WEBVTT - Anthology of Horror, Volume 5 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.400 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:14.520 Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:00:15.160 --> 0:00:18.360 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and 0:00:18.440 --> 0:00:20.800 we're back with the second installment this year of our 0:00:20.880 --> 0:00:23.800 anthology horror series. Uh. This, I guess is going to 0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:27.680 be the fifth anthology episode overall. Yeah, I believet so 0:00:27.760 --> 0:00:30.520 this should be episode or yeah, volume five. How do 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:33.279 you want to look at it? Um? Yes, always last year. 0:00:33.280 --> 0:00:36.639 If it's a volume you have, it's a volume. Yeah. 0:00:36.760 --> 0:00:39.760 So basically this is just a continuing experiment we've been 0:00:39.800 --> 0:00:43.960 doing where we look to the wonderful world of horror 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:48.600 and sci fi uh TV anthologies and uh and cinematic 0:00:48.640 --> 0:00:54.120 anthologies and pick out little episodes, little uh audio visual 0:00:54.200 --> 0:00:57.360 short stories. They generally have some horror or sci fi 0:00:57.480 --> 0:01:00.200 or some sort of in some sort of weird h 0:01:00.320 --> 0:01:03.120 and perhaps grotesque twist in them, and we use that 0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:06.360 as a focal point for a discussion of science and culture. 0:01:06.600 --> 0:01:11.720 Sometimes we're having to really um read into the episode 0:01:11.760 --> 0:01:15.800 a lot more than the creators anticipated. Other Times it's 0:01:15.800 --> 0:01:19.240 just it's really baked into an already intelligent script. Um. 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:21.480 It just kind of varies from piece to piece. Well, 0:01:21.520 --> 0:01:23.840 I got one to talk about first that is definitely 0:01:23.920 --> 0:01:27.320 baked in some way. Okay, what what have you got 0:01:27.319 --> 0:01:30.040 for us? Joe? Okay, today I wanted to start by 0:01:30.080 --> 0:01:33.600 talking about a classic episode of Are You Afraid of 0:01:33.640 --> 0:01:35.880 the Dark? Rob? Did you watch Are You Afraid of 0:01:35.880 --> 0:01:38.240 the Dark? I? I did. I I can't remember what 0:01:38.319 --> 0:01:42.360 channel came on. Maybe it was a Nickelodeon thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:01:42.360 --> 0:01:45.120 I remember catching episodes of it, and I remember it 0:01:45.160 --> 0:01:48.040 as being occasionally like really creepy, like it was effective. 0:01:48.360 --> 0:01:51.200 It was not uh you know, it wasn't. I mean, 0:01:51.200 --> 0:01:53.560 it was a kid show, but it could really creepy 0:01:53.560 --> 0:01:55.000 out a little bit. It was. It was well done. 0:01:55.080 --> 0:01:57.760 Is that recall? Yeah, A lot of the episodes really are, 0:01:57.800 --> 0:02:00.760 and I would say even the bad episode, going back 0:02:00.760 --> 0:02:04.440 and watching them as an adult, it is an extremely fun, 0:02:04.680 --> 0:02:08.560 nostalgic rewatch. Uh. A lot of the episodes that I 0:02:08.600 --> 0:02:11.400 found very scary when I was young. You know, it 0:02:11.520 --> 0:02:13.120 is a kid's show, so they don't quite have the 0:02:13.160 --> 0:02:15.639 punch they did when I when I was eight or whatever, 0:02:16.160 --> 0:02:18.800 but a few of them are are still kind of surprising, 0:02:18.840 --> 0:02:21.600 and one of my favorite things about the show is 0:02:21.720 --> 0:02:26.960 that it is just egregiously adorably Canadian. One of the 0:02:27.000 --> 0:02:29.880 fun things about going back and watching it now is 0:02:30.000 --> 0:02:35.000 that you frequently encounter child versions of Ryan Gosling or 0:02:35.080 --> 0:02:38.280 Nev Campbell or somebody else you recognize from later work. 0:02:38.720 --> 0:02:41.480 And when it comes to the older actors, they weren't 0:02:41.560 --> 0:02:44.720 usually people who you'd recognize from big movies or anything, 0:02:45.040 --> 0:02:47.480 but a lot of them have this powerful energy of 0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:50.920 like a local character beloved in some town. Like you 0:02:50.960 --> 0:02:53.440 often get the sense that when you meet Dr Venk 0:02:53.600 --> 0:02:56.240 or somebody like that, it's like you're you're looking at 0:02:56.240 --> 0:03:00.600 the r C. Baits of Toronto. Yeah. I the episode 0:03:00.600 --> 0:03:03.160 I mostly remember from this show is, if I if 0:03:03.200 --> 0:03:05.919 I'm remembering it correctly, is the Tale of the dead 0:03:05.919 --> 0:03:08.960 Man's Float, which has to do with like a haunted 0:03:09.400 --> 0:03:12.639 high school swimming pool that remember, I'm I don't know 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:15.160 if I'm remembering correctly. I may be misremembering that it's 0:03:15.200 --> 0:03:17.040 somehow in the in the basement of the school, but 0:03:17.120 --> 0:03:21.000 maybe not. Yeah, there's a swimming pool in the It's 0:03:21.000 --> 0:03:23.839 like a cursed swimming pool that was on a cemetery 0:03:23.960 --> 0:03:26.760 or something. Yeah, And I think this is the one 0:03:26.800 --> 0:03:30.080 where like when I when it follows came out. There's 0:03:30.080 --> 0:03:32.880 a sequence in it it follows a swimming pool, and 0:03:32.919 --> 0:03:35.360 it it made me think back to this episode, you 0:03:35.440 --> 0:03:38.840 are a thousand percent correct. I I think I made 0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:41.880 that connection at a subconscious level, but the moment you 0:03:41.920 --> 0:03:45.320 said that, you're you're totally right. But the episode I 0:03:45.360 --> 0:03:48.240 want to talk about today is one I don't remember 0:03:48.240 --> 0:03:50.240 actually which season it's from. I should have looked that up, 0:03:50.240 --> 0:03:53.320 but anyway, it's called The Tale of the Super Specs, 0:03:54.040 --> 0:03:56.040 and it's notable for being I think one of the 0:03:56.040 --> 0:04:00.240 episodes with some legitimately scary imagery, which is achieved via 0:04:00.440 --> 0:04:03.480 very low tech means. It's just it has some very 0:04:03.520 --> 0:04:08.360 creepy images of people draped in black cloth. But it also, 0:04:09.160 --> 0:04:12.640 I think, is the episode that introduces the fan favorite 0:04:12.680 --> 0:04:18.560 recurring character Mr Sard, who is a vain sort of 0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:23.120 scheming magic and novelty shop owner who gets angry when 0:04:23.120 --> 0:04:26.080 people call him Mr sar Do and he always says 0:04:26.120 --> 0:04:30.760 his catchphrase that's sar dough, no Mr accent on the dough. 0:04:32.560 --> 0:04:34.560 That seems that seems very particular, like he's not an 0:04:34.560 --> 0:04:37.800 added to calling him sar Do. Right, it's more than 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:39.960 that Yeah, he's been. He's being a little fussy about 0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:42.360 this point. I think, I mean, you invite these problems 0:04:42.360 --> 0:04:45.120 when you decide to be a single name guy. Yeah, 0:04:45.279 --> 0:04:48.000 but okay. So the premise of this episode is that 0:04:48.080 --> 0:04:51.240 there's a young man named Weeds who is kind of 0:04:51.839 --> 0:04:56.560 a prankster, and he's browsing in Sardo's Magic and Novelty Shop. 0:04:56.680 --> 0:04:59.600 That's the kind of place that's got masks and fake vomit, 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:04.120 but it's also got apparently legitimate spell books and referenced 0:05:04.160 --> 0:05:08.480 homes on the occult, and real magical artifacts and objects. 0:05:08.520 --> 0:05:10.400 I'm not sure why they're all crammed together in this 0:05:10.440 --> 0:05:13.640 one shop, but so he's sort of looking around for 0:05:13.680 --> 0:05:16.320 things and he comes across a bag of magic dust, 0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:21.440 which while simultaneously reading a spell out of an ancient tome, 0:05:21.839 --> 0:05:25.839 he accidentally spills this magic dust over some plastic glasses 0:05:25.920 --> 0:05:29.200 that are being sold as super specs, which are supposed 0:05:29.240 --> 0:05:31.760 to grant X ray vision. I think I think the 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:35.280 original understanding is these are just novelty glasses, but they 0:05:35.279 --> 0:05:38.120 get imbued with magic power when he says the spell. 0:05:38.880 --> 0:05:42.279 Also there in the magic shop is Weeds his girlfriend 0:05:42.400 --> 0:05:46.000 Mary Beth, and she decides to try out the super specs, 0:05:46.040 --> 0:05:49.440 but when she does, she sees shadowy figures who are 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:53.200 draped in black cloth from head to toe, and they're 0:05:53.200 --> 0:05:57.039 following her everywhere. And they are multiple occasions, you know, 0:05:57.120 --> 0:05:58.800 like they go to school and she puts on the 0:05:58.839 --> 0:06:01.760 glasses again and she sees the figures, and then she 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:04.000 goes home and she puts on the glasses again and 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:08.039 sees them another time. She also sees um elements of 0:06:08.080 --> 0:06:11.279 alternative reality, so like she'll look at her fireplace and 0:06:11.360 --> 0:06:14.359 without the glasses there's no fire, and with the glasses 0:06:14.400 --> 0:06:17.360 there's there's a fire burning, so it's very they live 0:06:17.440 --> 0:06:20.080 in a way now. Eventually, what happens is that Weeds 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:23.920 and Marybeth get convinced that there are invisible people from 0:06:24.080 --> 0:06:28.160 another dimension who are stalking them, and they consult with 0:06:28.240 --> 0:06:30.599 Sardo to try to figure out how to get rid 0:06:30.640 --> 0:06:33.520 of these shadow people. And I won't spoil the ending 0:06:33.520 --> 0:06:35.520 to this one, because I gotta admit the ending is 0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:38.800 pretty good. But the basic premise is what I wanted 0:06:38.839 --> 0:06:41.080 to talk about. It's the premise that there is a 0:06:41.240 --> 0:06:46.479 realm of life that actually occupies the same general spaces us, 0:06:46.480 --> 0:06:49.560 but that we go about our lives completely unaware of 0:06:50.200 --> 0:06:52.440 and it's it's a take on the idea popular in 0:06:52.480 --> 0:06:57.000 some like alien conspiracy theory architecture that aliens are somehow 0:06:57.080 --> 0:07:00.960 already here. They're here on Earth, but they're are invisible 0:07:01.040 --> 0:07:04.560 to us for some reason, or they're hiding in plain sight. Yeah, 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:07.400 I think. I think. I recorded an older episode of 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:12.720 the show with Ben Bolling and Matt Frederick uh guesting 0:07:13.040 --> 0:07:17.080 where we talked about shadow people and uh particular study 0:07:17.120 --> 0:07:21.600 that linked some of this phenomena to disruptions of the 0:07:21.640 --> 0:07:25.320 body schema. So so basically, like like a situation where 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:28.960 you know, neurologically your idea of where your body is 0:07:28.960 --> 0:07:30.880 and what your body is doing would be skewed in 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:32.840 a way that it would be perceived as some sort 0:07:32.880 --> 0:07:36.320 of a shadow being that was close by. Oh, I 0:07:36.360 --> 0:07:38.840 see you. Not to say that's a definitive answer for 0:07:38.840 --> 0:07:40.240 for all of this, but it was. It was one 0:07:40.280 --> 0:07:43.120 idea that was put forth by some researchers. Well, I mean, 0:07:43.200 --> 0:07:46.240 I think we can be pretty safe in assuming that 0:07:46.320 --> 0:07:51.080 they're not actually like people sized organisms that are walking 0:07:51.080 --> 0:07:54.080 around unnoticed on Earth and our aliens of some guy, 0:07:54.120 --> 0:07:55.520 I mean, I guess you can't rule it out, but 0:07:56.400 --> 0:07:58.520 I'm not aware of any kind of evidence that something 0:07:58.600 --> 0:08:01.000 like that is possible. But I wanted to explore a 0:08:01.360 --> 0:08:05.080 maybe more plausible, still unproven, but more plausible and very 0:08:05.120 --> 0:08:08.320 interesting sort of parallel idea. And the place I want 0:08:08.320 --> 0:08:12.040 to start here is I was reading the British astronaut 0:08:12.120 --> 0:08:15.400 and chemist Helen Sharmon. It was actually the first British 0:08:15.440 --> 0:08:19.240 astronaut ever. She was talking to the Observer, I think 0:08:19.280 --> 0:08:22.520 earlier this year and saying that you know, it was 0:08:22.560 --> 0:08:25.320 her opinion, and that just given the size of the universe, 0:08:25.440 --> 0:08:28.120 the number of planets out there, the number of opportunities 0:08:28.160 --> 0:08:31.440 for biochemistry to arise, that she's pretty convinced that there 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:34.720 must be aliens out there somewhere in the universe. And 0:08:34.760 --> 0:08:37.080 then she adds, quote, will they be like you and me, 0:08:37.280 --> 0:08:40.560 made up of carbon and nitrogen? Maybe not. It's possible 0:08:40.640 --> 0:08:44.480 they're here right now and we simply can't see them now. 0:08:44.520 --> 0:08:46.120 I want to be clear that I'm not aware of 0:08:46.160 --> 0:08:48.760 any evidence whatsoever this is actually the case, and I 0:08:48.760 --> 0:08:52.440 don't think Sharmon was suggesting that we have evidence of 0:08:52.480 --> 0:08:55.440 this being true, but it does raise the very intriguing 0:08:55.520 --> 0:08:59.480 question of how would we know if aliens in some 0:08:59.559 --> 0:09:03.040 sense or some kind of alternate organism, we're already here, 0:09:03.320 --> 0:09:06.959 already somehow within range of our senses. Well, first, is 0:09:07.000 --> 0:09:10.360 there any conceivable way that something like that could be true? 0:09:10.440 --> 0:09:13.000 And second, if it were true, would there be any 0:09:13.000 --> 0:09:15.319 way to sort of put on the superspects, any way 0:09:15.360 --> 0:09:18.600 to figure it out? So to further investigate this idea, 0:09:18.800 --> 0:09:22.079 I was reading a great article from Astrobiology magazine from 0:09:22.120 --> 0:09:24.280 two thousand six, So this is a little bit older, 0:09:24.320 --> 0:09:26.880 and some of the science, the underlying science, might have 0:09:26.960 --> 0:09:29.800 changed somewhat since then, but I think the basic question 0:09:29.920 --> 0:09:33.560 still stands as posed. And this is by the UC 0:09:33.679 --> 0:09:37.679 Boulder philosophy professor Carol Cleland, and the article is called 0:09:37.720 --> 0:09:42.840 a shadow biosphere. Now, by a shadow biosphere she means 0:09:42.880 --> 0:09:47.640 a rarely considered form of alternative life, not aliens from 0:09:47.640 --> 0:09:54.320 another planet, but aliens from Earth, an unrecognized alternative biology 0:09:54.360 --> 0:09:59.000 that may exist parallel to us, invisibly here on this planet. 0:09:59.640 --> 0:10:02.280 And she asked the question, if something like that existed, 0:10:02.440 --> 0:10:05.920 what would these alternative biologies entail in order to have 0:10:06.040 --> 0:10:09.840 escaped our notice? So they could possibly include alternative forms 0:10:09.880 --> 0:10:13.840 of information coding, so forms other than DNA or RNA, 0:10:14.040 --> 0:10:17.800 or they could include different amino acids to build their proteins, 0:10:17.920 --> 0:10:20.760 or quote any other means by which the chemistry of 0:10:20.840 --> 0:10:23.600 early Earth could have combined to form life we are 0:10:23.600 --> 0:10:26.839 not familiar with. And so there are there are a 0:10:26.880 --> 0:10:29.640 few things we can probably rule out from you know, 0:10:29.720 --> 0:10:34.000 any reasonable question, The first of which is the superspect 0:10:34.040 --> 0:10:36.840 you know, the literal superspect scenario, where there are like 0:10:37.000 --> 0:10:40.880 human sized organisms that are going unnoticed. She says, probably 0:10:40.920 --> 0:10:44.360 if these shadow biological organisms were on the scale of 0:10:44.480 --> 0:10:47.520 familiar plants or animals, we would have already noticed and 0:10:47.559 --> 0:10:50.559 detected them, right, Yes, we would. Somebody would have figured 0:10:50.600 --> 0:10:52.839 it out by now. So what we're probably talking about, 0:10:53.040 --> 0:10:56.280 if there were such a thing, would be microscopic organisms. 0:10:56.280 --> 0:11:00.320 But microscopic organisms can have big impacts, They do a lot, 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:05.199 and so the the impact of a microscopic shadow biosphere 0:11:05.520 --> 0:11:08.520 could be enormous, and it would be very interesting to 0:11:08.559 --> 0:11:11.760 discover that it had gone unnoticed this long. You know, 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:14.840 I can't help but be reminded of a a great 0:11:15.600 --> 0:11:19.040 great end quotation marks here uh Saturday Night Live parody 0:11:19.080 --> 0:11:23.679 commercial from I guess back in the nineties for the 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:26.199 fecal vision glasses. Did you ever see this one? No? 0:11:26.360 --> 0:11:30.240 I didn't. Where everybody puts on the fecal vision glasses 0:11:30.240 --> 0:11:34.320 and then like fecal matter glows bright green, and of 0:11:34.320 --> 0:11:36.679 course they just they just show a ridiculous amount of it, 0:11:36.720 --> 0:11:39.440 Like the entire room is basically covered in it. There's 0:11:39.440 --> 0:11:42.000 a baby covered in it, that sort of thing. Um. 0:11:42.600 --> 0:11:45.439 But in a way, you know, seeing the unseen um 0:11:46.240 --> 0:11:48.839 world of life forms around us. I think that's an 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:52.040 excellent point of comparison. Keep keep that, keep that image 0:11:52.080 --> 0:11:54.920 in mind as we move on. So one of the 0:11:54.920 --> 0:11:56.760 first things, of course, you'd have to consider if you're 0:11:56.760 --> 0:11:59.200 addressing this question of could there could there in fact 0:11:59.200 --> 0:12:02.440 be a shadow by sphere is um? What counts is life? 0:12:02.559 --> 0:12:04.760 You want to make sure you're defining your terms properly, 0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:08.080 because you're if your definition of life is overly inclusive, 0:12:08.559 --> 0:12:10.280 it could lose all meaning. Right, you don't want to 0:12:10.400 --> 0:12:12.600 end up with the definition of life that includes like 0:12:12.679 --> 0:12:17.560 volcanoes and waterfalls as life. But obviously there are lots 0:12:17.679 --> 0:12:20.520 of different definitions of life that are in competition with 0:12:20.559 --> 0:12:23.200 each other. I was reading an article by an astrobiologist 0:12:23.240 --> 0:12:26.280 named Samantha Rolf and she points out there are probably 0:12:26.320 --> 0:12:29.680 more than a hundred legit definitions of what constitutes a 0:12:29.720 --> 0:12:33.959 life form. Most of them encounter some potential objections here 0:12:34.000 --> 0:12:36.720 or they're just As one example, she points out that 0:12:36.720 --> 0:12:39.080 that if you zero in on the definition of life 0:12:39.480 --> 0:12:43.120 that centered on the ability to reproduce, you arrive at 0:12:43.120 --> 0:12:46.280 a strange conclusion that like a three D printer that 0:12:46.360 --> 0:12:49.080 can print and as symbol copies of itself is alive, 0:12:49.520 --> 0:12:52.160 but a mule, which is sterile, is not alive, And 0:12:52.200 --> 0:12:55.320 that doesn't quite seem right. Yeah. I think we've discussed 0:12:55.360 --> 0:12:58.640 in the show before some arguments about viruses, but also 0:12:58.720 --> 0:13:02.599 about fire, the degrees to which fire can be classified 0:13:03.000 --> 0:13:06.480 up to a point as a as an organism. It's 0:13:06.480 --> 0:13:09.360 not an organism, but but you can make an impassioned 0:13:09.440 --> 0:13:12.680 argument of your feeling argumentative about it totally, or like 0:13:12.760 --> 0:13:15.840 forms of crystals, things like that. I mean, you run 0:13:15.840 --> 0:13:18.520 into a lot of difficulties actually, if you're trying to 0:13:18.520 --> 0:13:20.679 come up with the definition of life that rules in 0:13:20.840 --> 0:13:23.200 everything we want to think of his life and rules 0:13:23.200 --> 0:13:27.480 out everything we don't. So in this two thousand six article, 0:13:27.800 --> 0:13:31.160 Carol Cleveland zeros in on the following distinctions what what 0:13:31.280 --> 0:13:34.199 she thinks is important is, first quote, the capacity of 0:13:34.240 --> 0:13:37.720 a system to maintain itself as a self organized unit 0:13:37.800 --> 0:13:42.800 against both internal and external perturbations. So basically that means 0:13:42.840 --> 0:13:47.240 a life form has has some type of structural resiliency, 0:13:47.280 --> 0:13:50.760 It sort of protects its own integrity and has some 0:13:50.880 --> 0:13:55.200 form of resistance against just dissolution by external and internal forces. 0:13:55.840 --> 0:13:58.240 And then the second thing she says is the ability 0:13:58.280 --> 0:14:03.719 to reproduce and transmit to its descendants adaptive heritable modifications. Now, 0:14:03.760 --> 0:14:06.160 all the life that we know of on Earth that 0:14:06.240 --> 0:14:10.479 meets those two criteria is defined by a common chemistry. 0:14:10.600 --> 0:14:13.800 We know what the primary types of molecules involved are, 0:14:14.280 --> 0:14:18.360 and those molecules are proteins and nucleic acids. Nucleic Acids 0:14:18.360 --> 0:14:21.680 of course would include DNA and RNA, and they store 0:14:21.720 --> 0:14:26.160 hereditary information and they produce proteins. Proteins then make up 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:28.840 the structure and the machinery of cells and of the 0:14:28.920 --> 0:14:32.200 life form as a whole, and the interface between these 0:14:32.240 --> 0:14:36.120 two functions the hereditary function and the structural or mechanical 0:14:36.120 --> 0:14:39.320 function of the of the protein. This is handled by 0:14:39.440 --> 0:14:42.680 a very important structure known as the ribosome, which is 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:46.360 made of both proteins and RNA, and which translate the 0:14:46.400 --> 0:14:50.480 hereditary information stored in nucleic acids into usable proteins. This 0:14:50.560 --> 0:14:53.240 is how all the life we know of on Earth works. 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:57.320 And yet Cleveland says, we just don't know how different 0:14:57.440 --> 0:15:01.480 life could be. Maybe that's the only chemistry in the 0:15:01.600 --> 0:15:05.080 universe capable of producing the functions we usually attribute to life, 0:15:05.320 --> 0:15:08.560 and maybe not, she writes, quote Moreover, we can't rule 0:15:08.600 --> 0:15:11.840 out the possibility that the most important characteristics of life 0:15:12.160 --> 0:15:16.320 have yet to be discovered. The functions traditionally attributed to 0:15:16.360 --> 0:15:20.280 life maybe little more than symptoms of more fundamental but 0:15:20.360 --> 0:15:24.200 as yet unknown properties. So, for example, at the time 0:15:24.280 --> 0:15:27.000 she was writing this, all life on Earth built its 0:15:27.040 --> 0:15:31.040 proteins out of the same twenty amino acids, which which 0:15:31.160 --> 0:15:33.360 all of these amino acids in life forms share the 0:15:33.400 --> 0:15:36.720 same chirality. Reality is something we talked about, I think 0:15:36.720 --> 0:15:40.520 actually in a previous Horror Anthology episode when we were 0:15:40.520 --> 0:15:43.840 talking about to Serve Man. Oh yes, yes we did. 0:15:44.200 --> 0:15:46.760 That was a really fun one, uh about like how 0:15:46.760 --> 0:15:51.320 would you the dangers of constructing, say, food for an 0:15:51.360 --> 0:15:55.320 alien being exactly, and and the idea that aliens would 0:15:55.360 --> 0:15:57.560 want to eat us we might be poisonous to them 0:15:57.600 --> 0:16:01.720 if their molecular biology is somewhat different than ours. But 0:16:01.800 --> 0:16:04.640 just as a brief refresher, chirality or the handedness of 0:16:04.680 --> 0:16:08.280 molecules refers to like which way they're oriented in terms 0:16:08.280 --> 0:16:10.840 of like a mirror image of each other. And Earth 0:16:10.880 --> 0:16:14.680 life uses left handed molecules, but it maybe could use 0:16:14.800 --> 0:16:20.280 right handed molecules. A biotic processes, like processes not associated 0:16:20.280 --> 0:16:22.240 with life, are known to create all kinds of amino 0:16:22.280 --> 0:16:25.400 acids that are not found in life forms. Cleveland references 0:16:25.440 --> 0:16:28.080 more than a hundred known amino acids that are created 0:16:28.080 --> 0:16:31.760 by a biotic processes, So why does life as we 0:16:31.760 --> 0:16:35.400 know what not employ more of these amino acids or 0:16:35.600 --> 0:16:38.800 different chirality of amino acids. Lab experiments show that you 0:16:38.880 --> 0:16:42.560 can build proteins out of alternative amino acids and molecules 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:46.840 with right handed chirality. Likewise, with the exception of RNA viruses, 0:16:46.960 --> 0:16:50.400 all life on Earth stores its genetic information in DNA, 0:16:51.000 --> 0:16:54.960 but it's possible DNA could use different combinations of bases 0:16:55.000 --> 0:16:58.120 and amino acids. So she's sort of asking the question 0:16:58.200 --> 0:17:01.480 in general, why all these particular ers, why while these 0:17:01.520 --> 0:17:04.840 particularities of Earth life that, as far as we can tell, 0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:09.440 are totally contingent, and Cleveland thinks that the best explanation is, well, 0:17:09.520 --> 0:17:12.320 this is just how it happened in the conditions of 0:17:12.359 --> 0:17:16.320 the young Earth when life first arose, and these contingencies 0:17:16.359 --> 0:17:20.520 of molecular biology have been recopied down the ages since then, 0:17:20.560 --> 0:17:23.920 ever since these life forms have been reproducing quote. So 0:17:23.960 --> 0:17:26.879 it is unlikely that the ribosomes found in the cells 0:17:26.920 --> 0:17:31.640 of familiar life represent the only possibility for translating hereditary 0:17:31.680 --> 0:17:35.800 information stored on nucleic acids into proteins, let alone the 0:17:35.840 --> 0:17:40.240 original mechanism utilized by the first protocells. Had circumstances on 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:43.320 the early Earth been different, familiar life would also have 0:17:43.440 --> 0:17:47.640 been different. But this raises a really interesting question if 0:17:47.680 --> 0:17:50.600 these features of molecular biology as we know it are 0:17:50.600 --> 0:17:54.560 really just contingencies. In other words, if it's just chemically 0:17:54.680 --> 0:17:57.920 how things happened to shake out when the first life 0:17:57.920 --> 0:18:00.520 forms were coming together, how do we know that other 0:18:00.680 --> 0:18:04.399 life forms, other forms of molecular biology did not arise 0:18:04.800 --> 0:18:08.440 at different times in places on Earth in the history 0:18:08.480 --> 0:18:12.000 of Earth, with their own contingent chemical quirks making them 0:18:12.280 --> 0:18:14.879 hard for us to recognize with tools that are honed 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:18.439 in the search for familiar forms of life. I mean, 0:18:18.480 --> 0:18:22.320 in a way, what you can discover is sort of 0:18:22.359 --> 0:18:25.760 determined or bounded by what kind of tools you use 0:18:25.840 --> 0:18:28.399 and what you expect to be looking for. Yeah, I 0:18:28.440 --> 0:18:31.000 mean it reminds me a bit of recent discussions we've 0:18:31.000 --> 0:18:33.880 had about, um, how you would just how you would 0:18:33.920 --> 0:18:36.439 describe a sense that you have to a being that 0:18:36.560 --> 0:18:40.200 is lacking that sense, you know, like it's it's it's 0:18:40.200 --> 0:18:42.879 hard to to to to explain that, and like that 0:18:42.920 --> 0:18:45.159 works in reverse, like looking for the thing that you 0:18:45.200 --> 0:18:48.679 can't experience. Now, from here, Cleveland goes on to address 0:18:48.960 --> 0:18:51.879 some objections that are usually raised to the idea that 0:18:51.920 --> 0:18:56.000 there could be alternative forms of molecular biology on Earth. So, 0:18:56.040 --> 0:18:58.960 first of all, there is the claim that quote any 0:18:59.040 --> 0:19:01.199 variations in the earth eliest forms of life would have 0:19:01.200 --> 0:19:04.560 been combined by lateral gene transfer into a single form 0:19:04.600 --> 0:19:06.880 of life. Right, So that we've talked about horizontal gene 0:19:06.880 --> 0:19:09.520 transfer on the show before, and the idea is that, 0:19:09.600 --> 0:19:11.520 you know, there just would have been like sort of 0:19:11.560 --> 0:19:14.320 a cross fertilization of genes that way, and they kind 0:19:14.320 --> 0:19:19.080 of would have been absorbed into the dominant biosphere. But 0:19:19.160 --> 0:19:21.879 she argues against this by saying, you know, we can't 0:19:21.880 --> 0:19:27.120 assume compatibility and opportunity for lateral gene transfer between our 0:19:27.240 --> 0:19:31.280 ancestral microbes, the microbes that became us, and whatever these 0:19:31.320 --> 0:19:34.880 alternative critters are. There could be chemical and compatibility, there 0:19:34.920 --> 0:19:39.480 could be geographic isolation, and so forth. And then there 0:19:39.560 --> 0:19:42.480 is a second argument, which is that well, our single 0:19:42.520 --> 0:19:47.320 celled ancestors would have wiped out these alternative biological organisms 0:19:47.560 --> 0:19:51.119 in the competition for resources, and she argues against this 0:19:51.200 --> 0:19:54.600 by saying, well, rare microbes that we know of tend 0:19:54.680 --> 0:19:58.560 to occupy unique ecological niches, so they're not necessarily in 0:19:58.720 --> 0:20:01.920 deadly competition the same resources. They might just kind of 0:20:02.240 --> 0:20:05.480 have different needs, have established different niches, and they're just 0:20:05.600 --> 0:20:08.840 writing it out as as sort of rare, unique and 0:20:08.960 --> 0:20:13.560 isolated communities of organisms, or even within communities of of 0:20:13.600 --> 0:20:17.440 conventional organisms. And then finally she talks about the argument 0:20:17.520 --> 0:20:20.720 that if these things are still here, we should have 0:20:20.760 --> 0:20:24.359 found evidence of them by now, and so against the 0:20:24.600 --> 0:20:26.639 we should have found it by now, she argues that 0:20:26.880 --> 0:20:29.080 given the tools we possessed at the time she was 0:20:29.080 --> 0:20:32.159 writing this, it was very possible to miss things like, Okay, 0:20:32.200 --> 0:20:35.280 you can look at microbes under a microscope, but that 0:20:35.320 --> 0:20:38.560 can only take you so far because convergent evolution means 0:20:38.600 --> 0:20:40.600 that a lot of different microbes will kind of look 0:20:40.640 --> 0:20:45.440 superficially similar in structure, like archaia kind of look like bacteria. 0:20:45.640 --> 0:20:48.639 And then we have other tools like lab cultures, but 0:20:48.800 --> 0:20:52.320 lab cultures just might fail to grow them. Uh. And 0:20:52.359 --> 0:20:55.440 then another option we have for detecting microbial life that's 0:20:55.440 --> 0:20:58.919 difficult to culture is known as PCR amplification. That stands 0:20:58.960 --> 0:21:03.400 for polymerase chain reaction. It's chemical process for multiplying genetic 0:21:03.440 --> 0:21:07.919 material so that it can be detected. And PCR amplification 0:21:08.200 --> 0:21:12.000 that relies on ribosomal RNA would not be able to 0:21:12.040 --> 0:21:15.240 detect a microbe that didn't have ribosomes or that had 0:21:15.280 --> 0:21:19.640 a different form of ribosomal RNA. So basically Cleveland's case 0:21:19.680 --> 0:21:22.639 here is that our best tools for looking for chemical 0:21:22.760 --> 0:21:24.720 signs of life, at least the time she was writing, 0:21:24.720 --> 0:21:27.320 are kind of tuned to the kinds of life that 0:21:27.359 --> 0:21:30.399 we know about, and they might completely pass over a 0:21:30.480 --> 0:21:35.280 potential shadow biosphere if it existed. Now, there's another possible objection, 0:21:35.960 --> 0:21:40.080 which is that wouldn't we have observed these microbes, the 0:21:40.160 --> 0:21:43.639 shadow microbes, by the effect they have on their environment. 0:21:44.200 --> 0:21:47.879 Of course, we observe the effects of common known microbes 0:21:47.920 --> 0:21:50.960 on the environment all the time, She says, quote. Life 0:21:50.960 --> 0:21:56.879 invariably modifies its environment, extracting energy, building structures, producing waste products. 0:21:57.320 --> 0:22:00.160 So you know, all of the oxygen in the atmosphere 0:22:00.200 --> 0:22:03.760 is a product of of microscopic life, or at least 0:22:03.920 --> 0:22:06.720 was originally. Now I guess it's also the product of 0:22:07.200 --> 0:22:10.159 macroscopic life. But she says, actually, you know, this is 0:22:10.160 --> 0:22:12.040 a really good way to look for these things, to 0:22:12.080 --> 0:22:14.760 look for the effects they have on their environments. And 0:22:14.760 --> 0:22:17.640 Cleveland argues that it's possible that up until now their 0:22:17.680 --> 0:22:20.920 effects have always blended in with the background noise of 0:22:20.960 --> 0:22:24.240 effects produced by other microbes. So it's possible we just 0:22:24.320 --> 0:22:27.520 haven't looked closely enough in the right places, or we've 0:22:27.560 --> 0:22:30.320 been hindered by the bounds of an existing paradigm of 0:22:30.359 --> 0:22:34.760 molecular biology. She writes, quote. Similar cases can be found 0:22:34.760 --> 0:22:38.120 in biology, such as the discovery of Archaea, a new 0:22:38.200 --> 0:22:44.080 variety of familiar microbial life that revolutionized biological taxonomy, and 0:22:44.119 --> 0:22:46.800 so as background, our archaea is now considered one of 0:22:46.840 --> 0:22:50.280