Speaker 1: You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Guess what Mango?
Speaker 1: What's that will?
Speaker 2: It's day four of our countdown of the twenty five
Speaker 2: greatest science ideas from the past twenty five years. Can
Speaker 2: you believe it? Just a few short days ago it
Speaker 2: was day one of our twenty five greatest science ideas
Speaker 2: in the past twenty five years.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure you know you're doing something right when
Speaker 1: you've got four sequels. What do you mean by that, Well,
Speaker 1: George Lucas stars Star Wars basically with the fourth film, right.
Speaker 1: Henry the fourth was such an interesting king that Shakespeare
Speaker 1: wrote a play about him. But you didn't even bother
Speaker 1: with Henry the Third, No not worthy and Rush Hour
Speaker 1: four was so good at made Toy Story two seem
Speaker 1: like Spider Man three.
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure you're just saying things now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're right, but maybe you should just get into
Speaker 1: the episode. Today we are covering ideas eight through five,
Speaker 1: and if you want to know what makes us try
Speaker 1: to various sounds so good, how a HeLa monster is
Speaker 1: helping the world, and why a single injection might help
Speaker 1: paralyze people walk again. You're gonna love this one. Let's
Speaker 1: dive in.
Speaker 2: Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Speaker 2: Will Pearson, and of course I'm here with my friend
Speaker 2: Mangesh hot Ticketter and over there in the booth gazing
Speaker 2: wistfully at a portrait of David Dukovney. I don't know
Speaker 2: where he got this thing, but it's a it's an
Speaker 2: interesting portrait. It's our PALIN producer, Dylan Fagan. I mean,
Speaker 2: I can't tell if this has anything to do with
Speaker 2: today's episode.
Speaker 1: They just like slax Files apparently.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, well enjoy that, Dylan.
Speaker 1: But speaking of fun, you your podcast listening life will
Speaker 1: be a lot more fun if you're subscribed to Part
Speaker 1: Time Genius on whatever app you use. And you can
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Speaker 1: a nice review.
Speaker 2: We really appreciate everyone who takes the time to do that.
Speaker 2: But all right, well let's get back to the countdown.
Speaker 2: So one day in the early two thousands, a man
Speaker 2: named Kai Ching Lee was strolling down in Oregon beach right,
Speaker 2: and Lee is an engineering professor at Oregon State University,
Speaker 2: and he was just enjoying his walk washing the Pacific Ocean,
Speaker 2: just waves roll in and now, and suddenly he noticed
Speaker 2: something along the coast. There were hundreds of muscles clinging
Speaker 2: to rocks, and Lee was impressed with their strength. No
Speaker 2: matter how violent the waves were, no matter how strong
Speaker 2: the pull of the tide was, the muscles just stayed
Speaker 2: in place there and when you actually tried pulling one away,
Speaker 2: it wouldn't budge. And that got Lee thinking about plywood.
Speaker 2: M had he also been to an Ikea recently that
Speaker 2: might have.
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe I don't know, but I do know
Speaker 1: that plywood is everywhere, not just furniture and cabinets, but
Speaker 1: also walls, boats, fencing, toys, and for good reason. Like
Speaker 1: plywood is super affordable because instead of a single solid
Speaker 1: chunk of wood, it's made from thin layers glued together
Speaker 1: into a slab. But it turns out the glue that
Speaker 1: holds the plywood together is really kind of nasty. It's
Speaker 1: often made with formaldehyde and other chemicals that you don't
Speaker 1: want to breathe in, and in fact, there's research suggesting
Speaker 1: that people who work in plywood manufacturing plants are at
Speaker 1: increased risk of developing leukemia and other cancers. And that's
Speaker 1: what Kaiching. Lee was thinking about that day on the beach,
Speaker 1: how to make a better, safer plywood glue.
Speaker 2: And if muscles can stick themselves to rocks, maybe they
Speaker 2: could stick wood together too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so muscles. Natural adhesive has two big advantages over
Speaker 1: traditional plywood glues. First of all, it's non toxic, and secondly,
Speaker 1: it's waterproof. So if you've ever gotten plywood furniture wet,
Speaker 1: you know what a pain it can be because if
Speaker 1: the water isn't dried quickly, the wood layers can start peeling.
Speaker 1: This is a known problem with industrial adhesives, like many
Speaker 1: of them lose their stickiness in the presence of water,
Speaker 1: but not muscle glue.
Speaker 2: Right, but how do you get glue out of a muscle?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a good question. So Lee realized right away
Speaker 1: that would be difficult and expensive, not to mention unpleasant
Speaker 1: for the muscles. But he headed to his lab to
Speaker 1: see if he could cook up a synthetic version of
Speaker 1: the muscle glue, and one day, while he was eating
Speaker 1: his lunch, he had another light bulb moment. He realized, soybeans,
Speaker 1: I love how this daily life was just handing him
Speaker 1: the scientific answers that he needed. I know, it's just
Speaker 1: inspiration is everywhere anyway. People have been making adhesis from
Speaker 1: soy for decades. The problem is, soy based glues tend
Speaker 1: to be weak and they're not waterproof. But Lee knew
Speaker 1: that soybean, flower and muscle glue were made from similar
Speaker 1: makeup of proteins and amino acids, and he wondered, what
Speaker 1: if I altered the chemical profile of soybean glue to
Speaker 1: make it more like the kind made by muscles. So,
Speaker 1: with the help of a grant from the US, Lee
Speaker 1: started tinkering with soy's chemical makeup, and by modifying the
Speaker 1: amino acids in the bean, he successfully created an adhesive
Speaker 1: that was just his waterproof and just as strong as
Speaker 1: the glue made by muscles. In fact, the soybean based
Speaker 1: glue was twice as sticky as hot glue, three times
Speaker 1: stronger than Elmer's glue, and had about the same adhesive
Speaker 1: power as contact cement.
Speaker 2: And has this revolutionized the plywood industry or what? Yeah?
Speaker 1: So it's definitely changed things. Like Lee presented his discovery
Speaker 1: to Columbia Forest Products. They're a major plywood manufacturer, and
Speaker 1: they quickly signed on. So fast forward to today, the
Speaker 1: company has converted all of its factories from formaldehyde glues
Speaker 1: to soy, and pollution rates that some of these plants
Speaker 1: have dropped by as much as ninety percent. Wow, isn't
Speaker 1: that insane? And other companies have joined them too, so
Speaker 1: today soy based plywood is an option at most hardware
Speaker 1: and home improvement stores. Other big companies like Ikea and
Speaker 1: General Motors now use soy for some of their plywood
Speaker 1: products because it's safer, stronger, and better for the planet. Anyway,
Speaker 1: in honor of Lee's incredible discovery that changed home DIY forever,
Speaker 1: we're running a contest on Instagram today. We're giving away
Speaker 1: a home Depot. Gifts are to the get, and our
Speaker 1: lawyers want to make it very very clear that this
Speaker 1: is no way sponsored by Home Depot. But head over
Speaker 1: to Instagram at part time Genius to get all the
Speaker 1: details in enter.
Speaker 2: All right, So I'd like to dedicate this next one
Speaker 2: to all the violinists who have dreamed of owning a
Speaker 2: Stratavius violin but can't stomach the instruments two million dollar
Speaker 2: price tag. They're just not that serious about it, magat
Speaker 2: they don't want to spend the two million, so here
Speaker 2: we Yeah.
Speaker 1: I would love to know how many professional violinists listen
Speaker 1: to the show. But two million dollars is obviously a
Speaker 1: steep price tag for a three hundred year old violin
Speaker 1: that you're probably too scared to play anyway.
Speaker 2: Indeed, but thanks to research from Swiss arborist Franz Schwartz,
Speaker 2: there's now a cheaper alternative. And while the new instruments
Speaker 2: don't carry the distinction of having been crafted by Italy's
Speaker 2: most revered violin maker, they do boast a tone quality
Speaker 2: that many experts consider to be just as good and
Speaker 2: in some cases may be better, a claim that might
Speaker 2: seem stunning enough, but the real shock is who's responsible
Speaker 2: for the superior sound? Are you ready for this?
Speaker 1: It's fungus like Geseppe fungus, the famous Italian violin maker. Nope, nope,
Speaker 1: actual fungus that infested the wood used to make the instruments.
Speaker 1: It is totally bizarre because in most cases, a fungal
Speaker 1: attack destroys wood cell walls and it results in this
Speaker 1: kind of loose soft wood that doesn't sound very pleasant
Speaker 1: if it's made into an instrument. But at Schwartz discovered
Speaker 1: in the late two thousands. There are rare cases where
Speaker 1: fungal infections have a milder effect on the wood's density
Speaker 1: and actually make it sound better. So what happens is
Speaker 1: they thin out the wood cells structure just enough to
Speaker 1: improve its acoustic properties. And so how did he figure
Speaker 1: this out? Exactly? Like do arboris just go around knocking
Speaker 1: on trees to see what sounds they make?
Speaker 2: I'm sure that's not how they describe, but it is
Speaker 2: kind of like that. Scientists really do bounce sound waves
Speaker 2: off of trees to gauge their health. The funkier the echo,
Speaker 2: the more widespread the wood rot. And so Franz Schwartz
Speaker 2: was using this method himself when he hatched the idea
Speaker 2: for his fungal violin. He wondered how gentler kinds of
Speaker 2: fungus might affect the sound of a wooden instrument, so
Speaker 2: he partnered with Swiss violin maker Michael Ronheimer to find out.
Speaker 2: They selected two different species of wood eating fungi for
Speaker 2: the job. And while I won't bother to pronounce their
Speaker 2: scientific names, I can tell you their nicknames their Rusty
Speaker 2: crust and dead mule's fingers. So those are both.
Speaker 1: Pretty good I'm not sure which is grosser, but I
Speaker 1: think i'd go with rusty crust.
Speaker 2: That is the right answer. But anyway, the top plate
Speaker 2: of the violin, which was made of spruce, was inoculated
Speaker 2: with rusty crust, and on the bottom, the sycamore plate
Speaker 2: was treated with dead mule's fingers. Both plates were submerged
Speaker 2: in a box of water to stimulate the fungui's growth,
Speaker 2: and a few months later, after killing off the spores,
Speaker 2: Ronheimer put the two halves together to create the world's
Speaker 2: first bio violin. So Schwartz was blown away by the
Speaker 2: instrument's sound, which he described as warmer and rounder than
Speaker 2: that of a conventional violin, and he was so pleased
Speaker 2: with it that he decided to stage a blind sound
Speaker 2: test at an annual forestry conference in Germany, so on
Speaker 2: September first, two thousand and nine a jury of acoustics
Speaker 2: experts and conference attendees. They listened carefully as British violinist
Speaker 2: Matthew Trussler played five different instruments from behind the curtain.
Speaker 2: Four of the violins were made by Ronheimer, two of
Speaker 2: them with fungus treated wood and the other two with
Speaker 2: untreated wood. From the same trees, but the fifth instrument
Speaker 2: came from Trustler's own collection, a violin made by Antonio
Speaker 2: Strativeris himself way back in seventeen eleven.
Speaker 1: So I guess the goal was to identify which one
Speaker 1: was the true strat in the mix.
Speaker 2: That's exactly right. So attendees were asked to rank the
Speaker 2: sound of each instrument they heard and to guess which
Speaker 2: one of them was over three hundred years old. Schwartz
Speaker 2: later admitted that as good as they sounded, he never
Speaker 2: expected one of the fungal violins to be confused for
Speaker 2: a multi million dollar instrument. But in the end, that
Speaker 2: is exactly what happened. Out of more than one hundred
Speaker 2: and eighty attendees, one hundred and thirteen of them thought
Speaker 2: that one of Ronheimer's violins, which had been covered with
Speaker 2: fung gui for nine months, was produced by stratuv Areas.
Speaker 1: So it wasn't It wasn't even close.
Speaker 2: No, I mean, the real strat came in a distant second,
Speaker 2: but the other fungus violin claiming third place, and the
Speaker 2: two untreated instruments pulling up the rear so like it
Speaker 2: really does show the difference that it made I mean.
Speaker 1: I get that, like a fungus could change the wood
Speaker 1: and the sound of a violin, but like, why are
Speaker 1: they comparable to stratavarius.
Speaker 2: It's a good question, and honestly, no one can really
Speaker 2: say for sure why is violin sound as good as
Speaker 2: they do. The best guess is that it's due to
Speaker 2: the weather in Italy during his lifetime, so strata areas
Speaker 2: happened to live through what people knew as central yuar
Speaker 2: rops little ice age. This happened in the seventeenth century,
Speaker 2: and it brought long winters and cool summers to the region.
Speaker 2: So the unusually chilly temperatures would have slowed the cell
Speaker 2: growth of the local trees there, causing their wood to
Speaker 2: develop more slowly and uniformly, which was the perfect recipe
Speaker 2: for producing wood with stellar acoustics. So, according to Schwartz,
Speaker 2: the fungi treatment he used was able to recreate that
Speaker 2: same ideal structure.
Speaker 1: That's really cool. But if a fungus violin produces a
Speaker 1: richer sound, why don't they do that for all violins now?
Speaker 2: Well, partly because not every violin needs the same tonal
Speaker 2: quality as the strativarius. Like it's nice to have different options,
Speaker 2: but the main reason is that Schwartz and his colleagues
Speaker 2: are still working out the details on how you'd actually
Speaker 2: mass produce these. Once they do, the plan is to
Speaker 2: sell the instruments for about thirty thousand dollars each, which
Speaker 2: sounds like a lot, but it's actually about what you'd
Speaker 2: pay for other high quality violins.
Speaker 1: And a lot less than two million dollars.
Speaker 2: Definitely, you're good at math.
Speaker 1: We've got a pause for a quick break, but we'll
Speaker 1: be back more great science ideas right after. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to part time genius listeners, and we are counting down
Speaker 1: to number Okay, So I'm not going to beat around
Speaker 1: the bush on this one. This research totally blew my mind.
Speaker 1: So scientists and Northwestern University have developed a new treatment
Speaker 1: for spinal cord injuries that allowed paralyzed mice to walk
Speaker 1: again after a single injection. Not only that, the treatment
Speaker 1: has loads of other applications, potentially impacting the way we
Speaker 1: treat everything from bone loss to neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's.
Speaker 2: I can't I've never heard of this. I mean, it
Speaker 2: sounds like a real life cure. All yeah, I mean,
Speaker 2: it's still early days. From the research perspective, the team's
Speaker 2: big breakthrough was only back in twenty twenty one, but
Speaker 2: so far the data is really incredible and promising. So
Speaker 2: just to give a little background on why this is
Speaker 2: such a big deal, They're currently about three hundred thousand
Speaker 2: people living with a spinal cord injury in the US alone,
Speaker 2: and in the most severe cases, less than three percent
Speaker 2: of them will ever recover any basic physical functions. The
Speaker 2: reason for that is that the neurons and their spinal
Speaker 2: cords have been completely severed, and thus far as scientists
Speaker 2: haven't been able to find therapeutics that can successfully trigger
Speaker 2: spinal cord regeneration. But that changed with the study from
Speaker 2: Northwestern University. So researchers were able to reverse paralysis and
Speaker 2: mice by injecting them with something they called dancing molecules.
Speaker 2: I've actually never heard of that either, so I'm curious
Speaker 2: that are the molecules themselves dancing or is it that
Speaker 2: they can restore the mouse's ability to dance? What are
Speaker 2: we referring to?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so no word on whether the mice can dance
Speaker 1: before or after the treatment, but the molecules that were
Speaker 1: injected absolutely can dance. So after being injected as a liquid,
Speaker 1: the molecules coalesced to form tiny synthetic nanofibers that surround
Speaker 1: the spinal cord. And the fibers were composed of tens
Speaker 1: of hundreds of thousands of molecules, and the researchers found
Speaker 1: that by changing their chemical structure, they could control the
Speaker 1: molecule's collective motion. This allowed them to fine tune the
Speaker 1: synthetic molecules movements, speeding them up to match the motion
Speaker 1: of biological molecules within the spinal cord. It turned out
Speaker 1: that the most hyperactive molecules, the ones that were dancing
Speaker 1: the most, were able to connect more effectively with receptors
Speaker 1: in neurons and other cells.
Speaker 2: So once the molecules made that connection, they were able
Speaker 2: to like tell the cells to repair the damage neurons.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So the dancing molecules triggered to bioactive signals. The
Speaker 1: first prompted the tails of the neurons to regenerate and
Speaker 1: that effectively restored communication between the body and the brain,
Speaker 1: and the second signal promoted the regrowth of lost blood
Speaker 1: cells that feed the neurons and other cells related to
Speaker 1: tissue repair, and the result of this intervention was that
Speaker 1: after just four weeks, these paralyzed mice could regain the
Speaker 1: ability to walk, which is just stunning.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's also kind of a testament to the
Speaker 2: power of dance if you think about it, because it
Speaker 2: sounds like the approach didn't work so well when they
Speaker 2: tried it with more sluggish molecules.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that souped up molecular motion really was the key
Speaker 1: factor in all of this. The cells and receptors within
Speaker 1: the body are constantly moving, so once the team was
Speaker 1: able to match that speed or vibration, the fast moving
Speaker 1: molecules encountered the receptors much more often, and that allowed
Speaker 1: them to send their signals again and again. The breakthrough
Speaker 1: therapy actually has obvious implications for improving the spinal injuries
Speaker 1: of both humans and animals, but there's reasons to hope
Speaker 1: that the underlying discovery could also be used in other treatments,
Speaker 1: as we allude to before. According to the studies, lead
Speaker 1: researchers Samuel Stupp quote, the central nervous system tissues we
Speaker 1: have successfully regenerated in the injured spinal cord are similar
Speaker 1: to those in the brain affected by stroke and neurodegenerative
Speaker 1: diseases such as als, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. Beyond that, our
Speaker 1: fundamental discovery about controlling the motion of molecular assemblies to
Speaker 1: enhance cells signaling could be applied universally across biomedical targets.
Speaker 2: Okay, so they're thinking they could fine tune molecules to
Speaker 2: match the motion of other damage cells, not just the
Speaker 2: ones in the spinal cord exactly.
Speaker 1: And the most amazing part is they've already done it.
Speaker 1: So just last year, the team from Northwestern applied their
Speaker 1: strategy to damaged human cartilage cells and they found some success. Now,
Speaker 1: normally there's no way for humans to regenerate the tissues
Speaker 1: in our joints once we reach adulthood. So if you
Speaker 1: have a disease in which cartilage breaks down over time,
Speaker 1: you eventually get to a point where the bone is
Speaker 1: grinding against the bone with no cushion between them. And
Speaker 1: currently the only treatment for this is joint replacement surgery,
Speaker 1: which is extremely invasive and also very expensive. But once again,
Speaker 1: the team here has found a much better solution. So
Speaker 1: using their injectable therapy, they were able to spur cartilage
Speaker 1: regeneration and damaged cells within just a matter of days,
Speaker 1: and once again it was the molecules dancing that triggered
Speaker 1: the process. So building on that second success, the team's
Speaker 1: next goal is to test the therapy's effectiveness at regenerating
Speaker 1: bone and from there the sky's limit because, as Stuff explained, quote,
Speaker 1: now we have observed the effects in two cell types
Speaker 1: that are completely disconnected from one another, cartilage cells in
Speaker 1: our joints and neurons in our brain and spinal cord.
Speaker 1: This makes me more confident that we might have discovered
Speaker 1: a universal phenomena and it could be applied to many
Speaker 1: other tissues.
Speaker 2: That really is amazing. So what's the status of the
Speaker 2: spinal cord repair?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: Have they been able to test this in humans yet?
Speaker 1: Fortunately not. The team's been petitioning the FDA for approval
Speaker 1: to start clinical trials, but so far it's yet to
Speaker 1: be granted.
Speaker 2: Well, I hope it does come through sooner rather than later,
Speaker 2: and it sounds like something that could seriously change people's
Speaker 2: lives and of course the lives of mice as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll have them all dancing again soon.
Speaker 2: Well, our next breakthrough is a reminder that medical advances
Speaker 2: can truly come from anywhere, even from inside the mouth
Speaker 2: of a venomous lizard. Now we know this for a
Speaker 2: fact thanks to the work of doctor John Aang. He's
Speaker 2: an endocrinologist and VA researcher who found a way to
Speaker 2: stimulate the insulin producing cells in the pancreas using a
Speaker 2: hormone found in wait for it, the saliva of a
Speaker 2: HeLa monster.
Speaker 1: I feel like there's no way to make that not
Speaker 1: sound crazy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, just to be clear, helo monsters are not,
Speaker 2: in fact, spased monsters or aliens. They're big, desert dwelling
Speaker 2: lizards native to the southwestern United States. They can grow
Speaker 2: to be about twenty inches in length and are easy
Speaker 2: to recognize thanks to their splotchy orange and black coloring. No,
Speaker 2: it's rare to see one in person, though, since they
Speaker 2: spend about ninety percent of their lives underground and only
Speaker 2: come to the surface when it's time to eat.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you dc one, you should probably clear away,
Speaker 1: right because they're pretty venomous.
Speaker 2: Well, you really don't want to mess with one of
Speaker 2: these guys. They have a pretty powerful bite, and because
Speaker 2: their main defense is to pump you full of venom,
Speaker 2: they tend to hang on to whatever they chomp on
Speaker 2: for as long as possible, and the venom glends are
Speaker 2: inside their mouths obviously, right yeah, and they're they're lower jaws,
Speaker 2: I think. So the longer a helo monster clamps down,
Speaker 2: the more venom is injected through their teeth and into
Speaker 2: the bite wound. It was unfortunate enough to have been bitten,
Speaker 2: say the venom stings like molten lava, So these people
Speaker 2: have not only been bitten, but they also have experienced
Speaker 2: molten lava. Apparently are unlucky to keep rough, but for
Speaker 2: people with type two diabetes, it actually can be a
Speaker 2: life saver.
Speaker 1: Which is wild. So how did doctor Ang even think
Speaker 1: to try this? Like, like, why was messing around with
Speaker 1: helo monster spit like the first thing you was thinking about?
Speaker 2: I actually wondered that too. But keep in mind that
Speaker 2: medications derived from animal venom aren't that unusual. Sure, the
Speaker 2: venom of snakes, scorpion, spiders, even the world's only other
Speaker 2: venomous lizard, the komodo dragon. They've all contributed to different
Speaker 2: treatments over the years, and some of the existing research
Speaker 2: is what convinced doctor Ng that helo monsters might be
Speaker 2: helpful for treating diabetes. So let's go back to the
Speaker 2: nineteen eighties, when doctor Ng was practicing as a physician
Speaker 2: and a researcher at the VA Hospital in the Bronx.
Speaker 2: He was working to discover new animal hormones with medical potential,
Speaker 2: and since he was an endocrinologist, he was especially interested
Speaker 2: in ones that might treat diabetes. This eventually led him
Speaker 2: to an article from the National Institutes of Health about
Speaker 2: the effects of certain snake and lizard venoms on the pancreas.
Speaker 2: Studies showed that some venoms, including that of the Helo monster,
Speaker 2: could trigger inflammation in the pancreas where insulin is produced. Now,
Speaker 2: this convinced doctor Ing that the HeLa monster venom was
Speaker 2: worth a closer look, and so in nineteen ninety two
Speaker 2: he discovered a new hormone in the animals, salivam, which
Speaker 2: he called extendin four Now. When he tested the compound
Speaker 2: on mice, he was shocked to find that it reduced
Speaker 2: their blood glucose levels by stimulating the insulin producing cells
Speaker 2: in the pancreas. In fact, it worked very similarly to
Speaker 2: the GLP one hormone found in the digestive tract of humans,
Speaker 2: with one other important difference. Extending four degraded in the
Speaker 2: body much slower, so for reference, a diabetic would have
Speaker 2: to inject GLP one every hour to keep an effective
Speaker 2: amount of insulin in the bloodstream, but extending four would
Speaker 2: only need to be injected once a day, which obviously
Speaker 2: sounds like a game changer. It absolutely was, but unfortunately
Speaker 2: it took quite a while for doctor Ang's discovery to
Speaker 2: get the attention it deserved. Although the VA had funded
Speaker 2: his initial research, it showed very little interest in his findings,
Speaker 2: and neither did big pharmam. Injecting diabetics with proteins from
Speaker 2: lizard venom was just kind of deemed too weird for
Speaker 2: mainstream medicine, so doctor Ang's research wound up languishing for
Speaker 2: years until this small biotech startup with a focus on
Speaker 2: diabetes finally took notice. So the resulting drug, exenotide, was
Speaker 2: approved by the FDA in two thousand and five, and
Speaker 2: it's now used by millions of diabetic patients worldwide.
Speaker 1: I do love that these like venomous lizard creatures are
Speaker 1: you know, these things that like everyone is afraid of,
Speaker 1: are responsible for saving humans lives.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they don't even know it the lizards or
Speaker 2: the people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, also, the lizards might not be too happy about it.
Speaker 1: I read that HeLa monster numbers are way down in
Speaker 1: recent years because we keep destroying their habitats, and if
Speaker 1: we aren't careful, we might lose those little guys completely.
Speaker 2: Which would be a huge loss, even from a self
Speaker 2: serving perspective. I mean, if they prove this to be
Speaker 2: useful and humans wants, who's to say other medical secrets
Speaker 2: might be hiding in there.
Speaker 1: I also think it's kind of a branding problem, Like
Speaker 1: if we renamed them helaqds instead of Heala monsters, I
Speaker 1: feel like they'd have more of a chance.
Speaker 2: I think that's a great idea. Maybe we should push
Speaker 2: for that.
Speaker 1: Anyway, that's it for today's episode. Be sure to tune
Speaker 1: in tomorrow for our big, big finale, where we'll be
Speaker 1: counting down to the number one greatest science idea of
Speaker 1: the past twenty five years. And don't forget to check
Speaker 1: out our Instagram at part Time Genius. For today's contests,
Speaker 1: you could win a home Depot gift certificate, which again
Speaker 1: is very much not sponsored by Home Depot, but from
Speaker 1: Gabe Dylan, Mary Will Lucas Riley and myself. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for listening. Part Time Genius is a production
Speaker 1: of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This show is hosted by Will
Speaker 1: Pearson and me Mongais Chatikler and research by our good
Speaker 1: pal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's episode was engineered and produced
Speaker 1: by the wonderful Dylan Fagan with support from Tyler Klang.
Speaker 1: The show is executive produced for iHeart by Katrina Norvel
Speaker 1: and Ali Perry, with social media support from Sasha Gay,
Speaker 1: Trustee Dara Potts and Viney Shorey. For more podcasts from
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