1
00:00:03,040 --> 00:00:06,760
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production of iHeartRadio.

2
00:00:13,039 --> 00:00:15,200
Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name

3
00:00:15,240 --> 00:00:15,840
Speaker 2: is Robert.

4
00:00:15,680 --> 00:00:18,720
Speaker 3: Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with the

5
00:00:18,880 --> 00:00:21,680
Speaker 3: third and I think for now final episode in our

6
00:00:21,800 --> 00:00:27,160
Speaker 3: series about Fishes of gold where we've been talking about orange, yellow,

7
00:00:27,200 --> 00:00:30,400
Speaker 3: and golden varieties of fish in the Karp family, like

8
00:00:30,440 --> 00:00:34,559
Speaker 3: the goldfish and the cooyfish. In the past two episodes,

9
00:00:34,600 --> 00:00:37,640
Speaker 3: we talked about the selective breeding of goldfish, which goes

10
00:00:37,680 --> 00:00:40,440
Speaker 3: back more than a thousand years in China and was

11
00:00:40,600 --> 00:00:44,760
Speaker 3: historically linked to the practices of Chinese royalty. We also

12
00:00:45,000 --> 00:00:49,240
Speaker 3: talked about how even though the orange and golden colors

13
00:00:49,240 --> 00:00:53,360
Speaker 3: of goldfish today are mostly the result of artificial selection

14
00:00:53,440 --> 00:00:57,720
Speaker 3: by humans, there are some interesting evolutionary reasons that animal

15
00:00:57,760 --> 00:01:00,840
Speaker 3: somems develop similar colors in nature, and we talked about

16
00:01:00,840 --> 00:01:05,440
Speaker 3: what those reasons are. We also discussed adaptations in goldfish

17
00:01:05,520 --> 00:01:10,319
Speaker 3: and close relatives like the Crucian carp to the adaptations

18
00:01:10,319 --> 00:01:14,200
Speaker 3: that make them able to survive extremely low oxygen conditions

19
00:01:14,200 --> 00:01:18,080
Speaker 3: that would kill most other vertebrates. In the last episode,

20
00:01:18,080 --> 00:01:20,800
Speaker 3: we talked about the history of koifish, which are a

21
00:01:20,920 --> 00:01:25,440
Speaker 3: much younger project than goldfish being bred from wild species

22
00:01:25,480 --> 00:01:29,880
Speaker 3: of carp beginning in nineteenth century Japan. We talked about

23
00:01:29,959 --> 00:01:34,320
Speaker 3: claims of extreme longevity in cooyfish and why the evidence

24
00:01:34,400 --> 00:01:37,319
Speaker 3: for some of the most amazing claims is a little thin.

25
00:01:37,920 --> 00:01:41,000
Speaker 3: And then we also got into some carp legends, such

26
00:01:41,040 --> 00:01:45,400
Speaker 3: as stories about carp that transform into dragons, carp human

27
00:01:45,520 --> 00:01:48,960
Speaker 3: hybrid creatures like the ningyo, and carp that can be

28
00:01:49,080 --> 00:01:51,360
Speaker 3: ridden like a horse at least if you are a

29
00:01:51,440 --> 00:01:54,600
Speaker 3: Taoist immortal. And we're back today to talk about more.

30
00:01:55,080 --> 00:01:58,000
Speaker 2: That's right, and I'm pretty excited about this episode because

31
00:01:58,040 --> 00:02:01,080
Speaker 2: we're going to get into to a large extent some

32
00:02:01,120 --> 00:02:03,560
Speaker 2: of the weirder topics in our Goldfish.

33
00:02:03,040 --> 00:02:07,280
Speaker 3: Series, riding the carp and brewing alcohol in their muscles

34
00:02:07,280 --> 00:02:07,680
Speaker 3: and stuff.

35
00:02:07,720 --> 00:02:08,880
Speaker 4: Wasn't that wasn't weird enough for it.

36
00:02:08,880 --> 00:02:10,600
Speaker 2: I mean, that was plenty weird, But I don't know,

37
00:02:10,639 --> 00:02:16,519
Speaker 2: We're getting into stranger scientific territory in these two episodes,

38
00:02:16,720 --> 00:02:19,040
Speaker 2: the sorts of science experience. We teased this out in

39
00:02:19,040 --> 00:02:22,040
Speaker 2: the last episode, you know, mentioning that goldfish in particular

40
00:02:22,680 --> 00:02:25,200
Speaker 2: have been studied quite a lot. We know a lot

41
00:02:25,240 --> 00:02:28,720
Speaker 2: about them, and they have popped up in so many

42
00:02:28,760 --> 00:02:33,639
Speaker 2: different scientific experiments, and I think we were able to

43
00:02:34,760 --> 00:02:37,680
Speaker 2: zero in on a couple of different areas of goldfish

44
00:02:37,720 --> 00:02:40,280
Speaker 2: research that are pretty weird and in some ways maybe

45
00:02:40,320 --> 00:02:42,680
Speaker 2: a little weirder than what we had been previously talking about.

46
00:02:42,840 --> 00:02:45,600
Speaker 3: They pop up in a lot of experiments that are

47
00:02:45,639 --> 00:02:49,000
Speaker 3: not so much about goldfish and not really geared towards

48
00:02:49,000 --> 00:02:52,560
Speaker 3: scientists trying to understand the particulars of goldfish as a species,

49
00:02:52,919 --> 00:02:55,960
Speaker 3: but they are used often as a model organism to

50
00:02:56,000 --> 00:03:01,040
Speaker 3: try to extract generalities about animal capabilities and learning and

51
00:03:01,080 --> 00:03:03,440
Speaker 3: even things like we talked about in the first episode,

52
00:03:03,680 --> 00:03:07,160
Speaker 3: like the effects of alcohol on learning abilities across the

53
00:03:07,200 --> 00:03:07,960
Speaker 3: animal kingdom.

54
00:03:08,360 --> 00:03:11,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, and while they're useful in these roles, in this role,

55
00:03:12,560 --> 00:03:14,960
Speaker 2: it does make it fascinating to then look at all

56
00:03:15,000 --> 00:03:17,160
Speaker 2: these studies and you know, we all have this sort

57
00:03:17,160 --> 00:03:19,520
Speaker 2: of relationship with the goldfish. We think of it as

58
00:03:19,560 --> 00:03:25,200
Speaker 2: being either mundane or dainty and or maybe royal and regal,

59
00:03:25,280 --> 00:03:27,760
Speaker 2: depending on what your view is. And then the idea

60
00:03:27,800 --> 00:03:29,880
Speaker 2: that that is going to be in some sort of

61
00:03:29,880 --> 00:03:33,320
Speaker 2: weird science experiment that makes everything maybe a little more

62
00:03:33,480 --> 00:03:35,840
Speaker 2: ridiculous seeming, which is pretty fun.

63
00:03:35,960 --> 00:03:38,960
Speaker 3: So I've got a weird one for you. One avenue

64
00:03:39,080 --> 00:03:41,400
Speaker 3: of research I've been wanting to talk about in this

65
00:03:41,480 --> 00:03:44,680
Speaker 3: series is a story some of you out there might

66
00:03:44,760 --> 00:03:48,160
Speaker 3: remember from a few years back. It made some like

67
00:03:48,240 --> 00:03:52,480
Speaker 3: weird science news headlines. It was the study where a

68
00:03:52,520 --> 00:03:56,840
Speaker 3: bunch of scientists successfully taught a bunch of goldfish to

69
00:03:56,920 --> 00:04:00,760
Speaker 3: drive a car, not exactly a car. I'll describe the

70
00:04:00,840 --> 00:04:04,040
Speaker 3: vehicle in a second, but the paper was by given

71
00:04:04,240 --> 00:04:06,880
Speaker 3: at all and it was called from Fish out of

72
00:04:06,920 --> 00:04:11,160
Speaker 3: Water to New Insights on Navigation Mechanisms and Animals, published

73
00:04:11,160 --> 00:04:14,360
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty two in the journal Behavioral Brain Research.

74
00:04:15,040 --> 00:04:15,240
Speaker 2: Rob.

75
00:04:15,280 --> 00:04:15,760
Speaker 4: I've got a.

76
00:04:15,800 --> 00:04:17,839
Speaker 3: Picture in the outline that you can look at here

77
00:04:18,040 --> 00:04:20,679
Speaker 3: of this fish operated vehicle.

78
00:04:20,839 --> 00:04:23,800
Speaker 4: It was so called the FOV and.

79
00:04:24,000 --> 00:04:25,919
Speaker 3: I don't know, maybe you can tell me how it

80
00:04:25,960 --> 00:04:28,919
Speaker 3: fits in your car buying style. I guess neither of

81
00:04:28,960 --> 00:04:31,640
Speaker 3: us are really car guys, so you know, we don't

82
00:04:31,720 --> 00:04:34,240
Speaker 3: know like what's cool in a car other than in

83
00:04:34,279 --> 00:04:35,599
Speaker 3: the most superficial sense.

84
00:04:35,640 --> 00:04:39,560
Speaker 2: But it looks inexpensive, which is truly my vehicle.

85
00:04:39,279 --> 00:04:45,159
Speaker 3: Range economy Sedan. So yeah, So this was research conducted

86
00:04:45,200 --> 00:04:50,159
Speaker 3: on goldfish, the species Carassius aratus, like we've been talking about.

87
00:04:50,600 --> 00:04:53,640
Speaker 3: And again the question they're looking at was can a

88
00:04:53,680 --> 00:04:57,200
Speaker 3: goldfish be trained to drive a wheeled vehicle? It was

89
00:04:57,279 --> 00:05:00,719
Speaker 3: not exactly a car, but a tank full of water

90
00:05:01,320 --> 00:05:06,680
Speaker 3: mounted on motorized wheels which the goldfish could control with

91
00:05:06,880 --> 00:05:11,080
Speaker 3: its movements inside the tank. And so the question is

92
00:05:11,120 --> 00:05:14,159
Speaker 3: can a goldfish learn to drive one of these things

93
00:05:14,200 --> 00:05:18,640
Speaker 3: across land? The authors designate a name for this type

94
00:05:18,680 --> 00:05:24,040
Speaker 3: of experiment. They call it a domain transfer methodology quote,

95
00:05:24,160 --> 00:05:28,640
Speaker 3: where one species is embedded in another species environment and

96
00:05:28,760 --> 00:05:32,800
Speaker 3: must cope with an otherwise and otherwise familiar in our case,

97
00:05:32,920 --> 00:05:38,000
Speaker 3: navigation task. So they're trying to transfer skills into an

98
00:05:38,120 --> 00:05:43,520
Speaker 3: unfamiliar domain, taking familiar skills but to an unfamiliar place

99
00:05:43,640 --> 00:05:47,640
Speaker 3: or application. And so the question is can a goldfish

100
00:05:47,720 --> 00:05:53,040
Speaker 3: reapply existing water based navigation skills onto land in this

101
00:05:53,120 --> 00:05:56,400
Speaker 3: wheeled vehicle. Now you might have a lot of questions.

102
00:05:56,640 --> 00:05:59,520
Speaker 3: One is, like goldfish, you know, they don't have hands

103
00:05:59,560 --> 00:06:02,320
Speaker 3: to grip a steering wheel, they don't have feet to

104
00:06:02,400 --> 00:06:06,520
Speaker 3: operate a pedal system, so how would they drive this car? Again,

105
00:06:06,600 --> 00:06:09,960
Speaker 3: this was called the fish operated vehicle or FOV, and

106
00:06:10,160 --> 00:06:12,960
Speaker 3: it uses a combination of a few things. It has

107
00:06:13,320 --> 00:06:17,480
Speaker 3: a camera system and it uses lidar, which is laser

108
00:06:17,520 --> 00:06:21,080
Speaker 3: based range finding technology that sends out pulses of light

109
00:06:21,400 --> 00:06:26,080
Speaker 3: pulses of laser light to measure distance to objects. And

110
00:06:26,360 --> 00:06:28,599
Speaker 3: so it uses the lightar in the camera system to

111
00:06:28,920 --> 00:06:32,839
Speaker 3: paired together with some special software to interpret the information

112
00:06:32,920 --> 00:06:37,240
Speaker 3: from these sensors to detect the movement and body orientation

113
00:06:37,440 --> 00:06:40,960
Speaker 3: of the fish. And the way it works is when

114
00:06:41,000 --> 00:06:44,760
Speaker 3: the fish orients its head toward one of the outer

115
00:06:44,920 --> 00:06:48,800
Speaker 3: walls of the tank and then swims forward, the drive

116
00:06:48,920 --> 00:06:52,560
Speaker 3: system detects this and makes the tank roll in the

117
00:06:52,640 --> 00:06:56,600
Speaker 3: direction the fish is swimming, so it can move around

118
00:06:56,640 --> 00:06:58,560
Speaker 3: in there. But when it points its face to one

119
00:06:58,560 --> 00:07:01,640
Speaker 3: of the outer walls and goes forward forward, the light

120
00:07:01,680 --> 00:07:03,880
Speaker 3: bar in the camera say okay, time to move, and

121
00:07:03,920 --> 00:07:05,799
Speaker 3: it moves the car in that direction.

122
00:07:06,080 --> 00:07:10,000
Speaker 2: So sort of like a technologically advanced version of the

123
00:07:10,040 --> 00:07:12,320
Speaker 2: same principles in a hamster ball.

124
00:07:12,760 --> 00:07:14,640
Speaker 3: Oh kind of yeah, yeah, a little bit like a

125
00:07:14,640 --> 00:07:17,120
Speaker 3: hamster ball, yeah, except it's full of water, of course.

126
00:07:18,560 --> 00:07:23,560
Speaker 3: So the fish operated vehicle, it extends the locomotion activity

127
00:07:23,840 --> 00:07:27,000
Speaker 3: of swimming so that it is no longer just moving

128
00:07:27,080 --> 00:07:30,840
Speaker 3: the fish's body through the water, but moving the body

129
00:07:30,880 --> 00:07:35,320
Speaker 3: of water through outside space. And this twenty twenty two

130
00:07:35,400 --> 00:07:39,040
Speaker 3: study by Giving and co authors tested six goldfish in

131
00:07:39,080 --> 00:07:41,720
Speaker 3: the vehicle to see how well they could learn to

132
00:07:41,840 --> 00:07:44,840
Speaker 3: drive and steer, and they were trained with a form

133
00:07:44,880 --> 00:07:46,640
Speaker 3: of positive reinforcement learning.

134
00:07:46,800 --> 00:07:47,400
Speaker 4: So if the.

135
00:07:47,440 --> 00:07:52,720
Speaker 3: Fish successfully navigated the aquarium car toward a pink target

136
00:07:52,800 --> 00:07:55,200
Speaker 3: on the wall, it was like a pink board mounted

137
00:07:55,240 --> 00:07:56,920
Speaker 3: on the wall that the you know, the fish would

138
00:07:56,960 --> 00:07:59,680
Speaker 3: try to pilot toward and then hit. If it could

139
00:07:59,760 --> 00:08:02,160
Speaker 3: hit the pink board, it would get a food reward.

140
00:08:02,200 --> 00:08:05,480
Speaker 3: It would get one single pellet of fish food. By

141
00:08:05,480 --> 00:08:08,680
Speaker 3: the way, I read in a piece of reporting about

142
00:08:08,680 --> 00:08:10,720
Speaker 3: this study, I think this was in a Guardian article

143
00:08:10,760 --> 00:08:13,920
Speaker 3: that I read that the authors named the fish in

144
00:08:14,240 --> 00:08:17,320
Speaker 3: the experiment after characters from Pride and Prejudice.

145
00:08:17,480 --> 00:08:19,680
Speaker 4: I don't know if there's any significance to that.

146
00:08:20,600 --> 00:08:22,800
Speaker 3: But so the way it worked out is that they

147
00:08:23,040 --> 00:08:26,840
Speaker 3: did these reinforcement learning tasks and at first the movements

148
00:08:26,880 --> 00:08:30,600
Speaker 3: of the fish in the cars were very random, but

149
00:08:30,640 --> 00:08:34,600
Speaker 3: the authors found that after about a dozen thirty minute

150
00:08:34,679 --> 00:08:37,200
Speaker 3: sessions of training over the course of a few days,

151
00:08:37,679 --> 00:08:41,240
Speaker 3: the goldfish could pilot their tanks well enough on average

152
00:08:41,280 --> 00:08:44,480
Speaker 3: to drive into the target more than seventeen times in

153
00:08:44,559 --> 00:08:48,560
Speaker 3: thirty minutes, and this was a huge improvement from the

154
00:08:48,600 --> 00:08:51,240
Speaker 3: first sessions where they managed to hit the target an

155
00:08:51,240 --> 00:08:53,880
Speaker 3: average of only two or three times in thirty minutes.

156
00:08:55,040 --> 00:08:59,440
Speaker 3: And the fish they showed adaptability when the authors tried

157
00:08:59,480 --> 00:09:02,800
Speaker 3: to introduce new problems for them, so they could chase

158
00:09:02,840 --> 00:09:05,719
Speaker 3: the pink target around to different locations in the car

159
00:09:05,760 --> 00:09:08,400
Speaker 3: if it was moved. You know, initially it's on this wall.

160
00:09:08,480 --> 00:09:09,920
Speaker 4: They learned to get to that wall.

161
00:09:10,280 --> 00:09:14,160
Speaker 3: Then the researchers moved the pink target to the opposite wall.

162
00:09:14,240 --> 00:09:15,800
Speaker 3: Can the fish figure out how to get there?

163
00:09:15,880 --> 00:09:16,160
Speaker 4: Also?

164
00:09:16,520 --> 00:09:19,679
Speaker 3: Yes, they could. They got to the new target. They

165
00:09:19,800 --> 00:09:22,839
Speaker 3: also learned how to navigate to the target even if

166
00:09:22,840 --> 00:09:25,720
Speaker 3: there were walls or obstacles in the way, how to

167
00:09:25,760 --> 00:09:30,360
Speaker 3: go around things or distraction objects mounted nearby, like other

168
00:09:30,559 --> 00:09:33,480
Speaker 3: colored boards put up on different parts of the wall.

169
00:09:34,160 --> 00:09:34,400
Speaker 2: Wow.

170
00:09:35,720 --> 00:09:38,520
Speaker 3: So the authors found that as training went on, the

171
00:09:38,559 --> 00:09:43,160
Speaker 3: fish also took less meandering more direct pathways to the

172
00:09:43,200 --> 00:09:45,840
Speaker 3: target to get their food. So I'm imagining they're sort

173
00:09:45,840 --> 00:09:49,920
Speaker 3: of turning the fish into terminators. They're becoming laser focused

174
00:09:49,960 --> 00:09:53,200
Speaker 3: on getting that food reward and operating this piece of

175
00:09:53,440 --> 00:09:57,240
Speaker 3: you know, they're essentially there. It's a marine version of

176
00:09:57,280 --> 00:10:00,720
Speaker 3: a mech as we were just discussing. Yeah, they're piloting

177
00:10:00,760 --> 00:10:03,120
Speaker 3: their max to the pink board to get the pellet.

178
00:10:03,720 --> 00:10:06,920
Speaker 3: A couple of the fish adapted to the training especially well.

179
00:10:07,320 --> 00:10:07,560
Speaker 4: Again.

180
00:10:07,600 --> 00:10:10,840
Speaker 3: I was reading one write up of this research in

181
00:10:10,880 --> 00:10:14,000
Speaker 3: The Guardian. This was by Natalie Parletta and the article

182
00:10:14,120 --> 00:10:16,880
Speaker 3: quotes one of the studies authors mentioning that the fish

183
00:10:17,000 --> 00:10:20,400
Speaker 3: named mister Darcy and the one named mister Bingley I

184
00:10:20,400 --> 00:10:22,760
Speaker 3: think these are two of the main suitors in pride

185
00:10:22,760 --> 00:10:27,160
Speaker 3: and prejudice. They were especially quick to pick up driving skills.

186
00:10:27,559 --> 00:10:28,000
Speaker 2: Amazing.

187
00:10:29,040 --> 00:10:31,080
Speaker 3: The purpose of the study had to do with the

188
00:10:31,160 --> 00:10:38,280
Speaker 3: question are animals navigation abilities fundamentally tied to the environments

189
00:10:38,320 --> 00:10:42,400
Speaker 3: that they evolved to live in, or can animals apply

190
00:10:43,040 --> 00:10:50,640
Speaker 3: spatial concepts like distance, movement, orientation and proximity to a

191
00:10:50,679 --> 00:10:53,800
Speaker 3: type of space or medium that is totally alien to

192
00:10:53,840 --> 00:10:56,880
Speaker 3: their natural habitat. We know that humans can do this

193
00:10:56,920 --> 00:11:01,040
Speaker 3: with training, of course, like we can pilot airplane and submarines.

194
00:11:01,520 --> 00:11:05,760
Speaker 3: But is this only because there's something special about our brains,

195
00:11:05,840 --> 00:11:09,560
Speaker 3: like our intelligence and our cognitive flexibility is so high

196
00:11:09,920 --> 00:11:15,400
Speaker 3: that we can adapt our movement capabilities to these strange scenarios,

197
00:11:15,760 --> 00:11:18,880
Speaker 3: or is this something more general that animal brains can do.

198
00:11:19,480 --> 00:11:22,280
Speaker 3: So the interesting thing here is that it shows even

199
00:11:22,320 --> 00:11:26,439
Speaker 3: some animals we think of as pretty cognitively limited, like goldfish,

200
00:11:26,920 --> 00:11:30,160
Speaker 3: can adapt their navigation skills to a setting they have

201
00:11:30,320 --> 00:11:34,440
Speaker 3: absolutely no ancestral experience with. There is no situation in

202
00:11:34,559 --> 00:11:38,880
Speaker 3: nature where a goldfish needs to pilot a car across land.

203
00:11:39,360 --> 00:11:42,080
Speaker 3: There's no situation that I can think of in nature

204
00:11:42,440 --> 00:11:47,280
Speaker 3: where a goldfish would able to be even able to

205
00:11:47,360 --> 00:11:51,000
Speaker 3: understand the idea of not moving itself through water, but

206
00:11:51,200 --> 00:11:54,080
Speaker 3: moving the body of water that it's in through an

207
00:11:54,160 --> 00:11:59,559
Speaker 3: outer spatial container. But if given the opportunity to learn,

208
00:11:59,679 --> 00:12:03,320
Speaker 3: they can learn, and the findings can be interpreted in

209
00:12:03,480 --> 00:12:07,000
Speaker 3: a universal way or in a specific way. So the

210
00:12:07,200 --> 00:12:11,360
Speaker 3: universal implication is that in animals, it may just be

211
00:12:11,520 --> 00:12:16,920
Speaker 3: that across many or most species, navigational skills are generalizable

212
00:12:17,040 --> 00:12:20,320
Speaker 3: to any type of movement through space, and they don't

213
00:12:20,360 --> 00:12:25,120
Speaker 3: depend on specific adaptations or instincts related to the medium,

214
00:12:25,280 --> 00:12:28,480
Speaker 3: or the environment or the method of locomotion. So it's

215
00:12:28,480 --> 00:12:32,760
Speaker 3: not just that a fish's brain sees something it wants

216
00:12:32,760 --> 00:12:36,120
Speaker 3: and that sort of goes directly to like swimming movements

217
00:12:36,120 --> 00:12:39,760
Speaker 3: in the body, that it's able to learn new ways

218
00:12:39,920 --> 00:12:43,319
Speaker 3: to use its body to come closer to objects that

219
00:12:43,400 --> 00:12:48,520
Speaker 3: it needs. And then so that's a possibility. The more

220
00:12:48,640 --> 00:12:52,400
Speaker 3: specific possible interpretation is that maybe just goldfish are much

221
00:12:52,440 --> 00:12:55,079
Speaker 3: smarter and better at learning than you might guess. Of

222
00:12:55,120 --> 00:12:58,600
Speaker 3: course both could be true, could be generally true about animals,

223
00:12:58,600 --> 00:13:01,840
Speaker 3: but also that you know, goldfish are smarter than we

224
00:13:01,880 --> 00:13:04,559
Speaker 3: give them credit for. And in fact, this comes up

225
00:13:04,640 --> 00:13:06,680
Speaker 3: in one of the things I was reading. The authors

226
00:13:06,720 --> 00:13:10,199
Speaker 3: say they hope it disproves the myth that the goldfish

227
00:13:10,240 --> 00:13:12,960
Speaker 3: has a three second memory. You've heard this before or

228
00:13:13,400 --> 00:13:16,560
Speaker 3: just the common cliche or insult you have the memory

229
00:13:16,600 --> 00:13:20,320
Speaker 3: of a goldfish. Goldfish probably don't have as rich and

230
00:13:20,360 --> 00:13:23,440
Speaker 3: detailed a capacity for memory as we do, but clearly

231
00:13:23,480 --> 00:13:25,760
Speaker 3: their memory is a lot better than they are often

232
00:13:25,760 --> 00:13:26,480
Speaker 3: given credit for.

233
00:13:27,240 --> 00:13:30,559
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean we part of it is the domesticated

234
00:13:30,600 --> 00:13:36,160
Speaker 2: and you know, unnaturally selected, artificially selected form that they're in.

235
00:13:36,240 --> 00:13:40,160
Speaker 2: Now like it's we can easily forget that. Still, this

236
00:13:40,280 --> 00:13:44,480
Speaker 2: is a creature with wild origins that evolved like all

237
00:13:44,480 --> 00:13:48,439
Speaker 2: the other carp to thrive in you know, a dangerous

238
00:13:48,480 --> 00:13:52,120
Speaker 2: world with the tools that they need to thrive in

239
00:13:52,160 --> 00:13:56,600
Speaker 2: that world, and those tools, you know, via domestication. Sometimes

240
00:13:56,600 --> 00:14:00,080
Speaker 2: those tools can be blunted a little bit, sure, but

241
00:14:00,800 --> 00:14:03,880
Speaker 2: they're also still there. There's still the survival instinct. These

242
00:14:03,920 --> 00:14:07,280
Speaker 2: are still organisms that can fit for themselves. And we

243
00:14:07,320 --> 00:14:09,319
Speaker 2: didn't really get into this too much, but they can

244
00:14:09,320 --> 00:14:11,920
Speaker 2: also do quite well, a little too well in the wild.

245
00:14:12,000 --> 00:14:14,400
Speaker 2: If they're reintroduced somewhere they shouldn't.

246
00:14:14,040 --> 00:14:17,320
Speaker 3: Be right as an introduced species, they can kind of

247
00:14:17,320 --> 00:14:22,200
Speaker 3: take over sometimes, so Carper Hardy Carper Tough, one of

248
00:14:22,240 --> 00:14:25,520
Speaker 3: the authors, shash A Given, was quoted in that article

249
00:14:25,520 --> 00:14:29,480
Speaker 3: in The Guardian saying, quote, since on the evolutionary scale,

250
00:14:29,520 --> 00:14:33,640
Speaker 3: our commonness ancestor is very very far back, finding that

251
00:14:33,800 --> 00:14:38,280
Speaker 3: fish share navigational skills similar to our own really speaks

252
00:14:38,320 --> 00:14:42,160
Speaker 3: volumes to the importance of these skills in the animal kingdom,

253
00:14:42,680 --> 00:14:45,720
Speaker 3: and I think that's a good point. It is a

254
00:14:46,080 --> 00:14:51,360
Speaker 3: characteristic feature of the animal kingdom movement. It's sort of

255
00:14:51,600 --> 00:14:54,600
Speaker 3: one of the main things that makes animals different from

256
00:14:54,720 --> 00:14:58,600
Speaker 3: plants or fungi. Now, of course, not all animals move

257
00:14:58,680 --> 00:15:01,280
Speaker 3: around in all stages of their life. You can think

258
00:15:01,320 --> 00:15:05,200
Speaker 3: of animals that are mostly sort of sessile or attached

259
00:15:05,240 --> 00:15:09,400
Speaker 3: to something, But most animals do, at least in some

260
00:15:09,680 --> 00:15:13,000
Speaker 3: stage of their life, move around and navigate through their environment.

261
00:15:13,360 --> 00:15:16,320
Speaker 3: And it is Yeah, it's a key characteristic of the

262
00:15:16,400 --> 00:15:21,880
Speaker 3: animal kingdom. And for movement to be useful, we need navigation.

263
00:15:22,080 --> 00:15:25,440
Speaker 3: Your body is what allows you to move, but navigational

264
00:15:25,480 --> 00:15:28,920
Speaker 3: skills determine where it should move, what type of movement

265
00:15:29,040 --> 00:15:33,080
Speaker 3: is beneficial to it. It does make me wonder, really,

266
00:15:33,280 --> 00:15:37,280
Speaker 3: like what the ultimate limits of this universality are. Could

267
00:15:37,520 --> 00:15:40,520
Speaker 3: starfish be trained to drive cars around? Or you know,

268
00:15:40,560 --> 00:15:45,480
Speaker 3: can we have rats piloting submarines? How truly universal across

269
00:15:45,480 --> 00:15:48,920
Speaker 3: the animal kingdom is the ability to adapt and learn

270
00:15:49,720 --> 00:15:54,720
Speaker 3: new associations between movements of the body and navigation or

271
00:15:54,760 --> 00:15:57,000
Speaker 3: movement through space to get things you want.

272
00:15:57,720 --> 00:16:07,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's fascinating.

273
00:16:10,280 --> 00:16:14,160
Speaker 3: I wanted to mention another studies. There was another paper

274
00:16:14,520 --> 00:16:17,240
Speaker 3: on this subject published just last year, sharing some of

275
00:16:17,280 --> 00:16:20,520
Speaker 3: the same authors as the previous paper. It was called

276
00:16:20,800 --> 00:16:25,640
Speaker 3: Whole body motor adaptation in Goldfish using fish operated vehicle.

277
00:16:26,360 --> 00:16:27,320
Speaker 4: This was by.

278
00:16:27,600 --> 00:16:32,000
Speaker 3: Jojenlu at All in the European Journal of Neuroscience twenty

279
00:16:32,080 --> 00:16:38,000
Speaker 3: twenty five. And so this one extended the idea once again.

280
00:16:38,040 --> 00:16:42,080
Speaker 3: They had goldfish who were trained to use fish operated vehicles,

281
00:16:42,120 --> 00:16:45,400
Speaker 3: just like in the last experiment, but they introduced new variables.

282
00:16:45,480 --> 00:16:48,520
Speaker 3: One was what if the steering in the vehicle is

283
00:16:48,560 --> 00:16:52,800
Speaker 3: screwed up? How does the fish adapt to that? And

284
00:16:52,880 --> 00:16:57,840
Speaker 3: then also they were looking into the learning capabilities of

285
00:16:57,840 --> 00:17:01,000
Speaker 3: fish and the persistence of previously learned lessons.

286
00:17:01,320 --> 00:17:01,960
Speaker 4: So I'm going to.

287
00:17:01,920 --> 00:17:05,919
Speaker 3: Read a selection from this paper that addresses the key questions,

288
00:17:06,320 --> 00:17:09,439
Speaker 3: and then I'll comment some as i go. So the

289
00:17:09,480 --> 00:17:13,639
Speaker 3: author's right quote. Our study aims to address the following questions.

290
00:17:14,119 --> 00:17:18,560
Speaker 3: Can goldfish learn from error while operating the vehicle with

291
00:17:18,800 --> 00:17:24,640
Speaker 3: constant perturbation? So this perturbation was essentially a steering malfunction

292
00:17:24,840 --> 00:17:28,680
Speaker 3: where the movement would always be tilted forty five degrees

293
00:17:28,720 --> 00:17:33,960
Speaker 3: to the right of the fish's intended movement of the fishes, well,

294
00:17:34,040 --> 00:17:36,919
Speaker 3: not necessarily intended because eventually it would adjust, but of

295
00:17:36,960 --> 00:17:40,480
Speaker 3: the fish's initial training. So first it's going to be,

296
00:17:41,000 --> 00:17:43,359
Speaker 3: you know, the thing goes straight in the direction that

297
00:17:43,400 --> 00:17:46,040
Speaker 3: the fish is pointing its face when it's swimming towards

298
00:17:46,040 --> 00:17:49,800
Speaker 3: an outer wall. They say, okay, you initially train them

299
00:17:49,840 --> 00:17:52,400
Speaker 3: like that, and then you introduce a malfunction where it's

300
00:17:52,440 --> 00:17:55,439
Speaker 3: always pulling to the right forty five degrees from wherever

301
00:17:55,440 --> 00:17:56,200
Speaker 3: the fish is going.

302
00:17:56,400 --> 00:17:58,760
Speaker 2: Video gamers are used to this sort of thing because like,

303
00:17:58,960 --> 00:18:02,200
Speaker 2: you'll have something that'll cause your controls to go screwy,

304
00:18:02,320 --> 00:18:05,439
Speaker 2: say in a Bomberman game or Mortal Kombat game, and

305
00:18:05,440 --> 00:18:07,720
Speaker 2: then it's like, oh, up is down now and down

306
00:18:07,800 --> 00:18:10,439
Speaker 2: is up? And can you adapt while this spell is

307
00:18:10,720 --> 00:18:11,359
Speaker 2: taking place?

308
00:18:11,480 --> 00:18:11,760
Speaker 4: Sure?

309
00:18:11,920 --> 00:18:14,280
Speaker 3: Or you know, just drivers of cars, like a lot

310
00:18:14,280 --> 00:18:16,560
Speaker 3: of times a car that has misaligned.

311
00:18:16,000 --> 00:18:17,160
Speaker 4: Wheels will pull.

312
00:18:17,240 --> 00:18:18,960
Speaker 3: It will pull in one direction and you have to

313
00:18:19,000 --> 00:18:21,919
Speaker 3: correct for that. People learn to adapt pretty quick, but

314
00:18:21,960 --> 00:18:23,879
Speaker 3: you have to correct your steering. You know, if you

315
00:18:24,000 --> 00:18:26,240
Speaker 3: just let it go straight, it's gonna pull and run

316
00:18:26,240 --> 00:18:29,960
Speaker 3: off the road, So you have to keep correcting. So

317
00:18:30,400 --> 00:18:34,800
Speaker 3: the researchers were asking, can fish learn to overcome a

318
00:18:34,880 --> 00:18:38,199
Speaker 3: problem like this when they are driving the car? So

319
00:18:38,240 --> 00:18:40,960
Speaker 3: then the quote continues to the second question they addressed,

320
00:18:41,400 --> 00:18:45,320
Speaker 3: would fish in the fish operated vehicle show an after

321
00:18:45,480 --> 00:18:49,560
Speaker 3: effect in a wash out session? In other words, would

322
00:18:49,600 --> 00:18:52,880
Speaker 3: the fish continue to try to correct for the steering

323
00:18:52,960 --> 00:18:58,080
Speaker 3: problem after the problem was removed, and the term wash

324
00:18:58,119 --> 00:19:01,200
Speaker 3: out that they use there refers to, in the author's words,

325
00:19:01,280 --> 00:19:05,920
Speaker 3: quote the gradual decay or elimination of motor adaptation when

326
00:19:06,000 --> 00:19:07,760
Speaker 3: the perturbation is removed.

327
00:19:07,920 --> 00:19:08,080
Speaker 4: Right.

328
00:19:08,160 --> 00:19:10,080
Speaker 3: So the idea is you get them to learn to

329
00:19:10,160 --> 00:19:13,880
Speaker 3: correct for the steering that's off kilter, then you set

330
00:19:13,920 --> 00:19:17,040
Speaker 3: the steering back to normal. How long do they keep

331
00:19:17,119 --> 00:19:20,720
Speaker 3: trying to compensate for the error that is no longer there?

332
00:19:21,440 --> 00:19:24,480
Speaker 3: So they do that initially, and then they adapt once

333
00:19:24,520 --> 00:19:28,560
Speaker 3: again to the steering being correct. That's this decay period,

334
00:19:28,560 --> 00:19:30,840
Speaker 3: the washout time. How long does it take to wash

335
00:19:30,880 --> 00:19:34,360
Speaker 3: out the effects of the compensation from the steering problem.

336
00:19:34,960 --> 00:19:37,320
Speaker 3: And then on to the next question, they ask, quote

337
00:19:37,520 --> 00:19:43,439
Speaker 3: would fish relearn faster after the first adaptation? So you

338
00:19:43,520 --> 00:19:45,720
Speaker 3: take away the pulling to the right problem, let the

339
00:19:45,720 --> 00:19:48,680
Speaker 3: steering go back to normal. Then introduce the same steering

340
00:19:48,720 --> 00:19:51,240
Speaker 3: problem again, have it start pulling to the right. Well,

341
00:19:51,280 --> 00:19:54,399
Speaker 3: the fish adapt to it more quickly the second time,

342
00:19:54,600 --> 00:19:56,920
Speaker 3: like I've had this problem before.

343
00:19:56,680 --> 00:19:58,240
Speaker 4: I know how to compensate now.

344
00:19:59,000 --> 00:20:02,520
Speaker 3: And then the final question, quote can we observe persistent

345
00:20:02,560 --> 00:20:07,200
Speaker 3: effects on fish swimming after the first adaptation? And they say,

346
00:20:07,400 --> 00:20:11,480
Speaker 3: as we show, the answers to these questions are yes, yes, no,

347
00:20:11,920 --> 00:20:16,879
Speaker 3: and yes, essentially establishing that goldfish adapt to perturbations in

348
00:20:17,040 --> 00:20:21,120
Speaker 3: fish operated vehicle control, but raising the possibility that they

349
00:20:21,160 --> 00:20:25,119
Speaker 3: do so with mechanisms that are different from classical adaptation

350
00:20:25,359 --> 00:20:29,160
Speaker 3: in mammals. So that's interesting about the one answer that's

351
00:20:29,320 --> 00:20:33,040
Speaker 3: no there, the fish did learn how to compensate, so

352
00:20:33,160 --> 00:20:35,080
Speaker 3: once again, of course, they did learn how to use

353
00:20:35,119 --> 00:20:38,560
Speaker 3: the fish operated vehicle. The training worked, They did learn

354
00:20:38,600 --> 00:20:41,600
Speaker 3: how to compensate for steering problems. They could drive it

355
00:20:41,680 --> 00:20:45,400
Speaker 3: even when the steering was off kilter after some training

356
00:20:45,440 --> 00:20:49,520
Speaker 3: they could. But unlike in most mammals that have been

357
00:20:49,560 --> 00:20:52,480
Speaker 3: tested with this sort of thing, the fish did not

358
00:20:52,840 --> 00:20:58,320
Speaker 3: initially relearn how to compensate for the steering problem significantly

359
00:20:58,720 --> 00:21:03,040
Speaker 3: faster the second time they encountered it. Though their overall

360
00:21:03,040 --> 00:21:06,040
Speaker 3: performance in the perturbation task was better the second time,

361
00:21:06,080 --> 00:21:08,800
Speaker 3: it's just that they didn't improve on it any faster

362
00:21:08,960 --> 00:21:11,639
Speaker 3: than they did the first time. So maybe it just

363
00:21:11,680 --> 00:21:15,040
Speaker 3: could be that their initial performance on it the second

364
00:21:15,080 --> 00:21:18,040
Speaker 3: time is a little bit better. But that's kind of interesting.

365
00:21:18,080 --> 00:21:21,840
Speaker 3: So they do show this adaptability, but they don't show

366
00:21:22,400 --> 00:21:26,400
Speaker 3: exactly the same kind of patterns of learning and adaptation

367
00:21:26,680 --> 00:21:30,960
Speaker 3: to motor problems that mammals usually do. There's something a

368
00:21:31,000 --> 00:21:33,320
Speaker 3: little that they can learn, but there's something a little

369
00:21:33,320 --> 00:21:36,000
Speaker 3: bit different going on with fish.

370
00:21:36,560 --> 00:21:41,119
Speaker 2: Fascinating. So tell me this. These driverless cars that I

371
00:21:41,119 --> 00:21:44,640
Speaker 2: see around town, are they actually being driven by goldfish?

372
00:21:44,640 --> 00:21:45,000
Speaker 2: Do you think?

373
00:21:45,240 --> 00:21:46,560
Speaker 4: Really good question? Yes.

374
00:21:46,640 --> 00:21:49,760
Speaker 3: Do they have goldfish somewhere out there in like a

375
00:21:49,800 --> 00:21:53,280
Speaker 3: remote operation base or piloting these things?

376
00:21:53,359 --> 00:21:56,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, a technician has to come out. They're just they

377
00:21:56,359 --> 00:21:58,520
Speaker 2: come out with a little bag with a fresh goldfish

378
00:21:58,560 --> 00:22:00,720
Speaker 2: in it, and they switch it out with the tired

379
00:22:00,720 --> 00:22:02,960
Speaker 2: goldfish that has to be taken off duty.

380
00:22:03,400 --> 00:22:07,240
Speaker 3: Yeah, or you know you can see like when they stop,

381
00:22:07,280 --> 00:22:09,360
Speaker 3: they've got to refill with gas, but they've also got

382
00:22:09,400 --> 00:22:12,480
Speaker 3: to get more food pellets, so it keeps the fish going.

383
00:22:14,520 --> 00:22:17,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, well that's this is amazing. Just the idea of

384
00:22:17,600 --> 00:22:22,399
Speaker 2: a goldfish navigating essentially like what a land submarine, moving

385
00:22:22,440 --> 00:22:27,679
Speaker 2: around our environments and achieving goals pretty amazing. Even if

386
00:22:27,760 --> 00:22:30,040
Speaker 2: they even if they do have this, you know, they're

387
00:22:30,080 --> 00:22:32,800
Speaker 2: not as great about resolving the problem the second time.

388
00:22:32,880 --> 00:22:34,000
Speaker 2: I'm still very impressed.

389
00:22:34,760 --> 00:22:37,800
Speaker 3: My brain was going a strange place with this, which

390
00:22:37,880 --> 00:22:40,879
Speaker 3: was like, I wonder what this says about you know,

391
00:22:41,240 --> 00:22:45,320
Speaker 3: truly alien scenarios, really alien scenarios, and say the human

392
00:22:45,359 --> 00:22:51,240
Speaker 3: beings ability to adapt to like higher dimensional spaces, like

393
00:22:51,320 --> 00:22:55,240
Speaker 3: navigating kind of geometries that don't make any sense to us. Now,

394
00:22:55,560 --> 00:22:58,000
Speaker 3: I don't know if it actually has any relevance to that,

395
00:22:59,119 --> 00:23:04,560
Speaker 3: because of course there's something that the fish's environment of

396
00:23:04,600 --> 00:23:09,160
Speaker 3: the water and the air environment that the fish operated

397
00:23:09,240 --> 00:23:12,119
Speaker 3: vehicle is driving around through. There's something those have in common,

398
00:23:12,480 --> 00:23:14,800
Speaker 3: which is at least there are you know, like straight

399
00:23:14,880 --> 00:23:18,320
Speaker 3: lines that you can follow to get to something. You know,

400
00:23:18,400 --> 00:23:22,439
Speaker 3: basic geometry and movement through through the three D space

401
00:23:22,720 --> 00:23:25,720
Speaker 3: is preserved in a way that's familiar to us. So

402
00:23:25,800 --> 00:23:28,720
Speaker 3: I don't know how far the ability to adapt to

403
00:23:28,880 --> 00:23:31,720
Speaker 3: new types of space and movement go.

404
00:23:32,000 --> 00:23:33,359
Speaker 4: But but I don't know.

405
00:23:34,119 --> 00:23:36,200
Speaker 3: Maybe maybe the limits are even further out than we

406
00:23:36,240 --> 00:23:39,879
Speaker 3: would think. Maybe maybe animals could with some training, adapt

407
00:23:40,000 --> 00:23:44,080
Speaker 3: to you know, moving through hyper spheres and stuff like that.

408
00:23:44,720 --> 00:23:47,920
Speaker 2: Wow, well, I think this is a great jumping off

409
00:23:47,960 --> 00:23:54,000
Speaker 2: point to talk about the final frontier for goldfish. Goldfish

410
00:23:54,080 --> 00:23:56,760
Speaker 2: in outer space. You may be already wondering about this.

411
00:23:56,920 --> 00:24:01,439
Speaker 2: We're already talking about them driving cars. You might well question,

412
00:24:01,640 --> 00:24:05,200
Speaker 2: do goldfish have the right stuff, and are we fully

413
00:24:05,200 --> 00:24:08,560
Speaker 2: prepared for the reality of goldfish in outer space? Real

414
00:24:08,600 --> 00:24:10,960
Speaker 2: goldfish in outer space not. I was doing some image

415
00:24:10,960 --> 00:24:15,040
Speaker 2: searches related to something later on in this section, and

416
00:24:15,119 --> 00:24:18,639
Speaker 2: I kept finding images of the goldfish snack item, the

417
00:24:18,920 --> 00:24:22,040
Speaker 2: children's favorite little cheddary goldfish. They have some sort of

418
00:24:22,160 --> 00:24:25,120
Speaker 2: space variety, and I think I've been counted them before,

419
00:24:25,400 --> 00:24:27,199
Speaker 2: but I can't imagine what they I think they just

420
00:24:27,240 --> 00:24:30,560
Speaker 2: taste like normal cheddary goldfish.

421
00:24:30,800 --> 00:24:33,520
Speaker 3: Yeah, it seems like, you know, the Mickey mouse shaped ones.

422
00:24:33,560 --> 00:24:35,800
Speaker 3: I don't I can't tell those stay standia front, but.

423
00:24:36,320 --> 00:24:40,399
Speaker 2: Kids love them. Yeah, all right, So yeah, goldfish in

424
00:24:40,440 --> 00:24:43,240
Speaker 2: outer space. We're going to get into this, and it's

425
00:24:43,320 --> 00:24:46,679
Speaker 2: actually going to connect quite nicely with some of the

426
00:24:46,680 --> 00:24:49,119
Speaker 2: things we were talking about in our episodes on the

427
00:24:49,200 --> 00:24:55,160
Speaker 2: Upside Down about particularly about organisms in a low gravity, microgravity,

428
00:24:55,280 --> 00:24:58,560
Speaker 2: zero gravity environment. So I'm gonna refer to some of

429
00:24:58,560 --> 00:25:02,119
Speaker 2: those terms. So if you skipped those episodes entirely, wouldn't

430
00:25:02,119 --> 00:25:03,720
Speaker 2: be a bad idea to go back and check those

431
00:25:03,720 --> 00:25:05,800
Speaker 2: out before we get into the rest of this episode.

432
00:25:05,840 --> 00:25:08,359
Speaker 2: But I don't know. We'll get you up to speed

433
00:25:08,400 --> 00:25:10,760
Speaker 2: one way or another. Okay, and we're also going to

434
00:25:10,760 --> 00:25:13,520
Speaker 2: talk about cyborgs, which is the topic we've touched on

435
00:25:13,520 --> 00:25:15,840
Speaker 2: on the show in the past and recently came up

436
00:25:15,880 --> 00:25:17,560
Speaker 2: on an episode of Weird House Cinema.

437
00:25:18,040 --> 00:25:20,920
Speaker 3: Oh, were there some cyborgs and Nemesis? Did that movie

438
00:25:20,960 --> 00:25:22,080
Speaker 3: concern cyborgs?

439
00:25:22,280 --> 00:25:25,199
Speaker 2: Well, Network, Yes, Nemesis definitely had cyborgs. But then the

440
00:25:25,200 --> 00:25:28,800
Speaker 2: most recent Mega Godzilla is a cyborg, at least in

441
00:25:28,840 --> 00:25:31,119
Speaker 2: the same way that the T eight hundred is a cyborg.

442
00:25:31,920 --> 00:25:36,240
Speaker 2: I don't know that Mega Godzilla has any organic interior parts,

443
00:25:36,320 --> 00:25:40,240
Speaker 2: but it at least had perhaps a living organic exterior

444
00:25:40,480 --> 00:25:41,080
Speaker 2: like the terminate.

445
00:25:41,440 --> 00:25:45,239
Speaker 3: Yeah, hair, sweat, bad breath, everything.

446
00:25:47,119 --> 00:25:51,159
Speaker 2: All right, Well, we'll back up here. Obviously, humans have

447
00:25:51,280 --> 00:25:56,480
Speaker 2: sent or taken various animal species into orbit before, including fish,

448
00:25:57,080 --> 00:26:00,680
Speaker 2: and as discussed in David Samuel Johnson's The First Fish

449
00:26:00,680 --> 00:26:05,240
Speaker 2: in Orbit Scientific American twenty sixteen, NASA scientists in the

450
00:26:05,320 --> 00:26:08,600
Speaker 2: nineteen seventies were eager to see how fish would adapt

451
00:26:08,600 --> 00:26:12,320
Speaker 2: to a low gravity orbital environment, given that they, of

452
00:26:12,359 --> 00:26:18,119
Speaker 2: course thrive in the three dimensional environment of water. Goldfish

453
00:26:18,280 --> 00:26:21,800
Speaker 2: were apparently considered for this role, as again they're hardy fish.

454
00:26:21,800 --> 00:26:24,120
Speaker 2: We keep talking about how tough they are, but apparently

455
00:26:24,160 --> 00:26:27,440
Speaker 2: they were not quite cardy enough. They were not tough

456
00:26:27,560 --> 00:26:30,800
Speaker 2: enough for NASA back in the seventies. They ended up

457
00:26:30,840 --> 00:26:35,159
Speaker 2: going with a different fish altogether, a type of minno

458
00:26:35,240 --> 00:26:39,439
Speaker 2: called the mumachog, also known as the chillifish. This is

459
00:26:39,880 --> 00:26:46,480
Speaker 2: Fundleus heteroclitis fundalist that if it sounds like Bay of Fundi,

460
00:26:46,560 --> 00:26:49,119
Speaker 2: that's because that's one of the places where you'll find

461
00:26:49,320 --> 00:26:54,440
Speaker 2: this particular species. Apparently kind of an obscure fish because

462
00:26:54,520 --> 00:26:57,760
Speaker 2: humans don't favor it as food or bait, but it

463
00:26:57,880 --> 00:27:01,359
Speaker 2: was deemed tough enough for space. Two juvenile fish and

464
00:27:01,440 --> 00:27:05,440
Speaker 2: fifty eggs travel aboard the nineteen seventy three Skylab three

465
00:27:05,520 --> 00:27:09,680
Speaker 2: mission to the US's first space station. Again, these were

466
00:27:09,680 --> 00:27:15,280
Speaker 2: not goldfish, but the fish in this experiment did play

467
00:27:15,320 --> 00:27:18,120
Speaker 2: an important role, and it all ties back into something

468
00:27:18,160 --> 00:27:21,879
Speaker 2: we were talking about in our Upside Down episodes. So

469
00:27:22,000 --> 00:27:24,840
Speaker 2: this is how the experiment with these minnows went down,

470
00:27:24,880 --> 00:27:27,240
Speaker 2: and don't worry, this will come back. Well, we'll come

471
00:27:27,280 --> 00:27:32,160
Speaker 2: back around to goldfish. So basically, at first, the two

472
00:27:32,240 --> 00:27:37,080
Speaker 2: fish just swam in elongated loops. Johnson describes it quote

473
00:27:37,119 --> 00:27:39,639
Speaker 2: as though they were the spinning hands of a Salvador

474
00:27:39,680 --> 00:27:40,919
Speaker 2: Dolly created clock.

475
00:27:41,359 --> 00:27:42,159
Speaker 4: That's expressive.

476
00:27:43,680 --> 00:27:46,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's good, right, and was apparently due to the

477
00:27:46,320 --> 00:27:50,240
Speaker 2: disruption of the fish's understanding of up and down, specifically

478
00:27:50,600 --> 00:27:54,840
Speaker 2: disrupting the vestibular writing response in the inner ear.

479
00:27:55,640 --> 00:27:58,960
Speaker 3: Okay, so even though fish don't stand on the ground,

480
00:27:59,119 --> 00:28:03,360
Speaker 3: they do depend somewhat on a gravitational directional sense.

481
00:28:03,400 --> 00:28:07,040
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, and lining up with what we discussed previously

482
00:28:07,080 --> 00:28:10,399
Speaker 2: on the upside Down episodes. On the third day, the

483
00:28:10,440 --> 00:28:14,240
Speaker 2: fish ended up assuming normal swimming patterns, or at least

484
00:28:14,280 --> 00:28:16,680
Speaker 2: you know, they were deemed to be normal in this experiment,

485
00:28:17,000 --> 00:28:20,720
Speaker 2: keeping their back to the main interior lights aboard the

486
00:28:20,720 --> 00:28:25,040
Speaker 2: space station. So without a functional vestibular writing response, they

487
00:28:25,080 --> 00:28:30,720
Speaker 2: adapted to a light source to visual stimuli, with the

488
00:28:30,800 --> 00:28:34,320
Speaker 2: light apparently sort of standing in for the sun, because

489
00:28:34,480 --> 00:28:37,760
Speaker 2: what direction would light come from in the natural watery environment.

490
00:28:37,800 --> 00:28:40,640
Speaker 2: It would come from above, and so they adapted and

491
00:28:40,680 --> 00:28:44,000
Speaker 2: they were like, Okay, I can't feel which way is

492
00:28:44,080 --> 00:28:46,680
Speaker 2: up and down anymore, but I can see the primary

493
00:28:46,760 --> 00:28:49,320
Speaker 2: light source in my universe. It must be the sun

494
00:28:49,520 --> 00:28:50,040
Speaker 2: that's up.

495
00:28:50,240 --> 00:28:50,440
Speaker 4: Oh.

496
00:28:50,560 --> 00:28:52,400
Speaker 3: So this reminds me of what we talked about in

497
00:28:52,400 --> 00:28:55,200
Speaker 3: those Upside Down episodes where when you are deprived of

498
00:28:55,240 --> 00:28:59,960
Speaker 3: your vestibular cues about up and down, the body try

499
00:29:00,200 --> 00:29:02,120
Speaker 3: to source a lot of its sense of up and

500
00:29:02,120 --> 00:29:05,400
Speaker 3: down when it's still trying to preserve a subjective, vertical

501
00:29:05,440 --> 00:29:07,160
Speaker 3: a sense of up and down, and it gets a

502
00:29:07,160 --> 00:29:08,600
Speaker 3: lot from visual information.

503
00:29:09,440 --> 00:29:11,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was actually thinking about this a lot. I

504
00:29:11,600 --> 00:29:14,680
Speaker 2: did a yoga class earlier today, before this recording, and

505
00:29:14,720 --> 00:29:16,560
Speaker 2: you know, I was often the case in yoga classes,

506
00:29:16,560 --> 00:29:19,000
Speaker 2: you'll do some sort of a standing routine where you're balancing,

507
00:29:19,040 --> 00:29:22,160
Speaker 2: like on one foot or something, and you can, if

508
00:29:22,160 --> 00:29:24,040
Speaker 2: you really think about it, during those moments, you can

509
00:29:24,080 --> 00:29:27,440
Speaker 2: really you can feel yourself, you know, aligning with what's

510
00:29:27,520 --> 00:29:30,120
Speaker 2: up and down. But also you have the visual data

511
00:29:30,160 --> 00:29:32,840
Speaker 2: as well, and so that you often are told to

512
00:29:32,880 --> 00:29:35,920
Speaker 2: focus on adrichtie, focus on some sort of a spot

513
00:29:35,920 --> 00:29:40,080
Speaker 2: on the wall, a stain, or particularly, what works particularly

514
00:29:40,120 --> 00:29:42,280
Speaker 2: well for me that was recommended is some sort of

515
00:29:43,040 --> 00:29:46,440
Speaker 2: a vertical line, like the corner of something or the

516
00:29:46,480 --> 00:29:49,360
Speaker 2: exact corner of a room, and you can focus on

517
00:29:49,400 --> 00:29:52,760
Speaker 2: that and that can help you stay more stable. But anyway,

518
00:29:52,760 --> 00:29:55,960
Speaker 2: that's humans, and we're talking about fish. Johnson writes that

519
00:29:55,960 --> 00:30:00,360
Speaker 2: the fish and the humans as well, in the aboard

520
00:30:00,400 --> 00:30:05,240
Speaker 2: the spaceship. Here basically acclimatized to low gravity at the

521
00:30:05,320 --> 00:30:09,960
Speaker 2: same rate. Johnson writes, as the movement shogs looped, the

522
00:30:10,080 --> 00:30:14,320
Speaker 2: astronauts vomited as the urge to vomit subsided in the astronauts,

523
00:30:14,680 --> 00:30:18,080
Speaker 2: So too did the urge to loop in fish? Interesting,

524
00:30:18,360 --> 00:30:20,840
Speaker 2: and I read elsewhere in the Lyndon B. Johnson Space

525
00:30:20,880 --> 00:30:26,000
Speaker 2: Center Apollo Soyu's test project report that while some of

526
00:30:26,000 --> 00:30:28,480
Speaker 2: the fish died, the ones that made it back resume

527
00:30:28,560 --> 00:30:31,840
Speaker 2: normal swimming positions without issue. Which, again, if they are

528
00:30:32,320 --> 00:30:35,120
Speaker 2: adapting and readapting in the same way that human beings

529
00:30:35,240 --> 00:30:37,840
Speaker 2: adapt and readapt this makes perfect sense.

530
00:30:38,560 --> 00:30:39,400
Speaker 3: So that's interesting.

531
00:30:39,480 --> 00:30:39,680
Speaker 2: Yeah.

532
00:30:39,880 --> 00:30:43,920
Speaker 3: I think I would have expected the adaptations to be

533
00:30:44,040 --> 00:30:47,240
Speaker 3: similar for like terrestrial mammals, but I would have had

534
00:30:47,240 --> 00:30:53,320
Speaker 3: more questions about how space adaptation would affect aquatic animals.

535
00:30:53,320 --> 00:30:55,560
Speaker 3: And that's interesting that there are all these similarities.

536
00:30:55,960 --> 00:30:56,200
Speaker 4: Yeah.

537
00:30:56,400 --> 00:31:01,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, And more fish related experiments followed with different space

538
00:31:01,440 --> 00:31:05,160
Speaker 2: missions from different countries. Again, this was not a goldfish

539
00:31:05,240 --> 00:31:09,080
Speaker 2: or even a carp So when did goldfish finally go up? Well,

540
00:31:09,200 --> 00:31:12,120
Speaker 2: let's dig a little deeper. In seventy six, the Russian

541
00:31:12,200 --> 00:31:16,120
Speaker 2: Soyu's twenty one mission aboard the Salute five space station

542
00:31:16,920 --> 00:31:20,680
Speaker 2: included experiments with aquarium fish. I found at least one

543
00:31:20,840 --> 00:31:23,840
Speaker 2: passing reference to these as maybe being goldfish, but most

544
00:31:23,880 --> 00:31:26,760
Speaker 2: sources seem to indicate there were maybe zebra fish. So

545
00:31:26,840 --> 00:31:28,680
Speaker 2: I don't think the goldfish got to go up on

546
00:31:29,200 --> 00:31:32,040
Speaker 2: this mission. So when did the goldfish go up? Well?

547
00:31:32,360 --> 00:31:36,560
Speaker 2: I found an excellent online National Geographic article titled Animals

548
00:31:36,560 --> 00:31:43,520
Speaker 2: in Space by Taylor Magicomo and Alexander Stegneier. And according

549
00:31:43,560 --> 00:31:45,800
Speaker 2: to this article, it points out that in nineteen eighty five,

550
00:31:46,200 --> 00:31:50,280
Speaker 2: the US and the USSR both experimented with killefish, again

551
00:31:50,600 --> 00:31:53,200
Speaker 2: with guppies, and then both of these countries as well

552
00:31:53,240 --> 00:31:57,000
Speaker 2: as the ESA experimented with guppies in nineteen eighty nine,

553
00:31:57,280 --> 00:31:59,720
Speaker 2: and then, according to nat GEO, the common carp finally

554
00:31:59,720 --> 00:32:03,080
Speaker 2: made up in nineteen ninety two. This was like a

555
00:32:03,200 --> 00:32:08,000
Speaker 2: joint US Japan experiment. These were apparently two carp of

556
00:32:08,120 --> 00:32:14,320
Speaker 2: twenty six centimeters in size. One was intact, had not

557
00:32:14,360 --> 00:32:18,800
Speaker 2: been surgically altered, and one had its autoliths removed. The

558
00:32:18,840 --> 00:32:23,120
Speaker 2: audilists remember, these are calcium carbonate structures in the vertebrate

559
00:32:23,160 --> 00:32:27,880
Speaker 2: inner ear that detect linear acceleration, gravity, and head tilt,

560
00:32:27,920 --> 00:32:32,160
Speaker 2: and they're essential for balance and spatial orientation. And so

561
00:32:32,200 --> 00:32:36,000
Speaker 2: they spent eight days of aboard Space Lab j up.

562
00:32:36,040 --> 00:32:38,600
Speaker 2: Next we had there was another mission in nineteen ninety two.

563
00:32:38,920 --> 00:32:44,200
Speaker 2: This was the STS sixty five Space Lab IML two

564
00:32:45,240 --> 00:32:48,400
Speaker 2: year Again ninety two, goldfish missed the call again. Instead,

565
00:32:48,520 --> 00:32:51,600
Speaker 2: Japanese rice fish go up and these were used to

566
00:32:51,600 --> 00:32:56,360
Speaker 2: study mating behavior in microgravity. But then finally ninety four,

567
00:32:56,560 --> 00:33:00,280
Speaker 2: this is when goldfish finally get the call as heart

568
00:33:00,320 --> 00:33:03,720
Speaker 2: of a joint US Japanese mission that was to feature

569
00:33:03,800 --> 00:33:09,120
Speaker 2: Japan's first female astronaut, Chiaki Muke born nineteen fifty two,

570
00:33:09,120 --> 00:33:12,240
Speaker 2: which was also the first Asian woman in space. And

571
00:33:12,640 --> 00:33:17,720
Speaker 2: this experiment consisted of six red and white goldfish. There's

572
00:33:17,760 --> 00:33:20,360
Speaker 2: a picture here included for you, Joe. They look pretty

573
00:33:20,360 --> 00:33:22,440
Speaker 2: orange and white to me, but I think the breed

574
00:33:22,840 --> 00:33:26,000
Speaker 2: this variety is referred to as red and white. They

575
00:33:26,000 --> 00:33:29,600
Speaker 2: were bred in Japan and then they were sent up

576
00:33:29,640 --> 00:33:35,760
Speaker 2: to study space sickness in how the low gravity environment

577
00:33:36,280 --> 00:33:40,800
Speaker 2: affects the way that the animal moves in their environment

578
00:33:40,840 --> 00:33:43,320
Speaker 2: and how they react to light and so forth. Basically

579
00:33:43,480 --> 00:33:46,760
Speaker 2: similar stuff to the very first killyfish experiment that we

580
00:33:46,840 --> 00:33:48,080
Speaker 2: highlighted earlier.

581
00:33:48,680 --> 00:33:50,320
Speaker 4: With similar results are different.

582
00:33:50,600 --> 00:33:56,440
Speaker 2: Well, it seems to have been a much more focused study,

583
00:33:56,560 --> 00:34:00,720
Speaker 2: so there's a little more to discuss here. So this

584
00:34:00,760 --> 00:34:05,200
Speaker 2: would have been SDS sixty five a board Space Shuttle Columbia,

585
00:34:05,360 --> 00:34:08,239
Speaker 2: and this also featured other aquatic organisms as part of

586
00:34:08,239 --> 00:34:13,279
Speaker 2: its payload, including newts and jellies, crabs, crabs, and no

587
00:34:13,400 --> 00:34:15,719
Speaker 2: crabs on this one. Crabs and Space will have to

588
00:34:15,760 --> 00:34:18,799
Speaker 2: wait for our next crab episode. I don't have any

589
00:34:18,880 --> 00:34:20,840
Speaker 2: day to hear in front of me on Crabs and Space.

590
00:34:21,320 --> 00:34:24,840
Speaker 2: But the goldfish were definitely there, and yeah, there's a

591
00:34:24,880 --> 00:34:28,439
Speaker 2: photo of them on the NASA website if you look.

592
00:34:28,640 --> 00:34:34,080
Speaker 2: I would recommend looking up like SDS sixty five or

593
00:34:34,160 --> 00:34:37,240
Speaker 2: look up the year ninety four Goldfish in Space NASA

594
00:34:37,520 --> 00:34:39,600
Speaker 2: and you will find the image. It's it's still there

595
00:34:39,640 --> 00:34:42,840
Speaker 2: on SA's website and it looks really cool. It looks

596
00:34:42,880 --> 00:34:48,680
Speaker 2: like something out of Alien if Alien were expressly concerned

597
00:34:48,680 --> 00:34:49,360
Speaker 2: with goldfish.

598
00:34:49,880 --> 00:34:50,920
Speaker 4: It does look like that.

599
00:34:51,040 --> 00:34:54,440
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we have a very metal panel with a

600
00:34:54,520 --> 00:34:57,000
Speaker 3: glass bubble and you can see all the fish inside

601
00:34:57,040 --> 00:34:59,239
Speaker 3: looking out at you, like help me. I hate this,

602
00:35:00,280 --> 00:35:03,640
Speaker 3: just griebles everywhere it's a surface.

603
00:35:03,840 --> 00:35:07,479
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, So the focus of this study was really

604
00:35:07,480 --> 00:35:11,040
Speaker 2: on balance and brain plasticity, and I read more about

605
00:35:11,040 --> 00:35:15,560
Speaker 2: it in Mechanism of Vestibular Adaptation of Fish under Microgravity

606
00:35:15,680 --> 00:35:19,799
Speaker 2: by Takabayashi at All, published in nineteen ninety seven, so

607
00:35:19,800 --> 00:35:23,600
Speaker 2: a few years later in Biological Sciences in Space. So

608
00:35:23,680 --> 00:35:28,439
Speaker 2: here are some key details pulled directly from that paper. So, again,

609
00:35:28,600 --> 00:35:32,239
Speaker 2: six goldfish, and they included one normal goldfish fish, so

610
00:35:32,320 --> 00:35:34,880
Speaker 2: this fish had no changes made to it. There was

611
00:35:34,960 --> 00:35:39,319
Speaker 2: one with the otoliths removed from both sides, and then

612
00:35:39,480 --> 00:35:44,359
Speaker 2: four with the odalists removed from only one side. Okay.

613
00:35:44,239 --> 00:35:48,960
Speaker 2: Then as they started studying the way these fish responded,

614
00:35:49,320 --> 00:35:53,239
Speaker 2: they also point out that the dorsal light responses or

615
00:35:53,320 --> 00:35:57,840
Speaker 2: dlrs of fish with otalists removed were recorded after operation,

616
00:35:58,120 --> 00:36:01,440
Speaker 2: until launch, and after land. So this is how it

617
00:36:01,520 --> 00:36:05,120
Speaker 2: ends up going down on day double zero. This is

618
00:36:05,200 --> 00:36:08,480
Speaker 2: a mission to lapse time day zero zero, two fish

619
00:36:08,560 --> 00:36:12,160
Speaker 2: with otalists removed on one side showed flexion of body

620
00:36:12,200 --> 00:36:16,320
Speaker 2: toward the operated side. These fish also showed rolling behavior

621
00:36:16,440 --> 00:36:19,160
Speaker 2: toward the operated side. Okay, this is going to make

622
00:36:19,160 --> 00:36:22,239
Speaker 2: more sense as we roll along the body flextion disappeared

623
00:36:22,400 --> 00:36:26,080
Speaker 2: on MET day five or MET day eight. No rolling

624
00:36:26,120 --> 00:36:29,520
Speaker 2: behaviors were observed after that time. Then five fish showed

625
00:36:29,560 --> 00:36:32,960
Speaker 2: backward looping behaviors during the mission. Although the frequency of

626
00:36:33,040 --> 00:36:37,359
Speaker 2: looping episodes decreased after MET day eight, five fish still

627
00:36:37,360 --> 00:36:41,120
Speaker 2: showed looping behavior in MET day twelve, final day of recording.

628
00:36:41,640 --> 00:36:45,759
Speaker 2: So in microgravity, the visual system of the fish did

629
00:36:45,760 --> 00:36:49,520
Speaker 2: not seem to provide sufficient cues to prevent them from

630
00:36:49,840 --> 00:36:53,560
Speaker 2: looping and rolling. After landing, no looping or rolling behavior

631
00:36:53,680 --> 00:36:57,680
Speaker 2: was observed. However, they stressed that the tilt angle of

632
00:36:57,840 --> 00:37:01,520
Speaker 2: the DLR increased in the fish with italith removed five

633
00:37:01,600 --> 00:37:04,560
Speaker 2: months before launch, but not in normal fish in those

634
00:37:04,560 --> 00:37:08,560
Speaker 2: with odalists removed two weeks before the launch. And these results,

635
00:37:08,560 --> 00:37:11,760
Speaker 2: they say, suggest that the behavioral dysfunction and the adaptational

636
00:37:11,840 --> 00:37:15,800
Speaker 2: process in space is dependent on vestibular inputs.

637
00:37:16,480 --> 00:37:19,680
Speaker 4: Okay, so in this.

638
00:37:19,560 --> 00:37:23,319
Speaker 2: Focused study, the visual system alone wasn't enough to make

639
00:37:23,400 --> 00:37:26,920
Speaker 2: up for what was lacking from the vestibular sense of gravity.

640
00:37:27,560 --> 00:37:31,439
Speaker 2: And reading that, reading that that he had this one

641
00:37:31,480 --> 00:37:34,640
Speaker 2: fish that didn't show backward looping behavior, I was thinking, well,

642
00:37:34,719 --> 00:37:37,560
Speaker 2: this must be the unaltered fish, right, maybe that's what's

643
00:37:37,600 --> 00:37:41,960
Speaker 2: going on here, that's the one for one, but this

644
00:37:42,000 --> 00:37:43,680
Speaker 2: apparently is not the case. It was one of the

645
00:37:43,719 --> 00:37:47,000
Speaker 2: bilateral fish, one that had odalists removed on both sides,

646
00:37:47,640 --> 00:37:51,200
Speaker 2: which apparently it didn't backward loop because it didn't get

647
00:37:51,239 --> 00:37:54,680
Speaker 2: confusing signals from its odoliths. It was able to like

648
00:37:55,200 --> 00:37:59,680
Speaker 2: just focus on vision. But the other bilateral fish, the

649
00:37:59,719 --> 00:38:03,239
Speaker 2: other fish that had both odalists removed, it had it

650
00:38:03,320 --> 00:38:05,800
Speaker 2: still it was still looping, but had less severe looping,

651
00:38:06,400 --> 00:38:11,759
Speaker 2: and it may have been essentially confused by vestigial compensation response.

652
00:38:12,480 --> 00:38:15,080
Speaker 2: So you know, like you say it, it gets rather

653
00:38:15,160 --> 00:38:20,400
Speaker 2: complicated here, But this study apparently shined more light on

654
00:38:20,680 --> 00:38:24,719
Speaker 2: just exactly how this interplay works, at least in the goldfish,

655
00:38:24,960 --> 00:38:27,200
Speaker 2: and then we can extrapolate that out for other creatures

656
00:38:27,239 --> 00:38:30,880
Speaker 2: as well. Like what happens when you have confusing signals

657
00:38:31,239 --> 00:38:35,919
Speaker 2: coming from the odalus from the vestibular system and then

658
00:38:35,960 --> 00:38:39,560
Speaker 2: we're having to rely on vision instead. And what happens

659
00:38:39,640 --> 00:38:43,360
Speaker 2: if you have completely removed key components of the vestibular

660
00:38:43,440 --> 00:38:46,279
Speaker 2: system and you're allowing the fish to just rely on

661
00:38:46,400 --> 00:38:47,120
Speaker 2: vision alone.

662
00:38:47,440 --> 00:38:49,000
Speaker 4: You need that for when you come back.

663
00:38:49,480 --> 00:38:53,560
Speaker 2: That's the thing. Yeah, the big the main point being

664
00:38:54,360 --> 00:38:57,759
Speaker 2: it's we can certainly create some sci fi visions where

665
00:38:57,760 --> 00:39:02,000
Speaker 2: it makes sense for a human space traveler to you know,

666
00:39:02,880 --> 00:39:06,719
Speaker 2: to leave behind gravity entirely and say, okay, well, I'm

667
00:39:06,719 --> 00:39:08,279
Speaker 2: only going to live in space now, I don't need

668
00:39:08,320 --> 00:39:11,120
Speaker 2: to return home. But as far as like near future

669
00:39:11,239 --> 00:39:14,959
Speaker 2: of you know, perceivable human space flight, it's just hard

670
00:39:14,960 --> 00:39:18,279
Speaker 2: to imagine that sort of scenario, right. You'd have to

671
00:39:18,360 --> 00:39:21,520
Speaker 2: be imagining some sort of like generational colony ship sort

672
00:39:21,520 --> 00:39:24,520
Speaker 2: of a scenario, or I don't know, some some scenario

673
00:39:24,560 --> 00:39:28,399
Speaker 2: that require people to just stay in a weightlesser, near

674
00:39:28,440 --> 00:39:32,600
Speaker 2: wightless environment for the duration of their lives. It's pretty clear, however,

675
00:39:32,640 --> 00:39:35,560
Speaker 2: there'd be some major downsides as well. I mean, for starters,

676
00:39:35,719 --> 00:39:39,319
Speaker 2: if you ever had to return to you know, top

677
00:39:39,360 --> 00:39:41,960
Speaker 2: side to the surface of a planet, you know, you

678
00:39:42,000 --> 00:39:46,279
Speaker 2: would you wouldn't be able to function properly. But on

679
00:39:46,400 --> 00:39:50,560
Speaker 2: top of this, you'd be completely visually dependent as far

680
00:39:50,640 --> 00:39:55,520
Speaker 2: as determining up and down, and you could still feel

681
00:39:55,560 --> 00:39:58,719
Speaker 2: ill from angular acceleration I'm to understand. So it's not

682
00:39:58,760 --> 00:40:00,879
Speaker 2: like you would have you know, free ticket to get

683
00:40:00,880 --> 00:40:14,520
Speaker 2: out of any kind of feelings of distortion. Now, obviously

684
00:40:14,600 --> 00:40:18,120
Speaker 2: this this is still this is an idea that that

685
00:40:18,200 --> 00:40:20,040
Speaker 2: is going to factor into sci fi quite a bit.

686
00:40:20,640 --> 00:40:23,879
Speaker 2: There are a number of stories that have and will

687
00:40:23,920 --> 00:40:28,399
Speaker 2: continue to ask that question, like, Okay, what could what

688
00:40:28,480 --> 00:40:30,440
Speaker 2: could we? Or what would we or what should we

689
00:40:30,560 --> 00:40:34,520
Speaker 2: change about the human form to create better astronauts? Like

690
00:40:34,520 --> 00:40:36,520
Speaker 2: what does that consist of? Do we need a you know,

691
00:40:36,600 --> 00:40:38,320
Speaker 2: do we need to you know, just squirt a little

692
00:40:38,640 --> 00:40:41,160
Speaker 2: xenomorph blood in there and see what happens. Do we

693
00:40:41,200 --> 00:40:45,160
Speaker 2: need to become cyborgs? This is of course part and

694
00:40:45,200 --> 00:40:48,160
Speaker 2: partial to the origin of the word cyborg in many ways, like,

695
00:40:48,200 --> 00:40:51,320
Speaker 2: you know, thinking about changes that we could make instead

696
00:40:51,320 --> 00:40:55,400
Speaker 2: of changing space and changing other worlds to make make

697
00:40:55,440 --> 00:40:57,000
Speaker 2: it to where humans can survive there? What have we

698
00:40:57,160 --> 00:41:00,560
Speaker 2: made humans more hearty or made humans more of a

699
00:41:00,640 --> 00:41:05,320
Speaker 2: space faring organism? And so changes to the vestibular system

700
00:41:05,680 --> 00:41:09,839
Speaker 2: are sometimes employed in these sci fi visions, alongside many

701
00:41:09,920 --> 00:41:14,560
Speaker 2: other alterations. So I was looking around for sci fi

702
00:41:14,640 --> 00:41:18,879
Speaker 2: tales that concerned this, and I've found a really interesting one.

703
00:41:18,920 --> 00:41:21,000
Speaker 2: This is a tale I was not familiar with. I

704
00:41:21,000 --> 00:41:23,600
Speaker 2: think vaguely was aware of this author, but I hadn't

705
00:41:23,640 --> 00:41:26,719
Speaker 2: read anything by him before, and it's called Scanners Live

706
00:41:26,800 --> 00:41:29,800
Speaker 2: in Vain, written in nineteen forty five and published in

707
00:41:29,880 --> 00:41:35,360
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty. No connection to the Scanners movies or the

708
00:41:35,480 --> 00:41:40,640
Speaker 2: Scanner cop movies. It refers to something different, entire differently, entirely.

709
00:41:40,960 --> 00:41:41,600
Speaker 4: There's the Spy.

710
00:41:42,480 --> 00:41:47,520
Speaker 2: This is by Cord Wayner Smith. Yeah. Again, it's a

711
00:41:47,600 --> 00:41:49,560
Speaker 2: name that I've seen. I think i'd seen pop up

712
00:41:49,600 --> 00:41:51,359
Speaker 2: here and there, but I don't think I've ever read

713
00:41:51,400 --> 00:41:55,680
Speaker 2: anything by him. But in the story setting, humans just

714
00:41:55,719 --> 00:41:58,879
Speaker 2: cannot endure what is referred to as the Great Pain

715
00:41:58,960 --> 00:42:02,200
Speaker 2: of space, and they can only travel while they are

716
00:42:02,280 --> 00:42:06,839
Speaker 2: placed in a form of suspended animation. And you know,

717
00:42:06,880 --> 00:42:10,160
Speaker 2: as you might expect, somebody's got attend to these sleepers

718
00:42:10,200 --> 00:42:12,719
Speaker 2: while they're traveling from point A to point B. And

719
00:42:12,800 --> 00:42:17,360
Speaker 2: so that's where the Habermans come into play. And then

720
00:42:17,760 --> 00:42:21,120
Speaker 2: the Scanners are the people that are like in charge

721
00:42:21,120 --> 00:42:25,520
Speaker 2: of the Habermans. Both of these are classifications of humans

722
00:42:25,560 --> 00:42:29,680
Speaker 2: who have undergone a surgical procedure to sever almost all

723
00:42:29,719 --> 00:42:32,440
Speaker 2: of their sensory nerves except vision.

724
00:42:34,239 --> 00:42:39,120
Speaker 3: So okay, so trying to imagine that, I would wonder

725
00:42:39,160 --> 00:42:41,600
Speaker 3: how in a way would you like control your body,

726
00:42:41,800 --> 00:42:45,520
Speaker 3: like if you kind of can't feel or I don't know, well,

727
00:42:45,560 --> 00:42:48,919
Speaker 3: I don't know how much does the proprioceptive sense depend

728
00:42:48,600 --> 00:42:51,360
Speaker 3: on nerve signals from the rest of the body.

729
00:42:51,360 --> 00:42:51,960
Speaker 4: I'm not sure.

730
00:42:52,080 --> 00:42:53,640
Speaker 2: I don't know. It's I mean, it's a you know,

731
00:42:53,680 --> 00:42:57,400
Speaker 2: definitely a sci fi situation here, and and to be

732
00:42:57,520 --> 00:43:00,000
Speaker 2: clear that sold the Great Pain of Space is made

733
00:43:00,120 --> 00:43:03,040
Speaker 2: be a little broader and also a little bit vague,

734
00:43:04,120 --> 00:43:06,240
Speaker 2: but it plays well within a sci fi It's like, Okay,

735
00:43:06,719 --> 00:43:09,399
Speaker 2: if spaceflight is painful, I just have to shut off

736
00:43:09,520 --> 00:43:12,319
Speaker 2: everything except for revision. But it does line up rather

737
00:43:12,400 --> 00:43:14,960
Speaker 2: nicely with some of these experiments we've been talking about

738
00:43:15,120 --> 00:43:18,840
Speaker 2: with a vestibular system and vision. So within the context

739
00:43:19,239 --> 00:43:22,520
Speaker 2: of the story, this all prevents them from feeling the

740
00:43:22,560 --> 00:43:25,600
Speaker 2: Great Pain of space, and it's a necessary sacrifice for

741
00:43:25,680 --> 00:43:29,040
Speaker 2: space travel, but it also makes them entirely vision dependent,

742
00:43:29,560 --> 00:43:32,120
Speaker 2: and they even have to like monitor readings on a

743
00:43:32,160 --> 00:43:35,760
Speaker 2: cybernetic box on their chest just see what their body's

744
00:43:35,800 --> 00:43:37,840
Speaker 2: doing to figure out if they've injured themselves or not,

745
00:43:38,000 --> 00:43:40,520
Speaker 2: if they have an elevated heart rate, Various things that

746
00:43:40,560 --> 00:43:42,560
Speaker 2: you would be able to sort of like feel out

747
00:43:42,920 --> 00:43:45,840
Speaker 2: in your body and just be part of your body awareness.

748
00:43:46,040 --> 00:43:50,399
Speaker 2: They have to like check a reading. So yeah, it's

749
00:43:50,480 --> 00:43:53,040
Speaker 2: a fun little story. Basically, there's a murder plot that

750
00:43:53,080 --> 00:43:57,680
Speaker 2: emerges when the Scanners and the Haberman's learn that a

751
00:43:57,800 --> 00:44:01,280
Speaker 2: normal human will soon publicly reveal method that allows normal

752
00:44:01,360 --> 00:44:03,719
Speaker 2: humans to avoid the great pain of space without having

753
00:44:03,760 --> 00:44:07,120
Speaker 2: to surgically sever themselves. And you know, somebody's like, well,

754
00:44:07,160 --> 00:44:10,000
Speaker 2: we should murder this person. And I won't spoil how

755
00:44:10,040 --> 00:44:13,319
Speaker 2: it all. It all, it works out, but there's some

756
00:44:13,400 --> 00:44:16,480
Speaker 2: fun we're world building here, and again it kind of

757
00:44:16,520 --> 00:44:20,280
Speaker 2: lines up nicely with some of these experiments we've been discussing.

758
00:44:21,560 --> 00:44:23,240
Speaker 2: But again, this is you know a lot of stories

759
00:44:23,280 --> 00:44:25,880
Speaker 2: have gotten into this territory of, you know, changing people

760
00:44:25,920 --> 00:44:31,200
Speaker 2: for space. There's a fun one nineteen seventy six novel

761
00:44:31,239 --> 00:44:35,880
Speaker 2: by Frederick Pohle titled Man Plus that features a cyborg

762
00:44:35,960 --> 00:44:41,600
Speaker 2: adapted to colonize Mars, and I think there are various

763
00:44:41,760 --> 00:44:45,680
Speaker 2: extreme changes that have taken place with the protagonist here.

764
00:44:46,120 --> 00:44:49,920
Speaker 2: He's had his nervous system revised. All the major pathways

765
00:44:49,920 --> 00:44:53,399
Speaker 2: connected through a computer backpack that is powered by jet

766
00:44:53,440 --> 00:44:57,920
Speaker 2: black solar panels that are described as looking like bat wings. Whoa,

767
00:44:58,760 --> 00:45:02,600
Speaker 2: And there's they're very fun paperback covers for this one.

768
00:45:02,600 --> 00:45:05,200
Speaker 2: I included one here for you, Joe. This is one

769
00:45:05,239 --> 00:45:07,920
Speaker 2: where the vision of humans adapted for life in space

770
00:45:08,040 --> 00:45:10,520
Speaker 2: is like basically to turn humans into some sort of

771
00:45:10,560 --> 00:45:13,680
Speaker 2: extreme alien like cyborg entity.

772
00:45:13,840 --> 00:45:18,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, kind of a bipedal insect with yeah, solar panel

773
00:45:18,520 --> 00:45:22,160
Speaker 3: wings and gigantic eyes and looks. Also just like the

774
00:45:22,520 --> 00:45:25,400
Speaker 3: like the chest kind of opens up to reveal the organs.

775
00:45:25,400 --> 00:45:27,680
Speaker 3: Maybe that's for easy access if you need to do

776
00:45:27,760 --> 00:45:28,480
Speaker 3: some maintenance.

777
00:45:28,800 --> 00:45:30,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, you never know. I need to reach in there.

778
00:45:30,200 --> 00:45:31,800
Speaker 2: And we know how it is with cyborgs. Theyre always

779
00:45:31,800 --> 00:45:35,040
Speaker 2: going to pull stuff out, change stuff, put stuff back in.

780
00:45:35,280 --> 00:45:37,200
Speaker 2: So you know you don't want it all sealed under.

781
00:45:37,000 --> 00:45:40,080
Speaker 3: Flesh, right, didn't you watch Nemesis come out?

782
00:45:41,520 --> 00:45:43,759
Speaker 2: All Right, there's one more story I want to highlight here,

783
00:45:43,760 --> 00:45:45,480
Speaker 2: and I will go ahead and put out the general

784
00:45:45,520 --> 00:45:49,920
Speaker 2: call that you know readers have space fearing cyborgs that

785
00:45:49,960 --> 00:45:54,200
Speaker 2: they think are applicable here, especially if it ends up

786
00:45:54,920 --> 00:45:58,200
Speaker 2: involving the vestibular system. I would love to hear about it,

787
00:45:58,560 --> 00:46:02,520
Speaker 2: but I ended up running across a mention of this

788
00:46:02,600 --> 00:46:09,120
Speaker 2: story called Vestibular Man by Felix c. Gotshock from nineteen

789
00:46:09,160 --> 00:46:12,640
Speaker 2: eighty five. It was later collected in the nineteen ninety

790
00:46:12,640 --> 00:46:15,560
Speaker 2: one anthology Future on Fire, but it was originally published

791
00:46:15,560 --> 00:46:19,080
Speaker 2: in the magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, And so

792
00:46:19,280 --> 00:46:22,920
Speaker 2: the title really I knew that it had something to

793
00:46:22,920 --> 00:46:26,160
Speaker 2: do with androids, and then calling it vestibular Man, I'm like, well, okay,

794
00:46:26,239 --> 00:46:29,680
Speaker 2: I've got to find out what this is about. And

795
00:46:30,480 --> 00:46:32,799
Speaker 2: it seems to basically it does have a bionic drill

796
00:46:32,880 --> 00:46:36,400
Speaker 2: sergeant in it, but the main character just seems to

797
00:46:36,440 --> 00:46:39,600
Speaker 2: be unnaturally aware of what his inner ear is doing,

798
00:46:40,120 --> 00:46:44,640
Speaker 2: and or the author is just fixated on the vestibular system.

799
00:46:46,040 --> 00:46:49,839
Speaker 2: I can't honestly recommend this story to anyone, but it's

800
00:46:49,880 --> 00:46:54,600
Speaker 2: full of just really looney sentences like this one quote.

801
00:46:55,000 --> 00:47:00,680
Speaker 2: Deep inside his vestibular nests, the eternal, equal, liberatory fluid

802
00:47:00,840 --> 00:47:04,719
Speaker 2: now lay ninety degrees from verticality, and it gave him

803
00:47:04,760 --> 00:47:09,000
Speaker 2: to know both comfort as well as the ventral vulnerability

804
00:47:09,040 --> 00:47:15,120
Speaker 2: of supinity. And there are numerous sentences as ludicrous as

805
00:47:15,120 --> 00:47:18,560
Speaker 2: this in this story that are directly tying into the

806
00:47:18,640 --> 00:47:21,640
Speaker 2: vestibular system and talking about what's going on in the

807
00:47:21,680 --> 00:47:22,959
Speaker 2: protagonist's inner ear.

808
00:47:23,600 --> 00:47:25,719
Speaker 3: I mean, that's a story where you get what the

809
00:47:25,760 --> 00:47:28,480
Speaker 3: title says, those are the thoughts of a vestibular man.

810
00:47:28,960 --> 00:47:32,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, so again, I was disappointed that it doesn't really

811
00:47:32,280 --> 00:47:37,719
Speaker 2: relate to vestibular changes in cybernetic space faring humanoids, and

812
00:47:37,760 --> 00:47:40,680
Speaker 2: it definitely has nothing to do with goldfish. But it

813
00:47:40,800 --> 00:47:42,799
Speaker 2: was so weird I had to mention it here.

814
00:47:43,480 --> 00:47:43,880
Speaker 4: Nice.

815
00:47:44,560 --> 00:47:48,000
Speaker 2: But again, there may be better examples of cyborgs in

816
00:47:48,400 --> 00:47:50,719
Speaker 2: sci fi out there that folks may want to bring up.

817
00:47:50,960 --> 00:47:53,920
Speaker 2: So definitely, right in, we would love to hear from you.

818
00:47:55,280 --> 00:47:58,560
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, is that the end for now of our

819
00:47:58,640 --> 00:48:00,120
Speaker 3: exploration of goldfish?

820
00:48:00,360 --> 00:48:03,320
Speaker 2: I think so, but we'll just go ahead and reiterate

821
00:48:03,640 --> 00:48:08,840
Speaker 2: in general. If you have feedback, insight experiences related to

822
00:48:08,920 --> 00:48:12,080
Speaker 2: goldfish or any of the goldfish topics we've discussed here,

823
00:48:12,160 --> 00:48:15,239
Speaker 2: or koi or carp in general, write in we would

824
00:48:15,239 --> 00:48:17,120
Speaker 2: love to hear from you. If you just want to

825
00:48:17,160 --> 00:48:20,920
Speaker 2: send us photographs of your beloved goldfish, of your beloved koi,

826
00:48:21,480 --> 00:48:25,040
Speaker 2: or a carp you happen to see out in the world,

827
00:48:25,640 --> 00:48:27,960
Speaker 2: also send that along. We would love to look at it.

828
00:48:28,560 --> 00:48:30,480
Speaker 2: Just a reminder to everyone out there. The Stuff to

829
00:48:30,480 --> 00:48:32,880
Speaker 2: Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast,

830
00:48:32,960 --> 00:48:36,200
Speaker 2: with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Wednesdays we

831
00:48:36,200 --> 00:48:38,040
Speaker 2: have a short form episode, and then on Fridays we

832
00:48:38,080 --> 00:48:40,359
Speaker 2: set aside most serious concerns just talk about a weird

833
00:48:40,360 --> 00:48:42,120
Speaker 2: film on Weird House Cinema.

834
00:48:42,320 --> 00:48:46,080
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

835
00:48:46,400 --> 00:48:47,920
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

836
00:48:47,920 --> 00:48:50,480
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

837
00:48:50,480 --> 00:48:52,439
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

838
00:48:52,600 --> 00:48:55,160
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow

839
00:48:55,160 --> 00:49:04,320
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.

840
00:49:04,440 --> 00:49:07,400
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

841
00:49:07,480 --> 00:49:10,239
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

842
00:49:10,400 --> 00:49:28,040
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.