Ridiculous History: A Humorous History of Genetics

What makes you...well, you? It's a question humanity has wrestled with since the dawn of recorded history all the way to the modern day. In today's special episode in partnership with 23andMe, Ben, Noel and Max dive into the history of genetic research from its ancient predecessors to great breakthroughs of the recent past, as well as learning a bit about their own genetic history along the way.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Have you ever thought about how incredibly complex I spit is.
It may only be water, but just aliva isn't simple.
That remaining one holds incredibly meaningful information that could change everything.
And I'm not just talking about your family treat Hi.
I'm Barrett to day Thurston. And on this season of

(00:24):
Spit and I Heart Radio Podcast with twenty three and Me,
we explore how DNA isn't just about ancestry, it can
also be key to understanding your health. Hello, and welcome back.
History is beautiful, brutal, and often ridiculous. You don't think so,

(00:47):
talk to the host of our next episode, Ben Bowling
and Noel Brown. Ben and Noel are the hosts of
the crazy, fun and informative podcast Ridiculous History, where each
week they dive into some of the weirdest stories from
across the span of human civilization. That's a lot of
raw material. In this episode, Ben and Nol set out
to unravel the history of genetic research, which surprisingly traces

(01:11):
all the way back to the year five thousand BC.
Back then, back in the day, humans were practicing something
called selective breeding and early acknowledgment of genetic traits and
a willingness to isolate and express them, whether it was
growing crops, breeding livestock, or breeding humans. Now, what started
as more of a philosophical question what makes you you?

(01:33):
What makes me me? Led to a fascinating and yes,
sometimes ridiculous history of an incredible scientific achievement. So when
the guys took a twenty three in me test, they
got them thinking. Nowadays, it's easier than ever to learn
more about your past and possible future. Through the power
of genetic testing, we have the power to unlock information

(01:54):
on our ancestry, traits, and health, just to name a few.
But how did this world changing science evolved from the
work of ancient philosophers and Augustinian friars all the way
to the cutting edge innovations of the modern day. Let's
listen in as the guys present their research, along with
their own personal experiences with twenty three and me, what

(02:14):
they learned about their health, and what the report tells
them about their own Ridiculous history. Ridiculous History is a
production of I Heart Radio. Welcome back to the show,

(02:52):
Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much for tuning in.
Uh Let's give a shout out to our one and
only demand the myth jen super producer Mr Max Williams,
and they called me Ben Uh joined as always with
Mr Noel Brown. Uh Noel. We like like most people,

(03:12):
we like to think of ourselves as fairly distinct here
in the in the mass of humanity, right. Oh yeah,
we're special boys. There we go, there we go. We uh. We,
like many other people throughout ancient history to the modern day,
have spent a lot of time wondering where we came from,

(03:34):
wondering about our origins as individuals. And like many people,
you know, we we know a little bit about our ancestry.
We don't know everything, however, and that's why we were
interested to team up with twenty three and Me. Nowadays,
you know, it's easier than ever to learn about your

(03:55):
past through the power of genetic testing, and no I
have to ask and Max you as well. Growing up,
did you, guys ever have a member of your family
who was like obsessed with their genealogy? I didn't really personally,
and in fact, it wasn't until uh no spoilers yet,
but that I took the twenty three and Me a
test that I really had much sense of my heritage

(04:18):
at all. So this was super eye opening and fascinating
process for me. Um. But no, I definitely am aware
of folks that take that very seriously and kind of
consider themselves like armchair you know, genealogists or anthropologists or
what have you. But there was really nobody in my
family that that much mentioned it when I was growing up.
How about you, guys. Yeah, I actually have a pretty

(04:38):
extensive story about this one. It's uh so, my paternal grandfather,
to my great grandfather and my dad's side of the family,
he was adopted in the early nineteen hundreds and they
lost all of his adoption papers, so there was really
like no idea where that'side of my family came from.
It's just been kind of things. So my aunt has
been spending with the last no joke, like thirty plus
years just trying to dig up some and like she

(05:01):
recently did a test like this and it's got like
some more answers, but it's been up. It's been like
a kind of like a lifelong pursuit of hers right there. Wow, Yeah,
I had I had something similar because of the controversy
surrounding my paternal line, the Malungeon side of my family.
Uh So, there were times where people were actively hiding there. Um,

(05:22):
I guess they're perceived membership of that group and as
a result, they're hiding some of their genealogy. But of
course as time went on, people became less hesitant, you
know about acknowledging the past and the truth. And now
here in two it is easier than ever for people to,

(05:42):
as we said, learn more about what led to you
being here a fellow ridiculous historian listening to this show today.
But today's question, how did the world changing science of
genetic testing and our concepts of DNA? How did they
evolve from the word of ancient philosophers and Augustinian friars

(06:03):
all the way to these cutting edge innovations. In today's show,
we're going to unravel some of the history of genetic research,
and along the way we might share some of our
own personal experiences. Because spoiler folks, uh Noel and I
each took some test with twenty three and me, Uh Noel,

(06:24):
I believe this was your second test with the group. Yeah,
it was, uh And let me tell you a lot
of things have changed for the better. It was probably
a couple of years ago that I took the test
previously and the one that we took for this episode.
This partnership just had way more granular information, including stuff
about potential health risks, markers that are contained you know,

(06:46):
within my genetic code, our genetic code, your genetic code, um,
that can give you indications as to whether you're predisposed
to certain medical conditions. So it was very very illuminating me.
The last one was great too, but it really feels
like they've added a lot more bang for the buck
and a lot more features, a lot more results that
are very meaningful. Not to mention, um, I believe Ben,

(07:06):
you and I have some interesting kind of shared results
that we will also say for the end. Yes, yes,
you might be surprised by how this sort of technology
can connect you with people you never imagine yourself connected with.
But let's let's start there, right, What makes you you? Okay,
So here's the lay of the last. People are asking

(07:29):
what makes me me? What makes you you? Well before
the concept of microscopes, well before DNA was even a thing.
The history of this, like the the ancestry of ancestry
research and d NA starts all the way back in
like five thousand b C, which I think might surprise

(07:51):
a lot of people, Oh for sure. And I mean,
you know, it was really more of a philosophical question
for a long long time. I mean, there was certainly
observations made towards various traits and things that family members possessed,
but the whole idea of like who who am I,
where do I connect in the universe and you know,
life and all of that was much more of a

(08:13):
of a philosophical question. But you're right then as early
as five thousand b c. E UM humans were practicing
something called selective breeding. So there was an acknowledgment of like, okay,
how do we isolate these traits and figure out how
to express them, whether it be livestock or or crops
or what have you, or even you know, humans, There

(08:36):
was a certain amount of selective breeding that came with
like in breeding, uh, and you know, the idea of
maintaining a bloodline. And as we know that, there were
some pretty catastrophic consequences to those um activities. But you know,
their head was kind of in the right place. They
just really didn't quite know what they were doing, but
they definitely did when it came to the livestock and

(08:57):
the crops to make more robust crops and more hearty livestock. Yeah, yeah,
a k A. The reason you have things like corn,
you know what I mean, the reason you have domesticated
crops as they're called. And there's something really interesting about that.
I can't remember who I was speaking to, but we
were talking about the old question what is the most

(09:20):
successful form of life on the planet. And you know,
a lot of people would just say humans. But if
you think about it, the idea of wheat being domesticated
or corn being domesticated, it sounds like humans won that game.
But if you look at it from the perspective of
the plant, they kind of one because now they're spread

(09:41):
across the planet. I thought that was kind of trippy. Yeah, totally.
I actually heard an interview with an entomologist who specifically
um focuses on flies. UM and flies. He believes we're
one of the most successful species in the history of
the world because of their ability to kind of bob

(10:01):
and weave and and and dodge things and just you know,
they're one of the most successful aerialists on the planet.
And also they essentially feed on dead stuff, which there's
always gonna be plenty of. Also, I believe they've been around,
uh much longer than humans. So while we may be
successful and good at, like, you know, making stuff and

(10:22):
figuring things out, it's all kind of self serving and
in the end of the day, we're only really a
blip in the historical record. Oh yeah, we're like a
fad to crocodiles, you know what I mean, We're like
POGs to crocodiles and alligators. But but you were you
a pog guy? Were you a pargman? No? I had
some POGs, but I wouldn't say I was a parkman.

(10:43):
I just I had enough to play the game, and
then I didn't get super into the game. I actually
like the art more. That's right. I barely understood how
the game was play. I just know there were slammers
and they were the POGs, and I mean it was
kind of like Tiddley winks you want other people's POGs
by slam in them in a stack. I don't know.
It doesn't matter. We're not here to talk about pole.

(11:04):
We are here to talk about is Pangenesis. Yes, let's
talk about a little bit about the great philosophers you
mentioned earlier. So let's go to Aristotle Aristotle is one
of the first people on record who said, you know what,
I wonder if traits acquired throughout an organism's lifetime can

(11:25):
be transmitted to their offspring. Essentially, and not to be
too to gruesome here, folks, but essentially, the question is
if I took five people and I cut off a
different finger on each one of their right hands, would
their children also be missing the same finger when they

(11:46):
were born because that trait was acquired during that person's
unfortunate lifetime. He's kind of added to this guessing game
with this theory the way you just mentioned Pangenesis, which
sort of just scribes how these traits could be passed
on through particles called give us, which sort of encapsulated

(12:09):
the traits and then allowed them to be transmitted to
reproductive cells. And then he also thought about what he
called the form giving principle, and a lot of the
stuff you're gonna hear from these ancient thinkers, by the way,
is in principle not super duper far off. Yeah, he
believed in something called the form giving principle that was

(12:31):
a property of an organism that was able to be
transmitted through bodily fluid specifically semen, which he believed was
kind of like blood, but a more pure form of
the stuff. And also we believed that the mother's minstreul
blood was another one of these UH form giving fluids.
He believed that this interacted in the womb to direct

(12:55):
uh the early development of an organism. M M. So again,
you can you can see where UH, someone working with
the technology at the time could have reasonably started making
these suppositions. But Pythagoras, Aristotle, they weren't the only folks
who were thinking through this. Hippocrates and Epicurus also had

(13:18):
their own takes on the idea of heredity. Heredity is
just the passing on of traits from parents to offspring,
whether that's through sexual reproduction or through a sexual reproduction.
And it's weird because hippocrates theory is sort of is
kind of similar to Darwin's later ideas that involved hereditary

(13:41):
material collecting from throughout the body. But again, one thing
we wanna be careful of here is we want to
avoid just focusing on the ancient Western philosophers, because people
in India and China we're thinking about this too, that's right,
And the Sharraka Samita that was written or at least

(14:03):
a distributed around three Ancient Indian medical writers observed the
characteristics of the child were determined by what they saw
as four distinct factors, the first being those from the
mother's reproductive material, second from the father's sperm, and the
third from the diet of the pregnant mother. Uh, and
the fourth being those accompanying the soul. So, while there

(14:27):
were some of these do feel pretty connected to modern
scientific understanding of reproduction, that fourth one kind of imparts
a more religious characteristic as well. Yeah, yeah, one through
three you cannot along home going, okay, uh huh sure.
And then number four is where we see just how
how inextricably intertwined. Uh, the ideas of religion were with

(14:51):
the ideas of medicine. You know, it's funny, but the
idea of things becoming attached to the soul as it
enters the fetus, what does that remind you of? Uh? Oh, scientology.
I was thinking cloud Atlas reincarnation, but yeah, well those
are all kind of in the same wheelhouse. But I
mean it's the idea of like negative things becoming attached

(15:15):
to the soul from birth to carry the follow you
along for the rest of your life and cause you
to you to develop all kinds of problems that that
just reminds me of that that concept within scientology, not
that l. Ron Hubbard was anything but original, you know. Anyhow,
I walked around the corner for that for that slight this.
But let's jump around in time, Like when you hear this,

(15:39):
when you thought about this episode right as you tuned in,
you were probably thinking of Charles Darwin and his famous
eighteen fifty nine banger on the Origin of Species full
title on the Origin of Species by Means of Natural
Selection or the preservation and favored races and the struggle
for life. We'll get to that in a second. Darwin

(15:59):
is a recurring guests on our show. But if we're
talking about genetic research and we're talking about the full
scope of this, you can kind of divide it into
two broad eras all the stuff before a guy named
Gregor Johann Mendel, and all this stuff after this Friar. Yeah,

(16:20):
that's right. Modern genetics really started with the work of
this man who was an Augustinian Friar. He was really
into the idea of propagating pea plants, like you know,
like English little green peas. When he published his work
specifically on the reproductive qualities of these little fellas in

(16:42):
eighteen sixty six, he established the theory of Mendelian inheritance UM.
He became the first person to lay out a scientific
and mathematically founded uh science of genetics, even before it
was even called that. And this is legit. You can
find it in his Encyclopedia Britannic Entry, which personally I

(17:05):
thought did a good job of breaking it down in
an understandable way. So let's get in the nuts and bolts.
Strap in for some math. Don't worry, we're gonna. We're gonna.
We'll be right there with you. Try to make it easy. Okay,
matth mass me up. Then let's math up. So the
reason Mindel wants to study the p plant, the edible

(17:26):
p or pisso sativum, is because it had a lot
of distinct varieties. It was easy to control, you know,
like easy to grow, but then also easy to control
how the plants pollinate. And there was a high proportion
of successful seed germin nations, which means you know, it

(17:47):
was uh. If you were making something new or trying
to attract something, you had a higher than average likelihood
of that plant actually growing to pass the seed stage.
So he tested UH for for about two years, from
eighteen fifty four to fifty six. He tested thirty four
different varieties for what he called the constancy of their traits.

(18:10):
And when he wanted to see how these things transmitted,
he chose seven traits that he thought were expressed in
a distinctive manner. And it's stuff that's like a lot
of it's stuff that's visually apparent to him. So stuff
like tall plants and short plants. What colors are their seeds?
Green or yellow? So he referred to these kind of

(18:33):
alternate versions UM as contrasted characters. UH. He also referred
to them as character pairs UM. And you know, this
is very similar to what we talked about in ancient times,
the idea of kind of cross breeding different things to
create a strengthened single traits. He would cross varieties that

(18:55):
were the same except for one trait. So, for example,
tall my be crossed with short UM and then there
would become a generation of hybrids, which he referred to
as f one. That generation would display the character of
one variety but not that of the other. UH. And
he believed, or at least using terms that he developed,

(19:16):
one of the characters was dominant and the other one
was recessive. This this, this checks out with what we
know today right in terms of like eye color and
all of that stuff. We have more into that in
a bit, but he was definitely barking up the right
genetic tree. So in the offspring that he raised from
all of these crossed hybrids, which he referred to as

(19:37):
second generation or F two, he would see the recessive
trade appearing. And then he noted that entirely third of
them had the original heritable traits while two thirds were
of that hybrid arrangements you know, or rather you know,
presented the more of the hybrid kind of qualities. So

(19:57):
he yeah, maybe, man, what don't you you you kind
of did the research on the math here, So why
don't you take us home here with like kind of
the solution. Oh for sure. So this goes to uh
Gregor's major discovery. He says, Look, after I've read these
successive generations of plants, just as you describe, Noel, I'm

(20:19):
seeing by the time I get to the descendants of
the dominant group that I can rewrite that three to
one ratio. You know that kind of dominant to recessive
appearance ratio. I can rewrite it to one to two
to one, and by this we mean fifty percent of
that second generation we're true breeding. Fifty percent we're still hybrid.

(20:41):
In a in a way, he was. He finally he
was arriving at an understanding of what we call dominant
and recessive genes today. This major discovery probably wouldn't have
been made by his predecessors because they didn't grow statistically
significant populations of testing material, which is a very cold

(21:01):
way to say living things, and they didn't follow the
individual characters or characteristics separately to establish their relationships to
each other overall. So this is big, big stuff, right,
this is world changing stuff. He publishes it, and everyone
ignores him. Everyone sort of ignores him. It comes out

(21:23):
in like a not very well known scientific journal. Most
of the scientific community at large isn't aware of it.
And if you're talking about heredity at this time, you
are much more likely to be in a slaughter or
a cafe talking about Darwin's hot button theory of evolution
by natural selection. And uh he also Darwin, we should say,

(21:45):
wasn't super perfect aside from his culinary taste, which we're
ambitious check out weird historical flexes uh to learn more.
He uh, he had a theory that not all his
theories widely accepted. His own theory of heredity, which she
had called pancha out assists as well, and just didn't
really didn't really fly. Uh. So to find the next

(22:06):
part of the story, we have to fast forward to
eighteen eighty three. Let's just remember that, I mean, reading
through this now and talking about this now, we're so
many echoes of what we know to have been determined
to be true and accurate. So it's just like, well,
why wouldn't people pay attention to this? But at the
time it was like very out there right, like it
would not have been connecting with like the sort of

(22:28):
traditional scientific thought of the time. And it's just one
guy kind of like breeding pea plants and and espousing
these kind of like whacka doo notions of traits and
qualities in offspring, So would not have been like an
easy cell necessarily which you write them. If we pressed
the fast forward button into eighteen eighty three, who got

(22:49):
a man named August Weissman who was an evolutionary biologist
from Germany who was making waves by breeding mice after
are chopping off their tails like three blind mice style.
But presumably you know, for science, for science little yeah, yeah,
he uh. He did this for reasons, as he assured

(23:13):
the mice police. Uh. Mainly, even though this sounds ghoulish,
there was something important to it. He wanted to disprove
this popular idea of lamarchism, the concept, like we said,
similar to the ancient philosophy concept that physical characteristics of

(23:33):
apparent organism can be carried through to the offspring. So
when mice with amputated tales gave birth to mice with
absolutely normal tales, they proved a crucial point. So we
don't the names of those mice are lost to history,
but thank you, now we we do know a very
interesting field that's more in the realm of psychology today. Epogenetics,

(23:57):
the idea that trauma can be um, you know, carried
or passed down through generations. So in theory, the trauma
of having their tails chopped off could have been you know,
carried to their offspring. Yeah. That's a great point, man,
because epigenetics is the study of the way gene expression
has changed, like what is more active in your genetic

(24:20):
code instead of like your actual genes getting altered. There's
a great study about starvation and World War two that
goes to this. Epigenetics is like still very much the
forefront of genetic science today. Yeah, that is a good point.
Maybe the mice were traumatized, certainly possible. Um, but let's
get into some more breakthroughs. Here are some names that

(24:40):
might ring a bell, Watson and Cricky. There's like a
biopic about these guys. I think Jeff Goldbloom played Watson
or Craig. I can't remember which Gary played both of them.
Maybe certainly possible, yeah, or like, yeah, Daniel de Lewis
played every character in the whole movie. Um, but yeah,
they are you know those names like leave it if

(25:01):
you don't know exactly what they did because they are, uh,
the American biologists that are largely created Well, they are
credited with discovering DNA in the nineteen fifties. But you know,
as is off of the case with science though, timing
is everything. Who's first to market with something it is
not necessarily the same as like who actually discovered the things.

(25:21):
So DNA was in fact first identified in the late
eighteen sixties, eighteen sixty nine to be precise, by a
Swiss chemist named Friedrich U. Mascher. But again, Watson and
Crick are the names that you probably think of when
you think of of d N A and and DNA
sequencing and all of that. Also, to jump in here
real quick, the name of it is the Race for

(25:43):
the Double Helix who aired September fourteenth, seven aired, So
it was a TV movie, Yeah, and it had Jeff
Goldbloom as Jim Wasson, Tim Pigott Smith as Frances Crick,
Alan Howard as Maurice Wilkins, and Julie Stevenson as Rosalind Franklin.

(26:04):
Here in a little yes, hit the sound cue just
right now. Awesome, Thanks Max, and thanks Matt Frederick. So
here's the thing. Those guys are super famous, and rightly so.

(26:29):
But there's more to their story. A lot of people,
probably ourselves included at some point, have made the mistake
and thought those guys discovered DNA by themselves in the
nineteen fifties. This is not the case in reality. Instead,
DNA was first identified all the way back in the
late eighteen sixties. In eighteen sixty nine by a Swiss

(26:51):
chemist named Friedrich Myischer. He wanted to figure out what
made white blood cells. White blood cells, so you know
those that are part of the body immune system, and
his main source of those cells was kind of kind
of growsy, kind of gnarly. He got most of these

(27:12):
white blood cells for his research from pus coded bandages
that from a clinic. So, um, you can't do that today.
That is wild plus coded bandages. That's a metal band
if I ever heard one, or at the very least
a song. Yeah, that's pretty pretty gross. Uh. So, he

(27:34):
noticed that when you added acid to a solution of
those cells, that a substance separated out from the solution,
and that substance was able to be dissolved again in
an alkali solution. So in investigating that solution, he discovered
that it had some pretty unusual properties. It was different
from other proteins that he'd looked into before that he

(27:55):
was you know, much more familiar with through his past research.
And my Share called this substance nucleon because he believed
that it had like you know, leached out from the
nucleus of the cell um, which you know at this point,
that was something that people understood the nucleus of the salad,

(28:16):
just the makeup of the atom and the cell, et cetera.
So Maisha had discovered essentially the basis for for all
of life, the molecular basis DNA. And then he decided,
how how am I going to figure out how to
pull this out in its purest form? Yeah? And he

(28:36):
you know, he didn't know that exactly what he had discovered,
but he discovered it. And then in the decades after
his discovery, we see this cavalcade of breakthroughs by many
other researchers, other scientists, people like Phoebus Levine and Irwin
Chargeth carry out these research efforts to learn more about

(28:57):
the DNA molecule, including its primary chemical components and the
ways those components work together. We actually get Philoettomalogy nerds
the name DNA from a biochemist named Albrick Coastal in
good old Albrick, who I'll call Al identified nucleon as

(29:18):
a nuclear Yeah, yeah, if he'll be my bodyguard. So
he provided the present chemical name dexo ribon nucleic acid DNA,
and then he also went on for extra credit to
isolate the five nucleotide bases that are the building blocks

(29:38):
of DNA and are in a First we have at anine,
then we have a Sias scene, then we have guanine,
thymine and Eura sill. Yeah, not to do much too
much p humor, but eur a sill feels like you
get ripped off, like you know, diuretic of some kind. Yes,

(30:03):
with a bunch of fine prints at the very end
of the commercial. Right, So there's a little bit of
a bitter sweet note to greg Or Mendel's story. It
wasn't until nineteen sixteen, years after his death in eighty
four that he finally got his due. Three separate botanist
Hugo de Vrais, Carl Corren's Eric van Scherbak, all of

(30:25):
them independently rediscovered the work of this obscure Augustinian Friar,
and with the new breakthroughs in the understanding of cells
and chromosomes, they were able to kind of ground his
weird p plant experiments, and so people were able to say, again,
the guy never lived to see it, but people were

(30:46):
able to say, Wow, he was really onto something. And
then in nineteen o two, just a few years later,
things kick up another notch. A scientist in Walter Sutton says, Hey,
the segregation of chromosomes during the process of neosis are
pretty much exactly like the segregation pattern that this friar predicted.

(31:08):
Oh and people weren't calling them jeans yet. That still
hasn't happened. No, No, it definitely wasn't. That didn't happen
until nineteen o nine, when a guy by the name
of Wilhelm Johansen came up with it. He coined it.
He used it to describe the Mindelian unit of of
of reproduction. He also used the terms genotype and phenotype

(31:32):
to separate the genetic traits of an individual um and
the way it ultimately came to look. So, as a
matter of fact, here is a list, a kind of
a quick hit list of other notable breakthroughs of the time.
Don only just round robin these ben yes. So. In
nineteen eleven, a guy named Thomas Hunt Morgan, along with

(31:53):
his students, used fruit flies to show the chromosomes carry jeans.
They also discover what called genetic linkage. In George Beatle
and Edward Tatum's experiments on the red bread mold um
known as Neurospora crassa, also be a good name for
a metal man um show that genes act by regulating

(32:18):
distinct chemical events. They actually proposed the two fellows that
each gene directs the formation of a single enzyme. And
then in ninety three, again just a few years later,
William Askedbury, who is a scientist from Britain, gets the
first X ray diffraction pattern of DNA and it shows

(32:39):
that DNA must have a regular periodic structure. This leads
him to say that, hey, maybe nucleotide bases are stacked
on top of each other, but what's DNA actually made of?
H In nineteen fifty to Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase
attempt to answer this question, showing that only the DNA
of a virus needs to enter or a bacterium to

(33:01):
infect it, which gave a strong bit of support for
the idea that jeans are in fact made of the stuff,
the stuff DNA. Yeah, and so those are just a
few of the scientists and just a few examples of
the research that all went into leading to Watson and
Crick Watson cricks discovery. Without the foundation provided by those folks,

(33:28):
James D. Watson, Francis H. Crick may have never reached
their groundbreaking conclusion ninety three that the DNA molecule exists
in the form of a three dimensional double helix. But
before we go there, let's hold up max record. Scratch
the crick Watson stories told pretty often in schools, but

(33:49):
there is another very important side to it. Enter raw
Allan Franklin Raslan Franklin has entered the chat or the
ring or whatever. Franklin was born in July twenty in London, um.

(34:11):
She was the daughter of a wealthy Jewish family who
valued education and public service. Yeah, she was a scientist
when there was a lot of discrimination against women who
wanted to enter stem science, technology, engineering math. When she
was just eighteen, she matriculated in the Newnham Women's College

(34:32):
at Cambridge University, studying physics and chemistry. After Cambridge, she
went to work for the British Coal Utilization Research Association
and her work on the porosity of coal became her
PhD thesis. As anybody who's working on a PhD or
has obtained one knows, the thesis tends to be pretty

(34:54):
specific once you get to that rarefied air. And this
work allows her to travel the world as a guest speaker,
she's an order a lecturer. In nine she moves to
Paris where she masters X ray crystallography. This becomes her
life work, and this is what leads her to make

(35:15):
a crucial contribution to the discovery of the double helix
structure of d a day. So some people think she
got a raw deal out of it, A woman getting
a raw deal in favor of wo men history. I
don't know about that. Man, that's that seems incredulous now,
it happened all the time, and I would agree, I

(35:35):
would I would argue she definitely got a raw deal.
Biographer Brenda Maddox called her the quote dark Lady of DNA,
based on a pretty negative, uh sexist nickname given to
her by one of her male co workers. But you know,
her friends and and other colleagues believe considered her to
be very kind, um and brilliant scientists. So this, this reputation,

(35:59):
this idea, I don't know, this sort of like strikes
me as sort of the character assassination. Character is that, yes,
character assassination? Almost Is this the idea that like women
in business or somehow like mean or like you know,
not the docile creatures that men would have them be
you know what I mean, Like it's absurd and it's

(36:19):
based in the generations of of patriarchal uh bulb dish
if you will. Yeah. So a lot of scientists thought
it was challenging to work with her because she wouldn't
just roll over. She was thought to be short tempered
and stubborn by those dudes. So there was a lot

(36:41):
of friction between her and a co worker named Maurice Wilkins,
in particular, while she was working at King's College. They
were supposed to work together to find the structure of
d N A, but because they really really did not
get along, they ended up working kind of in isolation.
And was just fine with Franklin. She didn't need these

(37:02):
dudes to help her. Uh. Wilkins instead went looking for
company at the Cavendish Library in Cambridge, and that's where
his friend Francis Crick was working with James Watson on
building a model of the DNA molecule. And that's where
Wilkins showed Watson and Crick some of Rosalind's work. Yeah

(37:26):
that waited, man, I've seen this before. Okay, Yeah, So,
unknown to Franklin, Watson, Creek actually kind of potentially took
the stuff and ran with it. In particular, there was
an artifact known as photo fifty one that was shown
to Watson by Wilkins, an X ray diffraction image of

(37:46):
a DNA molecule, and it was in fact Watson's inspiration, um,
you know, to uh coin the idea of the double helix,
you know, because the pattern was clearly a helix, and
um using Franklin's photo along with you know, Admittedly, they
did do some of their own work. Watson and Crick
created their now famous model. And when I say model,

(38:08):
we literally mean like the you know, the way it
looked like a thing you could do, you see hanging
in like classrooms to this day. However, until more recent times,
Franklin's contribution was not acknowledged. After her death, however, Crick
did uh say that her contribution had indeed been critical.
But it's sort of like after her death, too little,

(38:30):
too late, buddy, you know, now that she's gone, let
me say, good job. But that's a you know, this
is all a true story. Luckily, Rosalind Franklin has finally
gotten her well deserved do, and the modern world has
acknowledged just how much society owes her for her research.
And that's a bit maybe of a diversion for some

(38:52):
folks or a tangent, but we felt it was an
incredibly crucial one, uh, And we wanted to thank the
good folks over at Nature dot com for providing a
lot of this information in the Rosalind Franklin biography. So
in any case, that story aside, which is important. What

(39:13):
you need to know is that Watson Crick were not
the quote unquote discoverers of DNA. They were the first
scientists to make an accurate description of that complex double
helix structure, and their work was directly dependent on the
research of numerous scientists we've named who came before them.
Thanks to all this, humanity now is capable of making

(39:35):
even greater strides and understanding the human genome and the
many ways in which d n A affects you and
your loved ones. This leads us to the modern age.
How crazy is it? How astonishing is it that we
can just spit into tube and learn so much about
not just our past, but our present and our future.

(39:56):
Like you said, no, it's come a long way since
the last time you took it to To answer your question,
Ben how crazy, how amazing, how insane? I would say, quite,
it's it's it's remarkable, and and we're gonna get into
very shortly, just how remarkable it was for the two
of us, you know, as as human beings, finding things
out about ourselves that we never possibly could have without

(40:19):
decades of detective work, you know, literally digging through family
heirlooms and traveling is how far medical records and all
of that stuff. So in fact, this is pretty cool,
Ben I believe as of today, we found out that
the human genome has finally been fully sequenced. Yes, yeah,
this news came out pretty recently. It was June seventeenth.

(40:44):
You can find the full story on the cyberse dot com.
The human genome is finally fully sequenced, it's been announced. Uh,
we figured it out, folks, We got them. As John
Oliver would say, the first human genome was mapped back
two thousand one, is part of the Human Genome Project,
but researchers knew it wasn't fully accurate. What we've done

(41:08):
now we not just being your host, but you know,
we as society, the boffins went back through and filled
in all those gaps and fixed all the errors that
were in the first attempt at mapping the genome. Yeah,
there are parts of it that had previously been kind
of disregarded and referred to as junk DNA because they

(41:28):
were seen as being comparable to copying errors repeating sequences
in fact that ultimately have been discovered to play a
more important role in the development of some human disorders. Uh,
there's a really great quote from one of the researchers. Uh,
just because something is repetitive doesn't imply its garbage. Evan Eichler. Yeah,

(41:50):
he was a senior author of of one of the
publications there, and this sequence is the most comprehensive reference
mammalian reference genome ever. There are six new genome related
publications that are coming out in the journal Science that
will lead to an even better understanding of human evolution
and the discovery of ways to treat disorders or targets

(42:15):
that should be uh isolated to treat a variety of disorders.
Were we're on the bleeding edge now. And Michael shots,
a Johns Hopkins University professor of Computer science and biology,
another senior author some of this research, says, quote, we
always knew pieces were missing, but I don't believe any
of us realized how extensive they were or how interesting

(42:37):
they were, and segue, uh no, I think that's something
we can say about our own results. So we completed
a twenty three and me test. I found out that
some things were pretty normal. Other things were pretty surprising,
like I am genetically likely to be of average weight.

(42:59):
That seems like a pretty normal thing. You can also
see that I am not likely to be lactose intolerant.
One of the big things for me was the Malungeon
stuff is true. Uh, my paternal line is a pretty
crazy mix of genetic spaghetti Hashkenazi, Congolese, French, British, Irish,
and then like two percent other. So don't know if

(43:20):
that's Native American or it's just what they call unassigned.
At this point, well, before I get into that breakdown
of mind, I just found out. I just found a
really amazing new little section on the twenty three and
me interface, which you get, you know, log in when
you send in your tests and then using this whole
like dashboard, and it's like the stuff that I keep
finding that I didn't even notice that when I first looked.
One of them is a button that says Neanderthal. I

(43:44):
apparently have more Neanderthal DNA than thirty five percent of
other customers. Neanderthals, of course, being prehistoric humans who interbred
with modern humans before vanishing around forty thousand years ago.
And this is, uh, you know, pretty amazing to me
because one of the rates that I may have inherited
from my Neanderthal ancestors is having a worse sense of direction.

(44:05):
H I have an awful, awful sense of direction. If
I did not have my Google Maps, I would never
find my way anywhere. Uh. And that is just the fact.
So now I can at least blame you know, my
my my Neanderthal brethren on that. Uh. I get more,
I think, than than just again, this is all rated

(44:28):
to the average. Part of the reason these tests are
more specific now is because there are more people who
participated exactly. And that's the thing. Once you, you know,
become a part of the twenty three and me kind
of community, you are you know and and you you
are able to there's boxes you can check to keep
all your data private and all of that, you know,
at least in terms of like, you know, having your
identity associated with it. That's an important thing to consider

(44:50):
and that is absolutely a thing that they can do,
and then they do do. But my breakdown is a
little bit dull, but still a lot more detailed than
it was when I took it previously. When I said dull,
it is mean, um, ninety eight point six percent Northwestern European,
and that breaks down to sixty three percent in British
and Irish. Uh. And then they go into a little

(45:11):
more specifics with Glasgow City, the UK and County Dublin
plus eighteen other regions and I've got thirty point five
percent French and German and two point eight percent broadly
Northwestern European with a dash of Ashga Nazi jew uh
ancestry thrown in their point. Welcome, welcome, Yeah, the uh

(45:31):
this stuff is fascinating. One one thing that we really
enjoyed that uh, we just learned before we're recording this.
I found a really interesting thing in the paternal Haplow
group that uh lad us to one last short story.
We want to tell a man named Neal of the
nine hostages. We don't speak this language, so maybe mispronouncing it. Uh,

(45:56):
here's what we found in twenty three and me quote
perhaps will myth in and now of the Nine Hostages
is said to have been a king of Tara, northwestern Ireland,
in the late fourth century CE. His name comes from
the tale of nine hostages that he held from the
regions he ruled over, though the legendary stories of his
life may have been invented hundreds of years after he died.

(46:16):
Genetic evidence suggests that the we Kneil dynasty again apologies
to native speakers whose name means descendants of Neil, did
in fact trace back to just one man who bore
a branch of Haplow group r M two six nine.
These descendants ruled to various degrees as kings of Ireland
from the seventh to the eleventh century CE. I am

(46:39):
descended from them, and just before we started to rule,
we found out, Noel, you're descended from the same dude
brother that's Cheered right, and that's Um again, that's that
common ancestor for us goes to ten thousand year years ago.

(47:00):
I think that must be why we haven't seen each
other at the reunions. Must be it's pretty interesting. Um.
There is also a lot of health data that you
can clean from this twenty three and me test various
variants that show up in your your you know, your
genome that can point to certain risk factors, you know,

(47:21):
for diseases. Mine was pretty solid. Didn't have anything that
was outlying that should be like a watch out. I
think I I'm a little bit more than averagely predisposed
to age related macular degeneration, which is the most common
cause of irreversible vision laws among older adults. Which is
funny considering that I have really really good vision. Um,

(47:43):
maybe it's just as I get older, it's gonna it's
gonna wane on me. But everything else was pretty solid.
I uh, you know that's that's funny because I have
a couple of things that stood out to me as
only one seemed woefully incorrect. My caffeine consumptional I am
likely to consume less and no, Max, you guys know

(48:06):
that is fundamentally untrue. I beat the odds on that
one because I drink way too much coffee. But overall,
this stuff was really exciting for us, and and Nol,
I'd love for you to talk a little bit about
just how were you surprised by how much more, as
you said, granular, this became in just uh, how many

(48:29):
years has it been what's our time interval here at
least four years? Um, yes, I was, Oh my gosh,
there's even a thing with an asparagus p detection was
as we know that you did the thing for for
I believe the stuff of Jesus. No, maybe that was Josh,
but it was one of the shows that you wrote
for and worked on. All people's be smell like asparagus

(48:50):
when they eat it, only some people can't smell it,
and and under traits here there's a section for asparagus
odor detection and I am listed as likely can't smell
him and boy can I ever? That is so interesting.
So yeah, it's incredibly granular um like things like cleft
chin or having dan drift. I've got a chance of
getting dan drift. Early hair loss likely no hair loss, baby,

(49:14):
I can tell you that I've got a good head
of hair. Very excited. I've got a slightly higher than
average odds of disliking cilantro. I know there are a
lot of people who are probably wondering about that. I
don't flush when I drink alcohol. I have the red
face that happens. Uh. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff here,
and I think we're both surprised by it, uh, and

(49:36):
I'm also interested in seeing where the technology goes in
the future. One of the big takeaways I learned from
this is that if you take a if you take
this test again, you might find even more information. Would
you say that's fair? I think so. Yeah. And so
that's where we end today's story. We went from the

(49:58):
ancient past all the way to two where people are
still asking what makes me me? What makes you you?
What can I learn about myself and apply It's not
just the past but the president in the future, and
with companies like twenty three and me, it's easier than
ever before. So thanks thanks to the good folks, to
twenty three and me, Thanks all I fellow ridiculous historians

(50:20):
for tuning in, and thanks of course to Mr Max Williams. Max,
are you gonna? Have you ever taken a DNA test?
I have not taken a DNA test before, mostly because
I'm just kind of paranoid about it. But know also
that part about it, he's your identity, like like secret stuff.
So maybe I will, you know, and find out that
maybe I'm related to that same guy that y'all are
all related to. And hey, if you like this episode.

(50:44):
Why not check out some of our other fellow podcasters
on the iHeart podcast network, like Many Questions with Many Driver,
or Prodigy with our buddy Lollell Berlanti or a Hundred
Words with Andrew Cannon Um, where they these hosts share
their journeys to health discovery or you know, finding out
what makes them them or we we are you you

(51:06):
all the same stuff that we talked about from a
completely different angle. You can find their episodes in the
spit feed Um, which is another show hosted by a
dear friend of ours, Barrett Tunda Thurston on the I
Heart Radio app or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Yes,
and of course our good pals Annie and Sam over
its stuff, Mom Never Told You and waiting on reparations

(51:29):
with our pals Dope Knife and Link What Frank Up.
Thanks also to Jonathan Strickland ak the Quister, Thanks of
course to Alex Williams, Christopher Hasiotis and us Jeff got
absolutely and you know what, We'll see you next time, folks.
And that's it on another dope show. Did this episode

(51:52):
inspire you to take a closer look at your health history,
your genetic makeup? Who new DNA could reveal so much
about our past, while also holding the keys to certain
health insights that may impact our future. I continue to
be inspired by these stories, and I hope you do
as well. Catch you next time. Listen to Spit, an

(52:12):
original podcast from I Heart Radio and twenty three in
the on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or
wherever you get your podcast