flaws and
Speaker 1: that it is a very effective strategy. Like like like
Speaker 1: some types of those patrolling cells need to see a
Speaker 1: passport to like tell us a cell to kill itself, right,
Speaker 1: otherwise all our selves, which will be bad. Yeah, it's yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: Like it's not great. So for example, like red blood
Speaker 1: cells don't have don't have passports, and there's a lot
Speaker 1: of them, so it's a it's good in theory, Okay,
Speaker 1: But here's the other cell comes in, the natural killer cell.
Speaker 1: What the natural killer cell does. It just goes around
Speaker 1: and checks if cells have a passport. Nothing else. It
Speaker 1: just checks does the seller have a passport? And if
Speaker 1: the answer is no, it kills the cell. So basically
Speaker 1: you have like an like the natural killer cell. It's
Speaker 1: basically a counter strategy to a counter strategy to the
Speaker 1: immune system. Like their cells that are controlling passports, their
Speaker 1: enemies that are hiding passports. There are cells that are
Speaker 1: just looking for cells that are hiding their passports. This
Speaker 1: is like a blade runner situation. Yeah, and okay, going
Speaker 1: back to organ donations, So what what the problem is
Speaker 1: and what the immune system could not have predicted millions
Speaker 1: of years ago when it evolved, is that like intelligent
Speaker 1: apes at some point would like put organs from one
Speaker 1: living being to to other living beings. So what happens
Speaker 1: now if you get transplanted an organ, your immune cells,
Speaker 1: We'll just check passport and they will see, oh, this
Speaker 1: passport is a little bit of maybe not even that
Speaker 1: much of, but it is a little bit of better
Speaker 1: kill that cell, tell it to kill itself. And then
Speaker 1: like another thing that we talked about earlier, like when
Speaker 1: the immune system gets activated, it usually activates more immune
Speaker 1: system and gets more immune cells to that place, and
Speaker 1: they will find so many cells that have like passports
Speaker 1: that are a little bit off um and so basically
Speaker 1: your immune system will eat and kill the organ that
Speaker 1: is otherwise saving your life. And that's also why it
Speaker 1: is like way like way better to have like an
Speaker 1: organ donor that's like closely related to you, because your
Speaker 1: passports will match or be like not that different. I
Speaker 1: think like with like one eyed one twins that's a
Speaker 1: correct way to say that in English. Um, I think
Speaker 1: with that like you have like the the absolute lowest
Speaker 1: amount of reject organ rejection. I think, okay, well we'll
Speaker 1: not please cut that up. I have no idea. That
Speaker 1: sounds right to me. It sounds right right if they're
Speaker 1: identical twins. Even fraternal twins share a lot of genes
Speaker 1: like siblings, but identical twins share the most gene of
Speaker 1: any two simultaneous living humans. So I would imagine that
Speaker 1: their immune systems are probably very similar. I think it
Speaker 1: is that way, but like, yeah, it's like one of
Speaker 1: these things where like it's feels logical, but like should
Speaker 1: you say the things that seems to follow from that,
Speaker 1: like we we should look that up. Let's put it
Speaker 1: this way. Don't practice home surgery on yourselves, twins out there.
Speaker 1: Don't take our words for it. Yeah, but please please don't.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's like the the the amazing magic of
Speaker 1: the immune system once again, checking passports and ruining your life.
Speaker 1: It's like without like wanting to do that, right, but yeah,
Speaker 1: the immune system, it's like it's a it's a dangerous,
Speaker 1: dangerous entity. I guess it's good too for your immune
Speaker 1: system to be so authoritarian when it comes to viruses,
Speaker 1: but when it comes to friendly cells coming and that
Speaker 1: are supposed to help you, an authoritarian immune in state
Speaker 1: can actually be pretty bad. It's like totally especially if
Speaker 1: you have like all commune diseases, which is basically um
Speaker 1: where your body decided that like a type of cell
Speaker 1: that is part of you is actually an enemy and
Speaker 1: just like begins to kill it and like whenever and again,
Speaker 1: like since since the activation cycle works, like like once
Speaker 1: you activate the immune system, like an immune cell, it
Speaker 1: calls other immune cells like it's like a self fulfilling prophecy.
Speaker 1: You're all like like the immune system. It's like you know,
Speaker 1: you know the joke about like the okay is it? Okay?
Speaker 1: Is this called ghost drive in English? If you like
Speaker 1: go go down the highway on the opposite direction ghost drive?
Speaker 1: What it just? Is it called in English when you
Speaker 1: go the highway the opposite way, just driving on the
Speaker 1: wrong side of their own Okay? So like we have
Speaker 1: a job what worked for that in German which I
Speaker 1: tried to translate, which it didn't work. We don't have
Speaker 1: a we don't have a many specific words in English
Speaker 1: for things. Fair enough, enough. So it's like those immune
Speaker 1: cells that got activated against your own body. They're basically
Speaker 1: it's like cells going down the wrong side of the
Speaker 1: highway and they're just like wondering why, Like there are
Speaker 1: thousands of people going in the wrong way on the highway.
Speaker 1: What's wrong. It's like like your immune like your autoimmune cells,
Speaker 1: it's like the enemies everywhere. Yeah, like like this horrible guys,
Speaker 1: like we like there's a serious affection going on, like
Speaker 1: what's happening here? And then that's how you get like
Speaker 1: inflammatory bow disease and other autoimmune disorders. And yeah, it's horrible,
Speaker 1: very desperate and like confused and said immune cells that
Speaker 1: just like thinks they're like like in World War two.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, a bunch of a bunch of doomsday proper
Speaker 1: cells that have gone away too extreme in your own body.
Speaker 1: That's not a good thing. But yeah, in some cases,
Speaker 1: the immune system has to be completely revamped in order
Speaker 1: to work with certain evolutionary traits. So when we're talking
Speaker 1: about like a fetus or a donated organ, you have
Speaker 1: this problem of of you have to solve to stop
Speaker 1: the immune system from attacking that thing. But what if
Speaker 1: instead of having a donated organ You have a donated
Speaker 1: boyfriend that is attached to your body. So this is
Speaker 1: what happens with anglerfish. So anglerfish we kind of the
Speaker 1: most famous species of anglerfish. You probably have a pretty
Speaker 1: good idea of what it looks like. They're those really
Speaker 1: spooky looking deep sea fish with the big pointy teeth,
Speaker 1: a bioluminescent lure, and overall very bony, angular, haunted looking bodies.
Speaker 1: There are many species of anglerfish, but the ones that
Speaker 1: you're probably thinking of ore in the Sarah Today family,
Speaker 1: So they're the creepy, glowing, pointy tooth. Uh. They're actually
Speaker 1: also called sea devils because they look horrible, like some
Speaker 1: kind of ghoul that lives at the bottom of the ocean.
Speaker 1: They have this fun little quirk where, in order to mate,
Speaker 1: the male, who is this tiny tadpole like fish compared
Speaker 1: to the much larger female, actually attaches himself to the
Speaker 1: female's body so he'll bite down on the underside of
Speaker 1: her belly, and his mouth actually uses an enzyme to
Speaker 1: melt their flesh together, so his mouth will melt and
Speaker 1: that point on the female's belly will melt broken down
Speaker 1: by this enzyme, and then they're just fused together, and
Speaker 1: it's he's like grafted himself onto the female's body, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, that's a lot of commitment. I got admire,
Speaker 1: got admire that level of commitment in a relationship. So
Speaker 1: once the male is attached to the female, he will
Speaker 1: depend on her for nutrients, for breathing, for the circulatory system, locomotion, everything.
Speaker 1: He basically becomes like an appendage and and he's an
Speaker 1: appendage that will provide her with sperm for reproduction. And
Speaker 1: this may seem like the perfect romantic story, you know,
Speaker 1: just a very cozy situation, but there's a big problem,
Speaker 1: which is the immune response. Because you know, if you
Speaker 1: try to graft yourself to another person, it's not going
Speaker 1: to go well. I mean, first of all, I don't
Speaker 1: think most people would be cool with that, but also
Speaker 1: your immune system would not be cool with that, and
Speaker 1: your immune system would attack this foreign object attached to you.
Speaker 1: So anglerfish just have decided that they love this uh
Speaker 1: kind of situation so much where the male attaches it
Speaker 1: to the female, they've completely ditched a whole part of
Speaker 1: their immune system in order to make this very close
Speaker 1: relationship work. Basically is that they don't they did they
Speaker 1: skipt T cells and lex the adaptive immune system? Yes,
Speaker 1: so they they completely scraped the adaptive immune system. They're
Speaker 1: actually two main categories of immune system, right, There's the
Speaker 1: adaptive immune system and the innate immune system, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: the first line defense and like the superweapons if you want,
Speaker 1: Like what a nice picture. So, like, the innate immune
Speaker 1: system is less like a supercomputer and more like sort
Speaker 1: of a physical fortress. So part of your innate immune
Speaker 1: system is stuff like your skin, right, like it it
Speaker 1: protects your your body from invasion or mucasal lining's um.
Speaker 1: Macrophages are also part of the innate immune system, right yeah,
Speaker 1: like like all the soldiers cell basically this sold your
Speaker 1: cells that like when they see an enemy can engage
Speaker 1: immediately in besson heads. Yeah, heavy the heavy fighting, right exactly.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of the less technologically advanced part of
Speaker 1: the immune system. But the adaptive immune system is that
Speaker 1: really pretty complex, like a bunch of little computer programs
Speaker 1: running around. So uh, antibodies and T cells being called
Speaker 1: into action that are adapting themselves to unique pathogens or
Speaker 1: viruses or strange new threats. Right, may offer a picture, yes, maybe,
Speaker 1: like like so as far as I've understood it, Like
Speaker 1: the like the in an immune system, it's just like
Speaker 1: already when you're born, it's it's there, it's ready, it's
Speaker 1: ready to go, it's happy to fight for you. And
Speaker 1: the adaptive immune system is like when you're born. It's
Speaker 1: like it's like a computer. It's like hardware, but it
Speaker 1: doesn't have software yet, so it's like it's also like
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why kids get sick so much,
Speaker 1: they don't like the immunity has not booted up basically,
Speaker 1: and and what like this hardware without software does it
Speaker 1: then collects data and gets better and better at defending you.
Speaker 1: And it basically is like the I guess in a
Speaker 1: sense you could say it's like the stronger part of
Speaker 1: the two immune systems when it's really properly activated. So like,
Speaker 1: I'm really really curious to learn how it like made
Speaker 1: sense for the English fish too to drop in like
Speaker 1: all of that right right exactly. It's it's really strange
Speaker 1: because in order for this mating system to work, for
Speaker 1: the male to be able to attach to the female
Speaker 1: and not be killed by her immune system, basically that
Speaker 1: aspect of their immune system doesn't function, so they don't
Speaker 1: really use you know, antibodies and T cells. They still
Speaker 1: have the innate immune system, so some of them more
Speaker 1: or rudimentary kinds of immune responses that they do to
Speaker 1: you know, basic basic pathogens. But uh, when that mail
Speaker 1: will attach to the female, there is no they you know,
Speaker 1: these cells in that area won't call for an immune
Speaker 1: response to come over and attack the mail. And so
Speaker 1: the big question is, Okay, great, but how do they survive?
Speaker 1: I hate to you know, leave everyone on a cliffhanger.
Speaker 1: Researchers are still looking into it. There's no definitive answer
Speaker 1: of like, you know, why this system works for these
Speaker 1: weird little fish. Uh, it's possible that they have a
Speaker 1: stronger innate system to make up for the lack of
Speaker 1: the adaptive system. So, uh, this is really weird, um,
Speaker 1: and you you'd probably know more about how weird this
Speaker 1: is because it doesn't seem like these immune systems should
Speaker 1: be able to be decoupled, like they kind of work
Speaker 1: together technically lazy adaptive immune system really technically like the
Speaker 1: adaptive immune system really super depends on the innate immune
Speaker 1: system to activate it. So the the adaptive immune system
Speaker 1: basically it's on standby always until you're innate immune system decides. Basically, oh,
Speaker 1: like he's like something dangerous is going on. It's like
Speaker 1: like too much for for for me to handle. I'll
Speaker 1: activate my adaptive immune system body. So technically you don't
Speaker 1: need too many switches. I mean, like I have no idea,
Speaker 1: not I'm not pretending anything about angler fish, but at least,
Speaker 1: like an in humans, if you switch off, like one
Speaker 1: or two cells from the adaptive immune system have patterned
Speaker 1: from your innate immune system, your adaptive adaptive immune system
Speaker 1: should not activate anymore. But that's just like sounds like
Speaker 1: such a horrible idea. It's really interesting that like having
Speaker 1: a little a life sperm bag when your back is
Speaker 1: basically they should be worth um shouting off like at
Speaker 1: least half of your immune system and like your defense
Speaker 1: against any sort of like really serious infection. Unlike you,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna pretend I know a lot about anglerfish. Um.
Speaker 1: I wonder if it's because they're deep sea living fish,
Speaker 1: so they don't have to fight off as many pathogens
Speaker 1: as they would have to in a more nutrient rich environment.
Speaker 1: So you know, in that makes sense, the deep sea,
Speaker 1: it does. It can host a lot of things. I mean, obviously,
Speaker 1: bacteria flourishes near deep sea events, these these hot vents
Speaker 1: that have there, like these little pockets in the deep
Speaker 1: sea that do have a lot of nutrients, but uh,
Speaker 1: in certain parts of the deep sea, it's kind of
Speaker 1: like a nutrient desert, so you have to have all
Speaker 1: these clever adaptations to even get a meal. So anglerfish
Speaker 1: have that wonderful bioluminescent bulb that will draw prey to them,
Speaker 1: because it's so hard to go and hunt prey when
Speaker 1: you have these this very like spartan area of the ocean.
Speaker 1: So I'm wondering if the only reason that they can
Speaker 1: just survive on the innate immune system is that there
Speaker 1: aren't as many pathogens, as many viruses that are able
Speaker 1: to spread from h from animal to animal or you know,
Speaker 1: around in this very desolate environment of the deep ocean.
Speaker 1: So so basically, to never get sick, don't have contact
Speaker 1: with other living beings. And then, I mean, that's what
Speaker 1: we've learned right over the past two years. So every
Speaker 1: week we do a Mystery animal sound game where I
Speaker 1: play an animal sound and you all out there try
Speaker 1: to guess what the heck is talking. Philip, you want
Speaker 1: to play along this week. That sounds amazing. So first
Speaker 1: we've got to reveal the mystery animal sound from last week.
Speaker 1: So the hint from last week was not so fast.
Speaker 1: This isn't who you think it is, and here is
Speaker 1: the sound. So who do you think that is? Philip? Oh,
Speaker 1: my god, like some kind of bird, but like, yeah,
Speaker 1: not no idea of beyond that, because it sounds like
Speaker 1: a baby chick. Right, it sounds like a little little
Speaker 1: baby chicken or a baby bird, but it is in
Speaker 1: fact a cheetah. Huh yeah, oh yeah, right, okay, like interesting, right,
Speaker 1: Like what's wrong with it? It's got it? It swallowed
Speaker 1: a bird it and it's trying to escape out of
Speaker 1: the cheetah. No. So cheetahs are really interesting because of
Speaker 1: the big cats. They have very cute little vocalizations. So
Speaker 1: cheetahs don't roar, and they're actually one of the few
Speaker 1: big cats that purr because the that um the same
Speaker 1: sort of vocal chord system that allows lions to roar
Speaker 1: actually would prevent them from uh purring. So cheetahs don't roar,
Speaker 1: but they purr, and they make all sorts of adorable
Speaker 1: vocalizations like chirps, which can be used by a mother
Speaker 1: to kind of locate it it's young, or let it's
Speaker 1: young know where it is, or by by siblings to
Speaker 1: kind of give each other heads up of where they are.
Speaker 1: And uh, yeah they are. They make adorable little baby
Speaker 1: bird noises even though they are one of the fastest
Speaker 1: predators in the world. So definitely shocking to hear that
Speaker 1: coming out of a big cat like a cheetah. Congratulations
Speaker 1: to this week's winners of the animal sound game who
Speaker 1: wrote me in the fastest, get it fast because you
Speaker 1: know Jeeta's Abigail m ri Ellen Keegan, y'all guess correctly.
Speaker 1: I got a lot of correct guesses. The good job everyone,
Speaker 1: You guys are so smart. So now onto this week's
Speaker 1: mystery animal sound. So the hint for this week's sound
Speaker 1: is this may sound like a herd of goats, but
Speaker 1: if you try to milk these guys, you're gonna have
Speaker 1: a bad time. Is that it's some kind of some
Speaker 1: kind of insect. Well, I can't tell you because I
Speaker 1: will reveal the answer to this week's guts, Who's talk
Speaker 1: and game next Wednesday. So Philip, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for joining me today and taking us on a tour
Speaker 1: of the wonderful, wacky world of immune systems. So let's
Speaker 1: tell people about where they can find your book Immune
Speaker 1: and where they can find some of your other work. Well,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me. Yeah, you can get my book,
Speaker 1: which is called Immune Journey into this mysterious system that
Speaker 1: keeps you alive. I guess everywhere where you can get books. Um,
Speaker 1: and I personally don't have social media, so you can't
Speaker 1: find me anywhere, but you can see my work on
Speaker 1: our YouTube channel Za Nutshell, which is on YouTube. I
Speaker 1: highly recommend it if you want to learn about things
Speaker 1: and really fun and the animate. I'm a little bit
Speaker 1: of an animation nerd and it's absolutely gorgeous animation and
Speaker 1: really clear, really nice explanations for things. It's also weirdly
Speaker 1: relaxing to learn. So I really love that channel. Um yeah,
Speaker 1: so check that out. Check out that book Immune if
Speaker 1: you want to learn more about them. And uh yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for listening. Uh. If you think you
Speaker 1: have an answer to this week's mry animal sound game,
Speaker 1: or you want to write in questions concerns, uh pictures
Speaker 1: of your immune system. Wait, don't do that, don't do that,
Speaker 1: write me at creature feature pod at gmail dot com,
Speaker 1: Creature feature Pot at Instagram, creat your feet pot on Twitter.
Speaker 1: That's f e a T, not f e ET. That
Speaker 1: is something very different. And if you're enjoying the show
Speaker 1: and you leave a rating or review, that is really wonderful.
Speaker 1: I appreciate all the reviews. I read them all. I
Speaker 1: take note of what you guys are saying to help
Speaker 1: improve the show, and of course it also helps with
Speaker 1: the algorithms. We must all obey the algorithms. All hail
Speaker 1: the algorithms. And thanks so much to the space plas
Speaker 1: six for their super awesome song x Alumina. Creature features
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts like
Speaker 1: the one you just heard, visit the I heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or Hey guess what where have you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows? See you next Wednesday.