WEBVTT - From the Vault: Eternal Youth, Part 1 0:00:05.800 --> 0:00:07.440 Hey, are you welcome to stuff to blow your mind? 0:00:07.480 --> 0:00:09.799 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and 0:00:09.880 --> 0:00:12.799 it's Saturday. Time to venture into the vault, this time 0:00:12.840 --> 0:00:17.599 with an episode about youth and aging. This is Eternal Youth, 0:00:17.680 --> 0:00:22.439 Part one, originally published January four. This is one of 0:00:22.480 --> 0:00:24.760 the episodes. I think we did a pair here where 0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:29.040 we were sort of asking the question why animals age? Why? 0:00:29.320 --> 0:00:32.720 Why why not just stay young? Forever? Yeah? Youth like 0:00:32.840 --> 0:00:37.080 diamonds in the sun, right, um, forever young Alphaville. Hopefully 0:00:37.120 --> 0:00:40.160 I don't remember if I referenced that track uh in 0:00:40.200 --> 0:00:42.120 these episodes, but I hope I did. I think you 0:00:42.200 --> 0:00:45.120 referenced it more recently when pointing out how creepy the 0:00:45.200 --> 0:00:48.440 lyrics are that they they sound like a serial killer. Note, yeah, 0:00:48.440 --> 0:00:50.640 they're they're they're super creepy. That track is the reason 0:00:50.680 --> 0:00:52.200 I didn't share my You know a lot of people 0:00:52.200 --> 0:00:56.320 are sharing, uh, these curated lists of what tracks they 0:00:56.360 --> 0:00:58.960 listened to the most in the previous year. That was 0:00:59.000 --> 0:01:01.000 your number one? It was, it was, it was, it 0:01:01.040 --> 0:01:03.440 was up there way too much, and I have to 0:01:03.520 --> 0:01:05.640 I can only share that with people if I can 0:01:05.680 --> 0:01:08.559 also explain to them that I have a very creepy 0:01:08.600 --> 0:01:12.480 interpretation of the song and therefore me listening to Forever 0:01:12.560 --> 0:01:15.040 Young is like most people listening to death metal. I'm 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:17.120 gonna see you and raise you there because the other 0:01:17.240 --> 0:01:20.680 Forever Young also has creepy lyrics if you listen to them. 0:01:20.720 --> 0:01:23.479 Oh yeah, this is the Bob Dylan r. Yeah yeah yeah, 0:01:23.600 --> 0:01:26.240 just go listen, you'll you'll see. All right, Well, let's 0:01:26.319 --> 0:01:32.200 jump right into it. Welcome to Stuff to Blow your 0:01:32.200 --> 0:01:41.200 Mind from how stuff dot com. Hey you, welcome to 0:01:41.240 --> 0:01:43.280 Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb 0:01:43.600 --> 0:01:46.520 and I'm Joe McCormick and Robert, I want to ask 0:01:46.520 --> 0:01:48.480 you about a Greek commit go for it. You know, 0:01:48.560 --> 0:01:51.280 the myth of tiffan Us. This is not one that 0:01:51.360 --> 0:01:54.240 I am am readily familiar with off stuff of my head. Well, 0:01:54.280 --> 0:01:56.560 it's one of those great ones with doomed lovers. Are 0:01:56.720 --> 0:01:59.320 doomed lovers? Just fantastic? Yea? Is there? Does a god 0:01:59.320 --> 0:02:03.600 show up the act particularly crappy towards mortals? Uh not. 0:02:04.000 --> 0:02:05.880 I don't know if it's on purpose. You do get 0:02:06.000 --> 0:02:08.839 Zeus being a jerk, but he might be like he's 0:02:08.880 --> 0:02:11.760 a jerk by accident. Or maybe he's a jerk on purpose. 0:02:11.800 --> 0:02:14.640 It's kind of hard to tell, because being a jerk 0:02:14.720 --> 0:02:17.720 is kind of Zeus is default thing in general. Yeah, 0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:21.000 Zeus in this myth acts kind of like the Monkeys 0:02:21.080 --> 0:02:23.960 Paul and the classic short story, where you get the 0:02:24.000 --> 0:02:26.160 wish but not quite in the way you wanted it. 0:02:26.800 --> 0:02:29.239 So here's how it goes. And this is the version 0:02:29.320 --> 0:02:33.960 that's in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite. So the myth 0:02:34.040 --> 0:02:38.280 involves the goddess aos Aus is the goddess of Dawn, 0:02:38.880 --> 0:02:42.000 and she falls in love with a mortal man from 0:02:42.080 --> 0:02:46.079 Troy named tiffan Us. And this is horrible, right, It's 0:02:46.080 --> 0:02:47.959 horrible for a goddess to fall in love with a 0:02:48.080 --> 0:02:51.320 mortal because while the gods may live eternally, dining on 0:02:51.360 --> 0:02:55.360 the ambrosia and just going on into the future, of course, 0:02:55.480 --> 0:02:59.160 mortal people, as the name implies, will die. And she 0:02:59.320 --> 0:03:01.560 hates this idea. She hates the idea that the man 0:03:01.720 --> 0:03:04.720 she's fallen in love with will someday die while she 0:03:04.760 --> 0:03:07.560 gets to go on living forever. She can't bear the 0:03:07.560 --> 0:03:10.400 thought of it. So she goes to Zeus and she 0:03:10.520 --> 0:03:15.160 makes a request, Well, you grant my lover Tiffanus eternal life, 0:03:16.040 --> 0:03:19.040 and Zeus does it. Usually, you know, usually Zeus is 0:03:19.080 --> 0:03:22.079 a jerk, but here he's like, yes, yes, I will 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:24.200 do that for you. Aos. Well, maybe he was busy 0:03:24.240 --> 0:03:26.600 and he's just like, okay, yeah, I'm just go ahead 0:03:26.680 --> 0:03:28.880 check this off the list because I've I've got this, uh, 0:03:29.160 --> 0:03:31.760 this other torment in mind for another mortal. Right, don't 0:03:31.760 --> 0:03:34.840 have time to be a jerk. Just bam, eternal life. 0:03:34.920 --> 0:03:38.160 You will not perish and die like the other mortals. 0:03:38.160 --> 0:03:41.440 But then it takes a dark turn. So let me 0:03:41.560 --> 0:03:45.320 read from the translation of the Home Eric him to Aphrodite, 0:03:45.720 --> 0:03:49.680 and this is translated by Hugh Evelyn White. Quote. So 0:03:49.800 --> 0:03:53.920 also golden throned Aos wrapped away Tiffanus, who was of 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:57.640 your race and like the deathless gods. And she went 0:03:57.720 --> 0:04:00.360 to ask the dark clouded son of ChRI On knows 0:04:00.640 --> 0:04:03.960 that he should be deathless and live eternally. And Zeus 0:04:04.040 --> 0:04:08.040 bowed his head to her prayer and fulfilled her desire. Okay, 0:04:08.080 --> 0:04:12.800 so he's granning the wish. Too simple, was queenly Aos. 0:04:12.840 --> 0:04:16.240 She thought not in her heart to ask youth for 0:04:16.320 --> 0:04:20.360 him and to strip him of the slough of deadly age. 0:04:20.800 --> 0:04:24.400 So while he enjoyed the sweet flower of life, he 0:04:24.480 --> 0:04:28.840 lived rapturously with golden throned Aos, the early born by 0:04:28.839 --> 0:04:31.800 the streams of ocean at the ends of the earth. 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:35.320 But when the first gray hairs began to ripple from 0:04:35.400 --> 0:04:39.440 his comely head and noble chin, queenly Aos kept away 0:04:39.480 --> 0:04:42.520 from his bed, though she cherished him in her house, 0:04:42.600 --> 0:04:45.680 and nourished him with food and ambrosia, and gave him 0:04:45.800 --> 0:04:50.120 rich clothing. But when loathsome old age pressed full upon him, 0:04:50.400 --> 0:04:53.400 and he could not move nor lift his limbs. This 0:04:53.520 --> 0:04:56.600 seemed to her in her heart the best counsel. She 0:04:56.720 --> 0:05:00.200 laid him in a room and put to the shining doors. 0:05:00.680 --> 0:05:04.479 There he babbles endlessly, and no more has strength at all, 0:05:04.839 --> 0:05:09.400 such as once he had in his supple limbs. M Okay, well, 0:05:09.520 --> 0:05:13.320 this makes me think Zeus probably just agreed to her request, 0:05:13.480 --> 0:05:15.840 because all the gods know that mortals are going to 0:05:15.920 --> 0:05:18.080 ask for immortality at some point or the other, and 0:05:18.080 --> 0:05:20.640 they're probably not going to phrase the question properly, and 0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:22.680 you should let them have it because it will teach 0:05:22.720 --> 0:05:26.080 them a lesson. Well, yeah, he'll learn when he's old 0:05:26.120 --> 0:05:30.400 and babbling and decrepit. But cannot die. Yeah, because global 0:05:30.440 --> 0:05:35.400 myth cycles are filled with stories of of immortality gone wrong. 0:05:35.800 --> 0:05:39.360 You know, it's either a wandering immortal who's doomed or 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:43.920 or lovers who you know, obtain a portion of immortality 0:05:43.960 --> 0:05:46.960 and it's mishandled. There's a there's a wonderful example of 0:05:47.000 --> 0:05:51.039 this in in Chinese myth with the the Elixir of 0:05:51.040 --> 0:05:54.400 Immortality and the and the Woman of the Moon. Oh 0:05:54.440 --> 0:05:56.360 does it come back to bite her? Or come back 0:05:56.400 --> 0:05:58.720 to bite the person who wants it? Um it gets 0:05:58.960 --> 0:06:01.839 There are a few different versions of the tale, but essentially, 0:06:02.200 --> 0:06:04.000 you know, one person is immortal and the other is not. 0:06:04.160 --> 0:06:07.560 That sort of thing, this this this mismatch that we 0:06:07.600 --> 0:06:10.240 see president in the Greek tale as well. Man, why 0:06:10.279 --> 0:06:13.000 are there so many myths and folk tales where people 0:06:13.080 --> 0:06:17.120 get punished for wanting better than their lot in life? Well, 0:06:17.200 --> 0:06:20.560 because you can't have it, I mean, especially when it 0:06:20.560 --> 0:06:25.160 comes to things like avoiding death and avoiding aging. You're 0:06:25.200 --> 0:06:28.720 not gonna get it. So there's something refreshing about stories 0:06:28.760 --> 0:06:32.320 in which people do get it and it backfires because 0:06:32.320 --> 0:06:34.039 that way we think, oh, well, this this thing that 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:37.000 I cannot have is actually not that great. So thank goodness, 0:06:37.040 --> 0:06:38.720 I'm going to grow old and die. Yeah. I wonder 0:06:38.720 --> 0:06:40.719 if it makes you feel like you're not so bad off. 0:06:40.839 --> 0:06:43.039 It's like, well, I'm gonna die one day, but I 0:06:43.040 --> 0:06:46.880 could be like Tiffanous, and that's even worse. Exactly, So, 0:06:47.320 --> 0:06:50.120 I think the myth is sort of an embodiment of 0:06:50.160 --> 0:06:53.240 this cruel fact about human nature. It's not just that, 0:06:53.320 --> 0:06:56.080 as they say in Bravos, all men must die, but 0:06:56.160 --> 0:07:00.440 that all people must decline. I think warrensy On put 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:03.200 it best. He said time treats everybody like a fool. 0:07:04.360 --> 0:07:07.440 And I think that's the case. And no amount of lawyers, guns, 0:07:07.520 --> 0:07:09.720 or money will get you out of this, that's right. 0:07:10.080 --> 0:07:11.920 So on one hand, you've got the idea of death. 0:07:12.120 --> 0:07:15.640 And death is a sort of unavoidable fact about biology 0:07:16.120 --> 0:07:21.120 because living organisms are these finely tuned factories of chemical reactions, 0:07:21.520 --> 0:07:25.240 and if you make substantial changes to the factory, say 0:07:25.240 --> 0:07:28.320 by jamming a rock through part of it, or biting 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:30.760 part of it off, or filling it up with parasites 0:07:30.800 --> 0:07:33.360 that gum up all the gears, the factory isn't going 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:35.920 to work the same anymore. It might not work at all. 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:40.520 Were physical creatures were subject to physical disruption. So the 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:43.840 potential for death is unavoidable. It's sort of part of 0:07:43.840 --> 0:07:48.520 what it means to be alive. But aging not quite 0:07:48.560 --> 0:07:54.560 so much. This steady time correlated decline in our biological fitness. 0:07:55.440 --> 0:07:59.720 Why does that have to happen? That's not physically inevitable 0:07:59.760 --> 0:08:03.520 in same way that death is. Yes, and this is 0:08:03.560 --> 0:08:05.600 going to be the question we're gonna be discussing in 0:08:05.640 --> 0:08:07.960 this pair of episodes. Now, we do want to drive home. 0:08:08.200 --> 0:08:10.840 We're not going to get as much into some of 0:08:10.840 --> 0:08:12.920 the mechanics of aging, like we're not going to get 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:16.640 into telomeres and telomerase and all and all of that, 0:08:17.000 --> 0:08:21.040 although that's a wonderfully insightful topic onto itself. We're gonna 0:08:21.080 --> 0:08:25.440 be talking more about the these this sort of evolutionary 0:08:25.440 --> 0:08:28.360 function of aging, if it has one, right, aging is 0:08:28.400 --> 0:08:31.360 something that has such a cost for the organisms that 0:08:31.440 --> 0:08:36.000 undergo it, like tiffanus. What pays for it biologically? Why 0:08:36.040 --> 0:08:39.800 does it exist? Now, to underscore the fact that aging 0:08:39.920 --> 0:08:43.640 is not necessarily something that is inevitable, and especially not 0:08:43.720 --> 0:08:46.959 aging as early as we do, we should maybe look 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:49.680 at some organisms that do not age in the same 0:08:49.720 --> 0:08:53.080 way we do. Yeah, they're there are a number of organisms. 0:08:53.080 --> 0:08:54.760 I'm sure a number of them come to to everyone's 0:08:54.760 --> 0:08:59.079 mind here. You think of ancient hoary tortoise is stumbling 0:08:59.120 --> 0:09:03.720 across the the ground, right, or perhaps your mind turns 0:09:03.760 --> 0:09:05.440 with the greenland shark. Will come back to that one 0:09:05.480 --> 0:09:08.400 in a second. But really one of the more insightful 0:09:08.440 --> 0:09:12.599 examples here is the hydra, or at least individuals in 0:09:12.640 --> 0:09:15.439 the Hydra genus. So you're talking about the monster that 0:09:15.480 --> 0:09:17.760 gets its head cut off and grows two more. No, 0:09:17.920 --> 0:09:20.120 as much as I do love the mythical hydra, now 0:09:20.200 --> 0:09:25.079 these are the natural world. Hydra's tiny tentacled creatures that 0:09:25.160 --> 0:09:28.080 need to continue to wow scientists because they have a 0:09:28.200 --> 0:09:33.400 number of just wonderfully bizarre and monstrous capability. So they 0:09:33.400 --> 0:09:37.280 can reproduce through a sexual butting. They have these mouths 0:09:37.360 --> 0:09:39.600 that open up kind of like wounds in their body 0:09:39.720 --> 0:09:42.760 and then close. There's some fabulous videos of them doing that. 0:09:42.800 --> 0:09:44.720 It looks like you're staring into the mouth of hell. 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:50.400 And they have this seemingly natural inability to grow, grow old, 0:09:50.520 --> 0:09:55.360 and die of natural causes. They boast low mortality rates 0:09:55.360 --> 0:09:58.400 throughout their lives, and apparently this is according to when 0:09:58.720 --> 0:10:01.840 Dr Owen Jones from the University of Southern Denmark. He 0:10:01.920 --> 0:10:05.360 has claimed that it would take four hundred years for 0:10:06.679 --> 0:10:09.720 of a hydro population to die of natural causes in 0:10:09.760 --> 0:10:13.040 the lab. Wow, well, well that's a hardy species. Yeah, 0:10:13.200 --> 0:10:15.120 So let me let me back some of that up 0:10:15.200 --> 0:10:18.200 here with with some more the facts about the life 0:10:18.200 --> 0:10:22.079 of the hydra, so their fertility rates remain constant their 0:10:22.200 --> 0:10:26.760 entire lives, which, as will discuss is is pretty unique. 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:32.319 And according to Pomono College biology researcher Professor Daniel Martinez, 0:10:33.160 --> 0:10:37.240 he has repeatedly found no evidence of sinescence in laboratory 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:40.120 caddled hydra. Yeah, and even goes so far as to 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:44.760 state that an individual hydra can live forever under the 0:10:44.840 --> 0:10:48.520 right laboratory circumstances. Now, of course, that's the catch, right. 0:10:49.040 --> 0:10:53.080 The hydro's natural environment offers sufficient hostilities to make natural 0:10:53.160 --> 0:10:57.800 death by old age and impossibility. You got disease, predators, 0:10:57.800 --> 0:11:00.199 water contamination. These are the things that usually all a 0:11:00.280 --> 0:11:03.679 hydra off in due time, and likewise, scientists have yet 0:11:03.720 --> 0:11:07.959 to create a hydra utopia that can sustain them indefinitely. Now, 0:11:07.960 --> 0:11:09.600 this is a good point in the use of the 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:13.199 word immortality, which sometimes comes up when people are covering 0:11:13.320 --> 0:11:15.960 organisms like these. There are a couple of different ways 0:11:15.960 --> 0:11:19.640 you could look at immortality. One would be the Highlander 0:11:19.800 --> 0:11:22.920 version or something like that, where there's just like nothing 0:11:23.040 --> 0:11:26.400 that can kill you except maybe one or two little things, 0:11:26.600 --> 0:11:30.640 but that you are generally invulnerable to death. And then 0:11:30.640 --> 0:11:33.840 there'd be a different version of immortality that says, yeah, 0:11:33.880 --> 0:11:37.240 you're vulnerable to death by injury or disease, you just 0:11:37.280 --> 0:11:39.920 don't naturally grow old and die. You don't have a 0:11:40.000 --> 0:11:42.760 cap on your life span. That would be more like 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:45.720 what are the elves of Middle Earth? Kind of like that, 0:11:45.800 --> 0:11:47.800 Like they can be killed in battle, but they don't 0:11:47.840 --> 0:11:49.640 grow old and die. Yeah. Well, I mean I would 0:11:49.679 --> 0:11:51.800 argue that the immortals of Highlander are much the same, 0:11:52.040 --> 0:11:54.280 Like there's a there's a very specific thing you can 0:11:54.320 --> 0:11:58.200 do to kill them, uh, and technically anyone can do it. 0:11:58.559 --> 0:12:00.240 It's just you've got to get the drop on a right. 0:12:00.440 --> 0:12:03.559 We should mention that we're popping in little references to 0:12:03.640 --> 0:12:05.839 Highlander to get you ready for the fact that one 0:12:05.920 --> 0:12:08.080 day soon we're going to do a Science of Highlander 0:12:08.080 --> 0:12:10.640 two episode and I'm not kidding. Yeah, you have advanced 0:12:10.679 --> 0:12:13.120 warning so you can all go review at least the 0:12:13.160 --> 0:12:15.600 first two films. Well, I would say just the first 0:12:15.600 --> 0:12:18.400 two films actually, okay, but back to the hydra and 0:12:18.400 --> 0:12:21.600 biological immortality in the real world. Yeah, so this is 0:12:21.720 --> 0:12:24.680 a major point really for all organisms. The natural world 0:12:24.760 --> 0:12:28.480 is generally sufficient to ensure mortality. It's dangerous, It's filled 0:12:28.520 --> 0:12:34.640 with competitors, predators, pathogens, accidents, and all manner of additional hazards. Now, 0:12:34.720 --> 0:12:37.400 humans and their captives tend to live in a very 0:12:37.440 --> 0:12:41.079 privileged space, largely removed from the threat of predation. At least, 0:12:41.960 --> 0:12:44.520 you'll find other creatures with no natural predators as well. 0:12:44.559 --> 0:12:47.600 Typically these are apex predators, but that doesn't mean they 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:50.240 don't have to deal with all these other dangers. Well. No, 0:12:50.440 --> 0:12:53.400 when you think about an apex predator, just because there's 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:56.840 nothing that tackles it and tears it apart and eats it, 0:12:57.240 --> 0:13:00.840 that doesn't mean that it's not subject to attacks from 0:13:00.840 --> 0:13:03.920 its environment, right. I mean, it of course is subject 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:06.439 to disease. But one of the other things to think 0:13:06.440 --> 0:13:09.240 about with an apex predator is these creatures are very 0:13:09.320 --> 0:13:13.080 often constantly at the edge of starvation. And so when 0:13:13.120 --> 0:13:16.840 you see the antelope running from the cheetah or something. 0:13:16.920 --> 0:13:19.680 Of course, the cheetahs trying to kill the antelope, but 0:13:19.920 --> 0:13:23.520 by escaping, the antelope is sort of also trying to 0:13:23.720 --> 0:13:26.959 kill the cheetah. It is starving the cheetah to death 0:13:27.040 --> 0:13:29.760 by escaping. The cheat is a great example too, because 0:13:29.880 --> 0:13:32.720 either cheetah injures itself in the pursuit of a prey, 0:13:32.840 --> 0:13:36.760 especially if it tackles prey that is a little beyond 0:13:36.800 --> 0:13:42.200 its ability or or is potentially beyond its ability, it 0:13:42.240 --> 0:13:45.360 can sustain an injury that results in death, not because 0:13:45.440 --> 0:13:48.760 it becomes infected or what have you, but because say, 0:13:48.480 --> 0:13:52.319 a wounded limb on a cheetah can mean it cannot 0:13:52.360 --> 0:13:55.400 pursue prey and it starves. Right. This is another thing 0:13:55.440 --> 0:13:58.160 we often fail to appreciate in the natural world is 0:13:58.200 --> 0:14:04.440 how how absolutely damning a small injury can be to 0:14:04.679 --> 0:14:08.240 an organism that has to hunt or escape hunters to survive. 0:14:08.559 --> 0:14:12.080 You also, of course, have read about large cats that 0:14:12.120 --> 0:14:15.719 have turned man killer, and uh in some of these 0:14:15.760 --> 0:14:19.240 cases I remember correctly, Sometimes it has to do with 0:14:19.280 --> 0:14:22.840 the decline of dental health, like their their inability to 0:14:22.920 --> 0:14:26.640 depend on their their teeth for their traditional prey, and 0:14:26.680 --> 0:14:30.240 it leads to sort of a desperate switch in their 0:14:30.280 --> 0:14:34.520 their selection of prey. So anyway, most most individuals are 0:14:34.520 --> 0:14:36.920 going to die or be killed before they can grow old, 0:14:37.520 --> 0:14:39.840 so there's already a low probability of being alive and 0:14:39.960 --> 0:14:43.720 reproductive at an advanced age. Still, hyders are are really 0:14:43.760 --> 0:14:45.440 interesting because it give us a real world of world 0:14:45.480 --> 0:14:49.040 example of how how undying creatures would work on a 0:14:49.040 --> 0:14:53.280 biological level. They're hardy, their regenerative they have they have 0:14:53.320 --> 0:14:57.600 evolved to thrive in harsh environments, and it actually reminds 0:14:57.600 --> 0:15:00.840 me of an alien species that shows up in Ian 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:03.480 m banks. The Culture series, of course, go into the 0:15:03.480 --> 0:15:05.640 Culture Yeah, I mean he he always managed to work 0:15:05.640 --> 0:15:09.000 so many wonderful scientific topics into his his books, and 0:15:09.040 --> 0:15:12.160 one of these topics is biological immortality. Alright, So we 0:15:12.200 --> 0:15:15.160 meet in the really the very first Culture book, we 0:15:15.280 --> 0:15:19.400 meet the Adherens. And here's just a quick quote. The 0:15:19.440 --> 0:15:22.680 Adherens themselves had evolved on their planet a deer as 0:15:22.720 --> 0:15:25.880 the top monster from a whole planet full of monsters. 0:15:26.440 --> 0:15:30.240 The frenetic and savage ecology of a deer in its 0:15:30.240 --> 0:15:33.120 early days had long since disappeared, and so had all 0:15:33.240 --> 0:15:37.200 the other homeworld monsters. Except those in zoos. But the 0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:41.000 Adherens had retained the intelligence that made them winners, as 0:15:41.000 --> 0:15:44.960 well as the biological immortality, which, due to the viciousness 0:15:45.000 --> 0:15:47.400 of the fight for survival back then, not to mention 0:15:47.400 --> 0:15:50.880 a deer's high radiation levels, had been an evolutionary advantage 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:54.200 rather than a recipe for stagnation. Now, I think that 0:15:54.280 --> 0:15:56.680 might be something interesting to come back to, maybe in 0:15:56.720 --> 0:15:59.920 the second episode, and consider whether it would actually work 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:04.040 that way and what the effect of high mortality at 0:16:04.080 --> 0:16:07.240 different stages of life would have on the life span 0:16:07.320 --> 0:16:09.800 of an organism. Alright, Well, on that note, let's take 0:16:09.800 --> 0:16:12.200 a quick break, and when we come back, we're gonna 0:16:12.280 --> 0:16:15.800 roll through just a few other long living organisms, uh 0:16:15.880 --> 0:16:20.520 that are not a hydra or an endearing thank alright, 0:16:20.520 --> 0:16:25.040 we're back. So I mentioned the greenland shark earlier. This 0:16:25.080 --> 0:16:28.560 one is pretty impressive because greenland sharks live where we 0:16:28.640 --> 0:16:32.920 understand now about four hundred years uh. And this is 0:16:32.960 --> 0:16:36.200 an exclusively wild species as well. This is not something 0:16:36.240 --> 0:16:39.360 you're gonna find growing old and fat and an aquarium. 0:16:39.400 --> 0:16:42.840 These are sharks generally don't do very well in aquariums. Correct. Yeah, 0:16:42.880 --> 0:16:45.680 it's and no one has a greenland shark that I 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:49.440 am aware of as of this recording. At two thousand sixteen, 0:16:49.800 --> 0:16:53.800 University of Copenhagen study estimated that one female greenland shark 0:16:54.320 --> 0:16:56.520 UH had it was, it was at least four hundred 0:16:56.600 --> 0:16:59.360 years old, and that the species doesn't even reach sexual 0:16:59.440 --> 0:17:04.520 mature until one fifty. So think of that, not until 0:17:04.880 --> 0:17:07.880 they've reached an age that exceeds every human being who 0:17:07.920 --> 0:17:11.320 has ever lived, and that's counting unverified but not mythic 0:17:11.400 --> 0:17:15.959 individual humans, right, not the Highlanders or you know, like 0:17:16.000 --> 0:17:20.520 you know, biblical days. Right. Yeah. Now, of course that's 0:17:20.600 --> 0:17:25.040 still not the oldest animal, because there was a clam 0:17:25.119 --> 0:17:29.160 named Ming. This is the first line of a children's book. 0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:31.000 I know it should be. Well, I would be. I 0:17:31.000 --> 0:17:33.160 would actually be surprised if there's not a children's book 0:17:33.160 --> 0:17:35.679 about Ming. There was a clam named Ming. Yeah, and 0:17:35.760 --> 0:17:39.120 Ming did love to sing. Yeah, it's this here writes itself. 0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:43.560 So technically Ming was a qua hog clam. This is 0:17:43.760 --> 0:17:46.720 uh an Arctic variety of clam, and it was discovered 0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:49.840 off the coast of Iceland in two thousand six Now 0:17:49.920 --> 0:17:52.480 at the time they thought it was around four hundred 0:17:52.480 --> 0:17:54.399 and five years old, so they named it after the 0:17:54.480 --> 0:17:57.200 Ming dynasty that would have ruled China at this time. 0:17:58.200 --> 0:18:01.080 Later estimates, and this is supported by urban dating, would 0:18:01.080 --> 0:18:04.480 boost that age to five hundred and seven years half 0:18:04.520 --> 0:18:08.280 a millennium. So this means that the creature was born 0:18:08.359 --> 0:18:13.240 in fourteen and that's still within the Mean dynasty which 0:18:13.280 --> 0:18:18.760 went four And to throw another point of context in there, 0:18:18.800 --> 0:18:21.320 this was around the time that Leonardo da Vinci completed 0:18:21.359 --> 0:18:24.719 the Last Supper. It's the year Portuguese explorer Vasco da 0:18:24.720 --> 0:18:28.800 Gama reached India. That's when this this thing was was 0:18:28.840 --> 0:18:30.720 born and then it died in two thousand and six, 0:18:31.119 --> 0:18:34.240 there was a clam named Ming, and Ming remembered everything. 0:18:34.600 --> 0:18:38.120 There you go now the plant where world, of course 0:18:38.200 --> 0:18:41.360 has all of this beat uh. There's the great basin 0:18:41.480 --> 0:18:45.520 bristle cone Pine or Pinus along Gava and it can 0:18:45.560 --> 0:18:48.320 only lived to over five thousand years of age, and 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:50.080 that takes us back to the very end of the 0:18:50.119 --> 0:18:54.199 Neolithic period. Work on Stonehenge had begun. This was the 0:18:54.240 --> 0:18:56.560 age of the Pharaoh, so it lived through the rise 0:18:56.720 --> 0:18:59.320 and the fall of the Roman Empire. Now, of course 0:18:59.359 --> 0:19:03.720 this highlights that different kinds of organisms have massively different 0:19:03.720 --> 0:19:06.560 potential when it comes to lifespan. Yeah, and of course 0:19:06.560 --> 0:19:09.080 plants are very different from animals. This reminds me that 0:19:09.080 --> 0:19:11.040 one of the ideas that was brought up recently. I 0:19:11.040 --> 0:19:14.240 believe on our discussion module on on Facebook or Facebook group, 0:19:14.920 --> 0:19:16.879 that we should do something just on plants, like what 0:19:17.080 --> 0:19:19.080 is a plant? To sort of strip it down to 0:19:19.119 --> 0:19:21.800 its basics. I kind of like that idea, it's a 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:26.680 really lazy animal. Well, I've got a really lazy one. 0:19:26.680 --> 0:19:30.280 Then for you here, Uh, there's at least one step 0:19:30.320 --> 0:19:35.040 beyond the great basin bristle Cone pine. And this is 0:19:35.040 --> 0:19:37.960 something you'll find in fish Lake National Park in Utah 0:19:38.200 --> 0:19:41.440 here in the United States, Uh, the quaking aspen tree, 0:19:41.760 --> 0:19:43.840 which is also the state tree by the way, also 0:19:43.880 --> 0:19:47.480 known as the trembling Giant or pando, which means I spread. 0:19:48.840 --> 0:19:50.760 So what we have here and this is this is 0:19:50.760 --> 0:19:54.640 one where not everybody necessarily agrees with that this might 0:19:54.640 --> 0:19:56.879 be sort of bending the definition a little bit of 0:19:56.920 --> 0:19:59.280 what is a long living organism. But what we have 0:19:59.400 --> 0:20:02.480 here is a single clone of quaking asp been connected 0:20:02.480 --> 0:20:05.880 by a single extensive roots system that's roughly the size 0:20:05.880 --> 0:20:08.760 of Vatican City, a hundred and six acres thirteen million 0:20:08.800 --> 0:20:12.359 pounds and it's all eighty thousand years old. So what 0:20:12.400 --> 0:20:16.800 you're talking about is a forest that is all sort 0:20:16.840 --> 0:20:19.800 of in some way the same organism. Right, you can. 0:20:19.880 --> 0:20:22.560 It's it's not as simple as the clam was born 0:20:23.040 --> 0:20:25.679 in the century and it died in this one. But 0:20:25.800 --> 0:20:28.080 if you if you've been the definition enough and you 0:20:28.119 --> 0:20:31.000 accept this as an example, we're talking about a thing 0:20:31.119 --> 0:20:34.240 that has lived since humans first left Africa to colonized 0:20:34.280 --> 0:20:37.600 the world. Wow. Yeah, Now, Robert, here's something I've always 0:20:37.600 --> 0:20:42.080 wondered about. Okay, dinosaurs. You got to wonder how long 0:20:42.119 --> 0:20:44.760 they lived, especially because this gets warped by our sense 0:20:44.800 --> 0:20:48.520 of history. I think because they lived so long ago, 0:20:49.600 --> 0:20:52.680 you just naturally go to this completely illogical place where 0:20:52.720 --> 0:20:57.000 they must have lived a long time. Like, Okay, tyrannosaurs 0:20:57.040 --> 0:20:59.879 rex lived maybe three hundred years. I mean they they 0:21:00.000 --> 0:21:02.320 they've got very big, so you have to imagine it 0:21:02.359 --> 0:21:04.400 took them a while to grow as big as they did. 0:21:04.800 --> 0:21:06.919 This would take a lot of years of eating and 0:21:07.000 --> 0:21:10.479 cell division and all that. So so surely they had 0:21:10.560 --> 0:21:14.399 very long lifespans. Well, this used to be the main theory, 0:21:15.000 --> 0:21:17.520 and this was in part because of ai their size 0:21:17.560 --> 0:21:19.440 or at least the size of many of the specimens 0:21:19.760 --> 0:21:21.879 and the fact that we thought, well, they were essentially 0:21:22.440 --> 0:21:26.119 giant reptiles, and so based on slow reptile growth rates 0:21:26.119 --> 0:21:28.560 and their size, they said, well, big dinos probably lived 0:21:28.720 --> 0:21:32.240 several hundred years. But today paleonto just believed they grew 0:21:32.560 --> 0:21:35.480 more like birds and mammals, and this cuts back on 0:21:35.520 --> 0:21:39.080 their lifespans somewhat. So, for instance, the Field Museum of 0:21:39.160 --> 0:21:42.720 Chicago they have this, uh, this these t rex remains 0:21:43.240 --> 0:21:46.280 that they named Sue. Sue. Sue is great. Yeah, she's 0:21:46.280 --> 0:21:48.679 a wonderful specimen. You get to look right up at 0:21:48.680 --> 0:21:51.520 her and get a sense of the true size of 0:21:51.560 --> 0:21:54.960 this this amazing species. Can I say something embarrassing, go 0:21:55.080 --> 0:21:56.960 for it. I cried a little bit at Sue. Yeah, 0:21:57.040 --> 0:22:00.240 I'm not kidding. When we were in Chicago and I'm 0:22:00.280 --> 0:22:03.080 just sitting there looking at Sue for a while, I 0:22:03.119 --> 0:22:06.680 did something to me a little misty. That's that's beautiful. 0:22:06.920 --> 0:22:09.000 I I can understand it because it is like looking 0:22:09.000 --> 0:22:11.520 back in time to encounter, you know, a fossil like that. 0:22:12.400 --> 0:22:16.200 So Sue is a rather big specimen, or at least 0:22:16.960 --> 0:22:19.280 the fossil remains are rather large and speak to a 0:22:19.359 --> 0:22:23.640 large specimen. They we think now that she probably achieved 0:22:23.680 --> 0:22:26.400