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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Creature Feature, a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. I'm your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden.

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Speaker 1: I studied psychology and evolutionary biology, and today on the show,

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Speaker 1: we're going to talk about something totally radical. That's right,

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Speaker 1: my dudes. We're talking radiation. And guess what, I've got

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Speaker 1: a real, live particle physicist to talk through some of

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Speaker 1: the big questions about the universe, such as what is radiation,

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Speaker 1: how does it affect humans and animals? Can birds survived?

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Speaker 1: Cher nobil and what are the radst baddest radio resistors

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Speaker 1: in the world. Discover this and more as we answered

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Speaker 1: the age old question would you rather get killed by

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Speaker 1: a giant radioactive hamster or killer bananas? So today I'm

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Speaker 1: especially excited because joining us is particle physicist at you

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Speaker 1: See Irvine and co host of Daniel and Jorge Explain

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Speaker 1: the Universe, Daniel Whitson. Welcome, Daniel, Thanks very much for

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Speaker 1: having me on. I'm excited to be on your Creature Features.

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Speaker 1: What kind of horror name would we give this one?

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Speaker 1: Because we're talking about radioactivity and how animals adapt to it,

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Speaker 1: and I feel like that is there's a lot of

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Speaker 1: like creature feature movies like that, like The Radioactive Swamp Lizard.

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Speaker 1: I'm not a fan of those movies though, because in

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Speaker 1: those movies, every single time the scientist is the bad guy.

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Speaker 1: It's always evil scientists can't think about the consequences of

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Speaker 1: their research, you know, blinded by greed or ambition, and

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Speaker 1: ends up destroying the world. Right exactly as if the

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Speaker 1: scientists just like I want to make a mega hamster

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Speaker 1: that's radioactive and no one can stop me. For I

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Speaker 1: am driven by science. It's never been my motivation. And

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Speaker 1: I take some motivation to get a bed in the mornings,

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Speaker 1: but it's never mega death hamster. I mean, it's not

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Speaker 1: a bad motivation necessarily, but it's not your motive vation,

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Speaker 1: and then I can respect that. Yes, So, so I

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Speaker 1: am really excited to learn about radiation. I know a

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Speaker 1: little bit the basics of it, you know. I know

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Speaker 1: it's not necessarily all Homer Simpson at the power plant,

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Speaker 1: you know, but there's a lot in that that we

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Speaker 1: don't learn from the Simpsons. So what what is radiation?

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Speaker 1: Like we think when we think radiation, we think, you know,

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Speaker 1: nuclear waste. But it's a lot more than that, right,

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Speaker 1: It is in fact, and the most general way to

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Speaker 1: think about radiation is that it's just energy deposited by

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Speaker 1: waves or particles. Usually we think of radiation, you're thinking

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Speaker 1: of things like gamma rays or X rays, and that's

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Speaker 1: a good example of radiation, and those are all just

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Speaker 1: different kinds of light. But but radiation can be either

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Speaker 1: waves like light, or it can be particles like you know,

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Speaker 1: tiny little bullets like protons or neutrons. But the key

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Speaker 1: thing to understand is that radiation really is like a

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Speaker 1: tiny little bullet because it's deposit energy in your body,

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Speaker 1: and that's not always good. You know, every time you

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Speaker 1: get you go out in the sunshine and you get

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Speaker 1: warmed up, you're absorbing the sun's radiation. So not all

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Speaker 1: radiation is bad, you know, just like too much radiation

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Speaker 1: is bad, or particles with too much energy are bad

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Speaker 1: because they will rip through you like a bullet. So

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Speaker 1: it's a very general term and only sort of parts

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Speaker 1: of it are bad. But you know, the bad parts

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Speaker 1: get more pressed than the good parts. And that's something

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Speaker 1: I was gonna ask about because when non physicists like

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Speaker 1: me here radiation we kind of think of like a

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Speaker 1: nuclear bomb or geranium. But there's a difference between ionizing

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Speaker 1: radiation and other types of radiation, right, yeah, exactly, Like

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Speaker 1: nobody says, hey, I'm gonna go outside and soak up

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Speaker 1: some radiation that sounds nice and toasty, or the radiation

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Speaker 1: that now though that sounds that sounds bad. Us were

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Speaker 1: like time to get those radiation rays. Yeah, exactly. So

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Speaker 1: there is radiation that your body just absorbs and deposits

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Speaker 1: a little energy and it warms you up, you know,

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Speaker 1: and that's okay usually um, But then there's particles and

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Speaker 1: photons that have enough energy to really do damage. And

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Speaker 1: so if you thinking, like if you zoom in microscopically

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Speaker 1: to your body, your body is made out of cells,

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Speaker 1: which are made out of molecules, and each of those

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Speaker 1: molecules has atoms. And the microscopic picture there is you

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Speaker 1: have like a nucleus, protons and neutrons, and surrounding that

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Speaker 1: are electrons, and they're all tied together with various chemical bonds. Right,

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Speaker 1: you have like one atom next to the other one

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Speaker 1: they're sharing electron for example. So what happens when when

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Speaker 1: radiation comes in, like a high energy photon for example,

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Speaker 1: it comes in, it kicks that electron off. That's what

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Speaker 1: ionizing means. It makes it an ion, it removes the

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Speaker 1: electron and that's not good. Right. You had some happy

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Speaker 1: chemistry going on to make your life function and now

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Speaker 1: you have different chemistry, which is usually bad, although you

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Speaker 1: know sometimes it's good, right. I mean, you know, our

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Speaker 1: DNA is made out of proteins, which are made out

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Speaker 1: of molecules, and those can get kind of messed up.

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Speaker 1: And that's why. I if you get a really bad sunburn,

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Speaker 1: that's you know, that is a type of radiation. It's

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Speaker 1: not always good. You go out, you get a little

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Speaker 1: bit of sun, that's okay. But the more sun you get,

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Speaker 1: the more you're actually exposing yourself to UV radiation and

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Speaker 1: that can actually start to mess with your cells on

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Speaker 1: the DNA level, which is kind of it's hard to

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Speaker 1: imagine that you can just like start messing with your

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Speaker 1: DNA by standing out in the sun, but that's exactly

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Speaker 1: what happens. Yeah. I think of d N a sort

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Speaker 1: of like is the hard drive for your body. It's like,

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Speaker 1: you know, storing the recipes for everything you need to do,

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Speaker 1: and then thing comes in and basically flips a bit

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Speaker 1: and says, oh, you're gonna have a cup of sugar,

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Speaker 1: and now you're gonna have a cup of assault. Like,

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Speaker 1: now the recipe doesn't work anymore because you've screwed it up.

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Speaker 1: And right if my if my DNA is like my

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Speaker 1: hard drive. And then there's like a billion screenshots of

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Speaker 1: cute animals on the desktop, all unorganized, completely making the

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Speaker 1: desktop unusable, and then you v radiation gets it and

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Speaker 1: then it scrambles all those cat pictures and turns them

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Speaker 1: into like one mega hamster picture, that nuclear hamster exactly.

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Speaker 1: Uh and uh. And although you know you should speak

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Speaker 1: to this because it's biological, but sometimes you want that.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes you want a little bit of change, right, Like

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Speaker 1: evolution requires mutations in your DNA, and so you want

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Speaker 1: some mutations, and naturally occurring radiation from the sky or

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Speaker 1: from whatever from the ground is part of what gives

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Speaker 1: you that variation. So one way to explore new new

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Speaker 1: recipes for life is to incur little mistakes in your DNA,

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Speaker 1: and radiation is an important way for that to happen.

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Speaker 1: You just you want the right amount. You know, you

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Speaker 1: want to be in the goldilocks zone exactly. Yeah, you

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Speaker 1: don't want to get blasted with radiation, but a little

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Speaker 1: bit it's not bad for life in general. And we're

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Speaker 1: actually going to talk about that contradiction in the framework

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Speaker 1: of Chernobyl, which I think a lot of people are

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Speaker 1: familiar with. It's because it's such a big deal. It's

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Speaker 1: one of the biggest nuclear plant disasters in the world,

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Speaker 1: and it was an awesome TV show. Yeah, I cannot

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Speaker 1: watch that TV show. I really should because I've heard

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Speaker 1: it's great and it's at least somewhat historically accurate, but

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Speaker 1: like just the idea, it's yeah, I think it's I

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Speaker 1: remember reading hospital descriptions of like what was happening to

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Speaker 1: the patients who had gotten this acute radiation poisoning, and

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Speaker 1: basically they were you know, their skin was falling off there,

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Speaker 1: you know, they were melting from It's just like something

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Speaker 1: I never want to imagine happening to a human. So

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Speaker 1: it's's it was definitely in the very bad category. But

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Speaker 1: I want to go on the record is saying it

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Speaker 1: was not the fault of the scientists. It was all

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Speaker 1: the politicians and the bureaucrats and all that stuff. So

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Speaker 1: and I think the show kind of the show portrays

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Speaker 1: that accurately, right, Like they show how because um so

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Speaker 1: for people who maybe don't know or or just kind

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Speaker 1: of know very generally. On April, the Chernobyl nuclear power

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Speaker 1: plant in northern Ukraine had a routine safety test that

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Speaker 1: ended up triggering a nuclear chain reaction, which sounds there's

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Speaker 1: a lot of steps in between obviously that I'm skipping over,

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Speaker 1: but it was there is a lot of political pressure

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Speaker 1: on them to complete these tests even though it wasn't

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Speaker 1: necessarily safe, and a lot of like basically safety safeguards

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Speaker 1: that had been ignored leading up to the disaster. So

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Speaker 1: it wasn't something that just happened out of the blue, right,

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Speaker 1: That's right, Yeah, exactly. They had built a very sort

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Speaker 1: of fragile style of reactor because it was cheaper, um,

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Speaker 1: and then the whole confluence of events led to a

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Speaker 1: spot where they couldn't control the reaction anymore and basically exploded.

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Speaker 1: It turned from a nuclear reactor essentially into a nuclear bomb.

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Speaker 1: And you know, the difference between those two is like

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Speaker 1: whether it's a controlled the knob dial so you're just

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Speaker 1: letting a little bit of heat out, or it's totally

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Speaker 1: uncontrolled than just taken off right, it's like making delicious

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Speaker 1: fries versus a grease fire. It's a seemingly small difference,

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Speaker 1: but now it's Yeah, I think it is. It is

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Speaker 1: important that this was not mad scientists gone awry. It

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Speaker 1: was mad politicians trying to save a few cents on

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Speaker 1: construction here and there, and until you basically ignored a

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Speaker 1: lot of safety guidelines that you that could have prevented

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Speaker 1: this from happening. I think something that the show captured

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Speaker 1: really well was the sort of weirdly invisible nature of

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Speaker 1: the of the danger. Like you could be standing near

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Speaker 1: Chernobyl and you wouldn't feel anything immediately. You can't sense

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Speaker 1: the radiation. It's not like it's physically pushing you over

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Speaker 1: or anything. You don't feel the tiny little bullets hitting you,

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Speaker 1: but they are. They're there. They're shredding you. And the

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Speaker 1: longer you stand there, the more you get shredded, the

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Speaker 1: more something could change something critical bit in your DNA

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Speaker 1: and end up giving you cancer. Yeah, it's really horrifying.

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Speaker 1: I mean it's I think it is sort of something

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Speaker 1: that feels especially relevant now when we are facing this

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Speaker 1: the pandemic, which I hate bringing it up all the time,

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Speaker 1: but it's just ever present, and it's when you have

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Speaker 1: something that's invisible, you can't see radiation, you can't, at

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Speaker 1: least not with human eyes. You can't see something like

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Speaker 1: coronavirus with human eyes, but it's there. And then when

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Speaker 1: we ignore scientists, like I think, now I didn't watch

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Speaker 1: the cher Nobil series, but I think someone told me

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Speaker 1: about this scene where there's like a scientist in a

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Speaker 1: helicopter with like, uh, the helicopter pilot and then like

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Speaker 1: the politician and they're like, you know, he's saying, like

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Speaker 1: we gotta fly over and show like things aren't so

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Speaker 1: bad or something. He's like, no, if we fly over,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna die because we're gonna get It's like, well, no,

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Speaker 1: we don't see anything. And it's like it's just like,

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Speaker 1: oh my god, just listen to the scientists. Please, im

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Speaker 1: I yelled at the screen. In so many movies, please

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Speaker 1: just listen to the scientists. It's like Redisaster. Every disaster

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Speaker 1: movie starts with someone being like, we don't need to

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Speaker 1: listen to scientists. Let's let's do budget cuts on this

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Speaker 1: this little little device that will save human lives. But

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Speaker 1: it's it's been happening a while. So what happened when

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Speaker 1: the actually triggered a nuclear chain reaction, was a steam

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Speaker 1: explosion and reactor core fire released airborne radioactive contamination. So

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Speaker 1: it that is like, yeah, like you said, a nuclear

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Speaker 1: bomb essentially, So it didn't just kill people in the explosion.

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Speaker 1: The ionizing radiation that was a result of the explosion

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Speaker 1: hospitalized a hundred and thirty four power plants staff and

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Speaker 1: fireman and killed twenty eight. Like I said, in the

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Speaker 1: worst way you can imagine. It's really uh, it's a

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Speaker 1: fascinating story, but if you are sensitive, I would avoid

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Speaker 1: reading these detailed accounts because I when I read it,

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Speaker 1: it's just like there were a lot of nightmares. Let

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Speaker 1: me leave it at that. So that's in your top

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Speaker 1: five worst ways to die? Yes, exactly. I there's no

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Speaker 1: good way to die, but this is one of the

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Speaker 1: worst ones. Well, sometimes some of the time I want

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Speaker 1: to hear what else fleshes out that top five? But

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Speaker 1: that's a good that's a good question. I've got to say.

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Speaker 1: It's got to be if you're a tarantula and you're

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Speaker 1: getting slowly eaten by a parasitoid wasp over over the

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Speaker 1: course of a month, when you're paralyzed and it's slowly

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Speaker 1: eating your non essential organs so that you stay alive

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Speaker 1: longer and and nourish it's young longer. But so that's

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Speaker 1: maybe the worst one. But this is a this is

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Speaker 1: a second. Yeah. Yeah, I'm laughing because it makes me nervous,

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Speaker 1: not because I think it's funny. And one of the

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Speaker 1: one of the real dangers of Chernobyl, which I think

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Speaker 1: a lot of people don't appreciate, is it's not just

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Speaker 1: the energy from the explosion or the radiation immediately from

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Speaker 1: the explosion that washes out and it cools off. You

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Speaker 1: have these, as you said, radioactive contaminants which continue firing

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Speaker 1: little bullets, like little bits of new clear fuel and

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Speaker 1: byproducts and nuclear reactions. Those are little atoms that are

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Speaker 1: constantly falling apart, and when they fall apart, they shoot

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Speaker 1: off little particles, neutrons and electrons. So it's like, you know,

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Speaker 1: distributing billions and billions of tiny little automatic weapons all

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Speaker 1: over the Earth that are constantly just shooting. And they

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Speaker 1: went up into clouds and floated across the Earth and

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Speaker 1: into Europe, and it was it's a huge tragedy. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, in the following decade, there were all this

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Speaker 1: increase in cancer death. So it was like in the

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Speaker 1: ten years following it, and the number is probably higher

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Speaker 1: than this, but at least fourteen radiation induced cancer deaths occurred,

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Speaker 1: and there was an increase in childhood thyroid cancer near

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Speaker 1: the area. But of course that's just recorded cases. I

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Speaker 1: feel like it's very likely there were more that just

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Speaker 1: couldn't be traced to Chernobyl. UH. And so the Chernobyl

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Speaker 1: exclusion zone is a thousand square miles, so that's two

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Speaker 1: thousand six d square kilometers where radioactive contamination is high

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Speaker 1: and access is restricted to people because it's it's still dangerous,

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Speaker 1: like you can't you still can't go It's less dangerous

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Speaker 1: than it was thirty years ago, but you still can't

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Speaker 1: go in because, like you said, there are still these

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Speaker 1: things like releasing these this ionizing radiation that can still

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Speaker 1: get in your body and start knocking around your DNA.

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Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about that that concept of free radicals,

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Speaker 1: which is like I think tossed around a lot, like

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Speaker 1: this idea of like a free radical entering your body,

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Speaker 1: and I hear a lot of stuff like someone's got

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Speaker 1: some pomegranate juice and they're like this is gonna fight

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Speaker 1: free radicals, And it's like, well, what does that even mean?

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Speaker 1: Like what is free radicals? And what are antioxidants and

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Speaker 1: what does this have to do with radiations? So free

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Speaker 1: radicals actually sounds like a fun thing, like hey man,

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Speaker 1: like free radicals, dude, totally cumular like, But it's basically

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Speaker 1: as as I understand it, and correct me if I'm wrong.

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Speaker 1: But it's just an uncharged particle that has an unpaired

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Speaker 1: electron and it's it wants to find another electron. M yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 1: Like an atom is really stable when it's got all

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Speaker 1: the electrons that fill a shell, right, Electrons don't sit

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Speaker 1: on top of each other, they like fill up this

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Speaker 1: ladder of energy levels that's surround the nucleus and uh

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Speaker 1: and and there's specific shells, like there's two electrons in

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Speaker 1: the lower shell than larger numbers and larger numbers. And

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Speaker 1: some atoms are really stable because they have a complete shell,

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Speaker 1: so they're like completely block the charge of the nucleus

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Speaker 1: and they're totally balanced. And other atoms have like a

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Speaker 1: few electrons hanging out just past the edge of that wall.

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Speaker 1: And if they don't make a complete shell, it's very

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Speaker 1: easy for those electrons to interact with other atoms. And

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Speaker 1: so for example, when an oxygen molecule which is O two,

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Speaker 1: splits into two individual oxygen atoms, they have these unpaired

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Speaker 1: electrons and become unstable free radicals, and they're always going

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Speaker 1: out there to try to find something else to bond to, right,

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Speaker 1: And that actually happens naturally in the human body through

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Speaker 1: the process of converting food into energy. So getting like

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Speaker 1: introducing free radicals into the body can be through your environment,

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Speaker 1: but it can be during normal processes, and that we

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Speaker 1: actually have We produce antioxidants to counter free radicals naturally,

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Speaker 1: so we have this system of like, okay, so you

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Speaker 1: you know, we'll be splitting these oxygen molecules in the

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Speaker 1: course of producing a TP converting food into energy, and

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Speaker 1: but as long as we have enough antioxidants that basically

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Speaker 1: are these little guardians that protect us from the free

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Speaker 1: radicals were okay. So yeah, and you know, sometimes, as

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Speaker 1: we talked about earlier, these free radicals can be produced

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Speaker 1: because of radiation, Like a high energy photon comes in

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Speaker 1: and it knocks off an electron which otherwise would have

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Speaker 1: mail made a really nice cozy ship l for your molecule,

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Speaker 1: and all of a sudden you have a free radical.

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Speaker 1: And so that's another one of the dangers of radiation, right,

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Speaker 1: And the reason that free radicals are dangerous it's similar

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Speaker 1: to like what we've been mentioning earlier. It's that they're

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Speaker 1: basically careening around disrupting your proteins and lipids in DNA

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Speaker 1: because they're trying to find an electron that will, you know,

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Speaker 1: like you were mentioning, create that complete shell. And it's like,

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Speaker 1: you know, I need an electron to complete me, and

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Speaker 1: I'm going to take it from wherever I can find it,

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Speaker 1: even if that means like messing up your DNA. So

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Speaker 1: antioxidants actually work by giving free radicals that much needed

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Speaker 1: electron to balance them out. But the problem with giving

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Speaker 1: an electron is that then you can become a free

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Speaker 1: radical yourself, because then you become unbalanced. But the anti

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Speaker 1: accident can actually spare that and remain stable. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: it so it can like say, hey, like don't bob

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Speaker 1: or Mr DNA like where mrs DNA like come to me.

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Speaker 1: I have some electrons that you can use, and I'm

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Speaker 1: not gonna go crazy just because I gave you an

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Speaker 1: electron like the paramedic of the chemical world, just like

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Speaker 1: going around putting out fires everywhere exactly, or like a

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Speaker 1: trained lifeguard versus someone who doesn't know what they're doing,

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Speaker 1: like saving a drowning person, because if you go and

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Speaker 1: just try to like save a drowning person, they'll like

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Speaker 1: pull you under. But a lifeguard can go out with

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Speaker 1: a booing and be like, hey, you know, I can

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Speaker 1: I know how to help you without us both getting

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Speaker 1: dragged under here. So if you don't have enough of

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Speaker 1: these antioxidant lifeguards, you can actually you know, that's when

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Speaker 1: bad things happen in your body. So you can actually

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Speaker 1: get free radicals, not just from radiation but from pollution

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Speaker 1: cigarette smoke. So when you have that imbalance of too

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Speaker 1: many free radicals and not enough antioxidants, you will suffer

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Speaker 1: from what's called oxidative stress, which can play a role

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Speaker 1: in many diseases, anything from cancer to parking sense to Alzheimer's.

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Speaker 1: You're basically messing with your body's molecules at that atomic level,

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Speaker 1: and that is naturally that can cause a lot of

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Speaker 1: problems for your body and is implicated in a lot

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Speaker 1: of diseases and conditions. None of those diseases are on

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Speaker 1: my top five favorite ways to die either, like they

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Speaker 1: don't sound pleasant, Yeah, what would like? I guess my

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Speaker 1: favorite way to die would be to be eaten by

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Speaker 1: a giant radioactive hamster. But you know, would you then

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Speaker 1: gain that hamster's proportionate strength or whatever? I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I think it would gain my strengths, like my organizational abilities,

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Speaker 1: because it eats me, right, not how that logic works

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Speaker 1: in comic books at least, you know, comic book physics

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Speaker 1: and biology is totally divorced from reality. But it's fun.

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Speaker 1: No way you lie. Um. Yeah. And and people also

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Speaker 1: should understand that, like radiation comes from all sorts of places.

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Speaker 1: It's not just your Noobyl electronobyl, very bad, very dangerous,

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Speaker 1: but there's radiation everywhere. Like you're getting radiated right now

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Speaker 1: because there are tracing right now. Yes, oh god, well

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Speaker 1: you know totally pedantically you're listening into this podcast. This

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Speaker 1: podcast is coming to you through acoustic waves. That's radiation

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Speaker 1: that's not gonna damage you, it's not gonna blow off

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Speaker 1: and ionizing radiation, right but there is ionizing radiation right now,

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Speaker 1: like from the sun. You get UV radiation from the sun.

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Speaker 1: There are cosmic rays. These particles from space come down

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Speaker 1: with really high energy and create these like showers of

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Speaker 1: basically bullets um and they can hit you. And then

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Speaker 1: there's radiation from the ground. There's even radiation from bananas.

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Speaker 1: Like bananas have potassium in them. I knew bananas were

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Speaker 1: up to something. See, that's this is why you don't

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Speaker 1: trust a banana. I don't trust a banana. No, I'm

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Speaker 1: definitely in the anti banana side of that big political discussion. Yeah, no,

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Speaker 1: I'm very anti banana. And now I have confirmations bananas have. Wait,

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Speaker 1: so why do bananas have radiation? Well, they have potassium

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Speaker 1: in them, and the potassium is radioactive. It decays and

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Speaker 1: so it you know, very gradually shoots off you know, positrons.

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Speaker 1: And if you eat a banana, they used to be

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Speaker 1: like one percent of your average daily exposure to radiation

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Speaker 1: comes from a banana. But if you took like a

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Speaker 1: truckload of bananas and you try to drive them across

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Speaker 1: the border, then you know, the U s ports they

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Speaker 1: have radiation monitors and they will like, hold on a second,

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Speaker 1: are you smuggling in ten kilos or ten tons of

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Speaker 1: bananas or is that a dirty bomb, you know, And

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Speaker 1: what's the difference really between a banana bomb and a

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Speaker 1: dirty bomb? How many? How many bananas would it take

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Speaker 1: to kill someone? There's so many ways to kill people

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Speaker 1: with bananas. I mean you lay them out flats of

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Speaker 1: their slippery, you just drop them on the person, or

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Speaker 1: you just I mean through radiation, like like sure you

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Speaker 1: could drown someone in bananas, but I mean like through radiation,

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Speaker 1: like a million bananas. Would that do it? A billion bananas? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: if you spend a day with a billion bananas, that

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Speaker 1: would seriously increase your cancer risk. So that's officially not

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Speaker 1: recommended from the physics point of one day, a billion

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Speaker 1: bananas writing that down no reason. But you know, if

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Speaker 1: you take an airplane trip, that's a lot more radiation

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Speaker 1: because this radiation that comes from space, it's mostly attenuated

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Speaker 1: by the atmosphere. The atmosphere is like a huge blanket

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Speaker 1: that protects us. But you go upen an airplane, there's

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Speaker 1: much less atmosphere between you and space. So like flight

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Speaker 1: attendants and pilots, they get cancer a lot more than

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Speaker 1: other people. Yeah, I didn't really think about that, but

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Speaker 1: that makes total sense. So if you fly on a plane,

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Speaker 1: you should not eat bananas, not only because the smell

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Speaker 1: is offensive to me, but also it's bad to compound

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Speaker 1: your radiation unless you're hoping to create the mega hamster

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Speaker 1: death monster, in which case you should eat a lot

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Speaker 1: of bananas and flying a lot of airplanes in order

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Speaker 1: to eat bananas, right, exactly, exactly. Well, So when we

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Speaker 1: get back, we're actually going to keep talking about chernobyl,

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Speaker 1: but we're gonna talk about how animals are affected by chernobyl.

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Speaker 1: Because even though there are all these signs and fences

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Speaker 1: and all these signs in Russian that tell you to

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Speaker 1: stay away because it's very dangerous, animals don't pay attention

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Speaker 1: to signs at Russian. They just go right ahead. So

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Speaker 1: we're gonna find out how these animals have been adapting

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Speaker 1: to chernobyl. Since antioxidants are so great at protecting your

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Speaker 1: body from free radicals, should you start taking antioxidant supplements. Well,

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Speaker 1: it's good to have a very diet rich in nutrients

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Speaker 1: that have antioxidant properties, such as vegetables, fruits, nuts, legumes,

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Speaker 1: and more. But you have to be careful with supplements, vitamins,

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Speaker 1: or any product making big promises about its antioxidant benefits.

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Speaker 1: Unless you're planning to live in space for a while

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Speaker 1: or somewhere else you'll be exposed to high amounts of radiation.

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Speaker 1: You can probably get plenty of antioxidants from a healthy diet.

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Speaker 1: You also want to eat a veraiety of healthy food

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Speaker 1: so you can get different types of antioxidants that help

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Speaker 1: your body in different ways. I know it's the boring,

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Speaker 1: not fun answer, but supplements, unfortunately have not been found

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Speaker 1: to be able to do the job of these healthy habits.

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Speaker 1: Research has been muddled and there's been no clear evidence

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Speaker 1: showing that antioxidant supplements do anything to help prevent disease

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Speaker 1: such as cancer. Additionally, taking antioxidant supplements is not without risk.

426
00:24:27,320 --> 00:24:30,439
Speaker 1: There are some studies indicating that taking too much beta

427
00:24:30,520 --> 00:24:34,320
Speaker 1: keratin from supplements may increase the risk of lung cancer

428
00:24:34,359 --> 00:24:38,200
Speaker 1: and smokers, and two high doses of vitamin E from

429
00:24:38,240 --> 00:24:42,600
Speaker 1: supplements may increase the risk of stroke and prostate cancer. So,

430
00:24:42,800 --> 00:24:46,240
Speaker 1: unless you've been directed to take these supplements by your doctor,

431
00:24:46,640 --> 00:24:50,399
Speaker 1: your best and safest bet is to eat healthy fruit, veggies, nuts,

432
00:24:50,400 --> 00:24:52,919
Speaker 1: and so on. I know I'm not your mom, I

433
00:24:52,960 --> 00:24:54,679
Speaker 1: can't tell you what to do, and I'm being a

434
00:24:54,680 --> 00:24:58,000
Speaker 1: total nag but come on, eat a vegetable. Your comes

435
00:24:58,040 --> 00:25:01,720
Speaker 1: the broccoli trained to to. When we return, we're going

436
00:25:01,800 --> 00:25:04,359
Speaker 1: to talk about some birds who have managed to adapt

437
00:25:04,400 --> 00:25:07,640
Speaker 1: to the chair Nobile exclusion zone. Is it because they

438
00:25:07,680 --> 00:25:21,360
Speaker 1: eat their vegetables spoilers? No, not really. It's no secret

439
00:25:21,400 --> 00:25:25,880
Speaker 1: that I admire birds. Their audacious, adorable, feathery little dinosaurs,

440
00:25:26,200 --> 00:25:31,280
Speaker 1: and while they can be spectacular survivors, they're simultaneously vulnerable.

441
00:25:31,720 --> 00:25:35,159
Speaker 1: Noise pollution can interfere with bird's abilities to find mates

442
00:25:35,200 --> 00:25:39,040
Speaker 1: and communicate. Pesticides weaken and kill off birds in great numbers.

443
00:25:39,359 --> 00:25:43,640
Speaker 1: Deforestation and drought is radically impacting many species of birds.

444
00:25:44,080 --> 00:25:47,680
Speaker 1: Some of the most iconic and endangered birds species are

445
00:25:47,680 --> 00:25:52,960
Speaker 1: being impacted by humans and surprising ways. Endangered California condor

446
00:25:53,119 --> 00:25:56,720
Speaker 1: chicks are being killed by litter that their parents mistake

447
00:25:56,800 --> 00:25:59,600
Speaker 1: for food to feed them. Birds face a lot of

448
00:25:59,680 --> 00:26:03,440
Speaker 1: chan o lounges, primarily from humans mucking around with our environment,

449
00:26:03,880 --> 00:26:08,639
Speaker 1: but sometimes birds are able to overcome seemingly insurmountable odds,

450
00:26:08,640 --> 00:26:12,120
Speaker 1: such as the deadly contaminated waste lamp of the chair

451
00:26:12,240 --> 00:26:18,320
Speaker 1: Noble Exclusion Zone, turning radioactive lemons into lemonade. I want

452
00:26:18,320 --> 00:26:22,240
Speaker 1: to preface this by telling everyone don't go and take

453
00:26:22,280 --> 00:26:26,560
Speaker 1: Instagram photos near Chernobyl. I think it is. That's like

454
00:26:26,600 --> 00:26:29,119
Speaker 1: good advice, right, it's good advice. I just don't do

455
00:26:29,240 --> 00:26:33,199
Speaker 1: anything near Chernobyl. Eat bananas, take photos, walk your hamster.

456
00:26:33,400 --> 00:26:35,600
Speaker 1: None of that stuff is a good idea, right exactly.

457
00:26:36,359 --> 00:26:38,320
Speaker 1: There was like a brief trend, and I feel like

458
00:26:38,359 --> 00:26:41,000
Speaker 1: this was probably overblown, like probably only a couple of

459
00:26:41,000 --> 00:26:42,600
Speaker 1: people did it, and then it was like, oh, it's

460
00:26:42,640 --> 00:26:46,080
Speaker 1: this big trend. But still some people went over to

461
00:26:46,320 --> 00:26:51,280
Speaker 1: Chernobyl and took like Instagram photos because of the TV show.

462
00:26:51,320 --> 00:26:56,600
Speaker 1: Its like, but didn't you watch the TV show? I

463
00:26:56,600 --> 00:26:59,679
Speaker 1: think again, it's a testament to like the weird invisible nature,

464
00:26:59,680 --> 00:27:02,480
Speaker 1: like sneak in there. You don't get shot immediately, you

465
00:27:02,520 --> 00:27:05,000
Speaker 1: don't die immediately, you don't feel it, your skin doesn't

466
00:27:05,040 --> 00:27:07,879
Speaker 1: crisp up or anything great. Um, and so you just

467
00:27:07,880 --> 00:27:10,919
Speaker 1: feel like, oh, it's probably fine. But it's it's like

468
00:27:10,960 --> 00:27:14,840
Speaker 1: playing like time delayed Russian roulette, Like maybe you'll go

469
00:27:14,920 --> 00:27:17,040
Speaker 1: and you will cancer, but maybe you will get cancer

470
00:27:17,080 --> 00:27:18,720
Speaker 1: in ten years and you'll never know if it was

471
00:27:18,760 --> 00:27:22,040
Speaker 1: because you ate that banana or winter Chernobyl. It's time

472
00:27:22,080 --> 00:27:26,679
Speaker 1: delayed to invisible Russian roulette with like thousands or millions

473
00:27:26,720 --> 00:27:33,760
Speaker 1: of tiny bullets. But animals, they are happy enough to

474
00:27:33,760 --> 00:27:37,080
Speaker 1: play Russian Roulette, especially if it means escaping from humans.

475
00:27:37,080 --> 00:27:41,120
Speaker 1: So researchers have been checking out like what's been happening

476
00:27:41,240 --> 00:27:46,200
Speaker 1: in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone because again because humans can't

477
00:27:46,240 --> 00:27:50,639
Speaker 1: live there, and poaching is very restricted because if you

478
00:27:50,760 --> 00:27:53,720
Speaker 1: go and poach there, not only is it like ecologists

479
00:27:53,760 --> 00:27:56,120
Speaker 1: want to restrict poaching, but for people's health. Like if

480
00:27:56,119 --> 00:27:59,080
Speaker 1: you poach an animal that's been exposed to radiation, guess

481
00:27:59,160 --> 00:28:02,200
Speaker 1: what you're exposing yourself and whoever you're giving the animal

482
00:28:02,240 --> 00:28:05,960
Speaker 1: to also to radiation. It's not you know, you once

483
00:28:06,040 --> 00:28:10,000
Speaker 1: that animal eats something that has like some radioactive contamination,

484
00:28:10,080 --> 00:28:12,320
Speaker 1: then the animal is contaminated, and then if you eat

485
00:28:12,320 --> 00:28:14,960
Speaker 1: that animal, then you're contaminated. So it's not because these

486
00:28:14,960 --> 00:28:17,240
Speaker 1: things last a long time. They're going to be there

487
00:28:17,280 --> 00:28:19,919
Speaker 1: for decades or thousands of years, depending on the on

488
00:28:19,960 --> 00:28:23,399
Speaker 1: the element. And also they spread, like one little atom

489
00:28:23,720 --> 00:28:25,720
Speaker 1: shoots off a bullet, it can hit another atom and

490
00:28:25,760 --> 00:28:29,400
Speaker 1: then make it radioactive. And it's not just something where

491
00:28:29,400 --> 00:28:32,560
Speaker 1: it's like the poison dilutes eventually, you know, it just

492
00:28:32,680 --> 00:28:36,760
Speaker 1: keeps firing bullets. It really is weird because it is

493
00:28:37,000 --> 00:28:41,960
Speaker 1: similar to a virus. Now we're talking about actual molecules actually,

494
00:28:42,240 --> 00:28:45,520
Speaker 1: like on the atomic level, it's not like it's not

495
00:28:45,600 --> 00:28:49,120
Speaker 1: a virus, which is you know, a bunch of molecules

496
00:28:49,120 --> 00:28:53,880
Speaker 1: that has formed into basically a structure that replicates, but

497
00:28:54,200 --> 00:28:57,440
Speaker 1: it is it behaves in a way that is somewhat

498
00:28:57,440 --> 00:29:00,760
Speaker 1: similar in that it can create Basically, it's like quote

499
00:29:00,840 --> 00:29:04,719
Speaker 1: unquote offspring radioactive particles. So you can think of it

500
00:29:04,760 --> 00:29:07,840
Speaker 1: as like propagating itself. So you know, we don't we

501
00:29:07,840 --> 00:29:10,080
Speaker 1: don't count that as life. I don't like there's a

502
00:29:10,080 --> 00:29:12,640
Speaker 1: lot of debate about whether we even count viruses as life.

503
00:29:12,640 --> 00:29:15,000
Speaker 1: But it is interesting when it's like you don't think

504
00:29:15,120 --> 00:29:19,240
Speaker 1: of particles as being able to propagate or have offspring,

505
00:29:19,280 --> 00:29:22,800
Speaker 1: but they absolutely can't. Now that's true. Particles turned into

506
00:29:22,840 --> 00:29:26,120
Speaker 1: other particles and atoms can trigger the same reaction and

507
00:29:26,280 --> 00:29:29,640
Speaker 1: other atoms. Um. I've never actually thought about whether, um,

508
00:29:29,680 --> 00:29:32,280
Speaker 1: you know, a particle is alive, but some people a

509
00:29:32,280 --> 00:29:34,560
Speaker 1: lot of people ask us questions on our podcast, like

510
00:29:34,640 --> 00:29:36,520
Speaker 1: what's it like to be a photon? You know, if

511
00:29:36,560 --> 00:29:38,880
Speaker 1: you're traveling the universe at the speed of light, what

512
00:29:39,040 --> 00:29:41,760
Speaker 1: is it like? And and it's a fun philosophical question

513
00:29:41,800 --> 00:29:45,560
Speaker 1: but totally unanswerable. Um yeah, I mean it's the question

514
00:29:45,600 --> 00:29:48,760
Speaker 1: of what life is like. It's still like, you know,

515
00:29:48,800 --> 00:29:51,240
Speaker 1: the argument is still stuck at like, well, virus isn't

516
00:29:51,240 --> 00:29:54,200
Speaker 1: technically alive or is it? You know, so it's it's

517
00:29:54,240 --> 00:29:57,120
Speaker 1: kind of a it is a tricky question to answer.

518
00:29:57,240 --> 00:29:59,680
Speaker 1: I think it's it's it's one of those things that

519
00:30:00,960 --> 00:30:04,200
Speaker 1: I think science and philosophy sort of like butt up against,

520
00:30:04,200 --> 00:30:06,120
Speaker 1: where it's like at a certain point it becomes a

521
00:30:06,120 --> 00:30:10,120
Speaker 1: philosophical question not a scientific one. But yeah, it is

522
00:30:10,720 --> 00:30:13,800
Speaker 1: I would say, like in terms of like biologists would say,

523
00:30:13,800 --> 00:30:16,400
Speaker 1: like no particles are not alive, that's that does not

524
00:30:16,600 --> 00:30:19,960
Speaker 1: count as life. But well, I agree with biologists on

525
00:30:20,000 --> 00:30:21,960
Speaker 1: that one. But but I feel like some of these

526
00:30:22,040 --> 00:30:24,280
Speaker 1: questions you have to wonder, like what is the point

527
00:30:24,280 --> 00:30:26,440
Speaker 1: of asking the question? What are you trying to get at?

528
00:30:26,520 --> 00:30:29,200
Speaker 1: Because you know, are you really learning anything? It seems

529
00:30:29,200 --> 00:30:31,840
Speaker 1: to me a lot like the Pluto controversy, like is

530
00:30:31,880 --> 00:30:34,280
Speaker 1: Pluto a planet or a dwarf planet? Like it doesn't

531
00:30:34,400 --> 00:30:36,560
Speaker 1: change anything about the universe. If you give it this

532
00:30:36,720 --> 00:30:39,239
Speaker 1: label or that label. So what does it matter if

533
00:30:39,280 --> 00:30:41,800
Speaker 1: viruses are called alive or not? In the end, it's

534
00:30:41,800 --> 00:30:44,920
Speaker 1: an artificial distinction. We can argue about how to apply it,

535
00:30:44,960 --> 00:30:47,920
Speaker 1: but we don't learn anything by deciding one day that

536
00:30:47,920 --> 00:30:50,280
Speaker 1: we're gonna call them alive or not. You know, it's

537
00:30:50,280 --> 00:30:54,000
Speaker 1: all We're all one anyway, It's all one big quantum

538
00:30:54,040 --> 00:30:58,840
Speaker 1: field hippy, All right, settled? No, But I think it's true.

539
00:30:58,960 --> 00:31:01,960
Speaker 1: I think it's true. I think that it's if you

540
00:31:02,040 --> 00:31:04,800
Speaker 1: can think, if it helps to think about a particle

541
00:31:04,920 --> 00:31:08,200
Speaker 1: as having a personality, it's that's fine if it helps

542
00:31:08,240 --> 00:31:10,640
Speaker 1: you learn about it, as long as you realize, like

543
00:31:10,680 --> 00:31:13,479
Speaker 1: when I say a particle wants an electron, it's not

544
00:31:13,560 --> 00:31:16,000
Speaker 1: wanting it in the same way that a human wants

545
00:31:16,000 --> 00:31:18,920
Speaker 1: a donut, but it may be the way that it

546
00:31:19,000 --> 00:31:22,000
Speaker 1: acts like a human that's ravenous for a donut is similar.

547
00:31:22,040 --> 00:31:26,040
Speaker 1: Where human will knock down boxes and like shove people

548
00:31:26,080 --> 00:31:29,560
Speaker 1: through aisles to get to that donut. In a particle

549
00:31:29,640 --> 00:31:31,680
Speaker 1: that needs an electron will do the same thing. So

550
00:31:31,720 --> 00:31:35,440
Speaker 1: if those, if those kind of comparisons help you understand

551
00:31:35,480 --> 00:31:38,240
Speaker 1: it better, it's that's good. But just you know, particles

552
00:31:38,280 --> 00:31:42,640
Speaker 1: don't necessarily want stuff or do things like a human

553
00:31:42,760 --> 00:31:47,520
Speaker 1: or even an animal does. But what is interesting is

554
00:31:48,360 --> 00:31:53,680
Speaker 1: how animals have been adapting to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.

555
00:31:54,040 --> 00:31:57,120
Speaker 1: And again, I think it's when we think about adaptation.

556
00:31:57,280 --> 00:31:59,640
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's easy to think about it in human terms

557
00:31:59,720 --> 00:32:02,960
Speaker 1: of like you, you personally can adapt to a tough

558
00:32:03,040 --> 00:32:07,560
Speaker 1: situation by making decisions, like you know, everyone's adapting to

559
00:32:08,200 --> 00:32:11,040
Speaker 1: staying at home right now. But if you're an animal

560
00:32:11,080 --> 00:32:14,200
Speaker 1: and you're adapting, that doesn't necessarily mean that you, the

561
00:32:14,200 --> 00:32:18,640
Speaker 1: individual animal, is within your lifetime adapting to something. So

562
00:32:19,680 --> 00:32:23,000
Speaker 1: these birds that have been studied are adapting, but not

563
00:32:23,040 --> 00:32:27,000
Speaker 1: necessarily within one bird's lifetime. So these researchers have been

564
00:32:27,040 --> 00:32:30,840
Speaker 1: collecting feather and blood samples from a variety of bird

565
00:32:30,880 --> 00:32:34,920
Speaker 1: species within the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, and they found that

566
00:32:35,120 --> 00:32:37,600
Speaker 1: the birds that have been living in areas with higher

567
00:32:37,640 --> 00:32:43,160
Speaker 1: contamination actually have more antioxidants to fight free radicals than

568
00:32:43,480 --> 00:32:47,280
Speaker 1: they encounter that that they will encounter in the exclusion zone.

569
00:32:47,800 --> 00:32:52,280
Speaker 1: And so obviously, like we talked about before, having those

570
00:32:52,320 --> 00:32:56,479
Speaker 1: antioxidants is really important if you are, say, living in

571
00:32:56,480 --> 00:32:58,760
Speaker 1: an area where you're going to get this high dose,

572
00:32:58,960 --> 00:33:04,160
Speaker 1: relatively high dose of radiation. And so what the confusing

573
00:33:04,200 --> 00:33:10,760
Speaker 1: thing is that there may actually be a evolutionary benefit

574
00:33:11,080 --> 00:33:14,240
Speaker 1: to these birds that are actually in the higher contaminated

575
00:33:14,320 --> 00:33:19,040
Speaker 1: areas versus the slightly lower contaminated areas. So in a

576
00:33:19,280 --> 00:33:24,080
Speaker 1: study published in it's called cher Nobles Birds adapting to

577
00:33:24,120 --> 00:33:29,560
Speaker 1: ionizing radiation, researchers found that oxidative stress and DNA damage

578
00:33:29,800 --> 00:33:35,440
Speaker 1: decreased as background radiation contamination increased within the cher Noble zone,

579
00:33:35,640 --> 00:33:42,360
Speaker 1: which sounds really counterintuitive. And this again another another preface here.

580
00:33:42,520 --> 00:33:44,600
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean you should go bathe in radiation, that

581
00:33:44,640 --> 00:33:47,560
Speaker 1: doesn't mean radiation is good for you. And this happened

582
00:33:47,840 --> 00:33:51,120
Speaker 1: after several generations of selection, right, This is like, these

583
00:33:51,160 --> 00:33:54,520
Speaker 1: are the ones that survived found some way to benefit

584
00:33:54,520 --> 00:33:57,479
Speaker 1: from this situation. This is not like all the birds

585
00:33:57,520 --> 00:33:59,959
Speaker 1: that wandered in got some boost. This is not your

586
00:34:00,040 --> 00:34:04,320
Speaker 1: new SPA treatment, right exactly. So these birds are going

587
00:34:04,360 --> 00:34:08,600
Speaker 1: through adaptations, meaning birds with higher levels of antioxidants are

588
00:34:08,640 --> 00:34:11,799
Speaker 1: surviving and those who don't have those are dying off.

589
00:34:12,080 --> 00:34:13,840
Speaker 1: And you, a human, are going to be in that

590
00:34:14,000 --> 00:34:17,760
Speaker 1: dying off category. And when birds die of radation poisoning,

591
00:34:17,760 --> 00:34:19,640
Speaker 1: do they have the same horrible effects. Is it like

592
00:34:19,880 --> 00:34:22,000
Speaker 1: in the top five ways for birds to not die,

593
00:34:22,120 --> 00:34:24,839
Speaker 1: to have their feathers fall off and stuff. I mean,

594
00:34:24,880 --> 00:34:27,160
Speaker 1: I can't speak to what it's like to be a

595
00:34:27,239 --> 00:34:31,200
Speaker 1: dying bird, but I it affects basically all animals bodies

596
00:34:31,239 --> 00:34:34,000
Speaker 1: in a similar way that if it affects humans unless

597
00:34:34,040 --> 00:34:39,160
Speaker 1: you have some natural resistance to it or evolved resistance

598
00:34:39,200 --> 00:34:42,759
Speaker 1: to it. So that the result of this is where

599
00:34:42,800 --> 00:34:45,600
Speaker 1: it's like the birds and needs like higher contaminated areas

600
00:34:45,760 --> 00:34:48,760
Speaker 1: is very It's like, oh, wait, so they're getting higher

601
00:34:48,800 --> 00:34:52,279
Speaker 1: doses of radiation. Why are they actually doing better than

602
00:34:52,360 --> 00:34:55,840
Speaker 1: birds that are in still within chernobyl but in lower

603
00:34:55,880 --> 00:35:00,600
Speaker 1: contaminated areas, And so that's a it's kind of a conundrum.

604
00:35:00,640 --> 00:35:04,640
Speaker 1: But what could be the reason for this is if

605
00:35:04,640 --> 00:35:08,400
Speaker 1: you're in an area where it's like more binary whether

606
00:35:08,480 --> 00:35:10,839
Speaker 1: you live or die, So if you don't have those

607
00:35:10,880 --> 00:35:14,319
Speaker 1: really high levels of antioxidants, that high level of protection,

608
00:35:14,640 --> 00:35:17,280
Speaker 1: you just die. Whereas if you're in a slightly lower

609
00:35:17,320 --> 00:35:20,920
Speaker 1: area where you live long enough to reproduce perhaps but

610
00:35:20,960 --> 00:35:23,360
Speaker 1: you're kind of not as healthy and you like eventually

611
00:35:23,400 --> 00:35:27,799
Speaker 1: do die, then you may not necessarily be pressured to

612
00:35:28,280 --> 00:35:33,480
Speaker 1: actually have those those really high level of antioxidants. So like,

613
00:35:33,520 --> 00:35:36,480
Speaker 1: if you're a bird, it's like, okay, I'm getting I

614
00:35:36,480 --> 00:35:40,439
Speaker 1: mean like this really dangerous zone. I only live long

615
00:35:40,560 --> 00:35:43,360
Speaker 1: enough to reproduce if I have extremely high levels of

616
00:35:43,400 --> 00:35:46,880
Speaker 1: antioxidants like and enough that it's almost like overkill that

617
00:35:46,960 --> 00:35:49,680
Speaker 1: it's really protecting me. But you know, if you're a

618
00:35:49,680 --> 00:35:52,080
Speaker 1: burden sort of the it's still not good. It's still

619
00:35:52,160 --> 00:35:54,839
Speaker 1: not a great area to live in, but you can

620
00:35:54,880 --> 00:35:57,200
Speaker 1: kind of get away with not having those high levels

621
00:35:57,239 --> 00:36:01,000
Speaker 1: long enough to reproduce. Maybe overall you're not as healthy

622
00:36:01,239 --> 00:36:04,000
Speaker 1: because you're kind of like you're just kind of squeaking

623
00:36:04,040 --> 00:36:07,960
Speaker 1: by and you you don't actually you aren't being as quickly,

624
00:36:08,080 --> 00:36:10,600
Speaker 1: like the evolution isn't working as quickly on you. The

625
00:36:10,600 --> 00:36:14,319
Speaker 1: the that selective pressure of the radiation, so you're it's like,

626
00:36:14,360 --> 00:36:16,600
Speaker 1: well I managed to have babies and now my wing

627
00:36:16,719 --> 00:36:20,120
Speaker 1: is falling off. But like so it's it's kind of counterintuitive,

628
00:36:20,160 --> 00:36:23,400
Speaker 1: but a result like this doesn't mean oh, radiation is

629
00:36:23,440 --> 00:36:28,080
Speaker 1: good for animals. It just shows that complex process of evolution,

630
00:36:28,160 --> 00:36:31,919
Speaker 1: especially when you have this short period of time with

631
00:36:32,080 --> 00:36:36,720
Speaker 1: an incredible selective pressure. That is something we don't really

632
00:36:37,239 --> 00:36:40,480
Speaker 1: see very often, which is an immense amount of radiation

633
00:36:40,480 --> 00:36:44,200
Speaker 1: that would not normally happen unless we had turned very suddenly.

634
00:36:44,400 --> 00:36:47,560
Speaker 1: And isn't there also a cost, like the reason you

635
00:36:47,680 --> 00:36:50,400
Speaker 1: have these antioxidants, which can you know, put out the

636
00:36:50,400 --> 00:36:53,240
Speaker 1: flames of your radiation or your you know, savior drowning

637
00:36:53,280 --> 00:36:56,400
Speaker 1: molecules you use, your analogy must come at some other cost,

638
00:36:56,600 --> 00:37:00,520
Speaker 1: otherwise all animals would have it all the time. Yeah. Yeah,

639
00:37:00,560 --> 00:37:03,840
Speaker 1: it actually comes at the cost of production of types

640
00:37:03,880 --> 00:37:07,080
Speaker 1: of melanins. So a lot of birds will want to

641
00:37:07,120 --> 00:37:10,160
Speaker 1: have these really well again, not necessarily want to, but

642
00:37:10,360 --> 00:37:12,759
Speaker 1: they have these vibrant colors, they have a lot of

643
00:37:12,800 --> 00:37:16,360
Speaker 1: melanin production, and if you they actually have to trade

644
00:37:16,400 --> 00:37:20,759
Speaker 1: off that melanin production to have that high level of antioxidants,

645
00:37:20,840 --> 00:37:24,200
Speaker 1: and not having that melanin can affect their health and

646
00:37:24,320 --> 00:37:27,640
Speaker 1: how they socialize and like sexual selection as well. So

647
00:37:27,960 --> 00:37:30,360
Speaker 1: you're absolutely right. It's not like, hey, why don't we

648
00:37:30,400 --> 00:37:33,319
Speaker 1: all just like get huge amounts of antioxidants so we

649
00:37:33,360 --> 00:37:35,319
Speaker 1: can live right next to cher nobyle. It's a very

650
00:37:35,360 --> 00:37:38,719
Speaker 1: complex thing and one that researchers are still trying to

651
00:37:38,760 --> 00:37:41,720
Speaker 1: figure out right now. So this is like one result

652
00:37:41,800 --> 00:37:43,719
Speaker 1: of a bunch of studies that are trying to figure out,

653
00:37:43,760 --> 00:37:47,200
Speaker 1: like what is going on with these irradiated birds. We

654
00:37:47,239 --> 00:37:50,200
Speaker 1: don't know necessarily, right, And so the in the region

655
00:37:50,239 --> 00:37:52,400
Speaker 1: where the contamination is sort of lower, and the birds

656
00:37:52,400 --> 00:37:55,480
Speaker 1: that don't have these protections can survive, then it's still

657
00:37:55,520 --> 00:37:58,719
Speaker 1: a disadvantage to have all those protections because it comes

658
00:37:58,719 --> 00:38:02,080
Speaker 1: at all these other costs, right, right, And I think

659
00:38:02,120 --> 00:38:05,520
Speaker 1: and now this is me speculating, and I'm not sure,

660
00:38:05,560 --> 00:38:08,279
Speaker 1: but I do think I saw that there is a

661
00:38:08,360 --> 00:38:13,080
Speaker 1: higher incidence of albinism in birds in this area, which

662
00:38:13,080 --> 00:38:16,799
Speaker 1: would make sense because if we're talking about melanin production

663
00:38:17,000 --> 00:38:21,640
Speaker 1: being affected by antioxidants, well, that may be protecting them

664
00:38:21,760 --> 00:38:25,920
Speaker 1: from the radiation somewhat. But being albino as an animal

665
00:38:26,040 --> 00:38:28,080
Speaker 1: is not always good for your survival. It makes you

666
00:38:28,120 --> 00:38:30,960
Speaker 1: more visible to predators. So it's like, that's why we

667
00:38:31,000 --> 00:38:33,719
Speaker 1: don't see a bunch of like you may see an

668
00:38:33,800 --> 00:38:36,440
Speaker 1: albino squirrel once in your lifetime, but it's hard to

669
00:38:36,480 --> 00:38:38,880
Speaker 1: spot them because they actually get picked off pretty quickly

670
00:38:38,920 --> 00:38:41,680
Speaker 1: because they're so visible. So if you're a bird and

671
00:38:41,800 --> 00:38:45,680
Speaker 1: you're you are subject to being preyed upon by other

672
00:38:45,800 --> 00:38:49,040
Speaker 1: like other birds or say like the fox and the

673
00:38:49,040 --> 00:38:52,640
Speaker 1: wolf populations there. Then you don't necessarily want to be like, hey,

674
00:38:52,680 --> 00:38:55,360
Speaker 1: look at me. I'm like I'm I look like Liberaci

675
00:38:55,400 --> 00:38:58,719
Speaker 1: And it's great. That's right. Every one of these mutations

676
00:38:58,800 --> 00:39:01,200
Speaker 1: has lots of others effects. You can't just like turn

677
00:39:01,280 --> 00:39:04,320
Speaker 1: one thing up or down. And evolution is not one dimensional.

678
00:39:04,360 --> 00:39:07,799
Speaker 1: It's not like, Okay, today we're selecting for radiation. Tomorrow

679
00:39:07,840 --> 00:39:10,160
Speaker 1: we're doing it for color. It's all or nothing, like

680
00:39:10,200 --> 00:39:14,360
Speaker 1: either living or dying. Yeah, evolution is not character creation

681
00:39:14,440 --> 00:39:18,279
Speaker 1: sliders unfortunately, But wouldn't that be great? I'd like some

682
00:39:18,280 --> 00:39:21,439
Speaker 1: more hit points and some more wisdom. Um. I think

683
00:39:21,440 --> 00:39:25,560
Speaker 1: the cool thing about this, the mutations that create protection

684
00:39:25,600 --> 00:39:29,360
Speaker 1: against radiation, is where do those mutations come from? Maybe

685
00:39:29,440 --> 00:39:33,000
Speaker 1: from radiation, right, So it's like radiation is triggered protection

686
00:39:33,080 --> 00:39:37,680
Speaker 1: against radiation. So like meta radiation is really running a

687
00:39:37,760 --> 00:39:42,440
Speaker 1: racket here. It's making money on both sides. It's like

688
00:39:42,520 --> 00:39:44,960
Speaker 1: it's like that old Gary Larson cartoon where it's like

689
00:39:44,960 --> 00:39:47,520
Speaker 1: a brick thrown through someone's window and there's a little

690
00:39:47,680 --> 00:39:53,399
Speaker 1: note on the brick said bricks through your window. Call Oh,

691
00:39:54,520 --> 00:39:57,320
Speaker 1: But it's like a bunch of tiny invisible bricks in

692
00:39:57,360 --> 00:40:01,680
Speaker 1: the window, is your DNA Again, I want to reiterate,

693
00:40:01,760 --> 00:40:04,480
Speaker 1: like you might think like from this one, so I like, oh,

694
00:40:04,600 --> 00:40:08,880
Speaker 1: is radiation good for animals a good selective pressure. No,

695
00:40:09,040 --> 00:40:11,759
Speaker 1: that's not not something that you can conclude from that.

696
00:40:12,160 --> 00:40:14,880
Speaker 1: And there's been a lot of research, a lot of

697
00:40:14,880 --> 00:40:18,880
Speaker 1: debate amongst conservation is how animals are actually doing in

698
00:40:18,960 --> 00:40:22,160
Speaker 1: the exclusion zone. So you might hear stories about how

699
00:40:22,239 --> 00:40:26,640
Speaker 1: animal populations are actually increasing in the exclusion zones, and

700
00:40:26,920 --> 00:40:31,680
Speaker 1: like there's a study published in in Frontiers in Ecology

701
00:40:31,719 --> 00:40:35,319
Speaker 1: and the Environment that found large mammal population. So like

702
00:40:35,480 --> 00:40:39,760
Speaker 1: gray wolves, raccoon dogs, and wars, their populations are actually

703
00:40:40,040 --> 00:40:44,560
Speaker 1: slowly increasing in the exclusion zone despite the contamination. That

704
00:40:44,600 --> 00:40:48,120
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that contamination is good for them. It means

705
00:40:48,200 --> 00:40:52,960
Speaker 1: that humans are even worse than the radioactive contamination. It's

706
00:40:53,080 --> 00:40:55,799
Speaker 1: that our lack of presence there is enough of a

707
00:40:55,880 --> 00:41:00,879
Speaker 1: boost for them to basically have an increase their population.

708
00:41:01,280 --> 00:41:05,080
Speaker 1: Even though I bet, now you know, I'm not a

709
00:41:05,160 --> 00:41:08,839
Speaker 1: nuclear physicist, but I bet if like they had that

710
00:41:08,960 --> 00:41:12,680
Speaker 1: area without the radiation poisoning, they'd be doing even better.

711
00:41:13,040 --> 00:41:15,600
Speaker 1: Probably you need the radiation poisoning to drive all the

712
00:41:15,680 --> 00:41:18,600
Speaker 1: humans away, so you know, overall, I mean, it sounds

713
00:41:18,640 --> 00:41:20,320
Speaker 1: like you're making the argument that overall is in that

714
00:41:20,400 --> 00:41:24,239
Speaker 1: wind because damage the animals, but you damage the humans more.

715
00:41:24,280 --> 00:41:26,960
Speaker 1: It's sort of like radiation treatment for cancer, right, you

716
00:41:27,080 --> 00:41:34,399
Speaker 1: kill the tumor and were situation. I mean, I think

717
00:41:34,640 --> 00:41:40,279
Speaker 1: I try to take a somewhat human positive perspective, where yes,

718
00:41:40,360 --> 00:41:43,759
Speaker 1: it's true that the radiation is keeping us out. I

719
00:41:43,800 --> 00:41:47,040
Speaker 1: think that the lesson we should learn from this is not, oh,

720
00:41:47,120 --> 00:41:49,480
Speaker 1: let's blow up a bunch of nuclear reactors so that

721
00:41:49,520 --> 00:41:53,680
Speaker 1: we have these animal conservation areas. I think it's that, oh,

722
00:41:53,920 --> 00:41:57,759
Speaker 1: animal populations are so resilient. If we just gave them

723
00:41:57,840 --> 00:42:02,040
Speaker 1: some more space and matt with author radiation, imagine how

724
00:42:02,080 --> 00:42:05,879
Speaker 1: good they do. Like it's it's they are very they're

725
00:42:06,000 --> 00:42:09,359
Speaker 1: very resilient, but they need just a little bit of

726
00:42:09,440 --> 00:42:14,719
Speaker 1: help to bouts back after like all the Shenanigans were

727
00:42:14,840 --> 00:42:18,360
Speaker 1: basically doing as humans. It's amazing to me how rapidly

728
00:42:18,480 --> 00:42:22,600
Speaker 1: they can respond. You know that that to immediate like dramatic,

729
00:42:22,960 --> 00:42:27,879
Speaker 1: short time scale catastrophes, they can come back and they

730
00:42:27,960 --> 00:42:31,720
Speaker 1: can thrive. You know, we imagine like very slow climate

731
00:42:31,800 --> 00:42:36,080
Speaker 1: change edging a population towards having heavier coats or thinner coats,

732
00:42:36,160 --> 00:42:38,879
Speaker 1: or taller or shorter. But also if you have enough

733
00:42:38,920 --> 00:42:42,040
Speaker 1: diversity in your population, even a shock, right, as long

734
00:42:42,080 --> 00:42:44,200
Speaker 1: as some of them survived, then they can thrive in

735
00:42:44,200 --> 00:42:47,480
Speaker 1: that environment. It's it's incredible. And also it he tells

736
00:42:47,520 --> 00:42:51,560
Speaker 1: you about the importance of diversity, right, yes, exactly, and

737
00:42:51,640 --> 00:42:55,600
Speaker 1: the importance of genetic diversity, which I think is something

738
00:42:55,719 --> 00:42:58,719
Speaker 1: that it's like, we think about biodiversity in terms of

739
00:42:58,719 --> 00:43:01,439
Speaker 1: different species, but it all so means like diversity within

740
00:43:01,480 --> 00:43:04,920
Speaker 1: a population. So if you start to limit their genetic diversity,

741
00:43:05,000 --> 00:43:08,000
Speaker 1: they can't adapt to these shocks because they just don't

742
00:43:08,040 --> 00:43:12,360
Speaker 1: have a big enough genetic library to have, you know,

743
00:43:12,400 --> 00:43:15,360
Speaker 1: an offspring that's like, hey, I've got like a billion antioxidants.

744
00:43:15,360 --> 00:43:18,200
Speaker 1: Come at me, RAI. Because it's not, as you said before,

745
00:43:18,200 --> 00:43:20,440
Speaker 1: it's not really adapting. It's not like they're like, Okay,

746
00:43:20,480 --> 00:43:22,279
Speaker 1: here's the problem, what are we gonna do about it.

747
00:43:22,280 --> 00:43:24,160
Speaker 1: It's just like some of us die and some of

748
00:43:24,239 --> 00:43:27,560
Speaker 1: us survive, and that's it. That's the adaptation. Right. So

749
00:43:27,719 --> 00:43:30,879
Speaker 1: if you're a monoculture like corn is, then you've got

750
00:43:30,880 --> 00:43:34,560
Speaker 1: no chance, right Yeah, Yeah, I love it if like

751
00:43:34,640 --> 00:43:37,600
Speaker 1: there were bird scientists with their bird lab coats, like

752
00:43:37,640 --> 00:43:39,520
Speaker 1: with a white board and they're going like, okay, what

753
00:43:39,560 --> 00:43:42,520
Speaker 1: do we do, Like here's the situation. Unfortunately that's just

754
00:43:42,600 --> 00:43:46,320
Speaker 1: not the case. I love it, that's that's my head canon. Birds,

755
00:43:46,400 --> 00:43:49,759
Speaker 1: bird scientists trying to make antioxidants. But well then you

756
00:43:49,840 --> 00:43:52,080
Speaker 1: might enjoy it. You know, there was an opportunity for

757
00:43:52,200 --> 00:43:55,600
Speaker 1: dinosaurs to save themselves because the media that came and

758
00:43:55,680 --> 00:43:58,240
Speaker 1: wiped out the dinosaurs. It made a near miss past

759
00:43:58,320 --> 00:44:00,719
Speaker 1: the earth, but ten years earlier they could have seen

760
00:44:00,760 --> 00:44:03,520
Speaker 1: it in the sky. So if those din if those

761
00:44:03,520 --> 00:44:06,600
Speaker 1: dino scientists had been you know, on their game, they

762
00:44:06,680 --> 00:44:09,520
Speaker 1: had enough warning to do something about it. Well, you see.

763
00:44:09,560 --> 00:44:13,120
Speaker 1: The problem though, was the top dinosaur scientists was a

764
00:44:13,200 --> 00:44:16,200
Speaker 1: t rex and he had these little half from glasses

765
00:44:16,200 --> 00:44:18,360
Speaker 1: and he was trying to reach the blackboard, but his

766
00:44:18,480 --> 00:44:20,960
Speaker 1: arms were so too tiny to make it, like like,

767
00:44:21,320 --> 00:44:24,120
Speaker 1: professor Munchie, we can't see your writing because your arms

768
00:44:24,120 --> 00:44:25,719
Speaker 1: are too small. And then he got mad and ate

769
00:44:25,760 --> 00:44:28,640
Speaker 1: all the students and then you know, yeah, well that

770
00:44:28,760 --> 00:44:30,959
Speaker 1: cleared that cleared the you know, that cleared the playing

771
00:44:31,000 --> 00:44:33,520
Speaker 1: field for mammal scientists. So here we are exactly, a

772
00:44:33,520 --> 00:44:36,880
Speaker 1: little little shrew like animals with lab coats exactly. You

773
00:44:36,920 --> 00:44:39,440
Speaker 1: can actually type up grand proposals and submit them. And

774
00:44:39,480 --> 00:44:45,880
Speaker 1: that's why we survived. That is adaptation right there. You

775
00:44:45,960 --> 00:44:48,799
Speaker 1: may be wondering, if birds can adapt to high levels

776
00:44:48,840 --> 00:44:53,120
Speaker 1: of radioactive contamination, why couldn't humans. Well, technically we might

777
00:44:53,120 --> 00:44:56,400
Speaker 1: be able to after many generations and many deaths. And

778
00:44:56,719 --> 00:44:59,360
Speaker 1: of course that's not even speaking of the quality of life,

779
00:44:59,560 --> 00:45:02,239
Speaker 1: which doesn't sound so great and is one of the

780
00:45:02,280 --> 00:45:05,880
Speaker 1: many reasons it's important not to contaminate the planet with radiation.

781
00:45:06,440 --> 00:45:08,560
Speaker 1: The thing about humans is that we've got to trick

782
00:45:08,640 --> 00:45:11,720
Speaker 1: up our sleeves when it comes to selective pressures. Instead

783
00:45:11,760 --> 00:45:14,919
Speaker 1: of adapting our bodies through trial and air, which means

784
00:45:14,920 --> 00:45:17,880
Speaker 1: a lot of dying, we can use our huge, ungainly

785
00:45:17,960 --> 00:45:21,879
Speaker 1: brains to build society, science, medicine, and ideas that can

786
00:45:21,920 --> 00:45:26,000
Speaker 1: help save our butts. For instance, sunscreen. The sun attacks

787
00:45:26,080 --> 00:45:29,520
Speaker 1: us on a daily basis with pesky uvy radiation, and

788
00:45:29,600 --> 00:45:33,200
Speaker 1: instead of waiting to evolve some hippo skin that produces

789
00:45:33,200 --> 00:45:36,120
Speaker 1: a thick sweat which acts as a natural sunscreen, we

790
00:45:36,239 --> 00:45:38,799
Speaker 1: just create our own out of zinc and it comes

791
00:45:38,800 --> 00:45:42,280
Speaker 1: in fun fruity sense. So when people talk about humans

792
00:45:42,320 --> 00:45:46,120
Speaker 1: evolving or adapting, I wouldn't necessarily count on our survival

793
00:45:46,200 --> 00:45:48,560
Speaker 1: by waiting around to evolve a set of gills or

794
00:45:48,600 --> 00:45:51,960
Speaker 1: some kind of internal radioactive shield. It's going to be

795
00:45:52,000 --> 00:45:55,880
Speaker 1: our ability to cooperate, our pro social behavior and scientific

796
00:45:55,920 --> 00:45:59,400
Speaker 1: discoveries that saves us. Or you know, we could steal

797
00:45:59,520 --> 00:46:02,360
Speaker 1: d NA for organisms that actually have their crap together.

798
00:46:02,800 --> 00:46:11,319
Speaker 1: We'll discuss whether that's even possible when we return. In

799
00:46:11,360 --> 00:46:15,280
Speaker 1: almost every apocalyptic movie, the heroes are gritty, war toughened

800
00:46:15,320 --> 00:46:18,719
Speaker 1: people with robot arms and nine o'clock shadows and spiky

801
00:46:18,760 --> 00:46:22,080
Speaker 1: shoulder pads. But in the event of an earth blasting

802
00:46:22,120 --> 00:46:26,160
Speaker 1: apocalypse or not necessarily the most likely animal or living

803
00:46:26,200 --> 00:46:29,319
Speaker 1: creature to survive. So let me introduce you to a

804
00:46:29,360 --> 00:46:32,440
Speaker 1: couple of organisms that are definitely gonna kick mad Max

805
00:46:32,560 --> 00:46:37,840
Speaker 1: is sorry, but so Daniel. I imagine you've actually probably

806
00:46:37,920 --> 00:46:41,680
Speaker 1: heard of tartar grades before. I have. I love tartar grades.

807
00:46:41,719 --> 00:46:45,919
Speaker 1: They're amazing. I I thought you would like them, so

808
00:46:46,600 --> 00:46:49,080
Speaker 1: we've actually talked about them on the show before. But

809
00:46:49,200 --> 00:46:52,399
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go even more in depths on these incredible

810
00:46:52,640 --> 00:46:55,439
Speaker 1: little they're also called water bears. They are also called

811
00:46:55,560 --> 00:46:58,920
Speaker 1: moss piglets. They are they have adorable names, and I

812
00:46:58,960 --> 00:47:01,880
Speaker 1: think they look super cute too. What I mean, if

813
00:47:01,920 --> 00:47:04,359
Speaker 1: you've seen one, like really zoomed in, it looks sort

814
00:47:04,360 --> 00:47:07,279
Speaker 1: of like a horrible monster, I mean, but a cute one.

815
00:47:07,440 --> 00:47:10,960
Speaker 1: They're like a little nyoki with eight legs, with hooks

816
00:47:10,960 --> 00:47:13,879
Speaker 1: on each leg and a little like whole buzz saw

817
00:47:14,080 --> 00:47:16,279
Speaker 1: for our mouth. I think that's cute. Well, you know

818
00:47:16,360 --> 00:47:20,840
Speaker 1: when they evolve into like actually literally bear sized objects

819
00:47:20,840 --> 00:47:22,680
Speaker 1: on the moon and then come down and take over,

820
00:47:22,840 --> 00:47:24,640
Speaker 1: I'm gonna come and ask you if you think they're cute.

821
00:47:24,920 --> 00:47:27,600
Speaker 1: I mean, they'll be our overlords, so I'll say yes.

822
00:47:27,840 --> 00:47:31,480
Speaker 1: Obviously you'll have to. You'll have to. It's the law.

823
00:47:32,120 --> 00:47:34,960
Speaker 1: So they are one of the toughest little animals in

824
00:47:35,000 --> 00:47:38,480
Speaker 1: the world. And they are animals. They're teeny tiny, and

825
00:47:38,520 --> 00:47:41,720
Speaker 1: it's hard to sometimes like think of these like really

826
00:47:41,800 --> 00:47:46,080
Speaker 1: really tiny microscopic organisms as being animals and not like

827
00:47:46,400 --> 00:47:49,200
Speaker 1: bacteria or something. But they are animals. How small are they?

828
00:47:49,239 --> 00:47:51,440
Speaker 1: I mean, are we talking like really microbe size? Are

829
00:47:51,440 --> 00:47:53,440
Speaker 1: we talking that you could like see one on your fingertips.

830
00:47:53,600 --> 00:47:57,719
Speaker 1: You can almost see it with the human eye. If

831
00:47:57,719 --> 00:48:00,400
Speaker 1: you have really good eyesights, like if if you had

832
00:48:00,400 --> 00:48:02,880
Speaker 1: a really big one and you had it like in

833
00:48:02,920 --> 00:48:06,439
Speaker 1: a dish of water, maybe you could see like the tiniest,

834
00:48:06,520 --> 00:48:09,480
Speaker 1: tiniest spec but I think typically you can only see

835
00:48:09,520 --> 00:48:14,000
Speaker 1: it under a microscope. So they are about point three

836
00:48:14,080 --> 00:48:18,440
Speaker 1: to point five millimeters long, which is point two inches,

837
00:48:18,880 --> 00:48:20,759
Speaker 1: and I think that's kind of hard to visualize, like

838
00:48:20,840 --> 00:48:23,640
Speaker 1: what that's like. So if you imagine like a grain

839
00:48:23,680 --> 00:48:26,319
Speaker 1: of salt, I think four or five of them could

840
00:48:26,520 --> 00:48:29,520
Speaker 1: stand on one side of a grain of salt, So

841
00:48:29,560 --> 00:48:33,560
Speaker 1: they're they're small. I'm imagining like literally hiding behind a

842
00:48:33,600 --> 00:48:35,960
Speaker 1: grain of salt, like ducking behind a grain of salt.

843
00:48:36,239 --> 00:48:38,080
Speaker 1: You move a grain of salt, and then you zoom

844
00:48:38,080 --> 00:48:41,200
Speaker 1: in on them, and they're like, we're just hanging out

845
00:48:41,239 --> 00:48:45,480
Speaker 1: here smoking. They're all smoking cigarettes behind the grain of

846
00:48:45,840 --> 00:48:47,680
Speaker 1: Tartar grades are supposed to be in class. What are

847
00:48:47,680 --> 00:48:52,160
Speaker 1: you doing? Oh no, it's the principle. That's our new

848
00:48:52,200 --> 00:48:55,160
Speaker 1: TV show. We're pitching right Tartar grade elementary school, exact

849
00:48:56,000 --> 00:49:01,320
Speaker 1: baby Tartar grade babies and they're they're in high school. Yeah,

850
00:49:01,400 --> 00:49:03,479
Speaker 1: I may be one of the toughest animals in the world,

851
00:49:03,520 --> 00:49:09,879
Speaker 1: but you broke my heart. Yes please, So they are

852
00:49:09,920 --> 00:49:13,720
Speaker 1: found all over the world. They're found on moss, lichen,

853
00:49:13,920 --> 00:49:18,719
Speaker 1: they're found in soil, dead leaves, sediment, in water, basically

854
00:49:18,760 --> 00:49:20,960
Speaker 1: anywhere that they can have, just like even a little

855
00:49:20,960 --> 00:49:23,960
Speaker 1: bit of moisture, they can be found. So they're also

856
00:49:24,040 --> 00:49:28,720
Speaker 1: found in extreme environments like hot springs under polar ice

857
00:49:28,960 --> 00:49:33,520
Speaker 1: and boiling mud volcanoes which aren't actual volcanoes, but it's

858
00:49:33,560 --> 00:49:36,960
Speaker 1: just like boiling churning mud as like these hot gases

859
00:49:37,080 --> 00:49:39,600
Speaker 1: erupted like this mud comes out. But they can be

860
00:49:39,680 --> 00:49:41,799
Speaker 1: there if they want it seems it seems like a

861
00:49:41,800 --> 00:49:44,760
Speaker 1: fun place to be, like a little tarte grade spa.

862
00:49:45,000 --> 00:49:47,759
Speaker 1: So they like moist environments. But like I said, they

863
00:49:47,800 --> 00:49:50,480
Speaker 1: can basically survive if they can retain a little bit

864
00:49:50,480 --> 00:49:55,200
Speaker 1: of moisture, and they can also survive being dehydrated, so

865
00:49:55,600 --> 00:50:00,520
Speaker 1: they can live through environments that should kill them by

866
00:50:00,600 --> 00:50:06,000
Speaker 1: turning themselves into living mummies. So they are actually capable

867
00:50:06,320 --> 00:50:10,439
Speaker 1: of self embalming, so they desiccate, they dry themselves out,

868
00:50:10,920 --> 00:50:14,640
Speaker 1: and then the problem with turning yourself into a mummy

869
00:50:14,760 --> 00:50:19,080
Speaker 1: or freezing yourself is that you will explode yourself like

870
00:50:19,160 --> 00:50:22,440
Speaker 1: you'll damage yourselves. So like when you're when you're frozen,

871
00:50:22,680 --> 00:50:25,600
Speaker 1: and then it's not the freezing that necessarily kills you,

872
00:50:25,680 --> 00:50:28,919
Speaker 1: it's the thawing because as you thought out, these ice

873
00:50:28,920 --> 00:50:32,200
Speaker 1: crystals form in your cells and basically they're like little

874
00:50:32,239 --> 00:50:37,920
Speaker 1: Sharken's that explode yourselves. So that's gets bigger as it freezes, right,

875
00:50:37,960 --> 00:50:40,520
Speaker 1: and so the cell wall that can't get bigger. It's

876
00:50:40,520 --> 00:50:45,919
Speaker 1: frozen insane, right exactly exactly, so you explode. That sounds bad,

877
00:50:45,960 --> 00:50:48,520
Speaker 1: It's that's definitely on my list of top five ways

878
00:50:48,520 --> 00:50:52,120
Speaker 1: to not die. Yeah, So if if all Disney's head

879
00:50:52,160 --> 00:50:55,359
Speaker 1: really was frozen, like you know, it's probably fine right now.

880
00:50:55,400 --> 00:50:57,279
Speaker 1: But if we tried to thought out like this some

881
00:50:57,360 --> 00:51:01,080
Speaker 1: internet conspiracy theory I'm not aware of. Yeah, uh, there's

882
00:51:01,120 --> 00:51:04,000
Speaker 1: like a theory that Walt Disney froze his own head,

883
00:51:04,120 --> 00:51:07,520
Speaker 1: Like I don't think it's true, was his own head,

884
00:51:07,640 --> 00:51:11,839
Speaker 1: Like yeah, that would be that would be funny, like

885
00:51:12,040 --> 00:51:14,399
Speaker 1: like a chicken that got its head chopped off, just

886
00:51:14,520 --> 00:51:20,320
Speaker 1: enough time to get your head or something. Tartar grades

887
00:51:20,360 --> 00:51:23,960
Speaker 1: have found a way to not explode when they are

888
00:51:24,040 --> 00:51:27,560
Speaker 1: falling after being frozen, and also to survive being dried out.

889
00:51:27,719 --> 00:51:34,200
Speaker 1: And extreme temperatures, so they will cover their internal cells,

890
00:51:34,400 --> 00:51:39,080
Speaker 1: organelles and membranes and a special sugar gel called trehos,

891
00:51:39,600 --> 00:51:44,480
Speaker 1: which is it's basically like this this material that keeps

892
00:51:44,520 --> 00:51:47,920
Speaker 1: it from getting frozen, from getting overheated, or from getting

893
00:51:47,960 --> 00:51:51,959
Speaker 1: dried out. And so it works to such a great

894
00:51:52,040 --> 00:51:55,400
Speaker 1: extent that labs have revived tartar grade samples up to

895
00:51:55,680 --> 00:52:00,680
Speaker 1: forty years later, and there are reported to amples of

896
00:52:01,160 --> 00:52:04,240
Speaker 1: dehydrated tartar grades that were taken from like one hundred

897
00:52:04,360 --> 00:52:07,799
Speaker 1: year old museum moss and and successfully revived. But I

898
00:52:07,840 --> 00:52:10,880
Speaker 1: don't know if that's been able to be replicated or

899
00:52:10,920 --> 00:52:14,520
Speaker 1: if that's just kind of an apocryphal story, but it's maybe.

900
00:52:14,800 --> 00:52:17,360
Speaker 1: It's pretty amazing. And you know, tartar grades are also

901
00:52:17,719 --> 00:52:20,000
Speaker 1: unusual because they're one of the few animals that are

902
00:52:20,120 --> 00:52:22,840
Speaker 1: on the Moon right now, that's true, didn't we we

903
00:52:22,960 --> 00:52:27,279
Speaker 1: left some behind, right we crash landed. The Israeli's sent

904
00:52:27,360 --> 00:52:29,560
Speaker 1: a lander up there with some tartar grades on it

905
00:52:29,800 --> 00:52:32,760
Speaker 1: and it crashed, and so like, there are literally tartar

906
00:52:32,800 --> 00:52:34,799
Speaker 1: grades on the Moon. We don't know what they're doing.

907
00:52:34,880 --> 00:52:37,920
Speaker 1: They're probably frozen, but you know, a little bit of

908
00:52:38,200 --> 00:52:40,759
Speaker 1: maybe like a comet hits the moon or a little

909
00:52:40,800 --> 00:52:43,799
Speaker 1: asteroid some water in it, and you could have momentarily

910
00:52:43,840 --> 00:52:48,319
Speaker 1: living Targetar colony. Yeah, exactly from which to launch their

911
00:52:48,360 --> 00:52:51,560
Speaker 1: eventual invasion onto Earth. Right, we've given them a foothold.

912
00:52:51,760 --> 00:52:54,760
Speaker 1: I like to imagine they're all Matt Damon's in that movie,

913
00:52:55,320 --> 00:52:57,920
Speaker 1: what was that movie called The Mars One the Martian

914
00:52:57,960 --> 00:53:01,000
Speaker 1: Matt Damon's on Mars Martian. I thought it was called, Oh,

915
00:53:01,080 --> 00:53:04,439
Speaker 1: Matt Damon's on Mars, That's what I call it. But yeah,

916
00:53:04,440 --> 00:53:07,279
Speaker 1: a bunch of little Matt Damon's like making potatoes out

917
00:53:07,280 --> 00:53:10,280
Speaker 1: of their own poop. But yeah, that that'll probably happen eventually.

918
00:53:10,920 --> 00:53:14,680
Speaker 1: So they can serve they can potentially survive being on

919
00:53:14,719 --> 00:53:17,799
Speaker 1: the Moon, at least for a while. So they can

920
00:53:17,880 --> 00:53:22,759
Speaker 1: survive temperatures of down to negative four fifty eight degrees fahrenheit,

921
00:53:22,840 --> 00:53:27,160
Speaker 1: which is negative two two degrees celsius. They can survive

922
00:53:27,200 --> 00:53:30,480
Speaker 1: temperatures up to three hundred degrees fahrenheit, which is a

923
00:53:30,560 --> 00:53:33,799
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty degrees celsius. So you know, if we

924
00:53:33,880 --> 00:53:37,920
Speaker 1: tried to do that, we die. I would certainly die. Yes,

925
00:53:38,160 --> 00:53:42,560
Speaker 1: even though they are super extreme, they're technically not extreme

926
00:53:42,560 --> 00:53:47,560
Speaker 1: aphiles because they can merely tolerate extreme environments and not

927
00:53:47,680 --> 00:53:50,520
Speaker 1: specifically thrive in them, which I think is kind of

928
00:53:50,560 --> 00:53:53,880
Speaker 1: a silly distinction, like, oh, okay, you can survive like

929
00:53:54,000 --> 00:54:00,200
Speaker 1: three hundred degrees fahrenheit, but you're not extreme enough for me. Well,

930
00:54:00,200 --> 00:54:03,040
Speaker 1: you know, sciences filled with these silly distinctions. You know

931
00:54:03,160 --> 00:54:05,480
Speaker 1: your planet, you're not a planet. You and extreme a file.

932
00:54:05,760 --> 00:54:09,600
Speaker 1: You're just totally awesome and crazy. Scientists are just like

933
00:54:09,680 --> 00:54:13,400
Speaker 1: middle school clicks. I'm sorry, no, I'm kidding. I love scientists,

934
00:54:13,960 --> 00:54:18,160
Speaker 1: but it's sometimes sometimes a little bit. So despite the

935
00:54:18,200 --> 00:54:21,560
Speaker 1: fact that they're not technically classified as extreme aphiles, they

936
00:54:21,600 --> 00:54:25,239
Speaker 1: can actually survive the vacuum of space for up to

937
00:54:25,320 --> 00:54:30,600
Speaker 1: ten days. So in two thousand and seven, researchers exposed

938
00:54:30,600 --> 00:54:32,600
Speaker 1: tartar grades to the vacuum of space and then they

939
00:54:32,600 --> 00:54:35,520
Speaker 1: reeled them back in again. Like, no, they didn't have

940
00:54:35,640 --> 00:54:38,920
Speaker 1: tiny little microscopic space suits for them to wear. They

941
00:54:38,960 --> 00:54:42,080
Speaker 1: were just like floating out there, and over two thirds

942
00:54:42,080 --> 00:54:45,200
Speaker 1: of them were revived. So two thirds of them survived,

943
00:54:45,239 --> 00:54:48,680
Speaker 1: the majority of them, and they were piste off probably right,

944
00:54:48,719 --> 00:54:51,799
Speaker 1: they were Superman. They're like, dude, bro, what what the

945
00:54:51,840 --> 00:54:54,600
Speaker 1: hell is a question like when you do experiments on animals,

946
00:54:54,600 --> 00:54:56,759
Speaker 1: you always have to get some sort of like you know,

947
00:54:56,840 --> 00:54:59,719
Speaker 1: ethics reviews, like is this suffering and doing to this

948
00:54:59,800 --> 00:55:02,719
Speaker 1: and will going to yield some valuable science? Does that

949
00:55:02,800 --> 00:55:05,279
Speaker 1: also extended Tardi grades because there are, as you say,

950
00:55:05,320 --> 00:55:09,080
Speaker 1: little animals like probably I would imagine it does. Hey,

951
00:55:09,120 --> 00:55:12,359
Speaker 1: guys actually looked this up after recording. It turns out

952
00:55:12,480 --> 00:55:16,799
Speaker 1: most invertebrates are excluded from animal research ethics laws which

953
00:55:16,840 --> 00:55:21,440
Speaker 1: define animals as vertebrates. What the heck? Well, this mindset

954
00:55:21,560 --> 00:55:24,360
Speaker 1: might be slowly changing. In two thousand and four, the

955
00:55:24,480 --> 00:55:28,440
Speaker 1: National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia change their

956
00:55:28,480 --> 00:55:33,080
Speaker 1: guidelines to include cephalopods such as octopuses and squid. Anyways,

957
00:55:33,160 --> 00:55:35,680
Speaker 1: I was surprised to learn this. Now, back to my

958
00:55:35,719 --> 00:55:39,960
Speaker 1: conversation with Daniel. While it's true that insects and probably

959
00:55:40,000 --> 00:55:43,000
Speaker 1: tartar grades, as much as I love them, can't really

960
00:55:44,320 --> 00:55:47,120
Speaker 1: it's not that they can't necessarily feel pain, but they don't.

961
00:55:47,280 --> 00:55:50,239
Speaker 1: Their brains are so simple that it's hard to know

962
00:55:50,440 --> 00:55:54,279
Speaker 1: like what suffering is to them, Like they are at

963
00:55:54,320 --> 00:55:57,239
Speaker 1: that point, they're kind of like little robots, and like

964
00:55:57,400 --> 00:56:00,120
Speaker 1: we subject robots to all sorts of things which may

965
00:56:00,160 --> 00:56:02,520
Speaker 1: be bad. Maybe the robots and the tartar grades are

966
00:56:02,520 --> 00:56:04,880
Speaker 1: going to like form an alliance and like stick it

967
00:56:04,920 --> 00:56:08,759
Speaker 1: to us horrible humans. But yeah, I actually do think

968
00:56:08,840 --> 00:56:10,600
Speaker 1: all I would have to check on it, But I

969
00:56:10,640 --> 00:56:12,759
Speaker 1: do think you do have to still go through that

970
00:56:12,800 --> 00:56:15,200
Speaker 1: process because it is an animal, it's a living thing.

971
00:56:15,640 --> 00:56:19,400
Speaker 1: You might not have to do that with bacteria because

972
00:56:19,520 --> 00:56:24,000
Speaker 1: it's bacteria. Nobody cares, right, no, exactly, my wife kills

973
00:56:24,200 --> 00:56:27,239
Speaker 1: slaughters bacteria. But you know, tend to the nine every

974
00:56:27,320 --> 00:56:30,160
Speaker 1: day in your experiments. But tartar grades, there are animals.

975
00:56:30,160 --> 00:56:32,799
Speaker 1: So somebody out there is like, you know, thought about

976
00:56:32,880 --> 00:56:34,960
Speaker 1: what is it like to be a tartar grade, and uh,

977
00:56:35,160 --> 00:56:37,279
Speaker 1: hey maybe I hope it's fun until you get shot

978
00:56:37,320 --> 00:56:41,040
Speaker 1: at into space as part of the experiment at least. Yeah,

979
00:56:41,080 --> 00:56:44,600
Speaker 1: And unfortunately, actually, of those that survived, many of them

980
00:56:44,680 --> 00:56:47,880
Speaker 1: did die soon after, but not before they were able

981
00:56:47,920 --> 00:56:51,440
Speaker 1: to reproduce. So evolution calls that a win, like evolution

982
00:56:51,600 --> 00:56:56,040
Speaker 1: calls that success story success right there, right. And so

983
00:56:56,120 --> 00:56:58,279
Speaker 1: the reason that I bring up tartar grades is not

984
00:56:58,360 --> 00:57:02,320
Speaker 1: just because they're awesome at space and cold and getting

985
00:57:02,400 --> 00:57:05,959
Speaker 1: dried out, but it's when they're in space, like that's

986
00:57:05,960 --> 00:57:09,960
Speaker 1: full of radiation, right, Like you're getting bombarded, like you

987
00:57:09,960 --> 00:57:13,520
Speaker 1: were saying, with cosmic rays from the Sun. You're because

988
00:57:13,520 --> 00:57:16,560
Speaker 1: we're you're not protected by the atmosphere. That's right. The

989
00:57:16,600 --> 00:57:18,800
Speaker 1: Sun pumps out a huge amount of course of light

990
00:57:19,040 --> 00:57:22,160
Speaker 1: but also just a raw particle, so protons and electrons

991
00:57:22,360 --> 00:57:25,960
Speaker 1: streaming out a crazy high speeds. It's called the solar wind,

992
00:57:26,440 --> 00:57:29,600
Speaker 1: and it's pretty dangerous. So astronauts, for example, when they

993
00:57:29,600 --> 00:57:31,480
Speaker 1: go up into space, they get a big dose of

994
00:57:31,560 --> 00:57:35,400
Speaker 1: radiation and and sometimes it's it fluctuates a lot, so

995
00:57:35,480 --> 00:57:37,520
Speaker 1: the Sun could just like have a big solar storm

996
00:57:37,520 --> 00:57:40,360
Speaker 1: and pump out enormous amounts of radiation that would kill

997
00:57:40,360 --> 00:57:43,919
Speaker 1: you almost instantly. And so in the International Space Station

998
00:57:43,920 --> 00:57:47,080
Speaker 1: they have special room that's that's lined with extra protecting

999
00:57:47,120 --> 00:57:49,840
Speaker 1: so when a solar storm is coming, they basically run

1000
00:57:49,880 --> 00:57:51,960
Speaker 1: to the basement, you know, like in Kansas with the

1001
00:57:52,000 --> 00:57:56,000
Speaker 1: tornado and hiding that specially protected room. Otherwise they're almost

1002
00:57:56,040 --> 00:58:00,440
Speaker 1: literally toast. Oh my god, that's I'm surprised that Hollywood

1003
00:58:00,440 --> 00:58:04,880
Speaker 1: hasn't like picked up on that space station panic room.

1004
00:58:04,960 --> 00:58:07,920
Speaker 1: That's the second Netflix pitch. We came up with today,

1005
00:58:08,400 --> 00:58:13,120
Speaker 1: quimby get back to us. No, but space is filled

1006
00:58:13,120 --> 00:58:16,400
Speaker 1: with radiation. Absolutely, we are safe here under our atmosphere,

1007
00:58:16,520 --> 00:58:19,560
Speaker 1: but out there in space is a dangerous environment. Yeah.

1008
00:58:19,640 --> 00:58:23,160
Speaker 1: But for tartar grades, they actually have a surprising defense

1009
00:58:23,240 --> 00:58:25,800
Speaker 1: mechanism even when they're in space and when they're exposed

1010
00:58:25,800 --> 00:58:30,240
Speaker 1: to radiation. So tartar grades have a protective protein that

1011
00:58:30,320 --> 00:58:36,320
Speaker 1: shields them from radiation damage from ionizing radiation. It's called

1012
00:58:36,400 --> 00:58:39,840
Speaker 1: damage suppressor or d s UP, which sounds like hey,

1013
00:58:40,000 --> 00:58:43,919
Speaker 1: d s up sounds like a really cool, like, hey,

1014
00:58:44,360 --> 00:58:47,080
Speaker 1: I can survive being radical because I got de s up.

1015
00:58:48,440 --> 00:58:51,800
Speaker 1: So it is a protein that serves as armor to

1016
00:58:51,920 --> 00:58:55,120
Speaker 1: the tartar grades d n A. So it's thought that

1017
00:58:55,160 --> 00:58:58,480
Speaker 1: it maybe acts as kind of like it's similar to

1018
00:58:58,560 --> 00:59:01,880
Speaker 1: antioxidants and that it can sorb free radicals. But it

1019
00:59:01,960 --> 00:59:05,000
Speaker 1: is different in that it like actually kind of clusters

1020
00:59:05,040 --> 00:59:09,200
Speaker 1: around the d n A and actually forms a literal shield.

1021
00:59:09,360 --> 00:59:13,200
Speaker 1: So the result is that tartar grades can withstand many

1022
00:59:13,280 --> 00:59:18,240
Speaker 1: times more ionizing radiation than other animals. They can actually

1023
00:59:18,280 --> 00:59:22,480
Speaker 1: tolerate almost a thousand times more gamma radiation than a human,

1024
00:59:23,160 --> 00:59:25,360
Speaker 1: like an amount of radiation that when pumped into a

1025
00:59:25,480 --> 00:59:29,200
Speaker 1: human would kill kill us, like within a couple of weeks,

1026
00:59:29,240 --> 00:59:33,520
Speaker 1: Like the tartar grade could actually survive. And so you're

1027
00:59:33,520 --> 00:59:35,480
Speaker 1: saying it acts like sort of a physical shield. It's

1028
00:59:35,520 --> 00:59:38,760
Speaker 1: like repels, it absorbs and repels the radiation. It's a

1029
00:59:38,840 --> 00:59:42,200
Speaker 1: pretty recent discovery, so I think some of the evidence

1030
00:59:42,240 --> 00:59:45,960
Speaker 1: is that it's actually absorbing these the free radicals and

1031
00:59:46,160 --> 00:59:48,480
Speaker 1: the radiation. So it's like, okay, you're trying to get

1032
00:59:48,520 --> 00:59:50,760
Speaker 1: an electron and then it just like absorbs it. Do

1033
00:59:50,760 --> 00:59:52,760
Speaker 1: you think it makes it like a puke pu sound

1034
00:59:52,760 --> 00:59:56,240
Speaker 1: when it bounces, It just bounces off it could it could?

1035
00:59:56,640 --> 01:00:00,240
Speaker 1: I think it does seem like beyond just acting as

1036
01:00:00,280 --> 01:00:03,680
Speaker 1: an antioxidant, is it is actually forming a physical shield

1037
01:00:03,840 --> 01:00:06,880
Speaker 1: that prevents it from getting to the DNA because it's

1038
01:00:06,880 --> 01:00:10,080
Speaker 1: so it's like clustered around the DNA rather than just

1039
01:00:10,160 --> 01:00:13,400
Speaker 1: like floating around and acting as like a lifeguard, it's

1040
01:00:13,520 --> 01:00:18,240
Speaker 1: just forming this cluster around it. So we don't we

1041
01:00:18,280 --> 01:00:20,800
Speaker 1: shouldn't just be jealous of tartar grades, although it is

1042
01:00:20,800 --> 01:00:24,000
Speaker 1: a natural response because they are the coolest animal, but

1043
01:00:24,280 --> 01:00:27,680
Speaker 1: they the discovery of de SUP may actually end up

1044
01:00:27,720 --> 01:00:31,440
Speaker 1: helping humans sometime in the future, maybe the distant future,

1045
01:00:31,480 --> 01:00:35,160
Speaker 1: who knows. But human kidney cells were engineered to be

1046
01:00:35,200 --> 01:00:38,680
Speaker 1: able to produce tartar grade de s UP, and those

1047
01:00:38,720 --> 01:00:43,800
Speaker 1: cells in studies actually suffered about fifty less DNA damage

1048
01:00:43,840 --> 01:00:47,760
Speaker 1: caused by X rays compared to cells without d s ups.

1049
01:00:47,800 --> 01:00:50,840
Speaker 1: So again, that doesn't mean we can just like get

1050
01:00:50,880 --> 01:00:53,440
Speaker 1: a syringeful of tartar grades and inject it and now

1051
01:00:53,560 --> 01:00:56,640
Speaker 1: you're like immune to radiation. Like it's it's a lot

1052
01:00:56,720 --> 01:01:00,320
Speaker 1: of steps between creating a kidney cell that can create

1053
01:01:00,400 --> 01:01:03,960
Speaker 1: this this protein and actually having a human who can

1054
01:01:04,000 --> 01:01:06,600
Speaker 1: create this protein in your body that protects your body

1055
01:01:06,680 --> 01:01:11,480
Speaker 1: from radiation. But it's really cool. It's like a step

1056
01:01:11,520 --> 01:01:14,240
Speaker 1: in that direction. Well, that's going to be important when

1057
01:01:14,280 --> 01:01:16,760
Speaker 1: we eventually have to rise up and overthrow our tartar

1058
01:01:16,800 --> 01:01:19,800
Speaker 1: grade overlords, Right, so it's good get started now on

1059
01:01:19,840 --> 01:01:22,720
Speaker 1: this kind of science. That's true. That's true. Or when

1060
01:01:22,760 --> 01:01:25,080
Speaker 1: we're kicked off Earth and we have to colonize another

1061
01:01:25,160 --> 01:01:27,880
Speaker 1: planet that doesn't have a great atmosphere, so we need

1062
01:01:27,960 --> 01:01:32,720
Speaker 1: some resistance. But yeah, it would be great like if

1063
01:01:32,760 --> 01:01:38,080
Speaker 1: we could give say astronauts like this decept protein, like

1064
01:01:38,120 --> 01:01:40,439
Speaker 1: get their selves to produce it, like it would offer

1065
01:01:40,480 --> 01:01:45,320
Speaker 1: them protection maybe not from a blast from a solar winds,

1066
01:01:45,360 --> 01:01:48,360
Speaker 1: but like the because like their cancer risk it's probably

1067
01:01:48,440 --> 01:01:52,840
Speaker 1: higher than you know, the average earth bound human because

1068
01:01:52,840 --> 01:01:54,960
Speaker 1: of all of the radiation they're getting. But yeah, it's

1069
01:01:55,640 --> 01:01:57,919
Speaker 1: it's again, it's not like we're not like a year

1070
01:01:57,960 --> 01:02:01,600
Speaker 1: away from having tartar grade human eyebreds. But it's it's

1071
01:02:01,600 --> 01:02:04,480
Speaker 1: a cool it's a cool discovery that maybe eventually we

1072
01:02:04,520 --> 01:02:08,280
Speaker 1: could figure out how to introduce this protective protein to

1073
01:02:08,400 --> 01:02:10,600
Speaker 1: our own DNA. It must have some cost, right, Like

1074
01:02:10,600 --> 01:02:13,160
Speaker 1: tartar grades manufacture this thing to protect themselves, but it

1075
01:02:13,240 --> 01:02:17,360
Speaker 1: must cost them energy or slow down their DNA replication

1076
01:02:17,480 --> 01:02:19,880
Speaker 1: or something, right, isn't there a cost associated? Yeah, and

1077
01:02:19,920 --> 01:02:22,560
Speaker 1: I'm not sure because this is a relatively recent discovery.

1078
01:02:22,600 --> 01:02:26,640
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what like what the cost is. But

1079
01:02:27,240 --> 01:02:30,720
Speaker 1: usually if there, if it's something that it seems like, well,

1080
01:02:30,760 --> 01:02:34,360
Speaker 1: this has seems to have you know, countless kind of benefit,

1081
01:02:34,440 --> 01:02:37,120
Speaker 1: like there could be some costs, but it could also

1082
01:02:37,200 --> 01:02:40,919
Speaker 1: be Targar grades are really interesting in that they are

1083
01:02:41,280 --> 01:02:46,000
Speaker 1: capable of a lot of horizontal gene transfer, so they

1084
01:02:46,040 --> 01:02:50,560
Speaker 1: can collect they steal a lot of DNA essentially, and

1085
01:02:50,640 --> 01:02:55,560
Speaker 1: so it may be because they are able to steal

1086
01:02:55,760 --> 01:02:58,800
Speaker 1: and like borrow so much DNA that they can have

1087
01:02:59,000 --> 01:03:02,040
Speaker 1: this like two good to be true defense mechanisms that

1088
01:03:02,240 --> 01:03:05,120
Speaker 1: in terms of human evolution, like if we tried that

1089
01:03:05,200 --> 01:03:07,440
Speaker 1: kind of shenanigans early on in our evolution in the

1090
01:03:07,480 --> 01:03:09,920
Speaker 1: way that our evolutionary path has been, it may have

1091
01:03:10,000 --> 01:03:12,240
Speaker 1: just ended up hurting us more than helping us. So

1092
01:03:12,720 --> 01:03:15,920
Speaker 1: it's like something where yeah, there may be a cost

1093
01:03:16,120 --> 01:03:19,280
Speaker 1: to say like an animal like a human, that there

1094
01:03:19,440 --> 01:03:21,960
Speaker 1: isn't like that cost is not as bad for the

1095
01:03:22,000 --> 01:03:26,280
Speaker 1: Tartar grade. And so if what's interesting about like trying

1096
01:03:26,320 --> 01:03:29,960
Speaker 1: to engineer this for humans is that we can potentially

1097
01:03:30,000 --> 01:03:32,840
Speaker 1: try to take the benefits and then mitigate the costs.

1098
01:03:33,160 --> 01:03:38,160
Speaker 1: But that's really hard. That's something that takes probably decades

1099
01:03:38,320 --> 01:03:41,760
Speaker 1: to figure out. Time to get started, time to get

1100
01:03:41,760 --> 01:03:43,760
Speaker 1: started everyone, time to get crack it. It It sounds like

1101
01:03:43,760 --> 01:03:48,680
Speaker 1: a great grand proposal right there, Tartar grade human hybrids.

1102
01:03:48,840 --> 01:03:51,520
Speaker 1: It'll take a while, so we better start now preparing

1103
01:03:54,920 --> 01:03:58,640
Speaker 1: so before we go, I feel like we can't end

1104
01:03:58,760 --> 01:04:03,000
Speaker 1: the podcast without at least mentioning the baddest, rattiest radio

1105
01:04:03,080 --> 01:04:09,040
Speaker 1: resistor extremophile Dino Caucus radio duran's Have you heard of

1106
01:04:09,080 --> 01:04:12,480
Speaker 1: this bacteria? Actually have heard of this because my wife

1107
01:04:12,520 --> 01:04:15,560
Speaker 1: is a microbiologist here you see, Irvine, and so she's

1108
01:04:15,560 --> 01:04:18,160
Speaker 1: a big fan of the microbes and uh and what

1109
01:04:18,200 --> 01:04:20,120
Speaker 1: they can do and the amazing things they can do

1110
01:04:20,160 --> 01:04:22,760
Speaker 1: with all their extra copies of their DNA. It's a

1111
01:04:22,840 --> 01:04:26,360
Speaker 1: it's pretty clever. Yes, Now did I pronounce that right?

1112
01:04:26,400 --> 01:04:31,400
Speaker 1: Can you get your wife? I have no expertise in

1113
01:04:31,440 --> 01:04:37,960
Speaker 1: pronouncing bacteriological names. Unfortunate. Yeah, yeah, I'm I'm like, you know,

1114
01:04:38,040 --> 01:04:40,360
Speaker 1: I learned it from reading, so I don't know. It

1115
01:04:40,400 --> 01:04:45,200
Speaker 1: sounds right to me. But it's also nicknamed conan the bacterium,

1116
01:04:45,280 --> 01:04:47,880
Speaker 1: So that's that's pretty cool. Maybe that's what I'll call

1117
01:04:47,920 --> 01:04:55,040
Speaker 1: it from name especial party exactly. So it is one

1118
01:04:55,080 --> 01:04:58,240
Speaker 1: of the toughest bacteria in the world and probably one

1119
01:04:58,280 --> 01:05:01,200
Speaker 1: of the toughest living organism ms in the world. So

1120
01:05:01,600 --> 01:05:05,680
Speaker 1: it is a spherical bacterium that usually travels in groups

1121
01:05:05,680 --> 01:05:08,000
Speaker 1: of four kind of clustered together, so it looks like

1122
01:05:08,040 --> 01:05:12,560
Speaker 1: a little lucky four leaf clover. And so here's a

1123
01:05:12,640 --> 01:05:16,400
Speaker 1: question that I actually have for you. So grays is

1124
01:05:16,440 --> 01:05:20,600
Speaker 1: a unit used to measure radiation. Right there, are lots

1125
01:05:20,600 --> 01:05:24,360
Speaker 1: of units to measure radiation. When we use units, it's

1126
01:05:24,400 --> 01:05:26,840
Speaker 1: like only useful, like when we think about it in

1127
01:05:26,960 --> 01:05:30,080
Speaker 1: terms of how it's relative to another thing. Right, So

1128
01:05:30,160 --> 01:05:32,840
Speaker 1: like we're so for now, I'm going to use this

1129
01:05:32,960 --> 01:05:35,720
Speaker 1: unit because it's the only unit I know about, and

1130
01:05:35,880 --> 01:05:38,600
Speaker 1: it's what I'm going to use to compare these things.

1131
01:05:38,640 --> 01:05:41,080
Speaker 1: But it's kind of arbitrary that I'm using this unit.

1132
01:05:41,160 --> 01:05:44,520
Speaker 1: It's just like like, here's a unit to demonstrate how

1133
01:05:44,600 --> 01:05:48,800
Speaker 1: tough these bacteria are, but the fact I'm actually using

1134
01:05:48,800 --> 01:05:52,280
Speaker 1: this like is not significant at all. So, and these units,

1135
01:05:52,400 --> 01:05:55,120
Speaker 1: these units are all interrelated, like a gray is equal

1136
01:05:55,160 --> 01:05:58,400
Speaker 1: to a hundred rats, and a rat is a radiation

1137
01:05:58,480 --> 01:06:01,960
Speaker 1: absorbed dose, which means like hundred ergs per gram. It

1138
01:06:02,000 --> 01:06:04,240
Speaker 1: tells you like how much energy is being absorbed by

1139
01:06:04,280 --> 01:06:07,320
Speaker 1: your body. Right, And they're all like I think Grays

1140
01:06:07,400 --> 01:06:12,600
Speaker 1: was like named after a guy that like made the discovery. Right,

1141
01:06:12,760 --> 01:06:15,360
Speaker 1: So it's it's not like because when I saw grays,

1142
01:06:15,400 --> 01:06:16,480
Speaker 1: I thought I was like, oh, is it like g

1143
01:06:16,760 --> 01:06:19,000
Speaker 1: rays like gamma rays, But no, it's just like named

1144
01:06:19,000 --> 01:06:26,680
Speaker 1: after guy name, last name was great. Yeah, this is

1145
01:06:26,720 --> 01:06:29,840
Speaker 1: just their nicknames. Like gamma radiation is actually just a

1146
01:06:29,840 --> 01:06:33,680
Speaker 1: guy that went by like gray Hey. But yeah, so

1147
01:06:34,000 --> 01:06:36,440
Speaker 1: I'm just using it kind of like just to give

1148
01:06:36,480 --> 01:06:41,880
Speaker 1: a frame of reference. Um, So, human exposed to about

1149
01:06:42,120 --> 01:06:46,200
Speaker 1: five grays of radiation will typically die within a couple

1150
01:06:46,240 --> 01:06:50,160
Speaker 1: of weeks cher Nobil style. So tartar grades, which we

1151
01:06:50,240 --> 01:06:53,720
Speaker 1: just talked about, can survive around four thousand grays of

1152
01:06:53,800 --> 01:06:57,920
Speaker 1: radiation with some damage to its reproductive capabilities, which is

1153
01:06:58,000 --> 01:07:00,920
Speaker 1: kind of nitpicking at this point because they're still alive.

1154
01:07:02,040 --> 01:07:06,000
Speaker 1: The ConA and the bacterium or D radio durans can

1155
01:07:06,040 --> 01:07:10,280
Speaker 1: survive around five thousand grades of radiation with almost no

1156
01:07:10,360 --> 01:07:14,440
Speaker 1: ill effects. So that's a thousand times about what a

1157
01:07:14,520 --> 01:07:16,479
Speaker 1: human can survive. And when I say what a human

1158
01:07:16,520 --> 01:07:21,160
Speaker 1: can survive, I imagine if you're getting like five grades

1159
01:07:21,200 --> 01:07:24,240
Speaker 1: of radiation, that means you die within two weeks. Less

1160
01:07:24,240 --> 01:07:27,480
Speaker 1: than that means you're probably going to get cancer within

1161
01:07:27,520 --> 01:07:32,240
Speaker 1: the year. It's not like this is the happy Yeah,

1162
01:07:32,400 --> 01:07:37,560
Speaker 1: survive is a loose definition. Them survived there. So the

1163
01:07:37,720 --> 01:07:41,760
Speaker 1: D radio durans are conan. The barbarian can also sometimes

1164
01:07:41,760 --> 01:07:46,280
Speaker 1: survive up to fifteen thousand grades. So that's ten thousand

1165
01:07:46,360 --> 01:07:49,840
Speaker 1: times more than a human. Now, when I say sometimes survive.

1166
01:07:50,080 --> 01:07:54,800
Speaker 1: It's like, uh, it sometimes doesn't, so it's like, but

1167
01:07:54,800 --> 01:07:56,960
Speaker 1: but sometimes it can survive. That. So the fact like

1168
01:07:57,000 --> 01:07:59,920
Speaker 1: if you got a group of humans together and shot

1169
01:08:00,000 --> 01:08:06,120
Speaker 1: fifteen grades at them, all dead like that. No, big, big, no,

1170
01:08:06,400 --> 01:08:11,320
Speaker 1: big no, do not do that. People don't do it.

1171
01:08:11,320 --> 01:08:13,920
Speaker 1: It's amazing. My wife is always telling me how microbes

1172
01:08:13,960 --> 01:08:17,080
Speaker 1: can survive anything. You know, they're essentially almost impossible to

1173
01:08:17,080 --> 01:08:19,160
Speaker 1: wipe out because in there there's always one that has

1174
01:08:19,200 --> 01:08:22,599
Speaker 1: some crazy strategy for how to handle this situation. So

1175
01:08:22,640 --> 01:08:25,720
Speaker 1: how did you behind a grain of salt? All? So

1176
01:08:25,800 --> 01:08:27,799
Speaker 1: how did these microbes do it? What is the mechanism?

1177
01:08:27,960 --> 01:08:29,800
Speaker 1: Do they have a shield the way Tarte grades have

1178
01:08:29,960 --> 01:08:34,080
Speaker 1: or they just dodging those radiation bullets or what's going on? Well,

1179
01:08:34,080 --> 01:08:37,200
Speaker 1: it's actually something that you mentioned earlier. So they have

1180
01:08:37,680 --> 01:08:42,679
Speaker 1: redundant DNA and extremely fast DNA repair mechanisms. So they're

1181
01:08:42,680 --> 01:08:47,920
Speaker 1: basically like little wolverines. So as the ionizing radiation breaks down,

1182
01:08:47,960 --> 01:08:50,960
Speaker 1: it's d NA. Not only does it have redundant DNA,

1183
01:08:51,080 --> 01:08:53,360
Speaker 1: so it's like, hey, I have like several backups, so

1184
01:08:53,560 --> 01:08:56,599
Speaker 1: no sweat. It also is able to build back up

1185
01:08:56,640 --> 01:09:01,240
Speaker 1: the damaged DNA. Really quickly, So as these little tiny

1186
01:09:01,280 --> 01:09:04,400
Speaker 1: bullets are like blasting into the DNA, it's like, hey,

1187
01:09:04,479 --> 01:09:07,200
Speaker 1: you know, I'll just build that again. I got backups,

1188
01:09:07,240 --> 01:09:09,479
Speaker 1: No big deal. Everything is sink to drop box, so

1189
01:09:09,800 --> 01:09:12,719
Speaker 1: you know, deleted all you like exactly. It's like every

1190
01:09:12,880 --> 01:09:16,040
Speaker 1: little sister's horror story of like a big brother that's

1191
01:09:16,080 --> 01:09:18,599
Speaker 1: so fast at rebuilding his legos that you can't knock

1192
01:09:18,640 --> 01:09:20,880
Speaker 1: it down fast enough and he just like keeps rebuilding.

1193
01:09:20,880 --> 01:09:24,920
Speaker 1: It is that a personal story, no, no, no, no,

1194
01:09:25,200 --> 01:09:30,599
Speaker 1: general societal experience. What's interesting is that there is a

1195
01:09:30,640 --> 01:09:33,439
Speaker 1: little bit of evidence that suggests that it may have

1196
01:09:33,600 --> 01:09:38,720
Speaker 1: stolen some of these capabilities from eukaryotic self. So bacteria

1197
01:09:38,840 --> 01:09:42,120
Speaker 1: are not eukaryotes, they aren't in the same domain as

1198
01:09:42,240 --> 01:09:46,800
Speaker 1: animals and plants. It actually may have gotten some eukaryotic

1199
01:09:47,080 --> 01:09:51,559
Speaker 1: DNA through horizontal transfer of genes, so like basically, if

1200
01:09:51,600 --> 01:09:54,759
Speaker 1: you're a little bacteria and you swallow up some foreign DNA,

1201
01:09:54,920 --> 01:09:58,120
Speaker 1: you can actually incorporate that into your own DNA, and

1202
01:09:58,200 --> 01:10:01,400
Speaker 1: like that may have had a role in being able

1203
01:10:01,439 --> 01:10:05,599
Speaker 1: to have these really fast repair mechanisms, and so it's

1204
01:10:05,640 --> 01:10:07,960
Speaker 1: it's very interesting. It's kind of a similar story to

1205
01:10:08,120 --> 01:10:10,280
Speaker 1: the tartar grade where it's like, you know, just like

1206
01:10:10,320 --> 01:10:12,960
Speaker 1: if you if you borrow DNA from a bunch of

1207
01:10:12,960 --> 01:10:15,960
Speaker 1: different animals, like sometimes you can find or not even animals.

1208
01:10:15,960 --> 01:10:17,760
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be an actual animal, but if

1209
01:10:17,760 --> 01:10:21,040
Speaker 1: you borrow DNA from other organisms, ones that you are

1210
01:10:21,200 --> 01:10:24,120
Speaker 1: not even remotely related to, it can actually benefit you.

1211
01:10:24,280 --> 01:10:27,599
Speaker 1: So it's it's just mediated through viruses and pages like

1212
01:10:27,960 --> 01:10:31,560
Speaker 1: the injecting new bits of DNA. It can it definitely

1213
01:10:31,640 --> 01:10:36,000
Speaker 1: can be Sometimes it's just directly these bacteria like engulfing something,

1214
01:10:36,240 --> 01:10:39,280
Speaker 1: but it can be mediated by by viruses injecting it

1215
01:10:39,280 --> 01:10:41,640
Speaker 1: into their things. Like basically if you get it in

1216
01:10:41,840 --> 01:10:45,280
Speaker 1: and the bacteria is different from an animal cell or

1217
01:10:45,320 --> 01:10:47,360
Speaker 1: even like a plant cell where it's like basically they

1218
01:10:47,400 --> 01:10:49,719
Speaker 1: just have all their stuff floating around like a big cell,

1219
01:10:49,840 --> 01:10:51,760
Speaker 1: and so if they can get that in there, they

1220
01:10:51,800 --> 01:10:54,760
Speaker 1: can potentially use it. Most of the time, it's not

1221
01:10:54,800 --> 01:10:59,200
Speaker 1: going to be useful for them. But again, bacteria reproduce

1222
01:10:59,240 --> 01:11:02,200
Speaker 1: that an incredible race. They've been around for hundreds of

1223
01:11:02,200 --> 01:11:06,479
Speaker 1: millions of years. Sorry, probably billions, billions, billions of years.

1224
01:11:07,200 --> 01:11:09,320
Speaker 1: I'm so bad at like time scale, and I'm like

1225
01:11:09,320 --> 01:11:12,360
Speaker 1: they've been around for thousands of years now, but they've

1226
01:11:12,360 --> 01:11:15,719
Speaker 1: been around for billions of years. They reproduced so quickly

1227
01:11:15,840 --> 01:11:19,280
Speaker 1: that this is one of the reasons they can evolve

1228
01:11:19,360 --> 01:11:24,120
Speaker 1: these incredible survival strategies that seem really improbable because they've

1229
01:11:24,160 --> 01:11:27,599
Speaker 1: just had and so many opportunities to have this happen.

1230
01:11:27,680 --> 01:11:30,360
Speaker 1: And then if something bad happens, like they get a

1231
01:11:30,600 --> 01:11:32,800
Speaker 1: they eat a bad piece of DNA, or they have

1232
01:11:32,880 --> 01:11:36,720
Speaker 1: a bad mutation, no sweat, there's like millions of new

1233
01:11:36,760 --> 01:11:40,920
Speaker 1: bacteria ready to to take over and try again. So yeah,

1234
01:11:40,920 --> 01:11:44,360
Speaker 1: it's it is. This is why, like I think when

1235
01:11:44,360 --> 01:11:46,880
Speaker 1: we're like, well, why is like why is bacteria just

1236
01:11:46,960 --> 01:11:49,800
Speaker 1: like so hardy and so good. It's like they just

1237
01:11:50,200 --> 01:11:55,840
Speaker 1: they have an incredible capability of reproducing and um have

1238
01:11:55,880 --> 01:11:59,400
Speaker 1: lived for such a long time that they can basically

1239
01:11:59,560 --> 01:12:03,080
Speaker 1: cope with anything. They can eat almost anything. My wife

1240
01:12:03,080 --> 01:12:04,600
Speaker 1: tells me this story about how they were trying to

1241
01:12:04,880 --> 01:12:09,120
Speaker 1: scrub bacteria and microbes from the outside of various satellites

1242
01:12:09,120 --> 01:12:11,680
Speaker 1: and spaceships because they don't want to contaminate you know,

1243
01:12:11,920 --> 01:12:14,880
Speaker 1: Mars or the moon whatever with human life, and so

1244
01:12:14,920 --> 01:12:17,280
Speaker 1: they're spraying it with some stuff, some bleach stuff to

1245
01:12:17,560 --> 01:12:20,599
Speaker 1: kill everything, and they discover that it killed everything except

1246
01:12:20,600 --> 01:12:23,000
Speaker 1: for some new kind of microbe they haven't never seen

1247
01:12:23,040 --> 01:12:26,120
Speaker 1: before that eat bleach and it's like, yum, feed me

1248
01:12:26,200 --> 01:12:29,519
Speaker 1: more of that, you know. And you know they're microbes

1249
01:12:29,560 --> 01:12:32,559
Speaker 1: living on the outside of the International Space Station. And uh,

1250
01:12:32,920 --> 01:12:36,480
Speaker 1: to imagine like ever ridding the world of microbes seems impossible.

1251
01:12:37,240 --> 01:12:40,680
Speaker 1: Microbe just being like a kids, It's okay, it's safety bleach. No,

1252
01:12:40,800 --> 01:12:44,360
Speaker 1: don't listen to him. The one microbe that believed Donald

1253
01:12:44,400 --> 01:12:49,719
Speaker 1: Trump about that one. Yeah, hey, nanny's right, it's totally cool.

1254
01:12:51,560 --> 01:12:53,960
Speaker 1: He's wearing like a dirty tank top. That's how I

1255
01:12:53,960 --> 01:12:58,760
Speaker 1: imagine this, like sleeves bag microbe. Yeah, it's it's a

1256
01:12:58,840 --> 01:13:01,720
Speaker 1: very incredible. It's like when you think about, well, well,

1257
01:13:01,720 --> 01:13:05,400
Speaker 1: why can't humans just have these crazy adaptations, Why why

1258
01:13:05,400 --> 01:13:08,719
Speaker 1: can't we just have DNA that protects itself from radiation. Well,

1259
01:13:08,800 --> 01:13:11,760
Speaker 1: like you know, we've been around very short amount of

1260
01:13:11,760 --> 01:13:15,280
Speaker 1: time on Earth. We haven't typically had to deal with

1261
01:13:15,720 --> 01:13:19,080
Speaker 1: huge amounts of radiation until recently, like oops, that might

1262
01:13:19,120 --> 01:13:21,759
Speaker 1: have been on us too when we started to tinker

1263
01:13:21,800 --> 01:13:25,120
Speaker 1: around on the sub atomic level. And and these these

1264
01:13:25,200 --> 01:13:28,120
Speaker 1: backup copies they cost right to have, like extra strands

1265
01:13:28,120 --> 01:13:30,920
Speaker 1: your DNA and all these repair mechanisms that slow things down.

1266
01:13:31,000 --> 01:13:33,800
Speaker 1: It costs a lot of energy, and so you could

1267
01:13:33,880 --> 01:13:35,800
Speaker 1: have it, but then you wouldn't have as much energy

1268
01:13:35,840 --> 01:13:39,040
Speaker 1: to run away from predators or you know, fight against disease.

1269
01:13:39,080 --> 01:13:41,160
Speaker 1: And so we're sort of tuned to the amount of

1270
01:13:41,280 --> 01:13:45,560
Speaker 1: radiation we naturally get here on Earth, and actually repairing

1271
01:13:45,800 --> 01:13:48,600
Speaker 1: DNA has a cost to like because every time you

1272
01:13:48,680 --> 01:13:51,360
Speaker 1: repair DNA there could be like a mistake paid, so

1273
01:13:51,400 --> 01:13:54,240
Speaker 1: there could be a mutation, which a lot of Again,

1274
01:13:54,960 --> 01:13:58,679
Speaker 1: most mutations are either neutral or bad. So you know, uh,

1275
01:13:58,720 --> 01:14:02,240
Speaker 1: it's while we need mutations to evolve. It's kind of

1276
01:14:02,280 --> 01:14:04,760
Speaker 1: like the thing that right now people are hearing like, oh,

1277
01:14:04,880 --> 01:14:07,479
Speaker 1: you know, the one of virus mutates that's going to

1278
01:14:07,560 --> 01:14:10,760
Speaker 1: make the virus better. Not always like mutations just happen.

1279
01:14:10,840 --> 01:14:13,040
Speaker 1: That doesn't necessarily mean that's going to be good for

1280
01:14:13,080 --> 01:14:15,400
Speaker 1: the virus. Let me take your computer code and you

1281
01:14:15,479 --> 01:14:17,760
Speaker 1: just randomly replace one piece with another piece. It's not

1282
01:14:17,760 --> 01:14:20,800
Speaker 1: going to work better usually, right, usually just going to break.

1283
01:14:21,400 --> 01:14:24,960
Speaker 1: And so yeah, exactly, but like you do you reiterate that,

1284
01:14:25,040 --> 01:14:28,000
Speaker 1: like you know, millions of times over billions of years,

1285
01:14:28,040 --> 01:14:31,559
Speaker 1: Like eventually you're going to get basically a bacteria that

1286
01:14:31,560 --> 01:14:34,040
Speaker 1: eats bleach. Right, And and as you were saying, these

1287
01:14:34,040 --> 01:14:36,880
Speaker 1: things reproduce so quickly that the search scale is so

1288
01:14:36,920 --> 01:14:39,920
Speaker 1: fast because they have generation after generation after generation, and

1289
01:14:39,920 --> 01:14:42,599
Speaker 1: we're still like raising the first batch of kids, right,

1290
01:14:42,640 --> 01:14:45,519
Speaker 1: so our response time is pretty slow. Yeah, and we're

1291
01:14:45,560 --> 01:14:48,920
Speaker 1: one of the longest living animals on Earth. There are

1292
01:14:48,960 --> 01:14:52,200
Speaker 1: some animals that can outlive us, but they're they're quite rarely.

1293
01:14:52,320 --> 01:14:56,160
Speaker 1: Evolution really does seem to favor sort of these shorter lifespans,

1294
01:14:56,280 --> 01:14:59,439
Speaker 1: more frequent reproduction. But we just happened to find the

1295
01:15:00,000 --> 01:15:05,559
Speaker 1: evolutionary niche that favors longer lifespan, fewer offspring. But we

1296
01:15:05,640 --> 01:15:08,759
Speaker 1: make up for it by having this society that really

1297
01:15:09,120 --> 01:15:12,200
Speaker 1: has done an incredible amount to like being able to

1298
01:15:12,320 --> 01:15:14,960
Speaker 1: rule the planet because we've created this society. But that

1299
01:15:15,000 --> 01:15:18,360
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that we are the most hardy animal or

1300
01:15:18,439 --> 01:15:21,280
Speaker 1: hardy organism on the world. It just means that we've

1301
01:15:21,560 --> 01:15:24,639
Speaker 1: sort of clevered our way around all these near near

1302
01:15:24,720 --> 01:15:28,040
Speaker 1: misses with death. Thank you mad scientists, right, remember, mad

1303
01:15:28,080 --> 01:15:30,280
Speaker 1: scientists have brought us all this quality of life so

1304
01:15:30,840 --> 01:15:34,160
Speaker 1: exactly exactly, but yeah, I mean, it is it isn't

1305
01:15:34,200 --> 01:15:38,440
Speaker 1: interesting because like I think, when we think about radiation,

1306
01:15:38,840 --> 01:15:40,679
Speaker 1: it's I kind of just wanted to bring it back

1307
01:15:40,680 --> 01:15:42,880
Speaker 1: to what we talked about at the beginning. It's not

1308
01:15:43,040 --> 01:15:46,800
Speaker 1: like mad scientists leading the charge, Like you're not like

1309
01:15:46,880 --> 01:15:49,160
Speaker 1: out there going like, let's blow up a bunch of

1310
01:15:49,520 --> 01:15:53,439
Speaker 1: nuclear plants and see what happens. No, I've never said

1311
01:15:53,479 --> 01:15:55,920
Speaker 1: that that's true. I definitely I've never said that. No,

1312
01:15:56,080 --> 01:15:58,720
Speaker 1: we do create tiny explosions, but they're really tiny. We

1313
01:15:58,760 --> 01:16:02,439
Speaker 1: smash like one proton against another proton to see what happens,

1314
01:16:02,439 --> 01:16:05,080
Speaker 1: and it's very safe, deep underground and all that kind

1315
01:16:05,120 --> 01:16:07,960
Speaker 1: of stuff. And you know, there are chances that the

1316
01:16:08,040 --> 01:16:10,679
Speaker 1: collisions we make could create a black hole that eats

1317
01:16:10,720 --> 01:16:12,960
Speaker 1: up the Earth, but we're pretty sure those chances are

1318
01:16:13,040 --> 01:16:17,040
Speaker 1: very very small. How sure are you scaled one to ten?

1319
01:16:17,400 --> 01:16:20,880
Speaker 1: If ten is very sure than ten, because because you know,

1320
01:16:20,920 --> 01:16:23,400
Speaker 1: these particles hit us from Earth, These particles are hitting

1321
01:16:23,439 --> 01:16:26,160
Speaker 1: Earth all the time from space much higher energies, and

1322
01:16:26,240 --> 01:16:28,920
Speaker 1: so if two particles colliding was going to create an

1323
01:16:28,920 --> 01:16:32,320
Speaker 1: Earth eating black hole, it would have happened already billions. Okay,

1324
01:16:32,560 --> 01:16:34,360
Speaker 1: so we're pretty sick. Yeah, that's what they all say.

1325
01:16:34,439 --> 01:16:37,639
Speaker 1: Right before an earth eating black hole opens up. Well,

1326
01:16:37,640 --> 01:16:40,760
Speaker 1: we have never yet created an earth eating black hole,

1327
01:16:40,840 --> 01:16:43,960
Speaker 1: so our track record is perfect, and it's actually days

1328
01:16:44,200 --> 01:16:48,640
Speaker 1: days without creating an earth eating black hole. There's a

1329
01:16:48,680 --> 01:16:51,080
Speaker 1: website you can check. It's called has the Large hage

1330
01:16:51,080 --> 01:16:53,640
Speaker 1: On Collider destroyed the world yet? Dot com? And we

1331
01:16:53,720 --> 01:16:56,800
Speaker 1: promised to keep it always up to date. Okay, yeah,

1332
01:16:56,880 --> 01:16:59,879
Speaker 1: that's good. There's a very brief window when that website

1333
01:17:00,040 --> 01:17:03,120
Speaker 1: actually going to be useful. Yeah, well, you know these

1334
01:17:03,160 --> 01:17:06,519
Speaker 1: things all have expiration dates on the Yes, that's true,

1335
01:17:06,640 --> 01:17:09,719
Speaker 1: that is true. Well, thank you so much for joining

1336
01:17:09,760 --> 01:17:12,920
Speaker 1: me today, Daniel. I thought this was so great because

1337
01:17:12,960 --> 01:17:16,280
Speaker 1: I think it's sometimes hard to think about, like, well, wait,

1338
01:17:16,320 --> 01:17:19,439
Speaker 1: what does physics have to do with animals, especially like

1339
01:17:19,479 --> 01:17:22,559
Speaker 1: particle physics? Like okay, I can think about the physics

1340
01:17:22,560 --> 01:17:24,639
Speaker 1: of like a kangaroo jump of what what the heck

1341
01:17:24,680 --> 01:17:27,760
Speaker 1: does particle physics have to do with animals and evolution?

1342
01:17:27,800 --> 01:17:31,160
Speaker 1: And it's but it's also inter length. I mean, animals

1343
01:17:31,160 --> 01:17:34,559
Speaker 1: are made out of particles. Everything's made out of particles exactly.

1344
01:17:34,640 --> 01:17:37,920
Speaker 1: Particle physics is the foundation of everything. Man, Yeah, what

1345
01:17:38,000 --> 01:17:40,120
Speaker 1: about wait, what about a piece of toast? Is that

1346
01:17:40,320 --> 01:17:48,640
Speaker 1: particles or made out a little toastino particles. Past about combos.

1347
01:17:48,760 --> 01:17:50,760
Speaker 1: Combos can't be made out of particles. Now, those are

1348
01:17:50,840 --> 01:17:53,400
Speaker 1: not explained by physics. They're too delicious. It's just a

1349
01:17:53,439 --> 01:17:57,360
Speaker 1: mystery of science. Yeah, they're they're from a different universe,

1350
01:17:57,439 --> 01:18:01,240
Speaker 1: and it's just like no. I got into particle physics

1351
01:18:01,280 --> 01:18:02,960
Speaker 1: because I thought it was fascinating that you could like

1352
01:18:03,000 --> 01:18:06,320
Speaker 1: tear apart everything in the universe. Me and you and lava,

1353
01:18:06,360 --> 01:18:08,080
Speaker 1: and we're all made out of the same particles, just

1354
01:18:08,200 --> 01:18:10,760
Speaker 1: in different arrangements, even the rest of You've heard it

1355
01:18:10,840 --> 01:18:13,200
Speaker 1: here first, folks. He wants to tear everything in the

1356
01:18:13,280 --> 01:18:18,120
Speaker 1: universe art and science espexually tear it apart. Okay, sure,

1357
01:18:18,400 --> 01:18:22,760
Speaker 1: sure thing. Well so you've got you have a podcast

1358
01:18:23,000 --> 01:18:26,280
Speaker 1: that is called Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe. And

1359
01:18:26,600 --> 01:18:29,920
Speaker 1: what do you guys do on the podcast, Well, we

1360
01:18:29,960 --> 01:18:32,880
Speaker 1: tried to explain the universe. We talk about little particles,

1361
01:18:32,960 --> 01:18:36,040
Speaker 1: We talked about supernova as, we talked about black holes,

1362
01:18:36,120 --> 01:18:39,160
Speaker 1: we talk about stars within other stars. We talked about

1363
01:18:39,200 --> 01:18:41,880
Speaker 1: all the things that science has understood, but mostly we

1364
01:18:41,920 --> 01:18:44,400
Speaker 1: talked about the things that science has not understood, like

1365
01:18:44,760 --> 01:18:47,719
Speaker 1: what are the questions that science is asking right now

1366
01:18:48,160 --> 01:18:50,080
Speaker 1: about the nature of our universe, and I think people

1367
01:18:50,080 --> 01:18:52,599
Speaker 1: will be surprised to discover that most of the big

1368
01:18:52,680 --> 01:18:55,559
Speaker 1: questions we really have no clue about that how big

1369
01:18:55,640 --> 01:18:58,000
Speaker 1: is the universe? What is it made out of? All

1370
01:18:58,040 --> 01:19:00,600
Speaker 1: this stuff? We're really just beginning to its started to

1371
01:19:00,680 --> 01:19:03,000
Speaker 1: understand what are the answers and even what are the

1372
01:19:03,120 --> 01:19:06,760
Speaker 1: right questions? I love Yeah, I love that, And I

1373
01:19:06,800 --> 01:19:08,800
Speaker 1: was listening to one of your episodes. I love the

1374
01:19:09,479 --> 01:19:13,400
Speaker 1: reference to the Douglas Adams like the forty two, like

1375
01:19:13,479 --> 01:19:16,360
Speaker 1: you you can't get you can't just ask like what's

1376
01:19:16,400 --> 01:19:18,680
Speaker 1: the meaning of life because then you get some kind

1377
01:19:18,720 --> 01:19:21,120
Speaker 1: of bizarre answers like well, you can't interpret that you're

1378
01:19:21,120 --> 01:19:25,360
Speaker 1: not asking the right question. But yeah, it's I know that.

1379
01:19:25,479 --> 01:19:28,920
Speaker 1: For some interpretations of that is that it's scary that

1380
01:19:29,000 --> 01:19:31,120
Speaker 1: we don't know that much about the universe. But to me,

1381
01:19:31,160 --> 01:19:34,200
Speaker 1: it's actually really comforting because if we already knew everything,

1382
01:19:34,240 --> 01:19:38,240
Speaker 1: it's like, well, okay, then that's that's that. But not

1383
01:19:38,400 --> 01:19:41,360
Speaker 1: knowing stuff I think is not only exciting because it's

1384
01:19:41,400 --> 01:19:44,000
Speaker 1: like there's science isn't over. It feels like, oh, we

1385
01:19:44,040 --> 01:19:48,120
Speaker 1: already have iPhones, Like what Morkan. Science do, but there's

1386
01:19:48,200 --> 01:19:50,720
Speaker 1: so many discoveries to be made, and so many things

1387
01:19:50,800 --> 01:19:56,240
Speaker 1: we don't know. Questions, questions we don't even know how

1388
01:19:56,240 --> 01:19:59,680
Speaker 1: to ask yet, which is hard to think about, Like

1389
01:19:59,720 --> 01:20:02,400
Speaker 1: we don't there are questions out there we can't even

1390
01:20:02,479 --> 01:20:06,080
Speaker 1: think to ask, and that's incredible. So I highly recommend

1391
01:20:06,479 --> 01:20:09,759
Speaker 1: uh that podcast Daniel and Porgey explain the universe is wonderful?

1392
01:20:10,240 --> 01:20:13,200
Speaker 1: And where can people find it? You got anything else

1393
01:20:13,240 --> 01:20:15,800
Speaker 1: to plug any any anywhere people can bother you, any

1394
01:20:15,840 --> 01:20:19,400
Speaker 1: office hours you want to open up to the public. Um, Well,

1395
01:20:19,400 --> 01:20:22,240
Speaker 1: our podcast is produced by I Heart Media, so you

1396
01:20:22,280 --> 01:20:26,440
Speaker 1: can find it there, and I'm familiar with or anywhere

1397
01:20:26,520 --> 01:20:29,240
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, of course. And we wrote a

1398
01:20:29,240 --> 01:20:32,880
Speaker 1: book together called We Have No Idea, which is about

1399
01:20:32,960 --> 01:20:35,760
Speaker 1: this concept that we're just beginning to make discoveries in

1400
01:20:35,800 --> 01:20:37,920
Speaker 1: science and that in a hundred years people will look

1401
01:20:37,920 --> 01:20:40,360
Speaker 1: back and sort of laugh at our latest ideas are

1402
01:20:40,439 --> 01:20:42,720
Speaker 1: notions or how the universe might work, and try to

1403
01:20:42,720 --> 01:20:45,160
Speaker 1: give you a preview for what we might discover the

1404
01:20:45,200 --> 01:20:48,679
Speaker 1: next few hundred years. And you joke about office hours,

1405
01:20:48,720 --> 01:20:50,559
Speaker 1: but I am a working professor. I teach and have

1406
01:20:50,640 --> 01:20:53,640
Speaker 1: office hours, and I have had podcast listeners look up

1407
01:20:53,640 --> 01:20:55,799
Speaker 1: by office hours and come on in from the street.

1408
01:20:55,960 --> 01:20:58,519
Speaker 1: This is pre pandemic days to ask me questions about

1409
01:20:58,600 --> 01:21:01,439
Speaker 1: dark matter and whatever. So if you have questions and

1410
01:21:01,479 --> 01:21:03,240
Speaker 1: you want them answer, to listen to our podcast. We

1411
01:21:03,280 --> 01:21:06,519
Speaker 1: also answer listening to questions well once once, once we've

1412
01:21:06,680 --> 01:21:09,640
Speaker 1: we've gotten through these pandemic times. I am just going

1413
01:21:09,680 --> 01:21:13,120
Speaker 1: to come over unannounced to have all these questions drop

1414
01:21:13,120 --> 01:21:15,720
Speaker 1: on me and be very welcome. So thanks very much

1415
01:21:15,720 --> 01:21:17,559
Speaker 1: for having me on your podcast. I learned a lot

1416
01:21:17,600 --> 01:21:22,240
Speaker 1: about biology and radiation and crazy birds, so thanks very much. Well,

1417
01:21:22,280 --> 01:21:24,280
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining me. I learned a

1418
01:21:24,280 --> 01:21:28,960
Speaker 1: lot about radiation in physics because surprisingly I don't know

1419
01:21:29,040 --> 01:21:31,479
Speaker 1: all that much about a lot of things. And we

1420
01:21:31,560 --> 01:21:35,200
Speaker 1: have three new Netflix shows to pitch. That's true, that's true.

1421
01:21:35,200 --> 01:21:38,040
Speaker 1: One of them was Tarter Grades in High School again Netflix,

1422
01:21:38,120 --> 01:21:42,519
Speaker 1: Quimby get back at Us. Yeah, thank you guys so

1423
01:21:42,640 --> 01:21:46,960
Speaker 1: much for listening. If you want to rate, subscribe, download,

1424
01:21:47,040 --> 01:21:49,439
Speaker 1: there's a variety of buttons that you can press that

1425
01:21:49,520 --> 01:21:51,880
Speaker 1: interact with the podcast, and that actually really helps me.

1426
01:21:51,920 --> 01:21:56,160
Speaker 1: It teaches the robots that run these algorithms like, hey,

1427
01:21:56,160 --> 01:21:59,200
Speaker 1: this podcast is good and it also makes me feel

1428
01:21:59,240 --> 01:22:02,160
Speaker 1: really good. I read all of your reviews. I look

1429
01:22:02,200 --> 01:22:04,839
Speaker 1: at it like all the all the new new writings,

1430
01:22:04,840 --> 01:22:07,120
Speaker 1: and I read them and it just like I love

1431
01:22:07,120 --> 01:22:10,000
Speaker 1: it when I get feedback from you guys. Um and

1432
01:22:10,160 --> 01:22:13,519
Speaker 1: thank you to the Space Colassics for their super groovy song.

1433
01:22:13,640 --> 01:22:17,000
Speaker 1: Ex Alumina. Creature features a production of I Heart Radio.

1434
01:22:17,120 --> 01:22:19,679
Speaker 1: To listen to more podcasts like the one you just heard,

1435
01:22:19,800 --> 01:22:23,400
Speaker 1: or to listen to Daniel Jorge Explain the Universe, check

1436
01:22:23,439 --> 01:22:25,840
Speaker 1: out the I Heart Radio website, the I Heart Radio app,

1437
01:22:25,920 --> 01:22:28,439
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your ding Ding podcast. See you

1438
01:22:28,479 --> 01:22:29,200
Speaker 1: next Wednesday,