WEBVTT - Undead Genes: Genetic Activation After Death 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:05.880 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:05.920 --> 0:00:15.120 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:15.160 --> 0:00:18.040 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick and Robert. 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:22.560 Today we are going to be talking about undead jeans. Yes, 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:25.640 undead jeans, as they've been called in some of the 0:00:26.160 --> 0:00:29.280 headlines making the rounds. Some have even dared to call 0:00:29.360 --> 0:00:32.480 them zombie jeans. But I like to think even even 0:00:32.520 --> 0:00:35.960 those headline writers feel a little bit dirty actually calling 0:00:36.000 --> 0:00:38.479 them zombie jeans. I think zombies is a metaphor that 0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:42.320 has just invoked too often. Now. I used to love zombies. 0:00:42.560 --> 0:00:45.360 Uh ten years ago or so, or maybe even a 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:47.720 little before that is when it was like peak zombie 0:00:47.720 --> 0:00:50.319 for me. In two thousand four, I saw a Knight 0:00:50.400 --> 0:00:52.600 of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead that year, 0:00:52.640 --> 0:00:56.160 and and that was enough. And then suddenly we're in 0:00:56.160 --> 0:00:59.880 this zombie world where everything is zombies all the time. Yeah, 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:01.680 it's been. I'm tired of it. It's been. It's been 0:01:01.760 --> 0:01:04.400 rolled out just far too often in science headlines. So yeah, 0:01:04.400 --> 0:01:06.840 I think we should do more. Just undead genes or 0:01:07.520 --> 0:01:10.479 undead could be a vampire, it could be a litch, 0:01:10.600 --> 0:01:12.960 yet litch genes would be good. I would like that, 0:01:13.160 --> 0:01:17.960 or even uh even something like um necro genes. I 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:20.640 could be over that as well. But the cool thing 0:01:20.680 --> 0:01:23.280 is is what we're talking about here is not completely 0:01:23.280 --> 0:01:25.959 out of keeping with these concepts, you know. It's that 0:01:26.080 --> 0:01:30.360 there is there is a strong enough thread connecting even 0:01:30.400 --> 0:01:33.399 the more outlandish headlines to the really cool science that's 0:01:33.440 --> 0:01:35.800 going on here. Yeah, and so specifically, this is going 0:01:35.880 --> 0:01:39.600 to be referencing a paper that was pre published this 0:01:39.680 --> 0:01:42.320 summer in June. I think we're actually still waiting on 0:01:42.319 --> 0:01:45.120 it to come out in in a journal form, but 0:01:45.200 --> 0:01:48.800 it was pre published on a pre publication server bio archive, 0:01:48.920 --> 0:01:51.520 and and it's been covered in that form. So just 0:01:51.600 --> 0:01:54.360 be aware that that, you know, we don't have all 0:01:54.360 --> 0:01:57.600 the opinions in yet, right, But back back to undead 0:01:57.640 --> 0:02:00.480 gene So we of course probably don't have to say this, 0:02:00.560 --> 0:02:02.520 but just to be clear, this is a metaphor. We're 0:02:02.520 --> 0:02:06.600 not talking about any kind of magical or supernatural resuscitation. Instead, 0:02:06.640 --> 0:02:11.040 we're trying to communicate what's very unusual about the activity 0:02:11.080 --> 0:02:15.320 of genetic structures that have been discovered to continue after 0:02:15.560 --> 0:02:18.959 what's known as organismal death. The death of the overall 0:02:19.120 --> 0:02:22.800 body and uh. And it's not unusual, of course to 0:02:22.919 --> 0:02:25.920 use metaphors to think about what the body does, but 0:02:26.000 --> 0:02:28.640 it is helpful to find the right ones. Yeah, we 0:02:28.680 --> 0:02:30.880 depend on a number of metaphors to understand the human body. 0:02:31.000 --> 0:02:34.600 Machine is a big one, you know, the biomechanical man um. 0:02:34.840 --> 0:02:37.840 I I'm always partial to horse and rider versus centaur. 0:02:38.200 --> 0:02:41.600 Who's the rider? Well, horse and ride, horse and rider, 0:02:41.720 --> 0:02:45.200 the rider's the brain. Okay, the horses the body. And 0:02:45.200 --> 0:02:47.520 this is a faulty way of looking at the at 0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:50.960 the mind body connection. Centaur makes more sense where the 0:02:50.960 --> 0:02:54.680 tour are joined. Um. And in addition to that, you 0:02:54.760 --> 0:02:57.720 also see vessel every now. And I think we've talked 0:02:57.720 --> 0:03:01.960 about like spaceship, the spaceship human body before. UM. But 0:03:02.160 --> 0:03:04.840 if you think of it as a civilization, as I 0:03:04.880 --> 0:03:07.040 did in looking at this paper, you know what is 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:12.200 death about the apocalypse civilizational extinction exactly because you have 0:03:12.400 --> 0:03:15.120 in the human body essentially have a vast kingdom of 0:03:15.400 --> 0:03:18.200 somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred trillion cells, thirty 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:22.639 thousand genes, eleven distinct systems, and on top of all 0:03:22.639 --> 0:03:27.920 of this, just the the the manifestation of cognition, environmental sensitivity, navigation, 0:03:27.960 --> 0:03:32.280 and self awareness, all of these systems, this this wondrous 0:03:32.639 --> 0:03:35.960 manifestation of consciousness, all of it working together and ruled 0:03:36.000 --> 0:03:39.480 over by genetics and epigenetics. So the genes and then 0:03:39.520 --> 0:03:42.760 the way the genes are expressed, at least until what 0:03:42.840 --> 0:03:46.240 happens everything falls apart, right right, Okay, yeah, I'm kind 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:47.960 of seeing this. So maybe in this metaphor, you can 0:03:47.960 --> 0:03:52.480 think about genes as what the constitution that governs the 0:03:52.560 --> 0:03:56.400 society or the council of elders in their roads and 0:03:56.480 --> 0:04:00.480 the servants that that rule over the fabulous city. Uh 0:04:00.520 --> 0:04:04.400 I guess you could probably say that no real civilization 0:04:04.680 --> 0:04:08.920 is as thoroughly prescribed by any kind of written document 0:04:09.000 --> 0:04:11.720 that says how everything's going to work as the body 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:15.080 is by the genes. Yeah, and then of course that's 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:18.040 not to say that everything works perfectly. Certainly the kingdom 0:04:18.080 --> 0:04:20.599 of the human body has its issues and has its problems. 0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:24.880 But sometimes you might get a cancerous rebellion. Yeah yeah, 0:04:25.320 --> 0:04:28.560 cancerus rebellion, or just things that don't particularly work right, 0:04:28.600 --> 0:04:31.160 But we kind of we evolved into it with the 0:04:31.400 --> 0:04:33.560 current system of government is based on old systems of 0:04:33.600 --> 0:04:37.000 government and and therefore the legacy is still there. Yeah. 0:04:37.120 --> 0:04:39.240 And in this sense, I guess you could look at 0:04:39.320 --> 0:04:43.200 death as if death in the body is energy bankruptcy. 0:04:43.240 --> 0:04:46.800 Suddenly cells can't get the energy they need in order 0:04:46.839 --> 0:04:49.560 to do what they need to do. That's sort of 0:04:49.600 --> 0:04:52.520 like in a civilizational sense, if there's a total collapse 0:04:52.600 --> 0:04:56.880 of resource distribution, Suddenly you can't get food and energy, 0:04:57.320 --> 0:05:01.360 you know, power, water to the people who need them exactly. 0:05:01.400 --> 0:05:04.200 And when that when that happens, say in a kingdom, 0:05:04.320 --> 0:05:08.320 in a in an empire, we it's not like everything 0:05:08.360 --> 0:05:11.719 just completely falls apart. I mean, the things may fall apart, 0:05:11.800 --> 0:05:15.120 the center may not hold, but everybody doesn't just vanish 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:20.200 into nothing. Um. And and we see a similar right, yeah, yeah, 0:05:20.279 --> 0:05:21.920 we see a similar thing happened with the body, just 0:05:21.920 --> 0:05:25.200 as certain factions in a post apocalyptic scenario would would 0:05:25.240 --> 0:05:27.919 try and hold onto power or carry out their duties, 0:05:27.960 --> 0:05:31.120 you know, bravely delivering the mail no matter of what 0:05:31.200 --> 0:05:35.520 has happened, while other populations, such as microbiota and in 0:05:35.800 --> 0:05:39.000 our body riot and rampage. So just as warlords and 0:05:39.040 --> 0:05:42.119 bandit kings rise up in the wake of a kingdom's fall, 0:05:42.480 --> 0:05:46.599 so too, do certain genes come to life after death, 0:05:47.000 --> 0:05:50.120 some manifesting in ways that they haven't since the womb. 0:05:51.880 --> 0:05:53.640 And that's the crazy thing here we have to have. 0:05:53.800 --> 0:05:55.839 You know, what is happening here. We tend to view 0:05:55.960 --> 0:05:58.880 death is this great unraveling the system after sift system 0:05:59.000 --> 0:06:03.640 just going dark? So why would certain genes activate on 0:06:03.680 --> 0:06:05.120 the other side of death? I wanted to be an 0:06:05.200 --> 0:06:09.559 uptick and activity from certain genes after the organism has 0:06:10.040 --> 0:06:13.159 technically died. Well, that's a good question. Eventually, we're gonna 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:16.120 look at this paper, specifically that it's been pre published 0:06:16.200 --> 0:06:19.160 this summer and discuss its findings. But first I think 0:06:19.200 --> 0:06:22.000 we need to set a little bit of context about 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:25.920 what exactly is happening in the body with with genes 0:06:26.040 --> 0:06:29.400 and how they're expressed. So a question you might have 0:06:29.440 --> 0:06:31.479 wondered before. Maybe you already know the answer to this, 0:06:31.520 --> 0:06:33.800 Maybe it's a little bit kind of vague. How do 0:06:33.839 --> 0:06:36.719 you get from genes to bodies? We all know this 0:06:36.800 --> 0:06:39.279 metaphor that genes are the blueprints, right, You know that 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:43.000 genes have some sort of information encoded in them that 0:06:43.080 --> 0:06:46.520 will allow you to build a body that does what 0:06:46.680 --> 0:06:50.360 your body does. But really a gene is a molecule. 0:06:50.440 --> 0:06:53.520 A gene is a tiny molecular structure in DNA, and 0:06:53.560 --> 0:06:57.560 it's a chain of nucleotides, which are organic molecules made 0:06:57.560 --> 0:07:01.720 of a nitrogenous molecule based and usually got a phosphate 0:07:01.760 --> 0:07:06.160 group and a carbon sugar. But bodies are these big 0:07:06.200 --> 0:07:10.760 macro structures, relatively gigantic machines, and they're made primarily of 0:07:10.800 --> 0:07:14.680 cells full of proteins and protein structures that determine what 0:07:14.720 --> 0:07:18.280 the cells can do. And ultimately this collection of cells 0:07:18.360 --> 0:07:22.560 works as a sort of vehicle for gene replication, basically 0:07:22.640 --> 0:07:26.160 by being a gigantic energy trap. Now, how do you 0:07:26.200 --> 0:07:28.720 get from one to the other. This tiny molecule has 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:32.119 to build your whole body well. In order to get 0:07:32.200 --> 0:07:35.200 from this tiny chain molecule to create an effect in 0:07:35.240 --> 0:07:38.160 the outside in in the the outer world the body 0:07:38.200 --> 0:07:41.680 at large, the gene has to be expressed. This is 0:07:41.720 --> 0:07:44.760 the term gene expression, and it's the name for the 0:07:44.800 --> 0:07:48.080 process that gets you from DNA to cell function. And 0:07:48.080 --> 0:07:50.800 then of course cell function at large determines what your 0:07:50.840 --> 0:07:54.440 body is and what it does. But at the ground level, 0:07:54.520 --> 0:07:58.520 this process is just biochemistry. You might remember these words 0:07:58.520 --> 0:08:02.240 from sometime learning them in school. Will transcription and translation 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:05.760 do they ring a bell? Gene gene expression is what 0:08:05.880 --> 0:08:08.880 these words refer to. So you have a chain of 0:08:08.960 --> 0:08:11.680 nucleotides in your DNA and it's a gene for I 0:08:11.760 --> 0:08:13.200 was trying to think of what I could say a 0:08:13.240 --> 0:08:16.680 gene for maybe fingernails growing really fast. Could that be 0:08:16.720 --> 0:08:20.840 a thing that's gene regulated? Perhaps? Uh so. First, in 0:08:20.960 --> 0:08:23.480 order for that gene to be expressed, there's what's known 0:08:23.520 --> 0:08:25.800 as transcription, and this is going to be key to 0:08:25.840 --> 0:08:29.080 the paper that we're looking at in a bit. Transcription 0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:34.040 is where an enzyme called RNA polymerase latches onto a 0:08:34.120 --> 0:08:38.240 section of the DNA molecule and it starts pulling together 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:41.760 all these other molecules to create a copy of that 0:08:41.880 --> 0:08:45.480 DNA section out of this substance RNA, which is similar 0:08:45.520 --> 0:08:51.240 to DNA. Now, sometimes that RNA copy alone does something 0:08:51.360 --> 0:08:53.800 useful in the cell. You've just made this RNA copy 0:08:53.840 --> 0:08:56.400 and it goes off and does its job. Other times, 0:08:56.559 --> 0:09:00.960 RNA is what's known as messenger RNA and essentially acts 0:09:01.000 --> 0:09:05.120 to take that that gene and carry it to a 0:09:05.200 --> 0:09:08.400 structure inside the cell like a ribosome, and there at 0:09:08.440 --> 0:09:12.600 the ribosome which arrives. Zome is a tiny molecular machine. 0:09:12.600 --> 0:09:15.760 It's a nanomachine that does work inside the cell. At 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:18.600 the ribosome, we get to the process of translation, and 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:23.480 that's where the rb zome essentially metaphorically, it reads the 0:09:23.600 --> 0:09:27.760 RNA photocopy of the gene and then translates into proteins 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:31.320 that assume a function within the cell. These proteins determine 0:09:31.360 --> 0:09:33.280 what the cell can do, so that that's how you 0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:39.160 get from genes to a cell doing something to a body. Um. So, 0:09:39.480 --> 0:09:43.200 of course we speak metaphorically in terms like copies and reads, 0:09:43.480 --> 0:09:46.200 but keep in mind these are all chemical reactions, just 0:09:46.280 --> 0:09:48.760 like you know, Robert, did you ever make a science 0:09:48.760 --> 0:09:51.360 fair volcano? Oh? You bet I have, and I will 0:09:51.360 --> 0:09:54.520 make a few more before I'm done. Oh yeah, they 0:09:54.520 --> 0:09:56.920 are fun. I've never made one just for fun at home. 0:09:57.679 --> 0:09:59.719 I guess maybe when I have Well, there's a you know, 0:09:59.760 --> 0:10:01.920 there's a lot of set up with the with the 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:05.640 volcano itself. But yeah, what's the classic recipe for the 0:10:05.640 --> 0:10:08.960 science fair? So you need vinegary, you need a little 0:10:09.080 --> 0:10:12.880 food coloring, uh huh, and then you get volcano. Right. 0:10:12.920 --> 0:10:14.599 I never thought of food coloring that would make it 0:10:14.640 --> 0:10:16.640 more lava issue. If you make it orange, you've gotta 0:10:16.640 --> 0:10:19.400 make it orange or red otherwise, Um, otherwise you're just 0:10:19.679 --> 0:10:22.440 doing bacon, soda and vinegar. Right. Well, so that's a 0:10:22.559 --> 0:10:25.800 very simple chemical reaction. But this is a much more 0:10:25.800 --> 0:10:29.319 complex chemical reaction. And these chemical reactions are taking place 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:36.280 between highly specialized molecules shaped by biochemical evolution. But back 0:10:36.320 --> 0:10:39.240 to those macro characteristics, the you know, the body as 0:10:39.280 --> 0:10:43.160 a whole, the big characteristics you see, all those observable 0:10:43.240 --> 0:10:47.280 characteristics of an organism, uh that emerge as a product 0:10:47.280 --> 0:10:50.559 of genes expressing themselves in an environment. All that together 0:10:50.640 --> 0:10:53.640 is known as the phenotype. You've got your genotype, that's 0:10:53.640 --> 0:10:56.960 your genes and they make your phenotype. So your hair 0:10:57.200 --> 0:10:59.400 is a part of your phenotype. Your toes are a 0:10:59.400 --> 0:11:02.199 part of your no type, and your ability to run, 0:11:02.440 --> 0:11:05.640 and your fear of clowns, and you're you know, delightful 0:11:05.679 --> 0:11:08.160 craving for deviled eggs. All of that is part of 0:11:08.200 --> 0:11:12.400 your phenotype. So one would typically assume that, well, the 0:11:12.440 --> 0:11:15.400 death is sort of the end of the phenotype being 0:11:15.440 --> 0:11:17.480 able to do its job right. The death of the 0:11:17.600 --> 0:11:21.360 organism means well, I can't get energy to my cells anymore. 0:11:21.400 --> 0:11:24.960 Everything's fallen apart, So the phenotype just ends. It's kind 0:11:25.000 --> 0:11:28.479 of like one like it's kind of like the the genotype. 0:11:29.120 --> 0:11:32.400 They are the hands creating the shadow puppet, right, and 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:34.559 then the phenotype is the shadow on the wall that 0:11:34.640 --> 0:11:38.199 looks like a barking dog. Right. If the flashlight goes out, 0:11:38.320 --> 0:11:40.360 that you can't make the shadow on the wall anymore. 0:11:40.720 --> 0:11:44.920 But the hand, the hands are still there. Yeah, So 0:11:45.000 --> 0:11:47.480 the hands are still there. And so the phenotype is 0:11:47.520 --> 0:11:51.800 not necessarily based on the brain being conscious, or the 0:11:51.880 --> 0:11:55.440 heart circulating blood, or the lungs pulling in oxygen and 0:11:55.480 --> 0:11:58.440 purging CEO two. Even though we think of these things 0:11:58.480 --> 0:12:02.920 as the primary signs of life from a purely chemical standpoint, 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:05.760 if you're just some you know, cosmic chemistry professor looking 0:12:05.800 --> 0:12:07.920 at what we do and you're not very concerned about 0:12:07.960 --> 0:12:11.760 the experience of being alive, these are not the primary systems. 0:12:11.800 --> 0:12:15.240 These are support systems, and they're all in service of 0:12:15.360 --> 0:12:20.960 gene replications. So genes make these systems to do the 0:12:21.000 --> 0:12:24.720 things they do because they help trap, conserve, and judiciously 0:12:24.800 --> 0:12:28.520 spend energy that can be used to make gene replication happen. 0:12:28.600 --> 0:12:32.520 More often and more successfully. So, even though your brain 0:12:32.559 --> 0:12:35.000 goes inactive and your heart stops beating and your lung 0:12:35.240 --> 0:12:37.920 your lungs stop pumping, you know, the genes in your 0:12:37.960 --> 0:12:42.520 cell are still in some sense independent machines that can 0:12:42.559 --> 0:12:45.000 continue to do things as long as they have the 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:48.280 energy to do them, and they would go on without 0:12:48.400 --> 0:12:52.080 you if they could. They don't care about you. Even 0:12:52.160 --> 0:12:55.360 though you, the organism are gone. The genes, as independent 0:12:55.360 --> 0:12:58.640 machines are, are still trying to do their thing. So 0:12:59.080 --> 0:13:02.720 does your core biological essence live beyond the death of 0:13:02.760 --> 0:13:05.800 your mind and body at large? Is their gene life 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:09.600 after body death? The answer appears to be yes, and 0:13:09.679 --> 0:13:13.000 the details can get a little bit creepy. Yeah, let's 0:13:13.000 --> 0:13:18.000 get into the undead genes that that here. So we 0:13:18.080 --> 0:13:20.760 knew from previous day Like this isn't just completely out 0:13:20.760 --> 0:13:23.960 of nowhere. So we knew from previous studies looking at 0:13:24.040 --> 0:13:27.480 blood and liver tissue that a few human genes remain 0:13:27.559 --> 0:13:32.520 active in the cadaver age. That's like after the Bronze Age, 0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:35.760 you're still continuing your civilization metaphor after the life age 0:13:35.880 --> 0:13:39.959 into the cadaver age. It continues. But recent work from 0:13:40.040 --> 0:13:43.720 microbiologists Peter Noble of the University of Washington, Seattle and 0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:47.400 his team have revealed a number of genes that that 0:13:47.520 --> 0:13:50.640 seemed to activate after death. So again, the kingdom fall 0:13:50.679 --> 0:13:53.160 on apart, the walls are crumbling, barbarians flowed the street. 0:13:53.280 --> 0:13:55.959 There's no going back to order life, bread and circuses. 0:13:56.600 --> 0:14:00.199 But there are certain certain groups in the city that 0:14:00.240 --> 0:14:01.600 are still going to do their job. They're still going 0:14:01.640 --> 0:14:03.800 to deliver the mail, They're still gonna enforce the law. 0:14:03.840 --> 0:14:08.839 You have maniac cops roaming the streets. Yes, the civilization 0:14:08.960 --> 0:14:12.000 has collapsed, but but some of the machines within it 0:14:12.120 --> 0:14:15.000 still continue to do their thing. Yeah, and so, but 0:14:15.040 --> 0:14:18.240 since there's no going back, since the organism is organism 0:14:18.280 --> 0:14:21.400 is dead, since the human body is dead. At this point, 0:14:21.880 --> 0:14:24.280 it's not an raw area that we really knew that 0:14:24.400 --> 0:14:27.640 much about. As the authors themselves point out, quote, it 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:31.240 is not well known whether gene expression diminishes gradually or 0:14:31.280 --> 0:14:35.480 abruptly stops in death, nor whether specific genes are newly 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:40.240 expressed or upregulated. Upregulated means, of course, uh an increase 0:14:40.240 --> 0:14:43.720 in their activity. So they decided to check it out. Yeah, 0:14:43.760 --> 0:14:45.960 So the paper that they have in pre publication now 0:14:46.080 --> 0:14:49.680 is known as Thanato transcript home my new favorite word, 0:14:50.160 --> 0:14:55.120 the NATO transcript Dome genes actively expressed after organismal death, 0:14:55.280 --> 0:14:58.520 And that's pre published in bio Archive. Last I read, 0:14:58.520 --> 0:15:02.240 it's still under peer review at a journal somewhere. I think, um, though, 0:15:02.240 --> 0:15:04.320 if it's already come out and somebody knows about it, 0:15:04.320 --> 0:15:07.160 please contact us and let us know. But anyway, this 0:15:07.240 --> 0:15:10.200 refers to this collection of genes that continue to be 0:15:10.280 --> 0:15:15.120 expressed after organismal death, as as the Fanato transcript Dome 0:15:15.280 --> 0:15:19.520 from the Greek Thanatos for death and transcript dome for 0:15:19.560 --> 0:15:24.320 the genes that undergo transcription. But I guess the question is, 0:15:24.360 --> 0:15:26.960 how could you actually examine this, Like, what would you 0:15:27.040 --> 0:15:29.600 do to find out if there are genes that are 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:33.400 certainly suddenly starting to be expressed or continuing to be 0:15:33.480 --> 0:15:37.240 expressed after death happens at the total body level. Yeah, 0:15:37.360 --> 0:15:42.600 because experiments on humans that involve, you know, getting right 0:15:42.640 --> 0:15:45.400 in their close at the death point, generally those are 0:15:45.760 --> 0:15:47.840 those are the kind of experiments that either very hard 0:15:47.880 --> 0:15:50.920 to carry out or they're a little unscrupulous in nature. 0:15:51.080 --> 0:15:54.320 So we're not talking about humans. And uh, though it 0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:56.640 does bring me back to those old experiments about the 0:15:56.640 --> 0:15:59.440 weight of the soul and all the painful average you 0:15:59.440 --> 0:16:02.760 had to go who to get a willing dying individual 0:16:03.120 --> 0:16:05.120 to set on your set, to lay down on a 0:16:05.160 --> 0:16:07.280 bed on a set of scales for you. But no, 0:16:07.600 --> 0:16:10.040 they did not bother with humans in this. They examined 0:16:10.080 --> 0:16:14.640 post mortem gene expression into model organisms, the zebra fish 0:16:14.680 --> 0:16:18.160 and the common house mouse, with a focus on examining 0:16:18.240 --> 0:16:22.960 genes with expression increases after death. Again, we're not talking 0:16:23.000 --> 0:16:27.680 about um apoptosis or necrosis, but genes that suddenly light 0:16:27.760 --> 0:16:31.280 up with doomed life again like a band of waste 0:16:31.280 --> 0:16:36.160 wandering survivors. Uh So, So they expected the genes to 0:16:36.240 --> 0:16:39.080 shut down, but they didn't. But they did not in 0:16:39.120 --> 0:16:42.160 all cases. Although most of these upregulating genes up to 0:16:42.160 --> 0:16:44.520 their activity in the first twenty four hours after the 0:16:44.560 --> 0:16:47.840 animals expired and then tapered off. And in the fish, 0:16:47.880 --> 0:16:51.600 some genes remained active four days after death. So that 0:16:51.760 --> 0:16:55.560 that's crazy, Yeah, thinking about four days after the organism 0:16:55.600 --> 0:16:59.040 has died, there are still some genes in some cells 0:16:59.200 --> 0:17:02.240 or a body that are still doing things. They're they're 0:17:02.320 --> 0:17:06.280 undergoing transcription, they're having this chemical reaction. That's the beginning 0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:09.440 of the process to create proteins. The fingers are still 0:17:09.440 --> 0:17:13.720 working furiously to make that dog shadow puppet on the wall. Now, 0:17:14.240 --> 0:17:16.080 they had to kill a bunch of fish and mice 0:17:16.119 --> 0:17:19.600 for this. Uh that's how you get the specific time 0:17:19.640 --> 0:17:22.320 of death for the lab animals case. I think they 0:17:22.400 --> 0:17:24.800 killed the fish with ice water. Yeah, they Well, they 0:17:24.840 --> 0:17:27.800 have a pretty They have pretty exhaustive details about the 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:31.479 methodology in the paper. Um, but suffice to say they 0:17:31.480 --> 0:17:34.840 gave them all an irrefutable death so as to study 0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:37.520 what came next. The mice, I know they killed by 0:17:37.600 --> 0:17:41.680 cervical dislocation, which is the humane way you're supposed to 0:17:41.880 --> 0:17:44.760 execute a mouse in the lab. You dislocate the skull 0:17:44.840 --> 0:17:47.600 from the spine. They're just like in an action movie 0:17:47.640 --> 0:17:51.080 with like Geene Claude van Dam with his hands, Like 0:17:51.240 --> 0:17:53.760 Steven Seagal does that right, Oh yeah, he grabs somebody's 0:17:53.800 --> 0:17:56.439 head and just breaks it off, just this casual little movement. 0:17:56.880 --> 0:17:58.639 It always does make me a little bit sad to 0:17:58.680 --> 0:18:00.639 read about mice like that, but I think we are 0:18:00.680 --> 0:18:03.560 actually learning things from this kind of research that could 0:18:03.560 --> 0:18:07.040 potentially lead to medical research two very useful applications in 0:18:07.080 --> 0:18:11.560 the real world. So after they euthanize these animals as 0:18:11.680 --> 0:18:14.840 as they said, Uh, they took samples and they leaned 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:17.760 in for a closer look, observing the non random up 0:18:17.760 --> 0:18:20.200 regulation of certain genes. And that's important here because it's 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:23.000 not just like, oh, the everything's out of order and 0:18:23.040 --> 0:18:26.240 things are clicking on and off randomly. Yeah, yeah, that 0:18:26.240 --> 0:18:29.040 that is worth noting. So it wasn't just like all 0:18:29.080 --> 0:18:31.880 the genes started just kind of lighting up as they 0:18:31.920 --> 0:18:36.359 noticed specific genes are being up regulated at this time. Yeah. 0:18:36.440 --> 0:18:38.360 So it's not like, oh, the chicken's head is cut 0:18:38.359 --> 0:18:40.920 off and it's just running. It's no, it's more like 0:18:40.960 --> 0:18:43.280 the chicken's head is cut off, but it's running specifically 0:18:43.920 --> 0:18:47.320 to a bar across town to get a drink or something. Um. 0:18:47.359 --> 0:18:50.280 And so so they sorted the genes into several different categories. 0:18:50.880 --> 0:18:52.960 So I'm just gonna and I and we're not gonna 0:18:53.000 --> 0:18:55.800 go through all of the genes in all of the categories, 0:18:55.880 --> 0:18:58.480 but just the categorization they rolled out, I think it's 0:18:58.640 --> 0:19:07.879 very illuminating stress, immunity, inflammation, apoptosis, solute ion, protein transport, 0:19:08.480 --> 0:19:15.800 embryonic development, epigenetic regulation, and cancer. Okay, so one part 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:19.200 of their results that is not so surprising is that 0:19:19.440 --> 0:19:22.399 a lot of the gene expression that you see continuing 0:19:22.720 --> 0:19:27.760 after death is related to emergencies happening within the body. Yeah, yeah, 0:19:27.760 --> 0:19:33.160 shock emergency. They're concerned with stimulating inflammation and the immune system. 0:19:33.359 --> 0:19:35.399 I think these are the police and firefighters that are 0:19:35.440 --> 0:19:39.560 swamping the post apocalyptic city, right. The genes performed tasks 0:19:39.600 --> 0:19:43.760 such as spurring inflammation, firing up the immune system, and 0:19:43.880 --> 0:19:47.359 counteracting stress in the organism, just doing their job in 0:19:47.400 --> 0:19:52.480 the face of cataclysm, even though there's actually no hope. UM. Specifically, 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:54.160 just give you a taste of some of the specifics. 0:19:54.280 --> 0:19:55.920 You know, that kind of makes sense, even though there's 0:19:55.960 --> 0:19:58.280 no hope. The cell doesn't really know there's no hope. 0:19:58.320 --> 0:20:00.840 It's not it's not his job. This is doing his 0:20:00.920 --> 0:20:05.240 job that all the other stuffs above his pay grade. Uh. Specifically, 0:20:05.400 --> 0:20:10.080 the stress response genes were assigned to three groups. UH, heat, shock, protein, 0:20:10.920 --> 0:20:16.760 hypoxia related, and other responses such as oxidative stress. Hypoxia 0:20:16.800 --> 0:20:19.720 of course would be oxygen deprivation. Yeah, your cells know 0:20:19.760 --> 0:20:22.399 how to respond when they're not getting the oxygen they 0:20:22.440 --> 0:20:26.639 need exactly and also sorts not even in both organisms 0:20:26.720 --> 0:20:31.240 UM organismal death activated heat shock, hypoxia, and other stress 0:20:31.320 --> 0:20:34.200 genes which varied in the timing and duration of up 0:20:34.200 --> 0:20:38.800 regulation within and between organisms. But so they set off 0:20:38.840 --> 0:20:43.120 the stress responses death. Yeah, and all that that makes sense, right, 0:20:43.280 --> 0:20:45.240 totally totally on board. That makes total sense that these 0:20:45.280 --> 0:20:47.719 genes would be firing up in this time of chaos 0:20:47.720 --> 0:20:52.280 and unrest. But the really surprising thing was the embryonic 0:20:52.359 --> 0:20:56.840 gene activity. Developmental genes that normally helps scalp the embryo, 0:20:57.480 --> 0:21:00.000 but they aren't needed after birth, and that the possible 0:21:00.200 --> 0:21:03.800 reason here is because and this is according to the authors, 0:21:03.880 --> 0:21:08.520 is that cellular conditions and newly dead corpses resemble those 0:21:08.600 --> 0:21:11.840 in embryos. And there's something about that man that manages 0:21:11.880 --> 0:21:15.879 to be both comforting and grotesque at the same time. Yeah. 0:21:16.280 --> 0:21:18.960 Uh yeah. So you might be wondering, like, wait a minute, 0:21:19.040 --> 0:21:22.040 why how could this happen? That you have developmental genes 0:21:22.080 --> 0:21:24.880 that are, you know, not normally expressed in life. So 0:21:25.320 --> 0:21:28.360 these genes that help you develop as an embryo, they 0:21:28.400 --> 0:21:31.240 remain a part of your genome. They're still there, but 0:21:31.280 --> 0:21:34.720 they're known, they're they're quote silenced, which means they're regulated 0:21:34.720 --> 0:21:38.359 in such a way that they no longer undergo gene expression. Uh, 0:21:38.400 --> 0:21:41.840 they're still there. They're just turned off. But in organismal death, 0:21:42.280 --> 0:21:45.040 all those off switches just sort of get opened right 0:21:45.040 --> 0:21:48.040 back up. They switch back on. These silence genes are 0:21:48.119 --> 0:21:51.240 set free to be loud and proud. Yeah, it's just 0:21:51.320 --> 0:21:53.879 it's crazy to think about. But along with that, so 0:21:54.040 --> 0:21:57.159 we've got development genes, embryonic genes. You know, these are 0:21:57.200 --> 0:22:01.560 causing the development of body tissues, cell division. One thing 0:22:01.600 --> 0:22:03.760 you might not be surprised to see. Going along with 0:22:03.800 --> 0:22:07.800 that is genes that are related to cancer. Yes, several 0:22:07.840 --> 0:22:12.320 cancer causing genes also activated and at this result, according 0:22:12.320 --> 0:22:15.760 to the authors, could possibly explain why some individuals who 0:22:15.800 --> 0:22:19.840 received transplants from the recently deceased have higher have a 0:22:19.920 --> 0:22:22.560 higher risk of cancer. Now I didn't actually know this fact, 0:22:22.960 --> 0:22:24.480 I was. I was not really aware of that either, 0:22:24.560 --> 0:22:26.880 but yeah, according to the author is apparently people who 0:22:26.920 --> 0:22:30.560 receive like an organ transplant from a recently deceased person, 0:22:30.600 --> 0:22:32.719 you die in an accident, they take your organs, give 0:22:32.760 --> 0:22:35.080 them to someone who needs them. You're more likely to 0:22:35.160 --> 0:22:40.160 experience cancer like a tumor in those organs. So that 0:22:40.160 --> 0:22:43.560 that would seem to make sense if the death response 0:22:43.600 --> 0:22:47.439 in the overall body triggers some kind of genetic activity 0:22:47.520 --> 0:22:51.520 within these organs that sets off the cancer program. Yeah. 0:22:51.520 --> 0:22:55.359 I mean, it's kind of like communication transfer between the 0:22:55.359 --> 0:22:58.760