Gila Monster Heal Thyself

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to Creature future production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology,
and today on the show we are talking about animal doctors.
Maybe they're not real medical doctors, but medicine and healo
monsters heal thyself anyways, we're talking about medical discoveries that

(00:32):
have been drawn from the evolutionary biology of animals. We're
talking about animal research, not in the sense of the
incredible sacrifice of say, mice, but actual evolutionary advantages that
animals have that we learn from to directly create life saving,
life changing medicines. From heala monsters who are a lot

(00:55):
sweeter than they sound, to all sorts of deadly venom,
and of course the age old question how do giraffes work?
Joining me today is front of the show Real Life gastor,
entrologist and host of the medical podcast House a Pod
Cave Hodo.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
Welcome, Hey, thank you so much for having me back.
I have to say, though I did not come prepared
when you said it was going to be about animal doctors.
I thought you meant like dogs and crocodiles in lab
coats helping other animals, or maybe even treating humans like
doctors that were animals. And this is I'm not I
didn't prepare. I'm so sorry.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
I uh, it's it's all about Doggy Houser MD. No, sadly,
I would. I would definitely be interested in a giraffe
doctor kind of coming in with a giant stethoscope, and
that would instantly put me at ease. I meant it
more of that, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
It would be amazing. Also the tie question, because copper
bottom not only well, clearly the bottom okay, because that's
a silly question to me because it's just a really
long neck. But the problem is, you know those ties,
they're terrible for fomites, and I don't recommend doctors wear
them if you're in the clinical setting because that tie
just brushes across everything. And imagine how bad that would

(02:17):
be with a with a giraffe. It will be like
a trump level tie just sweeping across the serengetti, picking
up like foumtes and transmitting it to patients. A terrible idea.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
You think if elephants were doctors, like would they where
would you put the mask?

Speaker 2 (02:32):
Right?

Speaker 1 (02:33):
The face mask? Because they've got the trunk which is
what I assume they're using for all the surgeries. So
do they put a mask like on the tip of
the trunk, which but then the tip of their trunk
is basically a hand, So then do they just wash it?

Speaker 2 (02:48):
Wow, that is an excellent question. I'm going to have
to say, they put a sterile boy, how would they breathe? Yeah? No,
I don't think they can be surgeons because their breathing
apparatus is also essentially their hands, actile their hand, and
we don't have the technology yet for breathable sterile gloves. So,

(03:08):
and I'm not saying because I've tried to put a
glove over my head or anything, I'm not saying I've
done that. Maybe I have, maybe I haven't. But you
can't breathe well in those things, so I don't recommend that. Yeah,
I'm sorry. I'm sorry elephants out there. Yeah, I know
I'm being ablest elephant. I don't think you're ready to
be surgeons.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
There's an elephant listening to this. His dreams have been crushed.

Speaker 2 (03:31):
I'm gonna get canceled for that.

Speaker 1 (03:34):
Unfortunately. No, we're not talking about adorable animals who are
your doctors, but we are talking about the ways in
which evolutionary changes in animals, these advantages that they have
actually give inspiration to human medical researchers and help them
make these fantastic discoveries, either directly from the animal or

(03:57):
inspired by the biology of the animal. So the first
one we're going to talk about, I think is it's
a very relevant thing because it's it's like the medicine doujour.
It is about heala monsters and the way that they
led to the discovery of oziepic or semaglue tide, the

(04:17):
more generic drug.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
I think it's I think that's fascinating. I think it
really in and of itself is a fascinating topic. But
I think, particularly in this day and age, when research
is so under fire and our research systems, our healthcare systems,
the whole scientific infrastructure of the United States is being

(04:42):
sort of dismantled actively, I think it's really important to
take a look at something like this and be like, Hey,
this very important medication that's really commonly used and people
love started from some research that probably seems silly to somebody. Rightly,
somebody probably saw I'm you're probably gonna talk about this,
But like I think it's so important to be like, Okay,

(05:04):
this is why, like this random study that we did
ten twenty years ago in the helo monster saliva, you know,
is actually super important because at the time people were like,
we're spending five million dollars on the the sex identity
of the helo monster. Yeah, you know, like we're spending
twenty million on spit of a lizard. Yeah, and like
someone's getting crazy about that. But this is what can

(05:27):
happen with research, with studies.

Speaker 1 (05:29):
That's exactly why we're talking about this today because it
is something where we have all sorts of research going on,
and a lot of it like will not make the
news until there is something, as I guess sensational and
revolutionary is something like semaglue tide. But meanwhile, the way
that we came upon this drug, it was not just

(05:52):
like this accidental one day, you know, you're mixing chemicals
in a lab and oh, drug happens. It's from years
and years, decades of rece and in this particular case,
it was from decades of research done on HeLa monsters,
which are a type of lizard a reptile found in
the southwestern United States as well as in Sonora, Mexico,

(06:14):
and they are like in of in themselves. They're fascinating
little creatures, like I love them so much. But in
addition to being amazing animals, they have revolutionized human medicine,
the treatment of diabetes, the obviously with o zimbic weight loss.
But like you said, it's from these studies that when

(06:36):
you first look at them, it's like, why do we
care about HeLa monster venom? It's bad for you, end
of study, right, helo monster venom. Don't get bitten by
a HeLa monster. It's gonna hurt. Like, why would we
need to study that? That's ridiculous. But in fact, these
studies that seem strange, right, Like I remember these kind
of anti science people were complaining about, Oh, there's all

(06:57):
these studies done on birds song, why don't we care?
Why do we care about that? Where in reality, like
studies done on birdstrong and the crystallization of learning has
huge implications for say like human learning. Even things like
Alzheimer's are all sorts of things that are not immediately
obvious from these studies that can become revolutionary and life

(07:17):
changing and life saving for people. And so yeah, that's
exactly what we're going to talk about today is all
of these discoveries, these these animals that have led to discoveries,
and then the people behind them, and the laboratories and
the research institutes behind them. So heal monsters. It's actually
if you're googling this you want a picture of them.

(07:38):
It is spelled gila, so it looks like it should
be pronounced gel a monster, but it's actually pronounced hel
a monster. They're actually really beautiful lizards. They have this
black and orange coloration. They have bumpy skin, this kind
of like stout, chunky body. I think they're cute. I
think most things are cute, but this one just has

(08:00):
kind of like a little stoutness to it that I
think makes it cute. They store a lot, do you think?

Speaker 2 (08:08):
Will you be honest with me, Are there any animals
that you don't think are cute? You're not going to
hurt their feels?

Speaker 1 (08:13):
I really hate silverfish. The insect the insect uh huh.
I don't like cockroaches. They gross me out. Let's see
what else is not cute?

Speaker 2 (08:26):
Anything not insect base that you don't think is cute.
I'm asking for hot take here for this show. In particular,
but I'm wondering what is.

Speaker 1 (08:35):
Not gosh, what is a not cute non insect? And
also most insects are cute. That's a really good question
really to me. Most insects are cute.

Speaker 2 (08:47):
But you see a close up of an ant's face,
it's terrifying.

Speaker 1 (08:50):
It's yeah, that's pretty neat. But then when you zoom out,
they're cute little babies. Also, if you zoom into a
tartar grade, then they become cute, and then you zoom
in even more are terrifying. So there's like different levels
of zoom where it's like you zoom out from a
tartar grade, you can't see it, so it's nothing. It's
not cute, it's not ugly, it's nothing. You zoom in
it's like, oh, it's like a chubby little teddy bear.

(09:11):
And then you zoom in even more and it's like
a dune sandworm.

Speaker 2 (09:16):
There's something about that that's really I think important for life.
Like life is if you zoom to the wrong level,
absolutely terrifying. If you zoom in or out to like
the right level, like because if you're at the level
that most of us are right now in zoom, what's
happening in this country is terrifying. But you know, if
I zoom way way out to where we're just like

(09:38):
a globe that's floating in space, it's not so terrifying.
I zoom way way into like this cup of coffee
I'm having, then it's also good, but anywhere between is terrifying.

Speaker 1 (09:49):
Also, focal length, it's very important for selfies. Like if
you take a selfie and you're like, ah, look awful,
probably a bad focal length. Don't worry about it.

Speaker 2 (09:58):
So right, right, yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:01):
It's all no, no, it's all. It all ties in together,
putting that, putting that on my corkboard of sanity over there.
So yeah, they are these beautiful lizards. They're bumpy, they're
they kind of have all of these little bumps, all
of them, these like little uh pearl like protrusions. Uh.

(10:21):
That's actually why their Latin name Hiloderma suspect them. The
Heloderma in their name is like it stands for studded skin.
Suspectum is a funny part of their name, and that
is because the guy who discovered these was like, I
suspect they might be venomous based on their teeth, and
he was right, but sometimes scientists, Yeah, just like I

(10:44):
suspect you're you're suspicious, So your name is Hiloderma, suspect them,
but yeah it's sus It's a sus lizard. Uh yeah.
But those little protrusions are called osteoderms. They're actually bony deposits,
so they they're like calcium deposits. They're little. They're not
really made of you know, epithelial tissue. They're made out

(11:06):
of bony deposits, which is kind of interesting. So they're
lumpy and bumpy and very cute in my opinion. Now,
they are rather venomous, so they have this apisomatic coloration,
meaning warning coloration, So they have the bright orange, the black,
and this kind of beautiful striated pattern on their backs.

(11:27):
But the purpose of that is to warn predators like, hey,
you'd better not like, I'm pretty toxic. And they are
quite venomous, so they have these sharp teeth that can
inject venom. They also have very foul breath apparently that
goes along with it, and pioneers thought that because their

(11:48):
breath was kind of bad, they thought that they could
kill either with their breath. Just the stinkiness of their
breath or also kill with their bite with the venom.

Speaker 2 (11:59):
Can I ask question, am I confusing the HeLa monster
with the Komodo dragon in that they bite their prey
and it causes an infection that later kills their prey
and when they catch up to them. Is that the
Komodo dragon?

Speaker 1 (12:14):
That is the that is about like that idea is
about the Komodo dragon. The Komodo dragon does have venom,
and the idea that of the infection that's largely it's
not exactly accurate because what happens is that the Komodo
dragon will bite its prey and it'll try to take
down its prey like right then and there, but often

(12:35):
the prey will escape and the Komodo dragon has this
amazing sense of smell, so it can just track its prey.
And what prey animals often do in response to being
tracked like that or being injured, as they'll go into
a body of water and so they will have this
big wound. They'll go into the body of water because

(12:56):
they're trying to avoid the predator. And so that's where
this idea comes from. That because then once they have
that big wound and they go into the water, they
can get a pretty nasty infection which could kill them
even if the Komodo dragon doesn't find them. But generally speaking,
the komodo dragon is an injecting it with venom with
these like powerful toxins. It will track it down if

(13:19):
it runs off, just like if a hunter shoots a
deer and the deer runs off, you track it down
to try to find it, but usually it is simply
killed by the komodo dragon. Man, I'm not bought necessarily
by an infection, but you do have these cases where
even if it evades the komodo dragon and it tries
to go into a body of water to sort of
like hide from it, it can also die from infection.

(13:41):
So that's where that idea comes from. Heala monsters are
quite a bit smaller. They're only they weigh about two pounds.
They're about a foot long, so that's about eight hundred grams,
and they do they are predators, but they eat very
small things, so rodents, little invertebrates, other lizards, reptiles, And

(14:03):
it's actually thought because their prey is so small and
relatively helpless, that the venom is not really necessary for
their hunting, and it's mostly defensive, like so that they
can bite predators, anything that would try to make a
meal out of them. Because they're, you know, only only
two pounds, they could possibly be eaten by something. And

(14:24):
they also eat eggs, so they kind of they're a
lot more chill, I would say, than something like a
Kimodo dragon. They really just like to eat and sleep.
And even though technically they are dangerous for people in
the sense that if you're bitten by one, you really
need to get medical attention because their venom is quite powerful,

(14:46):
they very very rarely kill people. It's something that's easily treated.
It is not generally deadly. The only cases that have
resulted in fatalities for healthy adult human beings is that
is when someone doesn't go to get treatment, if the
treatment's mismanaged or I guess there was a couple of

(15:08):
cases where someone was like really really drunk, uh, and so,
which would explain why they're getting bitten by a heal
monster probably picking it like.

Speaker 2 (15:16):
What was and again, yeah, so yeah, that's that is
very cool. That is very neat. I also would like
credit for not making and in this economy joke when
you brought up eggs. I would like credit for that.

Speaker 1 (15:32):
Yeah, the main the main threat, the main threat to
healo monsters right now is inflation egg inflation. Uh, their bit.

Speaker 2 (15:43):
It's like jazz. It's the jokes you don't make, you
know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (15:46):
It's it's the negative space around the jokes that make
it funny. The venom is apparently extremely painful though, so
you don't really want to get bitten by. Some YouTuber
who got himself bitten by one of these called it
like it felt like lava in his veins or something.
But honestly, you know, if you're a YouTuber and you

(16:08):
intentionally seek out these bites, I don't have a huge
amount of sympathy, but yeah, so it can be very painful,
but it's general. These guys generally do not kill people.
It's only in very rare, very sort of freak incidents
that they'll kill people. And also they just don't bite.
They don't they don't want to bite you unless you
really mess with them because they just want to eat

(16:30):
a lot and sleep a lot. That is their whole
life plan.

Speaker 2 (16:35):
You're making a good argument for their adorability and their friendliness,
and I'm keeping an open mind. I mean, the cookie
monster is a monster. And he's adorable wit and it's
in his name, So I get it. You're you're making
a good argument.

Speaker 1 (16:48):
They are kind of cookie monsters because they they really
love snacking. So juveniles are able to eat fifty percent
of their body weight in one sitting, like one meal,
so that's like half half of their whole body weight
in one meal. Adults can eat over thirty percent of
their body weight in a single meal. So they all

(17:10):
just eat huge meals and then they don't have to
eat for weeks or months at a time. They're just
napping and trying to stay out of trouble in the meantime.
Not bad, yeah, sunbathing, napping and eating just huge amounts
just like it's it really is the life. And it's
also that whole that ability of theirs to eat a

(17:35):
huge amount and then just kind of loaf around and
digest it really slowly is the whole reason that they
have led to the discovery of semaglutide o zebic, the
GLP one agonist. So this comes from a hormone in
heala monsters, so they can slow down their digestion, their

(17:57):
metabolism and eat just a few meals a year, and
so this Also, in addition, this very slow metabolism means
that their relatively long lived lizard and captivity, they can
live up to about forty years, so they have this
really fantastic slow digestion, slow gastric emptying. You can probably

(18:19):
kind of see where I'm going with this if you
know anything about semaglue tide, so xendon four is a
peptide derived from the heel monster venom, and it can
be used as a GLP one receptor agonist. Which, don't worry,
I'm going to explain these things because or maybe I'll

(18:40):
get caved up explain them because I think he probably
knows about them a little more than I do.

Speaker 2 (18:44):
So you're doing great, Thank you.

Speaker 1 (18:47):
I appreciate that. But I'm also lazy, So tell tell
the listeners what is the What is a GLP one
receptor agonist?

Speaker 2 (18:56):
So some of glue tide this medication that you're taught
talking about these things like ozembic with go V and
I think the other one is Rebel says, I forget
the actual name of it, but what it is, it's
a medication that mimics the action of the GLP one hormone.
And what that does is it helps regulate your blood
sugar levels. It reduces the appetitis you mentioned, and a

(19:19):
big part of that is by slowing down gastric emptying,
which means the way your stomach normally works is you know,
it digested things, it's smashing things up, it's putting in
all the right stuff to break down with acid the
food that you're eating, and then it empties into your
small intestine. And this is all part of a normal process.

(19:41):
And when your stomach's empty, that helps trigger your hunger.
There's a lot of things that go into hunger, but
that's one of them. And then if you have slow emptying,
if things are just slow down in your gut, that
can be a problem for some people. But it's also
a way to reduce people's appetites and what's happening here.

(20:01):
So it's actually pretty effective for helping with weight loss,
it's pretty effective for controlling blood sugar. And now you know,
we give it to patients as weekly injections. This other
one as a tablets roybelsis but I don't it's not
quite as common yet, So it's actually we're probably gonna
find this isn't aside, but I think over the coming

(20:23):
years We're probably gonna find more uses for it. I mean,
there's people who are studying its use for alcohol cravings
and alcohol use disorder, so we might find other things
that go along with it. But the major thing it's
gonna do, as you mentioned with humans here, is in
terms of weight loss, to slow down the way your
gut moves things through. So because of that, you can

(20:45):
also get side effects from it. There are people who
are gonna get nausea, vomiting, might even get like constantpation
or even diarrhea or some alternation of the two. There's
some serious risks that can happen. It's pretty rare, but
problems with the thyroid, pancreatitis or inflammation of your pink risk.
I've seen gall bladders that have had stones before they

(21:06):
started the medication become inflamed because of the stones because
things aren't moving the way they should. There's like a
little bit more chance of infection there. So there's some
serious risk too with these medications. But that is the
basic overview of semiglue tides and what they're doing for
you here in these medications.

Speaker 1 (21:23):
Right, And it's like any medication, right, you kind of
have to weigh the potential benefits with the risks, right,
like if you that's right, yeah, diabetes, and you need
it to regulate your blood sugar. The risks of the
medication may be outweighed by the benefits you get, or
you know, if you really really need help with weight loss,

(21:44):
and like nothing else has worked, and it's affecting your
health as long as you tolerate it well, as long
as the side effects are not so grave, like it
might be something you want to take. But and it's
also very individual, right, like some people will respond better
to it than others. It's it's not like a mirror.
There's not like a miracle pill that makes everyone better.

Speaker 2 (22:06):
But it's that's exactly right. And I think that's a
really great point, is that every it has to be
tailored for the person, and it's not for everybody, and
there should always be with any medication. There should be
some risk and benefit analysis that somebody is doing. And
everything has some risk, there's no doubt. So and it's
it's not perfect, but you know it is. It does

(22:27):
seem to be helpful, and so far all the studies
show that works, and we see it in plenty of patients,
and you see it and I'm sure everyone knows somebody
at this point who has lost weight on one of
these medications, so that that benefit in the long run
in terms of their health probably outweighs the risks for
most people, but not everyone.

Speaker 1 (22:44):
Yeah, yeah, no, it's for sure an individual thing. I
also have to emphasize, like, please don't find a heal
a monster and like have it bite you. That will
not work. It will not it won't be the same.
I know it's tempting because of drug prices.

Speaker 2 (22:59):
In the US so much cheaper.

Speaker 1 (23:01):
Our terrible healthcare system, and it seems like it might
seem like a good time, a good idea, especially if
you're really drunk. But don't do that. The heal a
monster doesn't want to be involved in that. And also
it will just hurt a lot and cause.

Speaker 2 (23:17):
You problems only a matter of time, as funny as
it sounds, but before like the raw milk community gets
to like fresh helo, oh my.

Speaker 1 (23:25):
God, oh no, oh no, no, don't do it. Don't
do it, guys, please don't. I I yeah, just out
there milk and HeLa monsters. Anyways, another reason I wanted
to bring up the healo monsters is that they there
is some new research, not in terms of what the

(23:47):
healo monsters can do for us, which is actually currently ongoing.
There's all sorts of things that they're looking into heal
a monster venom for, including things like Alzheimer's. So just
it's just, you know, venom has so many interesting properties.
And we're gonna talk about this some more at the
end of the show, but there's so many different things
that that these peptides that can be found in the

(24:09):
vidim it could offer potential treatments for. And it's all
this research that's happening. But there's also now some research
going on in order to help the heala monsters themselves,
because they are living creatures and they too are vulnerable
to disease. Particularly there is this fungal parasite called cryptosporidium.

(24:31):
It's not the kind of crypto you want to invest in.
It's uh, you know, uh it is it is a
kind of of fungus that can infect the HeLa monster
digestive system, which is really bad for them because, like
we talked about, their whole adaptation is like having this
incredible digestion digestive system that works really slowly metabolizes, but

(24:55):
it allows them to eat not that much, and so
a helo monster might eat a huge meal. Digestion is
going really slowly. But then if this fungal parasite takes
hold of their digestion, it messes up this very delicate
balance that the HeLa monster has. And so this, you know,
threatens not only individuals, but if we see this continue, right, like,

(25:17):
if infections become more common, could threaten entire populations. And
fungi are as much as I am interested in fung
guy in terms of evolutionary biology because they're really fascinating,
they can be really devastating. It, particularly for reptiles and
amphibians and specifically frogs seem to suffer the mouse from

(25:39):
certain types of fungal infections. Like, there are species that
get wiped out by fungal infections because they have so
little defense against it. They're very vulnerable to it and
it can spread so quickly. So sort of the last
of a style apocalypses are happening all the time, just
to frog species you've never heard of.

Speaker 2 (25:58):
Yeah, Cryptospridium is a microscopic parasite that's really important for
humans as well. I should mention it can cause severe diarrhea.
Watery diarrhea can cause logi symptoms. It's transmitted through the
fecal oral route, which is another fantastic reason again to
wash your hands, and it is found in the US

(26:19):
and throughout the rest of the world too, but it
is a real problem here, particularly if someone has some
immunal compromise. So it's one of these causes of severe
diarrhea in patients with immuo compromise that we check for.
So it's interesting that we're seeing it cause problems in
these animals as well, because maybe it will help us
if we research them figure out how to treat it

(26:41):
for us. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (26:42):
Absolutely. This is a major theme of the show, which
is that we are not separate from other animals, both
in terms of the ways in which we directly impact
each other, the way like our sort of when we
live somewhere, our human habitations will directly influence animal behaviors

(27:02):
and that will come back to us. But also on
you know, the microscopic level, right, like diseases and it's
not just like zoonoses that like jump from animals to
people or back and forth, but just diseases that affect
both humans and animals that when we understand them better
in animals or even understand them better in people. We

(27:23):
can learn how to treat treat the issue at this
more fundamental level, which like helps everything.

Speaker 2 (27:33):
Right.

Speaker 1 (27:33):
Ecosystems generally work because there are a lot of uh
you know, a lot of different members of that ecosystem. Right,
So humans are part of an ecosystem, even though we
like to pretend that we're not. Right, we kind of
pave over all the ecosystms, like we don't need that.
All we need is like asphalt and a nice, nice Honda,
and we're good. But like it's we really are part

(27:56):
of an ecosystem, and like it is really interesting when
we see that at this sort of more like scientific
level where this this it's it's kind of like an
information ecosystem, right, where information that animals have in their
in their genome from millions of years of evolution, we
can look at as humans and then find this like

(28:17):
huge library of information of peptides, of diseases and how
they respond in animals, then use that for our own medicine,
in our own health, and also for the health of
the environment, which again directly feeds back into our own
quality of life. It's it's it's not separate at all.

Speaker 2 (28:37):
Yeah, absolutely, I agree. I mean, in just to clarify Cryptospurtium,
I don't believe as a fungus. I believe it's a
protozoan parasite, but the way it's infecting, the way it's
acting in these in the people, and the and the
way it acts it's very similar in terms of the
immio compromise to fungus as well. So yeah, it is

(29:01):
knowing about them is I think it's very cool that
there's so many connections between studying animals and us. There's
limitations obviously between like what happens in animal and how
that translates to what happens to us and how our
bodies adjust, but overall, more similarities than we would expect
and more than differences. And it's a great place to

(29:24):
start studies because you don't want to have to study
cryptosporidium in humans if you can help it. I mean,
you're going to have to at some point for treatments.
But the more we can learn about these things from
other research that's out there in the animal world, the
better it will be for scientists focusing on humans.

Speaker 1 (29:43):
Yeah, no, and yes, thank you so much. For the clarification,
you're actually, you're absolutely right. I was confusing it. There's
something called the chitrid fungus and that's the one that
affects a lot of amphibians and reptiles, so that one's
a fungus. But you're right, cryptospor is a microbe. Yes, exactly.

Speaker 2 (30:07):
I think it's single celled, right, right.

Speaker 1 (30:09):
They're they're kind of they's similar kind of in how
they they operate. But you're right, distinct good and good distinction.
So yeah, and so the bye. There's this recent article
in The New York Times by Emily Anthees, and it's
about this, like, uh, these researchers struggles to find sort

(30:29):
of treatments for helo monsters who are infected with Cryptosporidium. Uh.
There is a particular patient being study named Pebbles. She's
a helo monster being treated at the Creature Conservancy in
ann Arbor Mission. She's called Pebbles because she has little
the characteristic bumps on her skin that and they're very
like they're because they're bony deposits. They're very rough. They feel,

(30:52):
you know, kind of bony and rough, and it's it's
I've never pet a helo monster, and I really want
to because I feel like that would be very tactile,
the satisfying to pet.

Speaker 2 (31:05):
You know, a killer name, killer name for any sort
of lizard. I absolutely love it.

Speaker 1 (31:11):
Yeah, and she apparently tolerates being cradled by people pretty well,
just like holding her and she's like, well, all right,
this is my life now, because they're very They're really
not very they're very chill lizards, right like, unless you're
a small prey item or they think that you're a
threat to them, they're they're very chill. And so this

(31:33):
University of Michigan pharmaceutical chemist Tim Sernak, I hope I'm
pronouncing that right, is looking into potential treatments for pebbles specifically,
but also the hope is that by trying to treat pebbles,
he'll be able to find treatments for other heel monsters,

(31:54):
other populations, and then maybe also for humans. Because he
actually started out as a medical researcher for human diseases,
right like, looking into pharmaceuticals for people, and then his
focus shifted towards animals because he's he was thinking like, look,
we get so much from these these animals from our
environment in terms of medical research. I'm worried now about

(32:17):
losing that and losing these precious resources not just because
of what they provide us, but just because they're also
because they're wonderful. And so he's kind of shifted his
focus to trying to come up with ways to treat
these diseases in animals, not on a sort of like
specific like veterinarian level, but on a population level, right, Like, so,

(32:39):
if you have a population of helo monsters being threatened
right by cryptosporidium, how do you treat that? How do
you prevent say extinction or near extinctions from these diseases
in these animals that are so important for the environment
and for medicine.

Speaker 2 (32:56):
Yeah, yeah, oh that's really neat. That's really cool.

Speaker 1 (33:00):
I really love that because it's like, you know, the
the idea that we can exploit animals right for their
this like information that they have like their in their
living tissue, but then we can also use that information
then to like turn around and be like, all right,
helo monsters, you've greatly improved our lives and our understanding

(33:22):
of medicine. Let's make sure that you don't die out.
That would It's just it's something that to me seems
really obvious, like this is an important thing. But it's
also like, again, what we were kind of talking about
at the beginning of the show. You could imagine someone
who's trying to cut funding to research going like why
do we need to treat lizards? Like why do we

(33:44):
care about that? Who cares?

Speaker 2 (33:47):
Right? And also I would even go in further to
be like someone might say, Okay, we learned everything we
need to know about the Helo monster, but that's clearly
not true either, Like I mean, there's going to be
more discoveries that I mean, if we're looking at this
from a completely selfish, non altruistic sort of perspective, it's
still a good idea. Yes, to keep them alive, keep

(34:09):
them around, study them. I mean, that's not the reason
we should do it. We should do it just because,
like we're not monsters destroying the planet. But you know,
if you need to be a little bit more granular
about it, they can there. Look what we've already learned
in what little time we've been studying them. Give us
more time. Maybe there's something else that will cure other

(34:31):
diseases in this animal that we need to keep an
eye on. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (34:34):
Absolutely. I mean I feel like the listeners to the
show are very sort of self selecting. So they're all
animal lovers, they all want good things for animals just
because they think animals are cool. I'm assuming, and so
I feel like I don't need to necessarily convince y'all
out there to care about animals. But I feel like
when you're talking to people, right, friends, family, you're senators,

(34:58):
I don't know who are, are kind of not understanding
why animals are so important and saying something like, well,
because they're really cool and it's amazing to have a
diversity of animals around, and that doesn't reach them. Then
saying like, look, this animal could potentially lead to a
cure for Alzheimer's and we just don't know it yet.

(35:18):
It's is It is something where sometimes you do, especially
for something like like policymakers or people who just are
not that curious about animals and about science in general,
that you have to like tell them, look like you
will directly benefit from this animal. It's not just about

(35:40):
the curiosity of it, about the sort of fascinating discoveries.
Even though a lot of people, I think, especially listeners
of the show, would agree that is valuable in of
in itself. It doesn't have to lead to something. But yeah,
like in so many cases, like I always think about
like things that we lose in terms of like there's

(36:01):
so many species we lose that we just don't know
what they could have helped us with. In terms of discoveries,
I think like the most famous one is the gastric
brooding frog. I don't know if that's something that is
well known among gaster enterology.

Speaker 2 (36:18):
You think I would know about it, Well, I'll tell
you now.

Speaker 1 (36:21):
It's it is this little frog that did unfortunately go extinct,
but it had this really unique brooding method. It would
ingest its own babies, and the little babies would like
go from eggs to tadpoles to like a little frog
that's all inside of its gut, inside of its stomach,

(36:41):
and it did the it would be able to do
this without you know, digesting its own babies. So and
then once the baby was big enough, it would come
out of the gastric brooding frog's mouth. So basically it
would like give birth from its stomach out of its mouth.
It's essentially like when you're a kid and you first
learn about pregnancy and babies, how you think babies are made,

(37:03):
Like they grow them in their stomachs and their tummies
and then like throw them up or something like this
frog would literally do that, and it's very it's really
sad that they when extinct, mostly due to habitat loss.

Speaker 2 (37:18):
But uh, I mean, just off the top of my head,
I could think of three important like research things you
could do to help us learn about gastric lining, about
gastric cultures, about even like tumor growth in the stomach.
There's so much there and that's that's fascinating. Ye I'm
so bummed that I'm just learning about this thing now

(37:39):
that it's already gone.

Speaker 1 (37:40):
Yeah, I mean there is some hope that it could
be potentially brought back, like by there's some samples of it,
like so I think they have some like samples of
the gas or brooding frog. There's this idea of like
de extincting them by introducing that DNA to close relatives
of it and see if they can bring it back.

Speaker 2 (38:01):
So there's some.

Speaker 1 (38:02):
Potential hope in the future. But like you said, like
the loss of understanding of like how they manage to
have their gut not like not burned through these very
tender little froglets. Would mean a lot in terms of
how to prevent your stomachs from say like burning through
the lining of your stomach because your stomachs are full

(38:22):
of acid. It's important for digestion. But then when that acid,
you know, burns your own gut lining, like, then you
get ulcers. And so yeah, there's so much potential research
that could have happened that was lost.

Speaker 2 (38:37):
That's right, as you learned when you came onto the
House of Pod and we discussed with an expert in
peptic ulcer disease. There's so many factors that go into
the creation of these ulcers. It's not really so much
that there's more acid, but it's the lining of the
stomach and how it's protected. And that is exactly the
kind of thing that we still have a lot to

(38:57):
learn about. Yeah, and like having something else out there
to look at would have been awesome, And it is
funny that we have to do this, but we do. Yeah,
Like from my perspective, I'm constantly trying to explain to
people why it's important for us as the United States
to care about infectious disease elsewhere.

Speaker 1 (39:15):
Yeah, it's really important, but they're in another country, How
could that ever possibly affect us? Like, first of all gross,
Second of all planes, you guys, airplanes?

Speaker 2 (39:26):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (39:27):
And third gross again third just gross, like yeah, like, oh,
I don't like, I don't care about other people unless
I'm personally affected or they're in my own country. Very gross.
But also yes, airplanes, god, airplanes yeah, airplanes also yeah,
I just I also feel personally And I encourage you
to check out Kevey's show if you If you like

(39:49):
this show, you will definitely like his podcast. I was
on one about gird. I learned so much and it
was for me a very cool personal experience because because
I I have gourd and I learned so much, And
I also feel personally victimized by the gastric brooding frog
going extinct because I feel like my life would be

(40:11):
tangibly better with this animal around. And probably everyone who
has gourd or any gas reflux.

Speaker 2 (40:18):
Ah mean, what a cool what a cool animal?

Speaker 1 (40:21):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (40:21):
Yeah, And thank you for those kind of works.

Speaker 1 (40:23):
Then, oh, you're very welcome. They're well deserved. We're gonna
take a quick break and then we're gonna talk a
little bit about giraffes and how learning more about them
could prevent anything from deep vein thrombosis to stroke. Uh,
so we do. We have talked about a lot of
lesser known animals, and I do like to highlight the

(40:45):
less charismatic animals. That's what they're called, even though I
think they're of course brimming with charisma. But like, it's
actually really interesting that there are so many animals that
are very famous, that are sort of these well known
animals that we think we know everything about, but they
also offer us a lot of information on medicine just

(41:08):
by looking at their evolutionary adaptation. So giraffes are something
of a evolutionary marvel because they're so weird. We're used
to seeing them because we learn about them since we're
you know, like since we're kids. We kind of see like, hey,
that's a giraffe, and that's what it looks like. But
if you were an alien and you looked at a giraffe,

(41:29):
you would be stunned because it doesn't make any sense
how this animal is alive and doesn't just pass out
every time it takes a step, because it's got this
enormous neck, of course, these really long legs and for
blood to pump through its body. For it to be
able to move without like passing out every time it

(41:50):
tries to take a drink is kind of a genius thing.
That's all happening inside of its circulatory system.

Speaker 2 (41:59):
Absolutely utely. I think about this not too infrequently because
my kids love, you know, looking at animal specials and
will watch like these the animals and the Serengetti or
something like that, and you see them walking around, and
I am fascinated by dirafts. I think they're awesome. But
you're you're totally right. If you were to take a

(42:20):
human with a neck that long, yeah, I mean so
many reasons this doesn't make sense. But the way our valves,
in our blood vessels work, it would not be able
to provide enough blood to the head. And when you
actually bent all the way over all that blood going
to the head would probably make you pass out. Yeah,
it would be you wouldn't be able to tolerate it.

(42:43):
The And I don't know the details, but I'm assuming
that their vasculature, the blood vessels are First of all,
their heart must be pumping like incredibly powerfully, and then
there must be something very special about their blood vessels
that allow the blood not only to fall back down
those gravity dependent blood vessels, but somehow work their way

(43:03):
up constantly.

Speaker 1 (43:04):
Yeah, and you're exactly right about that. So giraffes are
like they are, so they're not only so weird just
like when you look at them, but like their entire
bodies are created to solve problems that they've made for
themselves by being so tall. It's really funny because it's like, well, why, guys,

(43:26):
why do you have to be so tall? Why did
you go through all this because you've created so many
problems for yourself. But of course the answer is they
inhabit this niche by being able to reach vegetation and
then also the amazing sort of surveillance skills they have
by being so tall. So whenever there's an evolutionary niche
and an animal can exploit it and they can come

(43:48):
up with solutions to solve the mechanical problems of their
weird bodies, it'll happen, which is pretty amazing. And when
I say they solve it, of course this is done
through many iterations of natural selection. So, Kevin, you're absolutely
right about the heart. They have a twenty five pound heart,
so that's eleven kilograms. Wow, about how much does it

(44:09):
I forgot, like about how much does a human heart weigh.
It's like about a pound, right, It's not very heavy,
I would say.

Speaker 2 (44:17):
I mean depending on the age and like how large
and if it's an American heart with obesity and just
a heart failure, I probably around two pounds right right
at most?

Speaker 1 (44:28):
Yeah, at most, So it's like twenty five times around
twenty five times as big as like a human heart. Uh.
And it a giraffe has twice the amount of blood
pressure as a healthy human. So it is just it
it's like I'm trying to think of how far this
heart could squirt blood, but it would be like a

(44:50):
super soaker shooting blood. It's it's incredible. So yes, it
has incredible like a an incredibly high blood pressure. And
if a human had that high blood pressure, you'd be
getting strokes, you'd be getting deep vein, thrombosis, edema, all

(45:12):
these problems, heart attacks, things that come from high blood pressure,
and the giraffes do not in general, And so there's
a big question, Okay, what's going on? How is the
giraffe not just getting all of these terrible effects from
such a high blood pressure? And then also they're freakishly
designed bodies.

Speaker 2 (45:33):
Right, No, that's fascinating to me. And to be clear
about the heart for the humans, like you don't want
it to be that big, you want the heart to
be like under a pound, I would say, is, yeah,
it's been a long time since I've held a human
heart in my hands. But you probably don't want to.

Speaker 1 (45:48):
Worry cause people have it by the way, I would
just say, like, don't be apologetic about it, like, oh,
it's been a while since I've held a human heart
in my hands. It's like for most of us, right,
it's been never.

Speaker 2 (45:57):
And I should clarify from like medical skies studying the body,
not like from extracurricular activities.

Speaker 1 (46:04):
Me too, for sure, yes, wink wink, sh sure.

Speaker 2 (46:09):
And if the heart were to be that powerful in
a huge so that's fascinating because if our problem is
almost the opposite, where it's like we don't want our
hearts that that big. You don't want to have to
be pumping that hard, you don't want your blood pressure
to be that high, it is fascinating to see. You

(46:30):
know what, when we want to really measure the pressure,
one of the best ways to do that is you
put uh an ivy into the arterial flow where the
blood's pumping from the heart. It's it's not fun for
the patient, but it's tricky for us. But sometimes you
just have to do it and really tense situations in
ICU cases when you really need to know the blood pressure.

(46:53):
And I would be fascinated to see if they've done
that in giraffes to see how. I don't know how,
Like if there's no las that you can do this,
you have to all be in the field, I guess, right,
because what laboratories can you do this in a giraffe.
There's not big enough. But like I would be really
interested to see what that blood pressure is when they
like look at the arterial blood flow of a giraffe.

(47:15):
Is there anything that you saw that talks about like
what their blood pressure would be, I mean recorded as
I mean, I.

Speaker 1 (47:21):
Think their blood pressure is so it's like twice that
of the typical blood pressure of a human. Let me
see I think there was a number, and I don't know.
I mean I would assume a lot of this information
is is based on UH based on studies that have

(47:45):
been done in zoo giraffes. So like you have girafts
in a zoo. While right, the kind of like the
facilities that you do to study a giraffe, Like I
don't know if there's like say, I know that zoo
MRIs are enormous, like they have giant Wow. I don't
know if a giraffe could fit in one, but I.

Speaker 2 (48:04):
Would love to see the medical facilities in a zoo.
That would be amazing.

Speaker 1 (48:10):
They're like they have very like special equipment, like giant scales,
things that are for these enormous animals to be able
to study them. So they may have, uh, they may
have something I think that, yeah, for they may be
able to have some kind of method of measuring giraffes

(48:30):
blood pressure. I don't know if it's the the uh
what you had mentioned for people, but they had uh
I seen they sit. Yeah, this this article says it
like blood pressure at the heart of about two twenty
over one eighty uh and then yeah, blood pressure at
the brain of about one ten over seventy, so twice

(48:52):
of that of a human, right exactly, So about twice
is what is healthy for a person. And yet they're fine.
They don't they don't. They also don't have like EDMA
in their legs, like these long legs where all this
blood should be pooling and being forced down into because
of gravity, because of that high blood pressure. So the
first problem a giraffe faces is drinking water. It has

(49:15):
to bend its like it can eat all of it,
eat all it wants without ever lowering its head. Because
it's feeding from acacia trees, it's getting leaves and foliage.
It doesn't necessarily have to bend its head to eat,
but it has to bend its head to drink. And
so when it lowers its head to drink, if you've
ever seen it, like it has to get in position.

(49:35):
It kind of splays its leg out and it's like,
all right, everyone, I'm about to drink some water, you know,
hold my hold my giraffe beer. And so what happens
is so like you said, like if it lowers its head,
it should just if it was a human right shaped
like a giraffe, all of our blood would just rush
really quickly into our head, which would be bad. It

(49:58):
could like potentially cause like a brain hemorrhage right from
that like sudden increase in pressure. But this doesn't happen.
So they have this complex cluster of arteries and veins. Now,
I don't know how this word is pronounced like among
medical professionals in America, but because I think it's like
a Italian word, I'm going to pronounce it as an

(50:20):
Italian word. It's called a rete mirabile, which is like
it's like this sort of complex bundle of blood vessels
of arteries that form that's kind of like net and
it's in a lot of animals. It's used for things

(50:41):
like heat exchange to keep parts of their body warm.
In birds, it can be used to keep their legs
warm in the winter. So there's all sorts of interesting
ways that like these complex networks of like heat exchange
and of counter like flow in one direction flow in
another direction that this can be used for. In it's
used as kind of like a traffic jam for the blood,

(51:04):
like a way to kind of like counteract all the
blood flowing down, so it slows the blood so it
goes to their head more slowly, and then it also
they also have a valve in its jugular vein to
prevent the blood from all rushing down from its jugular
into its head, and so that slows and interrupts the
blood going down to its head. Now then when it

(51:27):
lifts its head up, it has another problem, which is
that all that blood rushing back down should make it faint,
and then you just have every time it would take
a drink, it would just pass out. This doesn't happen
because its blood vessels constrict as it's lifting its head
up and force the blood upwards. So so like they

(51:47):
go down, these blood vessels are able to sort of
slow down the blood have this like counter pressure and
a valve that keeps it from all rushing into its head.
Then it lifts its head up and then the blood
the blood vessels like squeeze that blood back up into
the head so it doesn't pass out, and they get
their little drink of water and go on their merry way.

Speaker 2 (52:10):
Wow, it's so cool. I mean rete mirabelee. It's like,
first of all, it's a very elegant sounding word, right,
and that I mean that sounds like the correct pronunciation
to be. I know, I'm not familiar with this.

Speaker 1 (52:20):
I can crinch it up if anyone wants. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (52:27):
Or read mirrorbile in America. So it is, Uh, it's
a very elegant word for a very elegant system. Yeah,
it's just really nice that it works out so like,
I mean, it's so well designed. I mean it's weirdly designed,
and you're almost like why did it have to be
this way? I mean, aren't there other ways to survive?

(52:48):
But that's not quite how you know, evolution works.

Speaker 1 (52:51):
And it's just really marvelous. And I think, like what
it means is marvelous net. So like in in Italian
it means marvelous net. Yeah, like a marvelous net of
blood vessels and arteries that like create this sort of
complex Like it's like it's it's sort of like if
you're an urban planner and you're trying to either slow

(53:12):
or speed up traffic, right, you create these these roads
and stuff, and so it's like that, but on in
the circulatory system to slow down or speed up blood
flow when you need it.

Speaker 2 (53:24):
So, is this only found in mammals or is this
also found in.

Speaker 1 (53:28):
Also found in birds? So yeah, there are other other
animals not just mammals. So birds have it keeping their
legs warm. I would assume that it could also be
found in reptiles. I don't I do not know about fish,
sorry fish. But yeah, so it has this amazing ability

(53:49):
to prevent itself from passing out or having blood just
like explode its head. So all of these things are
really and you'd think that we would know everything about
how a giraffe like has these adaptations, but you know,
at this point, like being able to continue to study
giraffes to understand how they work could have uh there

(54:11):
could be discoveries made in terms of like things like
how to uh like how to cope with like high
blood pressure in human beings, like what are the kinds
of things that high blood pressure could affect? Or like, say,
I mean one big thing is I know that with
pots pots it's this relatively poorly understood issue where some

(54:34):
people like have this like when they stand up, they
have this sudden shift in their blood pressure that essentially
can cause fainting or make them feel faint. And it's
just like it's a difficulty for their circulatory system to
change to sort of change their posterior position, right like
the like the witch, like whether they're lying down or

(54:56):
standing up. And understanding giraffes better might help also understand
these issues in people.

Speaker 2 (55:03):
Yeah, Like I mean, you know, again trying to find
ways to appeal to humans that may not care that
much outside of it, But like, for example, varicose veins
in humans, maybe there's something about this anatomy, studying diraft
anatomy that might help us in regards to finding new
treatments or surgical things we can do for varicos veins

(55:26):
that people may not like or may find unsightly on
their bodies. So, I mean, there's so much here in
terms of studying the vascular system that would be neat
to know, and there is a very real possibility of
it having some benefit to us. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (55:41):
In fact, already, by understanding giraffes, we have, you know,
an understanding of how to have treatments for people, so
like giraffes in order like the other issue that I mentioned,
the big one, which would be like why is all
the blood not pulling in their legs? That one's really
interesting because that's not just down to sort of their
vascular system. They have essentially compression stockings on their legs.

(56:06):
So they have this thick, tight skin on their legs
that acts exactly as compression stockings act in human beings.
So it you know, pushes, like physically pushes squeezes on
their legs, which forces the blood from pulling into their extremities,
and it's thought that that literally just their skin, the

(56:28):
tightness of their skin helps prevent things like edema, deep
vein thrombosis, things that should be a problem for these
giraffes but simply aren't.

Speaker 2 (56:39):
Yeah. Yeah, that's that is stuff that we use every
day in the hospital and every day in outpatient medicine,
things to help people, you know, prevent these these blood
cloths performing. It's a serious problem, becoming more and more
of an issue we can see as our patients get
older and more sedentary.

Speaker 1 (56:57):
Yeah so yeah, yeah, it would mean I feel like
we should have a branding thing where with compression stockings,
like make them more fun and more fashionable, so like
putting maybe a giraffe print on them of like you know,
the sort of draft prints, like their their their skin
print as if you're wearing you know, giraffe stockings, like

(57:18):
make make them fashion forward so that you're both benefiting
from the medical device. But it's also like it's also
che homage to exactly a chic homage to the giraffe. Uh.

Speaker 2 (57:33):
The under it's underappreciated in the fashion world. Everyone's always
thinking about like the Cheetoh, the leopard, right, the leopard print.
But you know, let's give the giraffe.

Speaker 1 (57:41):
It's it's a beautiful pattern.

Speaker 2 (57:43):
Yeah, do they I'm trying to think now, I feel
like they're just yellow.

Speaker 1 (57:48):
They have they have they have a sort of blocky
pattern of like sort of a more sort of tan
white and then a deeper brown and then they have
this sort of like it's this sort of patchwork blocky
pattern all over their skin.

Speaker 2 (58:05):
Very beautiful, googling as we speak. Oh, they are beautiful. Yes, yeah,
I was totally wrong about them being yellow. That's very embarrassing.
So sorry. They do have that blocky pattern. I don't
know why I thought they were yellow.

Speaker 1 (58:20):
Probably your kids are reading kids books and there's like
a giraffe. The artists might be lazy and just like,
oh they're yellow or something.

Speaker 2 (58:29):
That's that's exactly what it is. And I only see
them from like a distance. Okay, Yeah, they're gorgeous. It
is sort of leopardy but nice. It's it's got a
little bit thicker blocks.

Speaker 1 (58:38):
Yeah, this nice reticulated pattern.

Speaker 2 (58:41):
Beautiful.

Speaker 1 (58:42):
So you know, if you if you use compression stockings,
you know, just think of it as you are you're
following in the giant, strange footsteps of giraffes.

Speaker 2 (58:56):
Yeah, the giants. How big are their feet?

Speaker 1 (58:59):
Their feet are quite big, so they're actually they're ungulates,
which means that they have their toes are sort of
these these hooves.

Speaker 2 (59:07):
But how big are they They're I mean, compared to
their bodies. They can't be that big, which is why no, I.

Speaker 1 (59:14):
Actually I don't know off the top of my head, but.

Speaker 2 (59:18):
Because every picture I see of them they're covered by
like the grass. Okay, I see one. Uh. Yeah, they
look like the same basic proportion that a horses would
be there.

Speaker 1 (59:29):
I think they are a little bit, yeah, the same proportion.
They are definitely bigger. The feet are bigger than a horse,
and they splay out a little more like for the
weight distribution, unlike a horse. Also, a horse is actually
an odd toed ungulate. Believe giraffes are an even toad ungulates.
That means that they have these two two toes in

(59:52):
the front of their foot.

Speaker 2 (59:53):
So smart, it's really impressive. Can they run fast?

Speaker 1 (59:57):
They can run surprisingly fast. Yeah, they they they can
gallop pretty quickly. I let me check on that giraffe.
Let's see, they can run. They can run thirty five
miles per hour, so that is that is impressive. Yeah,

(01:00:18):
they can. They can really go get going. And when
you see them run, they have to like in order
for the body the weight distribution, they actually have to
kind of like undulate their heads, so as they're galloping, right,
they have this like undulation so that they work with
this like balance of their head. Yeah, exactly. So it's
I encourage you to look up a giraffe running because

(01:00:39):
it's both a little bit goofy but also really interesting.
But yeah, they can. They can really, they can really
hoof it pretty quickly. So beautiful, beautiful animals. And even
like I think people have the sense that we just
know everything about sort of megafauna, about like large, large,
famous animals, and we really don't, And by researching we

(01:01:00):
can make these incredible discoveries. Like I think NASA is
particularly interested in giraffes because I read this one thing
on this NASA blog basically saying that, yeah, they've basically
invented like an anti gravity space suit. So if we
understand how how giraffes work and how they manage all
these things, we can probably help like create things for astronauts,

(01:01:23):
so like even in like our future, right, like, if
we're trying to figure out how to solve problems of
astronauts in space, you know, looking at something like a
giraffe can help. So NASA Also, I think being targeted
by by funding cuts might not.

Speaker 2 (01:01:41):
Be good, right because who else deserves to go to
space but certain billionaire oligarchs.

Speaker 1 (01:01:49):
I actually, you know what, I agree. I think we
should send them all into space.

Speaker 2 (01:01:54):
You know, that's actually not a bad idea.

Speaker 1 (01:01:56):
Enjoy space, guys, We'll take care of everything else down here. Yeah,
all of you guys go off to Mars, have have
fun on your little your little Mars kingdom, and then.

Speaker 2 (01:02:05):
We'll just we'll just do we'll handle here, come back home.

Speaker 1 (01:02:10):
Yeah, all right. So I just wanted to bring up
a In the research for this podcast, I found this
lab that I thought was really cool and I wanted
to kind of talk about a little bit. It's called

(01:02:32):
the Manda Halford Venom Lab at Hunter College. And once
you say Venom Lab, I'm sold. I'm one hundred percent in.
So there's this whole and this is just one of
many labs that work on this kind of stuff. I
just wanted to highlight one. It's a whole laboratory dedicated

(01:02:55):
to studying deadly painful venoms, not just like not to
create like super villain serums, which it sounds like that's
what this would be, right, like bioweapons. No, all in
terms of like the what they can bring us in
medicine pain management, And it is really cool. I'm also

(01:03:16):
bringing it up because this is a lab that's funded
by the NIH, by the National Science and also the
National Science Foundation, both agencies that are getting massive cuts
right now. So the NIH I think like was forced
to lay off or fire thousands of employees because of
the Trump administration. The NSF was forced to lay off

(01:03:39):
like hundreds of employees. They've also been forced to freeze
funding to all sorts of things, right due to executive
orders just like saying like nope, we're just going to
stop shut off any funding. And then I suppose like
probably do some kind of like indiscriminate keyword search for like, hey,

(01:04:01):
does your your research have the word female in it?

Speaker 2 (01:04:04):
Too? Bad?

Speaker 1 (01:04:05):
Like now you don't get funding. Ah, So this is
exactly the kind of lab that would be threatened by
the cuts that are being made. And yeah, so it's
it is it researches conotoxin and cone snails, and cone
snails are really really cool. They are these beautiful snails

(01:04:26):
that you should never pick up because if you do,
they could inject you with this venomous barb with one
of the most painful and deadly venoms you could.

Speaker 2 (01:04:35):
Receive from the from the shell or from the bottom
sticky part it's from.

Speaker 1 (01:04:40):
So these snails are they're marine snails, and they're called
cone snails because they're essentially shaped like a unicorn horn.
They're this sort of spiraling cone. They're beautiful and like
at on the base of the shell is where the
actual mollusk lives, so the living organism inside the shell,
and it will shoot out from that bottom of the

(01:05:03):
shell a barb like kind of like a harpoon, and
that is to it'll shoot that harpoon at prey to
paralyze them. But if you pick one up, it might
shoot it at you as well, which is bad news.
You need to seek immediate medical treatment because it can

(01:05:24):
cause in addition to severe pain, can cause cardiac arrest
because of these extremely powerful conotoxins. So when you hear
about a lab researching these conotoxins. You might think, why,
like we again, like this, this is silly, this is stupid.
We're looking at something that just like all it does

(01:05:45):
is hurt people or kill people. This is a dumb
thing to research. Just avoid picking up cone snails and
we're good. We don't need to know anything else about it.
But like we talked about with the HeLa monster, researching
this cone snail venom actually gives us a lot of
opportunities for new medicines and medical treatments. And ironically one

(01:06:10):
of the main ones is pain management, which is kind
of interesting given the fact that if you are, you know,
harpooned by one of these conesnails out in nature, it's
definitely not going to manage your pain. Or if by
pain management you mean managing to put you in a
lot of pain, is what will happen.

Speaker 2 (01:06:30):
You know what I find interesting about this, and I
think you're exactly right to point out, like some people
might say, what's the point why study this dangerous thing?
And it's similar to why it's important for researchers to
when they're say studying a pathogen or a virus, to
study gain of function issues, to say, like oky, what happens.

(01:06:51):
If this virus is not that scary, now gains the
ability to do this thing, how do we then treat it?
It informs our treatments, in form on what we can
do to help prevent us to be a step ahead.
So it hits all part of this pandemic preparedness. And
it's a similar mentality. It's like sometimes we have to
look at the things that are not just ideal or

(01:07:14):
fun that some of these dangerous or scarier things. We
need to look at those as well so we can
learn from them as well, because you can get from
them as much, if not more.

Speaker 1 (01:07:23):
Yeah, exactly, I mean these are things that sound like
something a mad scientist would do, right, Like oh, like right,
sounds like a mad evil scientist creating some kind of bioweapon. Instead,
this is being used to help people, help treat people.
So it's already there have been discoveries made about cone
snail vinom. So there is an existing medication called zyiconotide.

(01:07:48):
It's derived from conotoxins the cone snail venom and it
helps relieve severe intractable pain in chronic conditions such as cancer,
and it's an alternative to opiates. Uh, it's basically used
when other pain management just isn't working or is contraindicated,

(01:08:08):
because it's delivery method is still a little bit complex.
It's it's kind of like a kind of like a
spinal block it's except that it doesn't completely numb all sensation.
It's uh injected into the spinal fluid and it helps
block these these pain receptors. But it doesn't it doesn't

(01:08:30):
numb you completely. It just helps block the pain. So
uh it was originally discovered by the University of Research
uh the University of Utah, which is a public research university,
by Filipino immigrant Baldomero Olivera uh So. Olivera had grown

(01:08:50):
up in the Philippines. He had heard all these stories
about people who had been stung or killed by cone
snails because he grew up in an area where conesnails
could be found occasionally off off the coast, and so
he used that childhood experience of like hearing about these
dangerous cone snails, and he was really interested in the

(01:09:10):
conotoxin in studying this toxin from the snails. So he
and also another researcher, Michael McIntosh, were able to isolate
peptides from this cone snail, and I'm by isolating it,
it actually instead of you know, causing incredible pain in people, right,

(01:09:32):
they found this part of it that is what would
cause the paralysis right in the prey, but in isolation
and in proper dosage, it actually blocks the pain receptors.
It doesn't cause paralysis, it doesn't cause pain, and it
doesn't risk cardiac arrest. So it's like from this thing

(01:09:52):
that is, you know, is a pretty nasty venom, they
actually find something really useful.

Speaker 2 (01:10:00):
Yeah. Absolutely, that's really fascinating. That's a great example. I'm
going to store that in my head next time I
have to explain like how how important these seemingly esoteric
research studies yeah can be?

Speaker 1 (01:10:13):
Yeah, yeah, Like who who could have predicted that like
cone snail venom, right, which is a very nasty thing
to get stung with, would actually provide pain relief in
these extremely severe cases. And again, like I think also
like if this lab was doing this research today, I
bet their funding would have been pulled because not only

(01:10:37):
are they researching something that seems like, oh who cares
about conesnail venom, but it's also an immigrant who's using
his experience as an immigrant coming from a different country
with different experiences right to inform his research, which is
one of the whole points, right about having like diverse researchers.

(01:10:57):
It's it's like people with different life experiences, from different origins,
from different countries, from just like growing up differently might
have different research ideas because they have, you know, all
these like different things that where they come from. And
so you know, it's this idea of like, oh, science

(01:11:18):
should just be complete, like it should just be based
on merit system where we don't really specify what those
merits are. But who cares about having researchers who are
you know, not all exact carbon copies of each other. Like, Well,
one of the reasons that having researchers from different backgrounds
is important is because then they think of different ideas,

(01:11:40):
Like that's the whole Well, that's one of the entire
points of having a diverse group of researchers.

Speaker 2 (01:11:46):
Absolutely, it's so funny that we have to defend the
benefits of diversity in anything, but we still do. Yeah,
but it's so well proven that people who are bringing
in different social experiences, different economic experiences, they have ideas
and thoughts and backgrounds that will lend themselves to new solutions,

(01:12:08):
to new questions. In fact, I mean it's no matter
how smart a person is, their subject to the limitations
of their own experience and their own upbringing. And that
plays a role in the questions you ask, the issues
you see, the experiences you've had. So it's so that's
a great example, this guy who was like I never

(01:12:30):
would have even heard of that, for example, this particular
type of snail. And this is someone who grew up
in a different place than me and can come with
that idea. So it is to be celebrated for that reason.
It helps it's better, we do better.

Speaker 1 (01:12:47):
It's like again sort of appealing to the it's again
sort of appealing to the selfishness, right thing, Like so
like say someone doesn't care about like, oh well, I
don't care about diversity or immigrants because of gross reasons, Okay,
but surely you care about the tangible improvements to your
life that could be made because and this is one

(01:13:11):
of them, right, like having a different background leading to
different research ideas because you have different experiences that may
not have occurred to someone else who didn't grow up
around say cone snails. And so you know that's why so, Like,
and I just the venom Lab, Holford's Venom Lab at
Hunter College is continuing research like this. They're cataloging a

(01:13:35):
lot of cone snail toxins. They're looking at sort of
the evolutionary history of cone snails, all these things that
again they sound kind of esoteric, like why do we
need to form a phylogeny of these cone snails and
all these toxins. Well, essentially what's happening is like they're
creating this huge database, this like library of information on venom,

(01:14:00):
specifically conotoxins. But I think they have other research into
venom as well, and that will help us understand you know,
basically have like a library of different peptides, different types
of venom, and that'll enable medical research. So again, like
so many, it seems like animal venom is kind of

(01:14:21):
interesting in that because it's so potent and it has
so many different strange peptides in it, they for whatever reason,
present us with these unique opportunities for medical research. We've
found it in like of course, like the HeLa monsters,
we talked about anti platelet drugs that can be helpful
during like cardiac events come some of them come from

(01:14:43):
snake venom. And there's also even leeches, which I know
this sounds like regressive that we're going back to medieval time,
but leech saliva not not directly slapping the leech on
your skin and through blood litting isolating compound. There's this
compound called hrudin in leech saliva is a direct thrombin inhibitor,

(01:15:10):
so it essentially like it inhibits this enzyme which facilitates
blood clotting. So it's an anticoagulant that seems to have
fewer side effects as other anticoagulants like heperin.

Speaker 2 (01:15:26):
And I will also add in medical school, I remember
this distinctly. There was on my surgery rotation there was
a young guy who got into a bad accident motor
vehicle accident and had a lot of orthopedic surgeries which
predisposed him to clots and he had to be kept
still and casted for a while, and because of that,

(01:15:48):
literal leeches like.

Speaker 1 (01:15:50):
From alaud medical leaches.

Speaker 2 (01:15:51):
And placed on his medical leeches were used on him.
I remember being blown away by that. I don't know
how much of that, if I'm being honest, was because
I just wasn't that privy to the case, I wasn't
actually managing the patient directly. How much of that was
kind of like, well, this is part of a research thing,
let's see what happens or how much of that was
considered standard of the care at the time. So it

(01:16:12):
is interesting, But yeah, there was like real like real
use to it, real palpable use to it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:16:19):
I actually have also heard of medical and like these
compounds actually were derived from medical leeches, and there's also
medical maggots. So medical leeches do I think they have
been shown to have positive impacts on say blood flow
in I think they're usually only used in like extreme cases. Right,

(01:16:40):
So if this guy's like has to be immobilized for
really long periods of time and it's really like say,
really hard to have them on antic a strong antiicoagulant
for that amount of time, having these leeches might be
a better method, right than pumping him full of really
strong anti coagulants for too long, because anti coagulants can
and also have like say a risk of brain bleeds

(01:17:04):
stomach bleed. Yeah, but also medical maggots can be used
to do bride dead tissues, so like, yeah, it's it's
crazy it's like, yeah, it's like some of these medieval doctors.
It's like you guys were almost onto something.

Speaker 2 (01:17:18):
But right, they're like, what about the US how about that? No, no, no,
you were wrong about that. The baskets not so not
so bad.

Speaker 1 (01:17:26):
There is bile. There is blood and bile you were right.

Speaker 2 (01:17:28):
About that's right. Yeah, they do exist.

Speaker 1 (01:17:32):
But yeah, so uh, these things that sound like again,
like you could imagine someone going in like, why do
we need to like use leeches in medicine. That's stupid.
Let's cut all the funding to that and then lose
out on these you know, these this kind of like medicine,
which is also it also kind of bothers me that
like we have weird, amazing medical discoveries and which gets

(01:17:56):
kind of looked over by like but what if what
about like horse dewarmer, which we don't actually find Hey
if horse d warmer, if you did like look into
that and actually find an effect, that would be fine.
It's not the fact that it's a horse d warmer.
There have been strange cases where we've had a medication
that's for something completely different and then researchers find out, hey,

(01:18:18):
actually this also does this, So it's not a bad
idea to try it, right, like to do a study
and yeah, throw whatever, throw stuff at the wall and
see what sticks. That's done, yes, and research in medicine
all the time. The problem is when you ignore the
results of the study, like if the study.

Speaker 2 (01:18:36):
Doesn't exactly right. So it's just exactly right yeah for humans,
Yeah it was. It's shown it's great for strongloids infections, yeah,
and in river blindness and even scabies and maybe headline
and they have studied they're like, hey, it's good for this,
and they looked at it for other things like COVID
and found it wasn't that useful. Yeah, and that's okay,

(01:18:56):
that's part of the process. Like, I love that they
looked at it. Just you have to then follow up
and just like you said, listen, read and understand the
results or have it at least translated by somebody who
can do that for you.

Speaker 1 (01:19:10):
Right, Like, but I feel very safe now with our
kind of uh the hhs what's his name?

Speaker 2 (01:19:19):
Yeah, I'm sure Bobby.

Speaker 1 (01:19:20):
More Bila virus good, good, goodness.

Speaker 2 (01:19:24):
Bobby more Billa viruses in charge.

Speaker 1 (01:19:25):
Yeah, we're all good. I feel very safe. Break out
your leeches, everyone, actually would be better. It would be
better if he was like, hey, we should probably in
the leeches. Why can't they do that? You know, like
if he was like he was the leech guy, I'd
actually be.

Speaker 2 (01:19:39):
Like, you know what, maybe why not if he left
the vaccines alone and just do weird stuff like that,
I'd be on.

Speaker 1 (01:19:47):
Board absolutely, just like, just like vaccines work, all right, now,
let's see if we should be incorporating more leeches into medicine.
I'd be fine with that as again, as long as
we don't nor results.

Speaker 2 (01:20:00):
It could it could. It could also go too far
and there would be like you're just walking around town
just wearing leeches because fashion red hat on their neck.

Speaker 1 (01:20:12):
That reminds me of I think. I saw like a
social media post of someone who had a pet leash
and put like a little pink bow on it, and
then it was just like time to feed my leech,
and people were like, what do you feed it? It's like,
what do you think, winky face? It's like, oh my god,
a pet leach. Apparently, you know, I don't. I gotta

(01:20:33):
say I don't recommend it. Medical leeches are love it
specifically chosen to not transfer diseases. To you when they
buy you. So please don't like grab a leach out
of a pond and adopt it. That's they can transmit disease,
and so that's not not a good not a good idea. Anyways,

(01:20:53):
before we go, why don't we play a little game
called guests Who's squawk? In the Mystery Animal Sound Game?
Every week I play Mystery Animals in you the listener,
and you the guests, try to guess who is making
that sound. Last week hint was this start your engines?

(01:21:18):
All right, do you have any guesses?

Speaker 2 (01:21:24):
I'm gonna say that's the kukura.

Speaker 1 (01:21:26):
That's a great guess. Actually it's pretty similar to a
kugar barra, so I I don't think that's a bad
guess it bad guess. It is wrong. So you don't
win any prizes.

Speaker 2 (01:21:37):
Can I have a second guest go for it? No?

Speaker 1 (01:21:41):
No, you're losing points. Now you're off the board.

Speaker 2 (01:21:45):
I don't know any other animals. That's it.

Speaker 1 (01:21:47):
This is a congratulations to Anna La for guessing correctly.
This is the motorbike frog aka the western bell frog.
They are small, all green tree frogs who live in
a region along the edge of southwestern Australia. So you
know what, you were actually right about the country because

(01:22:08):
you were Kuckubra and Koalas, so you kind of got
the country right. And I feel like that counts for something. Yeah,
I could sense you could you could sense an autie vibe.

Speaker 2 (01:22:18):
To it, really elongating those values.

Speaker 1 (01:22:23):
Good day might ah.

Speaker 2 (01:22:27):
Nah my, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I love
the Australian accent and I think like it. I would
if I were to have an accent. That's one I
would love because I think that like, no, no news
would really be bad news when it's spoken with an
Australian accent, like I, nah, you got cancer? Ah, it

(01:22:49):
still like sounds pretty like cool.

Speaker 1 (01:22:51):
Yeah no nar oh nar uh no, I too love Australians.
Uh please please continue in Your country is amazingly full
of animals, most of which want to kill me. But
they're still really cool.

Speaker 2 (01:23:07):
So it's still worth It's still worth it right place.

Speaker 1 (01:23:09):
So uh yeah. These these tree frogs grow to be
a little under three inches that's so and a half centimeters,
so they're not that big. Their tadpoles are actually slightly
longer than their adult form, which is something that occasionally
happens with frogs. It's just that they lose that long
tail and they become more their center of mass, you know,
becomes frogified. So they seem like they're shrinking in masks,

(01:23:34):
but they're not not really shrinking mass. It's just that
they're less long and they become more solid. Uh. And
so males make this motorbike sound, as you guessed it
their mating call, just like just like motorcycle riders, you know,
gravving their engines. It's the same exact.

Speaker 2 (01:23:52):
Thing which I hear really works.

Speaker 1 (01:23:55):
It works so good. Whenever I hear someone's car where
they're muffler is, I'm like, that sounds like a really
cool person that I would I would love to get
to know. On the sarcasm onto this week's mister Animal sound,
the hint is this, this little baby does not want

(01:24:16):
to be hung out to dry. Try to ignore the
soothing music, but we're really looking at that sound.

Speaker 2 (01:24:32):
Okay, that is interesting because it sounds like a baby crying,
and I don't know. The high how to dry part
makes me think it's like some animal that's can an
upside down like a fat But I do think of
animals that have that mimic baby sounds. Cats are one
of them, but that's not a cat. Foxes maybe a

(01:24:55):
little bit, but it's not that either. I'm gonna say
something so I know these little facts because we spent
a lot of time in the San Francisco too, and
all zoos have peacocks because peacocks are like good luck
for user or something, and their baby sounds could sound
like data crimes. So I'm gonna say peacock's and the
number one guests, and I know I'm not allowed to

(01:25:16):
do this, I'm gonna do it anyway. Goals would say
qualis again because they can make weird sounds, So Qualas
is my number two.

Speaker 1 (01:25:21):
Gain Walas can make weird sounds, and I can attest
to the fact that peacocks can make really weird sounds.
When I was a kid, we had a peacock just
show up in our yard. I lived in San Diego,
so I guess this is something that happens occasionally. And
it wasn't ours, but it was just there, and so
my mom started feeding it bread, which is not the

(01:25:44):
is not like a good diet for a peacock. With
this peacock was into it and it was like multi
grain bread, so it had some seeds and stuff. So
this peacock would just like continually show up and want
to get bread from my mom. And occasionally it would
get up on like our fa and then just like
flap across the yard and scream at the top of

(01:26:04):
its lungs. This is like a sound. They're beautiful birds,
but the calls they make are absolutely heinous. So we
would just be playing with our toys and then hear
this peacock screaming outside.

Speaker 2 (01:26:18):
Like where's my bread? Scary?

Speaker 1 (01:26:24):
Yeah, yeah. And then when my mom my mom stopped
feeding him bread for a couple days and it was out,
it was gone. It was like, all right, if I'm
not getting my bread, I'm not here anymore. There was
no emotional connection to our family, just like I'm here
for the bread and literally nothing.

Speaker 2 (01:26:40):
Else could not be bothered, nothing else.

Speaker 1 (01:26:43):
Well, if you think you know the answer to this
week's mystery animal sound, you can write to me at
Creature feature pot at gmail dot com. Uh Kevy, thank
you so much for joining us today. Where can the
people find you?

Speaker 2 (01:26:57):
Thank you so much for having me. You can find
me on some social media like blue Sky at cave
am the more importantly, listen to the podcast The House
of Pod, where you can find pretty much anywhere that
you get pods and get them casted. So if you
like the show, I totally agree. I think you're going

(01:27:17):
to enjoy our show too. We try to look at
medicine and health topics and science topics from a kind
of fun perspective and try to make them more relatable,
and we take aim at a lot of medical grifters
and medical quackery, which I think is more important than ever.
So check it out. If you don't like it, you know,

(01:27:38):
you didn't really pay for it, that's okay, and it's uh,
and just let it play in the background. That's fine.

Speaker 1 (01:27:43):
That's a good point.

Speaker 2 (01:27:45):
That's a good point.

Speaker 1 (01:27:46):
If you don't like it, you don't pay for it,
so you know, yeah, are we going to do background noise?
Background noise?

Speaker 2 (01:27:56):
That's right. No.

Speaker 1 (01:27:57):
I highly recommend it.

Speaker 2 (01:27:58):
I listen to it. I love it.

Speaker 1 (01:28:00):
I've been on it, so I can attest and hopefully
you'll come back. I would love to absolutely take me
back so I can ask all I've got so many
like it's like, why does my toe do this? Which
I'm gonna waste all your time asking about very specific
topics that are of no interest to anyone else but me.

Speaker 2 (01:28:24):
I bet you'll be surprised.

Speaker 1 (01:28:26):
All right, guys, thank you so much for listening. Please
rate and review that tangibly helps me. And thanks to
the space Cossics for their super awesome song. Ex Alumina.
Creature features a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts like
the one you just heard, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple
Podcasts or I Guess what where have you listen to
your favorite shows. I'm not your mother, and I can't

(01:28:47):
tell you what to do, but don't let it get
he the monster bite you. It's got you gotta go
to a doctor for that. You can't. He said, it's
not gonna be a good time. Leave them alone, Leave
them alone.

Speaker 2 (01:28:58):
Don't come to this doctor. Don't come to this doctor
with a heilo by right away. I'm not gonna help you.

Speaker 1 (01:29:02):
I won't know how and you've been warned, right yeah,
don't please please don't try to get yourself in envenomated
and then expect cave to fix you after you're like, well,
I thought I could treat myself by having a snake
bite my eyeball, But do go to a doctor if

(01:29:26):
you get bitten by a snake on your eyeball, and
or maybe you'll have discovered some kind of amazing cure
from that snake who couldn't say anyways, See next Wednesday.

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Katie Goldin

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