May 8, 2025 • 51 mins
On this show we explore the contentious debate around fluoride in municipal water, the science behind pedigree cat adoptions, and innovative approaches to teaching science to non-science majors.
• Examination of the fluoride controversy using Calgary, Alberta as a case study
• Discussion of how fluoride strengthens tooth enamel and prevents acid damage
• Review of research showing increased tooth decay rates in children after fluoride was removed from Calgary's water
• Analysis of a study suggesting people with higher status sensitivity are less likely to adopt non-pedigree cats
• Interview with Dr. Katie Burnette about cat genetics and why most calico cats are female
• Exploration of X chromosome inactivation and how it creates unique coat patterns
• Insight into developing engaging science curriculum for non-science majors
• Discussion of a DNA-based project identifying fish fraud at restaurants
• Personal pet stories including cats bringing "gifts" into the home
Dr. Burnette's Links:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Katie-Burnette
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello science enthusiasts.
I'm Jason Zukoski.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
And I'm Chris Zukoski .
Speaker 1 (00:14):
We're the pet parents of Bunsen, beaker, bernoulli
and Ginger.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
The science animals on social media.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
If you love science.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
And you love pets.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
You've come to the right spot, so put on your
safety glasses and hold on toyour tail.
This is the Science Podcast.
Hello and welcome back to theScience Podcast.
We hope you're happy andhealthy out there.
This is episode 13 of season 7.
We didn't get an episode outlast week.
It was a crazy busyback-to-school week for Chris
(00:45):
and I after the holiday and wejust ran out of energy and time.
We had some things we signed upfor During the week.
I had to prep for a scienceshow on Saturday for the Tim
Horton Smile Cookie Day, andthat just proved too much
running around to get thispodcast done.
So we appreciate your patience,but we've got a really good
show for you guys today.
(01:06):
All right, in science news,we're going to talk about some
of the controversy aroundfluoride in water using a case
study of a city very close to us, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
In pet science, we're going tolook at a study that tried to
answer the question would folkswho fancy themselves fancy be
(01:28):
more inclined to get fancy catsfor adoption?
Well, I guess you have to waitand see Our guest and ask.
An expert is Dr Katie Burnett,who's an academic coordinator,
and we have a really cooldiscussion about some of the
things happening in highereducation to teach people who
are not necessarily scientists,science.
Okay, on with the show.
(01:49):
There's no time like ScienceTime.
This week in science news,Chris, I think it's time to go
to the dentist.
Do you know what time that is?
Tooth hurty?
Yeah, it's tooth hurty.
It's tooth hurty that that'sright that's funny yeah, I have
(02:10):
to say I am not a super big fanof going to the dentist.
It is, it's okay, but it's notsomething I look forward to.
There's a lot of poking andprodding around my teeth and
things don't taste good and Igot to keep my mouth open really
wide.
Luckily I have fairly goodteeth and I haven't had a lot of
(02:31):
cavities in my life.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
No, every time you go I say hey, how many cavities do
you have?
And you say none.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
I have had cavities.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
I know you have, but I go and it's like you have some
major work to do in there andit's like what?
And when you go, it's perfect.
It's a little bit unfair.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
So this science news item hits really close to home
because it's all about thefluoride debate, typically using
Calgary as a case study, andCalgary is the city just south
of us, by a little more than anhour.
It's one of the two big citiesin our province of Alberta.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
The reason why this is topical and we're talking
about it is because it's a bitcontroversial the debate about
whether fluoride should be addedto municipal drinking water or
not.
In 2011, calgary stopped addingfluoride to the municipal
drinking water and they recentlyreinstated it.
(03:37):
Now, I say recent, that was2021.
But it was based on a decisionthat reversed their original
decision to stop adding fluorideto the drinking water.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
So if we look at some of the support for fluoride,
remember sorry not to get intosome chemistry, but people
confuse fluorine and fluorideall the time.
Fluorine is a halogen gas F2.
It is one of the most deadlyand dangerous gases in the
(04:12):
halogen family.
But when fluorine becomes anion, it's called fluoride and
that can be bonded to manydifferent things.
Fluoride, like chloride, ispretty much harmless, which is
weird because chlorine gas isextremely dangerous.
(04:33):
But when you turn chlorine intochloride it's safe.
Fluoride combines with calciumand phosphate in your mouth and
in your teeth to strengthen yourenamel.
Fluoride helps prevent aciddamage from the bacteria in our
mouth.
This helps support overall oralhealth.
(04:53):
The Americans the CDCrecommends 0.7 milligrams of
fluoride per liter of water.
As of 2022, 63% of Americanshave access to fluoridated water
.
As of 2022, 63% of Americanshave access to fluoridated water
.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Right, so it sounds great coming right out of the
science there, but there hasbeen opposition and definitely
some controversy withfluoridation, and some of this
longstanding opposition comesfrom claims about tooth staining
or bone cancer and,additionally, that if you
(05:28):
fluoridate the water, that meansyou're putting medicine in the
water, which goes againstindividual rights and freedoms.
And more recently there hasbeen concerns about adding
fluoride to the water causes alower IQ in children, and so
this is based on high exposurestudies, but the fluoride in the
(05:51):
studies was much higher thanthe amount that they're adding
to fluoridated water.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
And it was an association.
It wasn't a confirmation.
You have to be very carefulwith associations because those
are not confirmed.
Those are not confirmed.
Causes like above 1.5milligrams per liter was what
the study was testing, which isway above what's in drinking
water.
(06:17):
Did that really harm the IQ?
Speaker 2 (06:21):
And it didn't confirm it.
No, but despite having thisweak evidence, the anti-fluoride
movements are growing.
Utah banned fluoridation inMarch of 2025, so that's very
recent and Robert F Kennedy Jrin the States plans to withdraw
CDC recommendations If you'rewondering about Canada.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
It's really dependent on provinces.
Our province, chris, only 43%of the water is fluoridated,
with Ontario being the highestat 73.
The lowest is the Yukon andNewfoundland and Labrador at 0%.
0% of their water isfluoridated.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
And that's interesting and I want to talk
about those research findingsthat were in Calgary.
So they did speak to a pediatricdentist and Dr Warren Lopke is
a pediatric dentist in Calgaryfor more than 20 years and he
reported a rise in aggressiveand severe tooth decay in
(07:21):
children over the past decadeand many children actually
require treatment under generalanesthesia as opposed to other
measures because of theextensive damage that has been
done to their teeth.
And so, having said that,talking about Dr Warren Loebke,
there is some recent researchfindings in Calgary.
(07:43):
Jason Lindsay McClendon is aUniversity of Calgary researcher
and they studied second gradechildren in Calgary,
non-fluoridated versus Edmontonchildren which have access to
fluoridation ended, and whatthey found was interesting 65%
(08:13):
of those children had toothdecay versus 55% in Edmonton.
And you may say, huh, 65, 55,that's pretty close.
No, statistically, that's astatistically significant
difference when you're lookingat putting that through and
applying it to the population.
And one thing they looked atbecause you did mention, you
(08:35):
can't say this is the directcause.
They did look at diet andsocioeconomic status and that in
itself did not explain thedifference.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
So you could.
You might say, oh, maybe peoplein Calgary, those kids ate
sugary snacks or they were frompoor families, which is has a
lot of correlation to healthoutcomes, and the answer is no.
Also, in a 2024 study in thesame area, Calgary had roughly
double the amount of kids thatwent under general anesthesia
(09:07):
for severe tooth decay.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
And I just think of our Adam versus our Duncan.
We lived in Red Deer when wehad Duncan growing up and he
would have had access tofluoridated water, whereas when
we moved on the farm, we're onwell water which doesn't have
fluoride in it and we definitelynoticed a difference.
Now again, it's a population ofone kid A population of one kid
(09:33):
can't necessarily generalizethis for all, but Adam
definitely had worse toothissues or tooth issues.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
He had way worse tooth issues.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Yeah, he had a double pulpotpotomy which is like a
root canal, and he lost hisfirst two, his front two teeth
yeah, I remember that he had.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
It was a rough time for him.
We're not going to go throughit.
But all these findings parallelwhat happened in juneau, alaska
, after fluoridation was ended.
They had noticed high rates ofchildhood dental procedures
after the removal of thefluoride, and the fluoride in
both cases were removed,probably mostly because when the
(10:15):
populace voted on it, or it wasjust decided upon, it was
decided on not great science.
And this brings us to only afew years ago in Calgary, in
2021.
What happened, chris?
Speaker 2 (10:29):
The Calgarians.
The residents there voted toreintroduce fluoride.
62% voted yes, which is astronger majority than the
original 1989 approval, and thestudies and the sustained
advocacy can be credited for theshift.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
It doesn't always work, but if you give people
good information about why andyou debunk the myths, generally
the population, at least inwhere we live, are online with
it.
So, as we conclude, there isvery weak evidence that fluoride
levels are bad for you andthere's good evidence, both
(11:09):
historically and lately, thatfluoridation of water is helpful
for teeth, especially inchildren and that's, and that's
something that we can smileabout because the last thing you
want is to have yourappointment at 2.30.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
That's right On a Thursday.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
All right, that's science news for this week.
This week in pet science, let'stalk about some fancy cats, or
people who think they're fancy.
Who fancy cats Fancy people whofancy fancy cats.
Am I on cats?
Fancy people who fancy fancycats.
Am I on the right track withthis study?
Speaker 2 (11:48):
You are.
You're on the right track, andwe generally don't call the cats
fancy.
We say that they have apedigree, they're pedigree cats.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Oh, okay, pedigree.
Oh, I'm so sorry to the fancycats out there.
You have a pedigree.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Ginger.
After delving into this study Iwas thinking about hey, how did
ginger come about?
Because you are allergic tocats and as much as I love cats,
I was resigned to never owninganother cat ever again and going
over to the farmhouse andgetting my cat fixed there.
(12:25):
But we were in the pet store.
Beaker and Bunsen were gettinggroomed for the show that they
were going to and I saw Gingerin the rescue.
They have Fostering hope has arescue area for the cats that
(12:45):
they get in and I saw ginger andAdam was with me and I said you
need to come see this cat andAdam was over and we were
looking and I said to him I saidwe have to have a method to get
this cat because normally I cantake them or leave them, but
for her she called to me.
(13:06):
I don't know if it was becauseshe was so cute or just her
personality, but we had to havethat cat.
We had to have Ginger.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
She doesn't have a pedigree right.
It's a rescue.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
She's a rescue.
She is a typical host cat.
She's a long hair, a domesticlong hair.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
She's cute and she's kind of unique because she's a
girl cat and she's orange, whichis not super common.
In the study, the aim of it wasto investigate whether an
individual's sensitivity tosocial status affected their
preferences for adoptingnon-pedigree cats.
The idea was that individualswho thought themselves who had a
(13:46):
higher status sensitivity mayprefer those pedigree cats,
viewing them as a status symboland maybe finding non-pedigree
cats less appealing.
So the gingers of the world.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Okay, but Ginger was very appealing.
She's so cute.
She's so cute.
The sample size was 250participants and the assessment
that they used was 60 cat images.
So they showed 30 pedigree and30 non-pedigree cats and the
participants rated each image onthe adoptability or the
(14:26):
likelihood of adopting the cat,and then they also rated the
cuteness yes, yes, which is theperceived attractiveness of the
cat.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
It's pretty subjective.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
It is pretty subjective.
Do you find this cat cute?
Yes, they did complete twoquestionnaires which measured
the perceived status attainment,which is a PSA the personal
sense of achieved social status,and also it rated the status
aspirations SA and that can belikened to a desire to attain
(15:01):
higher social status.
Be likened to a desire toattain higher social status.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
So you self-identify as a fancy pants and then they
take the data on if you like thecat or not, find it cute or not
and I think they're going toput them together right.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
So there are key findings for the adoptability
ratings Participants with thehigher PSA and SA scores, the
higher perceived statusattainment and the status
aspirations.
They were less inclined toadopt non-pedigree cats.
But interestingly thatreluctance did not correspond to
(15:39):
a higher preference forpedigree cats.
They just were like no cat forme.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Oh, interesting.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
And then the cuteness perception.
The higher status sensitivitycorrelated with lower cuteness
ratings for non-pedigree cats.
They were like you're not cute,You're non-pedigree.
I'm a higher status individual,but for pedigree cats the
cuteness ratings remain stableacross varying perceived status
attainment scores, as well asthe higher status aspiration
(16:14):
scores, slightly increased withthe perceived cuteness of the
cat.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Interesting cat Interesting.
So I don't know what we canreally interpret from this.
That wouldn't hurt people'sfeelings, but it appears the
preference for pedigree catsamong status sensitive
individuals suggests that thosepets may serve as an extension
of their social identity.
Like, you, have this pedigreecat and that says something
(16:43):
about you and you're importantand it is important to you how
others perceive you as beinghigh status.
So that's that pedigree cat isa status symbol.
I never thought of a pet asbeing a status symbol.
I know we've got BerniceMountain Dogs and Golden
Retriever, but I just loveBernice Mountain Dogs and Golden
(17:05):
Ret retrievers.
I don't see them as oh boy,hoity-toity me.
Look at my dogs right.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
No, what we were concerned about was getting a
puppy that would imprint on usand that we could train in the
way that we would like to trainthem.
And so what this study with thecat can show is that there's
reasons that people selectanimals beyond just mere
attachment.
So there's other factors, otherthan the emotional attachment
(17:35):
and looking for companionship,that play a role in pet adoption
decisions.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Yeah, if we want pets to be adopted, I'm sure this
study could be helpful toshelters to goose the algorithm
towards those people with.
The higher they're moresensitive to status.
I don't know what they would do.
Be like ooh, ginger is a pet.
They could just say all thecats are pedigree.
They could say they're likedescendant from, like a show cat
(18:05):
.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
That'd be a little dishonest but it might get more
cats adopted ginger was going tobe adopted no matter what,
because she definitely called tome and, like I said, any other
cat, I could take her leave.
But there's just somethingabout that cat that we now know
and love.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
All right, everybody.
That's Pet Science for thisweek.
Hello everybody, here's someways you can keep the Science
Podcast free.
Number one in our show notessign up to be a member of our
Paw Pack Plus community.
It's an amazing community offolks who love pets and folks
who love science.
We have tons of bonus Bunsenand Beaker content there and we
(18:48):
have live streams every Sundaywith our community.
It's tons of fun.
Also, think about checking outour merch store.
We've got the Bunsen stuffy,the Beaker stuffy and now the
Ginger stuffy.
That's right, ginger, thescience cat, has a little
replica.
It's adorable.
It's so soft, with the giantfluffy tail, safety glasses and
a lab coat.
(19:08):
And number three if you'relistening to the podcast on any
place that rates podcasts, giveus a great rating and tell your
family and friends to listen too.
Okay, on with the show.
Back to the interviews.
It's time for Ask an Expert onthe Science Podcast, and I have
Dr Katie Burnett, academicCoordinator, with us today.
(19:28):
Doc, how are you doing?
I'm great, good, good.
Where are you calling into theshow from?
Where are you in the world?
Speaker 3 (19:35):
So I am at the University of California
Riverside in Riverside,california.
For those who don't know, it'seast of LA.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Riverside, California .
For folks who don't know it'seast of LA.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
East of LA, we were chatting right before I hit
record that it is sunny and 66Fahrenheit.
Did I get that right?
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Yes, yep, sunny and reasonably warm for winter, 19
Celsius for Canadians and therest of the world.
So yeah, that would be verybalmy for us.
Very fun.
I introduced you as Dr Burnett.
What's going on there?
What's your education inscience?
Speaker 3 (20:16):
Let's see.
So I have a PhD in genetics.
I graduated from the Universityof Wisconsin-Madison with that
degree.
I also worked as a postdocstudying genomics and aging
using nematode worms.
Oh cool, yeah, which is fun.
It's much easier to study agingin worms than people, because
(20:38):
an old nematode is five days old, so you can get a lot of
information really fast.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Very cool.
When you were young, wasscience a path that you thought
you'd be on?
Were you the little kid mixingpotions and wondering about the
world?
Speaker 3 (20:53):
I was a little kid.
Doing weird science-y stufflike this is embarrassing.
My mom hopefully doesn't listento this.
I was probably I don't know sixor seven and I knew that
flowers had or needed pollen.
So I happily scraped a bunch ofpine tree pollen into a bucket
and mix it with water and wasblopping it and all the flowers
(21:16):
and my mom's flower bed becauseI thought it would help her have
more flowers.
And I did most of the frontyard before she stopped me
because I was dropping this likemuddy pollen goop all over her
flowers.
So yeah, I was a kid thatalways loved science-y stuff.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
And then the path to genetics.
What was the?
What happened?
Was there a flashpoint in yourlife that caused you?
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (21:41):
Yeah.
So I knew I wanted to studyscience and I liked biology and
I went to Western WashingtonUniversity up in Washington
State and I took genetics andthat professor, dr Jeff Young
he's just retired he said I'mlooking for students to come do
research and I think you would.
I think you'd be good at it.
(22:02):
So I got an inn doing researchwhen I was an undergrad and I
loved it, absolutely loved it,and a lot of science isn't
particularly glamorous.
We were doing studies withArabidopsis thaliana plants.
It's one of the model organisms.
There was a lot of money tryingto figure out what all the genes
in its genome did and thatsounded super cool.
(22:24):
But you start with things likeyou gotta autoclave some soil to
put your plants in and then youyou got a little a bunch of
little plastic stakes to knowwhat went in each pot.
So a lot of science is spendinga lot of time labeling things,
believe it or not.
But it was really fun.
He's the one who encouraged meto go to graduate school and I
have him to thank for reallylaunching me.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
That's a sweet story.
Some of the kids I'm a highschool science teacher, chem
teacher, my day job and I'm Iteach.
One of the subjects I teach isthat some of the younger kids,
the grade nines in our honorsprogram and you can see the kids
when we get to genetics in thebiology unit with like Punnett
squares, something like clicksin their brain that like the
(23:12):
thing that makes them and thestuff and everything that's
alive.
There's a code for them andit's potentially predictable, at
least at that point in a verysimple Punnett square and it's
magical.
Because those are the kids thatI'm like oh okay, that kid this
really jived with.
They're all in on the geneticspart of biology.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
Yeah, no, I love teaching.
So for my day job now I'm anacademic coordinator, which
means I design lab curriculumfor undergraduate students and
for our non-major students.
So this is a class for studentswho are majoring in something
else.
They're going to be engineers,they're going to be historians,
they're going to be dance majors.
They just need to take ascience.
I'm not going to make thembecome a science major, but we
(23:57):
do a project where the abilityto taste or not taste the bitter
chemical PTC is coded in yourDNA and there's two main alleles
that are versions of a gene,whether or not you can taste or
not taste this chemical.
And if you can taste it, itusually means you really don't
like bitter vegetables like kaleor Brussels sprouts, broccoli,
all the things that are likegood for you.
(24:19):
Because we're told we'resupposed to eat lots of leafy
greens and dark leafy greens areeven better, and so they.
We do a lab where they canactually extract DNA from their
own cheek cells, amplify it anddetermine which version of the
gene they have.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Oh wow, that's so cool.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
It's really fun.
They love it because you learnsomething about yourself.
You learn something about whyyou may or may not have liked
broccoli as a child.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
Oh man Can you imagine finding out you're
genetically don't like broccoliand your parents were like you
need to eat your broccoli.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
You feel so vindicated.
No, this is biology andevolution are trying to protect
me from eating bitter things andbecause, in nature, bitter
things are often poisonous yeahso this is my genes trying to
protect me from eating thingsthat taste bad obviously there
was a selective advantage tothose people not eating poison.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
back in the day they were like the super tasters for
poison or something.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
Indeed, but with plant domestication you don't
have to worry about beingpoisoned from the broccoli from
your grocery store.
But you still don't have tolike it.
It still might taste pretty bad.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
I have long waged a war against kale, so I'm
wondering if I'm one of thosepeople.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
You might be.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
So, with genetics beyond and we'll maybe talk a
little bit more about yourcurrent position what are some
things in genetics that you justget super excited about, to
talk to folks about, or that youlike to know?
Speaker 3 (25:45):
Oh, so I love talking about the genetics of cats.
Okay, I have four cats.
I'm fostering four kittensright now.
They're living on our catio.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
And I love the fact that.
So here's a question for you.
Cats that have orange and blackfur we call them calico cats.
Have you ever seen a calico dog?
Speaker 1 (26:06):
An orange dog.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
Orange and black together.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Aren't like Australian shepherds, like a bit
of orange, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
Yeah, yeah, or newly, he's got orange eyebrows and
black fur.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
That's right, he does , yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
So there's a gene that controls fur color and it's
conserved across mammals.
But in cats it's weird that ifa cat has orange and black fur,
it's 99.9% of the time it'sfemale.
You never get a male cat that'sboth orange and black.
(26:39):
They'll either be orange orblack, but not both.
Female cats can be any of them.
You can have a female cat withorange fur, like your ginger
black fur, or orange and black.
Orange fur, like your gingerblack fur or orange and black.
And it's fascinating because thegene that controls fur color is
not on a sex chromosome, butfur color is inherited, as if
(27:01):
it's linked to the X chromosome.
Yeah, yeah, so just so.
Cats, just like people, theirsex determination is an XY
system.
So all female cats have two Xchromosomes and all male cats
have an X and a Y, so likepeople, and they also have, just
like in humans, in females oneof those X chromosomes gets
(27:23):
silenced or turned off, so oneof the chromosomes will be
active and one will be inactive,and it varies in different
parts of your body, like it'sjust random which cell gets
turned off very early inembryonic development.
And so with female cats withtwo X chromosomes, if one
chromosome has the black furcolor and the other has the
(27:48):
orange fur color, turning onecopy off.
If you turn off the black furversion, then the cat will get
orange fur in that spot.
If you turn off orange fur,then it'll have black.
So that's how you get thepatches.
Human women actually havepatches like that too.
We just don't have fur.
So you can't see the fact thatwe actually have every cell in
our body.
The X chromosome has beeninactivated in one copy or the
(28:11):
other randomly throughout,throughout our bodies, which is
fascinating.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
So it doesn't seem to like birth marks, does it, or
am I?
Speaker 3 (28:18):
I don't know I know that it is linked to sweat
glands, so you can have parts ofyour skin as a woman that are
sweatier than others.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Oh man.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
And that's due to X chromosome inactivation.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
Yeah, so with cats, then if you look at a cat and if
you know if it's male or female, you can know something about
its parents or something aboutits kittens.
So we had a female cat who hasorange and black fur.
Her name is now Rosie.
We've adopted her, but sheshowed up at our backyard, under
(28:53):
our shed, with five kittens.
Because I'm a huge sucker forcats, I was like I guess we're
going to feed you.
My husband said, if we feedthem, you know what's going to
happen.
Right, we're going to end upkeeping at least one.
We also ended up designing andbuilding an entire enclosure for
our back porch, so it's like a20 foot wide covered porch and
(29:15):
now it is a catio cat enclosure.
So Rosie's orange and black andher kittens.
She has one orange male kittenand can we determine what color
is his dad and then she also hasone female kitten that's orange
and black, just like the mom,and then three more black and
(29:37):
white kittens.
So we'll get to those in aminute.
Just like in humans, you getyour sex chromosomes from your
parents.
So you get one X chromosomefrom your mom Everyone has one X
chromosome and then your dadgives you either an X or a Y.
So that means Rosie could passon because she is orange and
black, either the black versionX chromosome or the orange
version.
And the orange male kitten hegot a Y chromosome from his dad.
(30:01):
So that just tells us that dadis a cat, dad is a male cat and
that's it.
We don't know what he lookslike.
Not helpful, not informative.
One of the tuxedo kittens blackand white is also a boy, but he
got the X chromosome from momand dad is dad Y chromosome, so
also not helpful.
Okay, great, let's look at thekitten that's orange and black.
(30:24):
She could have gotten eitherthe black or the orange from mom
and either black or orange fromdad.
So again, or the orange frommom and either black or orange
from dad.
So again, doesn't help.
The kittens that tell us whatdad looks like are the black and
white female kittens.
They had to get a black versionof the x-cobasome from mom and
from dad, so dad is a tuxedo cat.
Some of the babies also havewhite, white markings on them.
(30:46):
The mom doesn't, so that meansdad also has to have white
markings on them.
The mom doesn't, so that meansdad also has to have white toes
because of how that is inherited.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
You were writing your own punnet.
Squares on the little kittens.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
Yep, I was A kitten shows up in my yard, I'm like
all right, what's your genetichistory?
Yeah, it's really quite fun.
I use the genetics of cat colorto teach about how sex
chromosomes are inherited,because it works the same in
cats as it does in people.
So I find it really quite fun.
And yes, another caveat to thisis female cats if they
(31:21):
encounter more than one tomcat,they will breed with all of them
, so the kittens might not allhave the same dad.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Similar to dogs.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
Yeah, similar to dogs , so there might be more than
one dad involved, but at minimumthere has to be one.
Dad with a tuxedo cat dad.
Yeah, just like dogs.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
That's so interesting with cat genetics that way,
because it's so cut and dry.
If you think of humans, forexample, with hair color, skin
color, it's a little morecomplicated right.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
Humans, for example, with hair color skin color.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
It's a little bit more complicated right?
Speaker 3 (31:51):
Yes, very much.
There are many genes thatcontribute to pigmentation for
human eye color, hair color,skin color, and it's also
there's a lot of environmentinvolved.
So if you spend a lot of timeout in the sun, your hair will
get bleached out, it'll losesome of its pigment and your
(32:12):
skin might darken or you mightget freckles.
So freckles actually is asimple inheritance in humans.
It's one of very few traitsthat are what we call Mendelian
inheritance, where there's onemain contributing gene and two
alleles.
Having freckles is the dominantversion.
If you have one version of thegene that says you're going to
get freckles, you can getfreckles, but if you don't spend
(32:35):
time in the sun, you don't getfreckles.
So freckles are actually from alittle bit of sun damage.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Oh, man Yep.
And if you get covered infreckles, is that like you got
two dominant genes, you gotsuper freckles.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
That's a great question.
I'm not sure, but covered infreckles all over, you'd
probably have to be like nudesunbathing or something like
that, because, like I said, ifyou spent all your time indoors
or covered up really well andwore a bunch of sunscreen, you
wouldn't get freckles, even if,genetically, you could get
freckles.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
Oh, my goodness, it's like's like changing paint that
you go outside with.
Yeah, pretty much wild.
Okay, so that's the genetics ofcalicos, you?
You said something and maybe Icould just ask a clarifying
question.
We've had people comment quitea few times, with ginger being
(33:31):
an orange cat yeah, theyprobably think ginger's a boy
right.
What's going on with that?
Because they're you.
Just, I thought you said thatcats can be orange and they can
be female, or is that?
Speaker 3 (33:42):
yeah, they can.
The version of the gene or theallele for orange fur is not as
common as the allele for blackfur.
So to get a male orange cat,that means his mom can be either
a calico, orange, and black ororange.
So there's two ways to get amale orange cat.
Dad can be any color, itdoesn't matter because he only
(34:04):
gets the Y chromosome from dad.
To get an orange female cat,the dad has to be orange and the
mom has to either be orangeherself or a calico that passes
on the orange chromosome.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
The orange part right .
Speaker 3 (34:18):
Yeah, the orange part .
So both parent cats have tohave at least some orange fur
and it's just less common tohave that in the cat population.
More cats have the allele forblack fur than they do for
orange fur, so she's rare.
Only like 20% or so of orangecats are female, so it's not
(34:42):
zero, it's majority.
They're going to be male, justbecause it's genetically easier
to have an orange male cat.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
Ginger is one of a kind, so I don't know what the
percentage is, but she's oneunique cat Yep.
But I think everybody who hascats and dogs, your cat or dog
is a unique one of a kind thing.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
Yes, they are, yes, they are.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Like currently you mentioned you're developing and
designing like lab curricula forpeople who aren't necessarily
going into science full hog.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
Yeah, I talked to you might get a kick out of this,
and then I like I would love toknow what else you're doing
there.
I talked to a geologist at theUniversity of Calgary, to south
of us, and they developed ascience course for the um, the
sports teams.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
it was a geology course and they called it rocks
for jocks oh my gosh, becausethat's like a joke saying oh,
science, like science, classesfor athletes are really watered
down like rocks for jocks.
But they actually called itrocks for jocks.
I love it.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
They called it that, yeah, and it wasn't really
watered down, it was like likewhat you'd probably expect, but
it was just.
It sounds fun.
Yeah, that's the time wheremost of the sports teams could
make it based on their playingand practicing.
So, anyways, I thought you'dget a kick out of that.
Speaker 3 (36:01):
That is hilarious.
That's like the joke aboutclasses being like underwater
basket weaving 101.
And you picture.
The joke is like they show apicture of someone sitting in a
swimming pool, like underwater,with basketry materials.
But underwater basketryactually is a thing, but only
the basket goes in the water.
The whole person doesn't haveto go in oh, weird.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
Okay, I thought it was like one of those greendale
courses from community that Idon't know if you've seen that
tv show where they're alwaysyeah, it's the community college
oh, about the community college, yep yeah, the weird courses
just to get people to go there.
So, beyond getting people'scheek cells out and finding out
if they don't like bitter ifthey like bitter or don't like
bitter vegetables what else isgoing on with some of your
(36:44):
development there?
Speaker 3 (36:46):
so for that class, for the non-majors, we also do
exploring the science ofeveryday objects in your kitchen
.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
Okay, yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
Yeah, so the students are learning terms in science
like hydrophilic, or substancesthat are attracted or dissolved
in water, hydrophobic thingsthat are repelled by water.
They learn about solutes andsolvents and ions and to really
look at that.
We give students things likeolive oil and bubbles and water.
(37:14):
Oh, here's a fun one.
If you get a bowl of water, trysprinkling a little pinch of
cinnamon on the top.
Cinnamon, it's a dry powder butit has such a high oil content
it's hydrophobic and it willfloat that if you take a little
bit of a piece of soap.
So soap is an interestingmolecule.
It's actually we call itamphipathic, so meaning that it
(37:38):
can form bonds with things thatare either really fatty, like
oils or water.
So soap the reason it washesstuff off of you is it's really
good at binding to molecules andthen being washed off with just
plain water.
So if you touch a bit of soapto the surface, the soap will
start to dissolve on the top ofthe water and it'll push the
(38:00):
cinnamon away in this likereally fast reaction and then
it'll spring back and yeah, soit's really quite fun.
If you get a chance, get a bowlof water, sprinkle some
cinnamon and poke it with apiece of soap.
It's quite fun.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
I would imagine you have a lot of opportunity for
creativity with those courses,being that your curriculum is
getting people the gist ofscience so they can continue on
with their further education.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
Yes, we actually.
I think the most fun I hadironically was during the
lockdown, when we were all ononline education.
Yes, we actually.
I think the most fun I hadironically was during the
lockdown and we were all ononline education.
I was doing a molecular biologyfor non-majors and so, oh my
gosh, what are they going to beinterested in learning about
during online teaching andlockdown, during the pandemic,
and so they're going to beinterested in knowing things
(38:49):
like what is a virus anyway?
That's when all these terms werecoming out, like social
distancing Okay, what does itmean and questions that students
were asking like how do youdevelop a vaccine?
Then we were developing avaccine and that's okay.
Great, now that we have one,who gets it?
(39:09):
And so, talking through all ofthe complicated logistics and
politics and ethics of where'syour place in the vaccine line,
it was really quite fun.
I learned a lot because thiswas outside my field of
expertise, but I was reading alot of papers in the background,
looking at a lot of newsarticles and coming up with
(39:29):
stuff on the fly, and it was areally fun time to teach.
I'm very glad that a lot of thequestions I had are now
answered, like can we get avaccine for COVID?
Yes, we can.
But yeah, it was a reallyinteresting time in science and
that was a very time to be verycreative.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
You could even bring back the soap as the soap oh my
gosh.
Speaker 3 (39:51):
Yeah, that's what they.
We asked, like why does washingyour hands?
Speaker 1 (39:53):
matter.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
Like, why?
Why would we say, or wearing amask if to like, why does that
help?
Because people would say thingslike but I can smell molecules
through my mask.
If someone's brewing coffee,you can smell the coffee.
And so they'd say smells canget through.
Why would I believe it'sstopping a virus?
And so they'd say, if smellscan get through, why would I
believe it's stopping a virus?
And so we had them look up.
(40:14):
Okay, what molecule is in thesmell that you're smelling,
what's its structure, how big isit?
And then, how big is a virus?
Because a virus.
Yes, they are microscopic.
You cannot see them without aspecialized electron microscope.
We physically cannot see coffeemolecule smell.
So a virus is much, much largerthan smell.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
Yeah.
It's the difference between amolecule and virus is a
conglomerate of-.
Speaker 3 (40:44):
Many proteins, many lipids.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
Billions of molecules , billions, maybe like a huge
number.
Speaker 3 (40:54):
Yeah, it's billions of yeah, like a huge number.
So yeah, or if the mask canblock the virus, does it let
oxygen in?
Yes, oxygen molecules are verysmall, especially compared to a
virus.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
Yes, yeah, very cool.
Is there anything else you'dlike me to ask before we get to
your pet story?
Speaker 3 (41:08):
Okay, what was your favorite subject?
Where did you?
How did you get where you are?
Speaker 1 (41:13):
Oh man, I've never had anybody asked me that, maybe
.
So in in high school I excelledat writing.
I was a very good writer,effortlessly so, like creative
writing, essay writing, all thatkind of stuff.
My teachers were pushing metowards law school to be a
lawyer.
I was a very good publicspeaker and I could think on my
(41:33):
feet.
But I actually loved science themost, even though my grades
didn't really reflect thatcompared to how good I was at
writing.
And yeah, so it was.
I don't know, it was a mixtureof the wonder of science, of
what we don't know that got memore interested in science.
(41:54):
I didn't pursue as far as youdid with education.
I'm an undergrad and then Ihave two undergrads, science
degree and an education degree,so that's where I get to where
I'm at as a teacher.
I was thinking in my sciencedegree of pursuing it further,
like to go into a master's andPhD, but what I disliked the
most was the stuff that youwould do, the most of which was
(42:17):
that tedious lab work that youmentioned, and I just it puts
the read research, do one, itlooks great.
Go back and do a hundred more toget a nice sample size yeah, a
lot of respect for people thatcan do that, but that just
wasn't for me.
They were true in front of theclass to talk about the findings
.
I was the talky funny presenterguy and then of course that
(42:40):
leads really strongly intoteaching as being inspirational
to kids.
Speaker 3 (42:44):
Yes, absolutely.
Actually.
Could I tell you one more thingI happen to be doing right now,
science-wise.
So I also do classes forscience majors and I get them as
freshmen, which is fabulousbecause they're still.
They are so excited to be atthe university, to be starting
science right away, and we do aproject that is genetic, using
(43:07):
genetics to look for fish fraud.
So fish fraud being when a fishis sold as one species, knowing
that it's actually somethingelse and it's really common,
Depending on the type of fishwe're talking about, 20 to 60%
of the time you're not gettingwhat you paid for.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
Really.
Speaker 3 (43:28):
Really.
Yeah, it's surprisingly common.
So we have the students come inand ask them to bring a piece
of fish.
Go for sushi, don't eat thatlast bite.
Bring it in, tell us what youthought it was.
You extract DNA.
You use a technique called PCRpolymerase chain reaction to
copy a region of DNA that's usedas a DNA barcode, which is a
(43:52):
region of DNA that is.
We know it's found in all thefish.
But if you learn the exactgenetic sequence the A's, t's,
g's and C's you can send thatsequence to an algorithm and
it'll tell you the geneticidentity of exactly what you got
and what you paid for and it's.
I love it because this issomething the students can.
(44:13):
They do all the steps and weget a huge set of data and the
last week in class they're doingpresentations about what they
discovered and what they learnedand it is really fun.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
That is cool.
Disappointing If you paid foran expensive fish and you got
some cheapo fish.
But I can see being being cut.
The whoever would be like oh,they'll never know, but they'll
never know.
Speaker 3 (44:37):
Plus you like it depends on where in the
processing chain it happened.
Did you?
At some point something gotmislabeled and you're not really
sure when?
But yeah, it's really common infish that are lighter colored
fish.
So rockfish, oh.
What's other common things?
Cod?
Almost never cod.
Usually you're getting tilapia,okay, so you know, buy
(45:00):
everywhere because, and honestly, most people don't know what
the fish they ordered ought tolook like, especially when it's
like deep fried and covered insauce.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
It's tasty, you eat it right yeah, like I live in
alberta, canada, the nearestocean is like a day and a half
driving straight away.
We have no concept of oceanfish, the only fish we earn are
the fish we catch in our lakes.
I would be able to tell thedifference there, but if
somebody's is this tilapia orcod, I'd be like I have no idea.
Speaker 3 (45:26):
I have no idea what you're talking about yeah, what
if someone said oh, this is, uh,it's not rainbow trout, it's
brown trout.
Could you tell those apart?
Speaker 1 (45:35):
Probably yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:36):
Okay, okay, so you're an expert, then that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (45:38):
Perch rainbow trout, brown trout we don't have a lot
of here, so that'd be a struggle.
Maybe with that Jackfish wehave a lot of I'm not sure if
that's the right name for themthey're these giant fish we have
.
Speaker 3 (45:53):
What's that I don't?
Speaker 1 (45:54):
know that, I don't know that, I know.
No, they're sweet, they'regiant freshwater predatory fish
pike.
Speaker 3 (45:58):
There we go oh, that I know, yeah, pike pike, we just
call them jackfish this iscanadian this is one of the
things I teach my students isdifferent.
Like fish, the same common namecan refer to different actual
species and the same species cancan refer to different actual
species.
And the same species can havemany common names.
So it's around the world.
So here's the last anecdote.
I promise you, If you saw afish on a menu called a
(46:22):
slimehead, would you eat it?
Speaker 1 (46:24):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (46:26):
Yeah, it doesn't sound good, does it?
No, no, it was rebranded backin the 90s as orange rough Okay,
and it's one of the mostpopular ocean fish in the world
now.
Speaker 1 (46:35):
Oh.
Speaker 3 (46:35):
Same fish just got a new name because when it was
called Slimehead it was sold foranimal feed and pet food, and
when they decided to rename itas Orange Ruffy, now it's sold
for human food and they get alot more money per fish.
Speaker 1 (46:49):
That is like the story of lobster on the east
coast of the United States.
They gave the lobster to theinmates and now it's more of a
luxury dish.
Speaker 3 (46:59):
Part of that is we changed how we cook it.
It used to be that people juststuck the lobster in a pot and
boiled it, so it was notdelicious, whereas if you steam
it and serve it with butter it'spretty gosh darn good.
Speaker 1 (47:10):
But yeah, butter is the key.
Katie, thanks for talking to usa little bit about your job and
some science and genetics.
It was fascinating.
We always end the interviewasking our guests to share a pet
story with us from their life,and I was wondering if you could
do that.
Speaker 3 (47:26):
Oh sure, I have a lot of stories about my childhood
cat.
Speaker 1 (47:30):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (47:31):
So he was an orange and white cat.
His name was Rascal.
We got him when he was a littlebaby kitten and he at the time
he was allowed to be anindoor-outdoor cat and he loved
hunting small critters.
So one time he came to the doorand he looked like he was
limping like hunched up, holdinghis leg, not right.
(47:52):
Oh my gosh, something got him.
He must be hurt.
We pick him up and he's nothurt.
He's actually hugging a smallsongbird against himself and he
let it go in the house.
So my sister and I were tryingto get ready for school, my dad
is trying to get out the doorfor work, my mom was trying to
(48:14):
get us kids out the door so shecould go to work.
And here we are in the livingroom chasing this bird around
and the cat rascal.
He was so proud of himself.
You know when cats bring youthings, it's a sign they love
you.
So he brought us this bird asan I love you thing.
My current cats are all indoorcats and so we have a one of our
(48:35):
cats.
His name is sir puck.
He's a black cat, he likes tohunt a microphone cover and
he'll bring us that becausethat's the most worthy adversary
he can find.
Yes, does your ginger bring yougift gifts, or she uh, not
allowed out unless she's in thecat backpack yeah, so she.
Speaker 1 (48:53):
We live in a very dangerous place that to let cats
go free oh yeah, moose, mooselegs yeah, predator, she went
that day along, something wouldeat her, probably in her catio.
She caught has caught a mouseand a bird like oh my, they came
into her area like.
Like I feel that's their fault.
Yeah, that's on the bird that'son the mouse.
(49:15):
They have a wide world ofCanada to go.
Speaker 3 (49:17):
Yeah, that's natural selection at work.
That's that bird was being dumb.
Speaker 1 (49:22):
Yeah, they got taken out by Ginger.
She is a cat.
Yeah, what was the name?
I'm sorry.
What was the name of the catthat brought the bird in the
(49:42):
house?
His name was rascal.
Oh, rascal, very fitting.
Yep, yep, he was.
He was something.
A very fun cat.
Thanks for sharing your petstory, doc.
Very sweet and also exciting,and people can relate to animals
bringing things into the houseoh gosh, yes yeah, oh, yeah,
yeah, anyway, I could tell catstories all day but oh gosh.
Speaker 3 (49:52):
Yes, yeah, oh, yeah, yeah.
Anyway, I could tell catstories all day, but I promise I
will not.
Speaker 1 (49:58):
We're at the end of our chat.
Are you on social mediaanywhere that people could
follow you or connect with you?
Speaker 3 (50:04):
You can find me on research gate as Katie Burnett
and you can find me on I'm stillon the Facebook as Katie and
Zemlansky Burnett, but you canjust look for Katie Burnett.
It's not a common last name,yeah.
Speaker 1 (50:19):
Perfect.
We'll make sure a couple ofthose links are in our show
notes for folks to check out.
Thank you for being a guest.
Really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (50:27):
Thank you for having me.
It's been a delight.
Speaker 1 (50:29):
That's it for this week show.
Thanks for having me.
It's been a delight.
That's it for this week's show.
Thanks for coming back weekafter week to listen to the
Science Podcast.
Special thanks to our gueststhis week and a shout out to the
top tier of our Patreon group,the Paw Pack.
If you'd like to support us,check out the show notes and one
of the perks is you get yourname shouted out at the end to
show our appreciation.
(50:50):
Chris, let's hear those names.
Speaker 2 (50:53):
Amelia Fettig Rhi Oda , carol Haino, jennifer Challen,
linnea Janik Karen Chronister,vicky Otero, Christy Walker
(51:38):
no-transcript.
Hello science enthusiasts.
I'm Jason Zukoski.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
And I'm Chris Zukoski .
Speaker 1 (00:14):
We're the pet parents of Bunsen, beaker, bernoulli
and Ginger.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
The science animals on social media.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
If you love science.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
And you love pets.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
You've come to the right spot, so put on your
safety glasses and hold on toyour tail.
This is the Science Podcast.
Hello and welcome back to theScience Podcast.
We hope you're happy andhealthy out there.
This is episode 13 of season 7.
We didn't get an episode outlast week.
It was a crazy busyback-to-school week for Chris
(00:45):
and I after the holiday and wejust ran out of energy and time.
We had some things we signed upfor During the week.
I had to prep for a scienceshow on Saturday for the Tim
Horton Smile Cookie Day, andthat just proved too much
running around to get thispodcast done.
So we appreciate your patience,but we've got a really good
show for you guys today.
(01:06):
All right, in science news,we're going to talk about some
of the controversy aroundfluoride in water using a case
study of a city very close to us, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
In pet science, we're going tolook at a study that tried to
answer the question would folkswho fancy themselves fancy be
(01:28):
more inclined to get fancy catsfor adoption?
Well, I guess you have to waitand see Our guest and ask.
An expert is Dr Katie Burnett,who's an academic coordinator,
and we have a really cooldiscussion about some of the
things happening in highereducation to teach people who
are not necessarily scientists,science.
Okay, on with the show.
(01:49):
There's no time like ScienceTime.
This week in science news,Chris, I think it's time to go
to the dentist.
Do you know what time that is?
Tooth hurty?
Yeah, it's tooth hurty.
It's tooth hurty that that'sright that's funny yeah, I have
(02:10):
to say I am not a super big fanof going to the dentist.
It is, it's okay, but it's notsomething I look forward to.
There's a lot of poking andprodding around my teeth and
things don't taste good and Igot to keep my mouth open really
wide.
Luckily I have fairly goodteeth and I haven't had a lot of
(02:31):
cavities in my life.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
No, every time you go I say hey, how many cavities do
you have?
And you say none.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
I have had cavities.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
I know you have, but I go and it's like you have some
major work to do in there andit's like what?
And when you go, it's perfect.
It's a little bit unfair.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
So this science news item hits really close to home
because it's all about thefluoride debate, typically using
Calgary as a case study, andCalgary is the city just south
of us, by a little more than anhour.
It's one of the two big citiesin our province of Alberta.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
The reason why this is topical and we're talking
about it is because it's a bitcontroversial the debate about
whether fluoride should be addedto municipal drinking water or
not.
In 2011, calgary stopped addingfluoride to the municipal
drinking water and they recentlyreinstated it.
(03:37):
Now, I say recent, that was2021.
But it was based on a decisionthat reversed their original
decision to stop adding fluorideto the drinking water.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
So if we look at some of the support for fluoride,
remember sorry not to get intosome chemistry, but people
confuse fluorine and fluorideall the time.
Fluorine is a halogen gas F2.
It is one of the most deadlyand dangerous gases in the
(04:12):
halogen family.
But when fluorine becomes anion, it's called fluoride and
that can be bonded to manydifferent things.
Fluoride, like chloride, ispretty much harmless, which is
weird because chlorine gas isextremely dangerous.
(04:33):
But when you turn chlorine intochloride it's safe.
Fluoride combines with calciumand phosphate in your mouth and
in your teeth to strengthen yourenamel.
Fluoride helps prevent aciddamage from the bacteria in our
mouth.
This helps support overall oralhealth.
(04:53):
The Americans the CDCrecommends 0.7 milligrams of
fluoride per liter of water.
As of 2022, 63% of Americanshave access to fluoridated water
.
As of 2022, 63% of Americanshave access to fluoridated water
.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Right, so it sounds great coming right out of the
science there, but there hasbeen opposition and definitely
some controversy withfluoridation, and some of this
longstanding opposition comesfrom claims about tooth staining
or bone cancer and,additionally, that if you
(05:28):
fluoridate the water, that meansyou're putting medicine in the
water, which goes againstindividual rights and freedoms.
And more recently there hasbeen concerns about adding
fluoride to the water causes alower IQ in children, and so
this is based on high exposurestudies, but the fluoride in the
(05:51):
studies was much higher thanthe amount that they're adding
to fluoridated water.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
And it was an association.
It wasn't a confirmation.
You have to be very carefulwith associations because those
are not confirmed.
Those are not confirmed.
Causes like above 1.5milligrams per liter was what
the study was testing, which isway above what's in drinking
water.
(06:17):
Did that really harm the IQ?
Speaker 2 (06:21):
And it didn't confirm it.
No, but despite having thisweak evidence, the anti-fluoride
movements are growing.
Utah banned fluoridation inMarch of 2025, so that's very
recent and Robert F Kennedy Jrin the States plans to withdraw
CDC recommendations If you'rewondering about Canada.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
It's really dependent on provinces.
Our province, chris, only 43%of the water is fluoridated,
with Ontario being the highestat 73.
The lowest is the Yukon andNewfoundland and Labrador at 0%.
0% of their water isfluoridated.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
And that's interesting and I want to talk
about those research findingsthat were in Calgary.
So they did speak to a pediatricdentist and Dr Warren Lopke is
a pediatric dentist in Calgaryfor more than 20 years and he
reported a rise in aggressiveand severe tooth decay in
(07:21):
children over the past decadeand many children actually
require treatment under generalanesthesia as opposed to other
measures because of theextensive damage that has been
done to their teeth.
And so, having said that,talking about Dr Warren Loebke,
there is some recent researchfindings in Calgary.
(07:43):
Jason Lindsay McClendon is aUniversity of Calgary researcher
and they studied second gradechildren in Calgary,
non-fluoridated versus Edmontonchildren which have access to
fluoridation ended, and whatthey found was interesting 65%
(08:13):
of those children had toothdecay versus 55% in Edmonton.
And you may say, huh, 65, 55,that's pretty close.
No, statistically, that's astatistically significant
difference when you're lookingat putting that through and
applying it to the population.
And one thing they looked atbecause you did mention, you
(08:35):
can't say this is the directcause.
They did look at diet andsocioeconomic status and that in
itself did not explain thedifference.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
So you could.
You might say, oh, maybe peoplein Calgary, those kids ate
sugary snacks or they were frompoor families, which is has a
lot of correlation to healthoutcomes, and the answer is no.
Also, in a 2024 study in thesame area, Calgary had roughly
double the amount of kids thatwent under general anesthesia
(09:07):
for severe tooth decay.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
And I just think of our Adam versus our Duncan.
We lived in Red Deer when wehad Duncan growing up and he
would have had access tofluoridated water, whereas when
we moved on the farm, we're onwell water which doesn't have
fluoride in it and we definitelynoticed a difference.
Now again, it's a population ofone kid A population of one kid
(09:33):
can't necessarily generalizethis for all, but Adam
definitely had worse toothissues or tooth issues.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
He had way worse tooth issues.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Yeah, he had a double pulpotpotomy which is like a
root canal, and he lost hisfirst two, his front two teeth
yeah, I remember that he had.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
It was a rough time for him.
We're not going to go throughit.
But all these findings parallelwhat happened in juneau, alaska
, after fluoridation was ended.
They had noticed high rates ofchildhood dental procedures
after the removal of thefluoride, and the fluoride in
both cases were removed,probably mostly because when the
(10:15):
populace voted on it, or it wasjust decided upon, it was
decided on not great science.
And this brings us to only afew years ago in Calgary, in
2021.
What happened, chris?
Speaker 2 (10:29):
The Calgarians.
The residents there voted toreintroduce fluoride.
62% voted yes, which is astronger majority than the
original 1989 approval, and thestudies and the sustained
advocacy can be credited for theshift.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
It doesn't always work, but if you give people
good information about why andyou debunk the myths, generally
the population, at least inwhere we live, are online with
it.
So, as we conclude, there isvery weak evidence that fluoride
levels are bad for you andthere's good evidence, both
(11:09):
historically and lately, thatfluoridation of water is helpful
for teeth, especially inchildren and that's, and that's
something that we can smileabout because the last thing you
want is to have yourappointment at 2.30.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
That's right On a Thursday.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
All right, that's science news for this week.
This week in pet science, let'stalk about some fancy cats, or
people who think they're fancy.
Who fancy cats Fancy people whofancy fancy cats.
Am I on cats?
Fancy people who fancy fancycats.
Am I on the right track withthis study?
Speaker 2 (11:48):
You are.
You're on the right track, andwe generally don't call the cats
fancy.
We say that they have apedigree, they're pedigree cats.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Oh, okay, pedigree.
Oh, I'm so sorry to the fancycats out there.
You have a pedigree.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Ginger.
After delving into this study Iwas thinking about hey, how did
ginger come about?
Because you are allergic tocats and as much as I love cats,
I was resigned to never owninganother cat ever again and going
over to the farmhouse andgetting my cat fixed there.
(12:25):
But we were in the pet store.
Beaker and Bunsen were gettinggroomed for the show that they
were going to and I saw Gingerin the rescue.
They have Fostering hope has arescue area for the cats that
(12:45):
they get in and I saw ginger andAdam was with me and I said you
need to come see this cat andAdam was over and we were
looking and I said to him I saidwe have to have a method to get
this cat because normally I cantake them or leave them, but
for her she called to me.
(13:06):
I don't know if it was becauseshe was so cute or just her
personality, but we had to havethat cat.
We had to have Ginger.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
She doesn't have a pedigree right.
It's a rescue.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
She's a rescue.
She is a typical host cat.
She's a long hair, a domesticlong hair.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
She's cute and she's kind of unique because she's a
girl cat and she's orange, whichis not super common.
In the study, the aim of it wasto investigate whether an
individual's sensitivity tosocial status affected their
preferences for adoptingnon-pedigree cats.
The idea was that individualswho thought themselves who had a
(13:46):
higher status sensitivity mayprefer those pedigree cats,
viewing them as a status symboland maybe finding non-pedigree
cats less appealing.
So the gingers of the world.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Okay, but Ginger was very appealing.
She's so cute.
She's so cute.
The sample size was 250participants and the assessment
that they used was 60 cat images.
So they showed 30 pedigree and30 non-pedigree cats and the
participants rated each image onthe adoptability or the
(14:26):
likelihood of adopting the cat,and then they also rated the
cuteness yes, yes, which is theperceived attractiveness of the
cat.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
It's pretty subjective.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
It is pretty subjective.
Do you find this cat cute?
Yes, they did complete twoquestionnaires which measured
the perceived status attainment,which is a PSA the personal
sense of achieved social status,and also it rated the status
aspirations SA and that can belikened to a desire to attain
(15:01):
higher social status.
Be likened to a desire toattain higher social status.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
So you self-identify as a fancy pants and then they
take the data on if you like thecat or not, find it cute or not
and I think they're going toput them together right.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
So there are key findings for the adoptability
ratings Participants with thehigher PSA and SA scores, the
higher perceived statusattainment and the status
aspirations.
They were less inclined toadopt non-pedigree cats.
But interestingly thatreluctance did not correspond to
(15:39):
a higher preference forpedigree cats.
They just were like no cat forme.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Oh, interesting.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
And then the cuteness perception.
The higher status sensitivitycorrelated with lower cuteness
ratings for non-pedigree cats.
They were like you're not cute,You're non-pedigree.
I'm a higher status individual,but for pedigree cats the
cuteness ratings remain stableacross varying perceived status
attainment scores, as well asthe higher status aspiration
(16:14):
scores, slightly increased withthe perceived cuteness of the
cat.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Interesting cat Interesting.
So I don't know what we canreally interpret from this.
That wouldn't hurt people'sfeelings, but it appears the
preference for pedigree catsamong status sensitive
individuals suggests that thosepets may serve as an extension
of their social identity.
Like, you, have this pedigreecat and that says something
(16:43):
about you and you're importantand it is important to you how
others perceive you as beinghigh status.
So that's that pedigree cat isa status symbol.
I never thought of a pet asbeing a status symbol.
I know we've got BerniceMountain Dogs and Golden
Retriever, but I just loveBernice Mountain Dogs and Golden
(17:05):
Ret retrievers.
I don't see them as oh boy,hoity-toity me.
Look at my dogs right.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
No, what we were concerned about was getting a
puppy that would imprint on usand that we could train in the
way that we would like to trainthem.
And so what this study with thecat can show is that there's
reasons that people selectanimals beyond just mere
attachment.
So there's other factors, otherthan the emotional attachment
(17:35):
and looking for companionship,that play a role in pet adoption
decisions.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Yeah, if we want pets to be adopted, I'm sure this
study could be helpful toshelters to goose the algorithm
towards those people with.
The higher they're moresensitive to status.
I don't know what they would do.
Be like ooh, ginger is a pet.
They could just say all thecats are pedigree.
They could say they're likedescendant from, like a show cat
(18:05):
.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
That'd be a little dishonest but it might get more
cats adopted ginger was going tobe adopted no matter what,
because she definitely called tome and, like I said, any other
cat, I could take her leave.
But there's just somethingabout that cat that we now know
and love.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
All right, everybody.
That's Pet Science for thisweek.
Hello everybody, here's someways you can keep the Science
Podcast free.
Number one in our show notessign up to be a member of our
Paw Pack Plus community.
It's an amazing community offolks who love pets and folks
who love science.
We have tons of bonus Bunsenand Beaker content there and we
(18:48):
have live streams every Sundaywith our community.
It's tons of fun.
Also, think about checking outour merch store.
We've got the Bunsen stuffy,the Beaker stuffy and now the
Ginger stuffy.
That's right, ginger, thescience cat, has a little
replica.
It's adorable.
It's so soft, with the giantfluffy tail, safety glasses and
a lab coat.
(19:08):
And number three if you'relistening to the podcast on any
place that rates podcasts, giveus a great rating and tell your
family and friends to listen too.
Okay, on with the show.
Back to the interviews.
It's time for Ask an Expert onthe Science Podcast, and I have
Dr Katie Burnett, academicCoordinator, with us today.
(19:28):
Doc, how are you doing?
I'm great, good, good.
Where are you calling into theshow from?
Where are you in the world?
Speaker 3 (19:35):
So I am at the University of California
Riverside in Riverside,california.
For those who don't know, it'seast of LA.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Riverside, California .
For folks who don't know it'seast of LA.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
East of LA, we were chatting right before I hit
record that it is sunny and 66Fahrenheit.
Did I get that right?
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Yes, yep, sunny and reasonably warm for winter, 19
Celsius for Canadians and therest of the world.
So yeah, that would be verybalmy for us.
Very fun.
I introduced you as Dr Burnett.
What's going on there?
What's your education inscience?
Speaker 3 (20:16):
Let's see.
So I have a PhD in genetics.
I graduated from the Universityof Wisconsin-Madison with that
degree.
I also worked as a postdocstudying genomics and aging
using nematode worms.
Oh cool, yeah, which is fun.
It's much easier to study agingin worms than people, because
(20:38):
an old nematode is five days old, so you can get a lot of
information really fast.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Very cool.
When you were young, wasscience a path that you thought
you'd be on?
Were you the little kid mixingpotions and wondering about the
world?
Speaker 3 (20:53):
I was a little kid.
Doing weird science-y stufflike this is embarrassing.
My mom hopefully doesn't listento this.
I was probably I don't know sixor seven and I knew that
flowers had or needed pollen.
So I happily scraped a bunch ofpine tree pollen into a bucket
and mix it with water and wasblopping it and all the flowers
(21:16):
and my mom's flower bed becauseI thought it would help her have
more flowers.
And I did most of the frontyard before she stopped me
because I was dropping this likemuddy pollen goop all over her
flowers.
So yeah, I was a kid thatalways loved science-y stuff.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
And then the path to genetics.
What was the?
What happened?
Was there a flashpoint in yourlife that caused you?
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (21:41):
Yeah.
So I knew I wanted to studyscience and I liked biology and
I went to Western WashingtonUniversity up in Washington
State and I took genetics andthat professor, dr Jeff Young
he's just retired he said I'mlooking for students to come do
research and I think you would.
I think you'd be good at it.
(22:02):
So I got an inn doing researchwhen I was an undergrad and I
loved it, absolutely loved it,and a lot of science isn't
particularly glamorous.
We were doing studies withArabidopsis thaliana plants.
It's one of the model organisms.
There was a lot of money tryingto figure out what all the genes
in its genome did and thatsounded super cool.
(22:24):
But you start with things likeyou gotta autoclave some soil to
put your plants in and then youyou got a little a bunch of
little plastic stakes to knowwhat went in each pot.
So a lot of science is spendinga lot of time labeling things,
believe it or not.
But it was really fun.
He's the one who encouraged meto go to graduate school and I
have him to thank for reallylaunching me.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
That's a sweet story.
Some of the kids I'm a highschool science teacher, chem
teacher, my day job and I'm Iteach.
One of the subjects I teach isthat some of the younger kids,
the grade nines in our honorsprogram and you can see the kids
when we get to genetics in thebiology unit with like Punnett
squares, something like clicksin their brain that like the
(23:12):
thing that makes them and thestuff and everything that's
alive.
There's a code for them andit's potentially predictable, at
least at that point in a verysimple Punnett square and it's
magical.
Because those are the kids thatI'm like oh okay, that kid this
really jived with.
They're all in on the geneticspart of biology.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
Yeah, no, I love teaching.
So for my day job now I'm anacademic coordinator, which
means I design lab curriculumfor undergraduate students and
for our non-major students.
So this is a class for studentswho are majoring in something
else.
They're going to be engineers,they're going to be historians,
they're going to be dance majors.
They just need to take ascience.
I'm not going to make thembecome a science major, but we
(23:57):
do a project where the abilityto taste or not taste the bitter
chemical PTC is coded in yourDNA and there's two main alleles
that are versions of a gene,whether or not you can taste or
not taste this chemical.
And if you can taste it, itusually means you really don't
like bitter vegetables like kaleor Brussels sprouts, broccoli,
all the things that are likegood for you.
(24:19):
Because we're told we'resupposed to eat lots of leafy
greens and dark leafy greens areeven better, and so they.
We do a lab where they canactually extract DNA from their
own cheek cells, amplify it anddetermine which version of the
gene they have.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Oh wow, that's so cool.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
It's really fun.
They love it because you learnsomething about yourself.
You learn something about whyyou may or may not have liked
broccoli as a child.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
Oh man Can you imagine finding out you're
genetically don't like broccoliand your parents were like you
need to eat your broccoli.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
You feel so vindicated.
No, this is biology andevolution are trying to protect
me from eating bitter things andbecause, in nature, bitter
things are often poisonous yeahso this is my genes trying to
protect me from eating thingsthat taste bad obviously there
was a selective advantage tothose people not eating poison.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
back in the day they were like the super tasters for
poison or something.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
Indeed, but with plant domestication you don't
have to worry about beingpoisoned from the broccoli from
your grocery store.
But you still don't have tolike it.
It still might taste pretty bad.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
I have long waged a war against kale, so I'm
wondering if I'm one of thosepeople.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
You might be.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
So, with genetics beyond and we'll maybe talk a
little bit more about yourcurrent position what are some
things in genetics that you justget super excited about, to
talk to folks about, or that youlike to know?
Speaker 3 (25:45):
Oh, so I love talking about the genetics of cats.
Okay, I have four cats.
I'm fostering four kittensright now.
They're living on our catio.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
And I love the fact that.
So here's a question for you.
Cats that have orange and blackfur we call them calico cats.
Have you ever seen a calico dog?
Speaker 1 (26:06):
An orange dog.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
Orange and black together.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Aren't like Australian shepherds, like a bit
of orange, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
Yeah, yeah, or newly, he's got orange eyebrows and
black fur.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
That's right, he does , yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
So there's a gene that controls fur color and it's
conserved across mammals.
But in cats it's weird that ifa cat has orange and black fur,
it's 99.9% of the time it'sfemale.
You never get a male cat that'sboth orange and black.
(26:39):
They'll either be orange orblack, but not both.
Female cats can be any of them.
You can have a female cat withorange fur, like your ginger
black fur, or orange and black.
Orange fur, like your gingerblack fur or orange and black.
And it's fascinating because thegene that controls fur color is
not on a sex chromosome, butfur color is inherited, as if
(27:01):
it's linked to the X chromosome.
Yeah, yeah, so just so.
Cats, just like people, theirsex determination is an XY
system.
So all female cats have two Xchromosomes and all male cats
have an X and a Y, so likepeople, and they also have, just
like in humans, in females oneof those X chromosomes gets
(27:23):
silenced or turned off, so oneof the chromosomes will be
active and one will be inactive,and it varies in different
parts of your body, like it'sjust random which cell gets
turned off very early inembryonic development.
And so with female cats withtwo X chromosomes, if one
chromosome has the black furcolor and the other has the
(27:48):
orange fur color, turning onecopy off.
If you turn off the black furversion, then the cat will get
orange fur in that spot.
If you turn off orange fur,then it'll have black.
So that's how you get thepatches.
Human women actually havepatches like that too.
We just don't have fur.
So you can't see the fact thatwe actually have every cell in
our body.
The X chromosome has beeninactivated in one copy or the
(28:11):
other randomly throughout,throughout our bodies, which is
fascinating.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
So it doesn't seem to like birth marks, does it, or
am I?
Speaker 3 (28:18):
I don't know I know that it is linked to sweat
glands, so you can have parts ofyour skin as a woman that are
sweatier than others.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Oh man.
Speaker 3 (28:29):
And that's due to X chromosome inactivation.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
Yeah, so with cats, then if you look at a cat and if
you know if it's male or female, you can know something about
its parents or something aboutits kittens.
So we had a female cat who hasorange and black fur.
Her name is now Rosie.
We've adopted her, but sheshowed up at our backyard, under
(28:53):
our shed, with five kittens.
Because I'm a huge sucker forcats, I was like I guess we're
going to feed you.
My husband said, if we feedthem, you know what's going to
happen.
Right, we're going to end upkeeping at least one.
We also ended up designing andbuilding an entire enclosure for
our back porch, so it's like a20 foot wide covered porch and
(29:15):
now it is a catio cat enclosure.
So Rosie's orange and black andher kittens.
She has one orange male kittenand can we determine what color
is his dad and then she also hasone female kitten that's orange
and black, just like the mom,and then three more black and
(29:37):
white kittens.
So we'll get to those in aminute.
Just like in humans, you getyour sex chromosomes from your
parents.
So you get one X chromosomefrom your mom Everyone has one X
chromosome and then your dadgives you either an X or a Y.
So that means Rosie could passon because she is orange and
black, either the black versionX chromosome or the orange
version.
And the orange male kitten hegot a Y chromosome from his dad.
(30:01):
So that just tells us that dadis a cat, dad is a male cat and
that's it.
We don't know what he lookslike.
Not helpful, not informative.
One of the tuxedo kittens blackand white is also a boy, but he
got the X chromosome from momand dad is dad Y chromosome, so
also not helpful.
Okay, great, let's look at thekitten that's orange and black.
(30:24):
She could have gotten eitherthe black or the orange from mom
and either black or orange fromdad.
So again, or the orange frommom and either black or orange
from dad.
So again, doesn't help.
The kittens that tell us whatdad looks like are the black and
white female kittens.
They had to get a black versionof the x-cobasome from mom and
from dad, so dad is a tuxedo cat.
Some of the babies also havewhite, white markings on them.
(30:46):
The mom doesn't, so that meansdad also has to have white
markings on them.
The mom doesn't, so that meansdad also has to have white toes
because of how that is inherited.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
You were writing your own punnet.
Squares on the little kittens.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
Yep, I was A kitten shows up in my yard, I'm like
all right, what's your genetichistory?
Yeah, it's really quite fun.
I use the genetics of cat colorto teach about how sex
chromosomes are inherited,because it works the same in
cats as it does in people.
So I find it really quite fun.
And yes, another caveat to thisis female cats if they
(31:21):
encounter more than one tomcat,they will breed with all of them
, so the kittens might not allhave the same dad.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Similar to dogs.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
Yeah, similar to dogs , so there might be more than
one dad involved, but at minimumthere has to be one.
Dad with a tuxedo cat dad.
Yeah, just like dogs.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
That's so interesting with cat genetics that way,
because it's so cut and dry.
If you think of humans, forexample, with hair color, skin
color, it's a little morecomplicated right.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
Humans, for example, with hair color skin color.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
It's a little bit more complicated right?
Speaker 3 (31:51):
Yes, very much.
There are many genes thatcontribute to pigmentation for
human eye color, hair color,skin color, and it's also
there's a lot of environmentinvolved.
So if you spend a lot of timeout in the sun, your hair will
get bleached out, it'll losesome of its pigment and your
(32:12):
skin might darken or you mightget freckles.
So freckles actually is asimple inheritance in humans.
It's one of very few traitsthat are what we call Mendelian
inheritance, where there's onemain contributing gene and two
alleles.
Having freckles is the dominantversion.
If you have one version of thegene that says you're going to
get freckles, you can getfreckles, but if you don't spend
(32:35):
time in the sun, you don't getfreckles.
So freckles are actually from alittle bit of sun damage.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Oh, man Yep.
And if you get covered infreckles, is that like you got
two dominant genes, you gotsuper freckles.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
That's a great question.
I'm not sure, but covered infreckles all over, you'd
probably have to be like nudesunbathing or something like
that, because, like I said, ifyou spent all your time indoors
or covered up really well andwore a bunch of sunscreen, you
wouldn't get freckles, even if,genetically, you could get
freckles.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
Oh, my goodness, it's like's like changing paint that
you go outside with.
Yeah, pretty much wild.
Okay, so that's the genetics ofcalicos, you?
You said something and maybe Icould just ask a clarifying
question.
We've had people comment quitea few times, with ginger being
(33:31):
an orange cat yeah, theyprobably think ginger's a boy
right.
What's going on with that?
Because they're you.
Just, I thought you said thatcats can be orange and they can
be female, or is that?
Speaker 3 (33:42):
yeah, they can.
The version of the gene or theallele for orange fur is not as
common as the allele for blackfur.
So to get a male orange cat,that means his mom can be either
a calico, orange, and black ororange.
So there's two ways to get amale orange cat.
Dad can be any color, itdoesn't matter because he only
(34:04):
gets the Y chromosome from dad.
To get an orange female cat,the dad has to be orange and the
mom has to either be orangeherself or a calico that passes
on the orange chromosome.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
The orange part right .
Speaker 3 (34:18):
Yeah, the orange part .
So both parent cats have tohave at least some orange fur
and it's just less common tohave that in the cat population.
More cats have the allele forblack fur than they do for
orange fur, so she's rare.
Only like 20% or so of orangecats are female, so it's not
(34:42):
zero, it's majority.
They're going to be male, justbecause it's genetically easier
to have an orange male cat.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
Ginger is one of a kind, so I don't know what the
percentage is, but she's oneunique cat Yep.
But I think everybody who hascats and dogs, your cat or dog
is a unique one of a kind thing.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
Yes, they are, yes, they are.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Like currently you mentioned you're developing and
designing like lab curricula forpeople who aren't necessarily
going into science full hog.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
Yeah, I talked to you might get a kick out of this,
and then I like I would love toknow what else you're doing
there.
I talked to a geologist at theUniversity of Calgary, to south
of us, and they developed ascience course for the um, the
sports teams.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
it was a geology course and they called it rocks
for jocks oh my gosh, becausethat's like a joke saying oh,
science, like science, classesfor athletes are really watered
down like rocks for jocks.
But they actually called itrocks for jocks.
I love it.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
They called it that, yeah, and it wasn't really
watered down, it was like likewhat you'd probably expect, but
it was just.
It sounds fun.
Yeah, that's the time wheremost of the sports teams could
make it based on their playingand practicing.
So, anyways, I thought you'dget a kick out of that.
Speaker 3 (36:01):
That is hilarious.
That's like the joke aboutclasses being like underwater
basket weaving 101.
And you picture.
The joke is like they show apicture of someone sitting in a
swimming pool, like underwater,with basketry materials.
But underwater basketryactually is a thing, but only
the basket goes in the water.
The whole person doesn't haveto go in oh, weird.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
Okay, I thought it was like one of those greendale
courses from community that Idon't know if you've seen that
tv show where they're alwaysyeah, it's the community college
oh, about the community college, yep yeah, the weird courses
just to get people to go there.
So, beyond getting people'scheek cells out and finding out
if they don't like bitter ifthey like bitter or don't like
bitter vegetables what else isgoing on with some of your
(36:44):
development there?
Speaker 3 (36:46):
so for that class, for the non-majors, we also do
exploring the science ofeveryday objects in your kitchen
.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
Okay, yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
Yeah, so the students are learning terms in science
like hydrophilic, or substancesthat are attracted or dissolved
in water, hydrophobic thingsthat are repelled by water.
They learn about solutes andsolvents and ions and to really
look at that.
We give students things likeolive oil and bubbles and water.
(37:14):
Oh, here's a fun one.
If you get a bowl of water, trysprinkling a little pinch of
cinnamon on the top.
Cinnamon, it's a dry powder butit has such a high oil content
it's hydrophobic and it willfloat that if you take a little
bit of a piece of soap.
So soap is an interestingmolecule.
It's actually we call itamphipathic, so meaning that it
(37:38):
can form bonds with things thatare either really fatty, like
oils or water.
So soap the reason it washesstuff off of you is it's really
good at binding to molecules andthen being washed off with just
plain water.
So if you touch a bit of soapto the surface, the soap will
start to dissolve on the top ofthe water and it'll push the
(38:00):
cinnamon away in this likereally fast reaction and then
it'll spring back and yeah, soit's really quite fun.
If you get a chance, get a bowlof water, sprinkle some
cinnamon and poke it with apiece of soap.
It's quite fun.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
I would imagine you have a lot of opportunity for
creativity with those courses,being that your curriculum is
getting people the gist ofscience so they can continue on
with their further education.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
Yes, we actually.
I think the most fun I hadironically was during the
lockdown, when we were all ononline education.
Yes, we actually.
I think the most fun I hadironically was during the
lockdown and we were all ononline education.
I was doing a molecular biologyfor non-majors and so, oh my
gosh, what are they going to beinterested in learning about
during online teaching andlockdown, during the pandemic,
and so they're going to beinterested in knowing things
(38:49):
like what is a virus anyway?
That's when all these terms werecoming out, like social
distancing Okay, what does itmean and questions that students
were asking like how do youdevelop a vaccine?
Then we were developing avaccine and that's okay.
Great, now that we have one,who gets it?
(39:09):
And so, talking through all ofthe complicated logistics and
politics and ethics of where'syour place in the vaccine line,
it was really quite fun.
I learned a lot because thiswas outside my field of
expertise, but I was reading alot of papers in the background,
looking at a lot of newsarticles and coming up with
(39:29):
stuff on the fly, and it was areally fun time to teach.
I'm very glad that a lot of thequestions I had are now
answered, like can we get avaccine for COVID?
Yes, we can.
But yeah, it was a reallyinteresting time in science and
that was a very time to be verycreative.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
You could even bring back the soap as the soap oh my
gosh.
Speaker 3 (39:51):
Yeah, that's what they.
We asked, like why does washingyour hands?
Speaker 1 (39:53):
matter.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
Like, why?
Why would we say, or wearing amask if to like, why does that
help?
Because people would say thingslike but I can smell molecules
through my mask.
If someone's brewing coffee,you can smell the coffee.
And so they'd say smells canget through.
Why would I believe it'sstopping a virus?
And so they'd say, if smellscan get through, why would I
believe it's stopping a virus?
And so we had them look up.
(40:14):
Okay, what molecule is in thesmell that you're smelling,
what's its structure, how big isit?
And then, how big is a virus?
Because a virus.
Yes, they are microscopic.
You cannot see them without aspecialized electron microscope.
We physically cannot see coffeemolecule smell.
So a virus is much, much largerthan smell.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
Yeah.
It's the difference between amolecule and virus is a
conglomerate of-.
Speaker 3 (40:44):
Many proteins, many lipids.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
Billions of molecules , billions, maybe like a huge
number.
Speaker 3 (40:54):
Yeah, it's billions of yeah, like a huge number.
So yeah, or if the mask canblock the virus, does it let
oxygen in?
Yes, oxygen molecules are verysmall, especially compared to a
virus.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
Yes, yeah, very cool.
Is there anything else you'dlike me to ask before we get to
your pet story?
Speaker 3 (41:08):
Okay, what was your favorite subject?
Where did you?
How did you get where you are?
Speaker 1 (41:13):
Oh man, I've never had anybody asked me that, maybe
.
So in in high school I excelledat writing.
I was a very good writer,effortlessly so, like creative
writing, essay writing, all thatkind of stuff.
My teachers were pushing metowards law school to be a
lawyer.
I was a very good publicspeaker and I could think on my
(41:33):
feet.
But I actually loved science themost, even though my grades
didn't really reflect thatcompared to how good I was at
writing.
And yeah, so it was.
I don't know, it was a mixtureof the wonder of science, of
what we don't know that got memore interested in science.
(41:54):
I didn't pursue as far as youdid with education.
I'm an undergrad and then Ihave two undergrads, science
degree and an education degree,so that's where I get to where
I'm at as a teacher.
I was thinking in my sciencedegree of pursuing it further,
like to go into a master's andPhD, but what I disliked the
most was the stuff that youwould do, the most of which was
(42:17):
that tedious lab work that youmentioned, and I just it puts
the read research, do one, itlooks great.
Go back and do a hundred more toget a nice sample size yeah, a
lot of respect for people thatcan do that, but that just
wasn't for me.
They were true in front of theclass to talk about the findings
.
I was the talky funny presenterguy and then of course that
(42:40):
leads really strongly intoteaching as being inspirational
to kids.
Speaker 3 (42:44):
Yes, absolutely.
Actually.
Could I tell you one more thingI happen to be doing right now,
science-wise.
So I also do classes forscience majors and I get them as
freshmen, which is fabulousbecause they're still.
They are so excited to be atthe university, to be starting
science right away, and we do aproject that is genetic, using
(43:07):
genetics to look for fish fraud.
So fish fraud being when a fishis sold as one species, knowing
that it's actually somethingelse and it's really common,
Depending on the type of fishwe're talking about, 20 to 60%
of the time you're not gettingwhat you paid for.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
Really.
Speaker 3 (43:28):
Really.
Yeah, it's surprisingly common.
So we have the students come inand ask them to bring a piece
of fish.
Go for sushi, don't eat thatlast bite.
Bring it in, tell us what youthought it was.
You extract DNA.
You use a technique called PCRpolymerase chain reaction to
copy a region of DNA that's usedas a DNA barcode, which is a
(43:52):
region of DNA that is.
We know it's found in all thefish.
But if you learn the exactgenetic sequence the A's, t's,
g's and C's you can send thatsequence to an algorithm and
it'll tell you the geneticidentity of exactly what you got
and what you paid for and it's.
I love it because this issomething the students can.
(44:13):
They do all the steps and weget a huge set of data and the
last week in class they're doingpresentations about what they
discovered and what they learnedand it is really fun.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
That is cool.
Disappointing If you paid foran expensive fish and you got
some cheapo fish.
But I can see being being cut.
The whoever would be like oh,they'll never know, but they'll
never know.
Speaker 3 (44:37):
Plus you like it depends on where in the
processing chain it happened.
Did you?
At some point something gotmislabeled and you're not really
sure when?
But yeah, it's really common infish that are lighter colored
fish.
So rockfish, oh.
What's other common things?
Cod?
Almost never cod.
Usually you're getting tilapia,okay, so you know, buy
(45:00):
everywhere because, and honestly, most people don't know what
the fish they ordered ought tolook like, especially when it's
like deep fried and covered insauce.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
It's tasty, you eat it right yeah, like I live in
alberta, canada, the nearestocean is like a day and a half
driving straight away.
We have no concept of oceanfish, the only fish we earn are
the fish we catch in our lakes.
I would be able to tell thedifference there, but if
somebody's is this tilapia orcod, I'd be like I have no idea.
Speaker 3 (45:26):
I have no idea what you're talking about yeah, what
if someone said oh, this is, uh,it's not rainbow trout, it's
brown trout.
Could you tell those apart?
Speaker 1 (45:35):
Probably yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:36):
Okay, okay, so you're an expert, then that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (45:38):
Perch rainbow trout, brown trout we don't have a lot
of here, so that'd be a struggle.
Maybe with that Jackfish wehave a lot of I'm not sure if
that's the right name for themthey're these giant fish we have
.
Speaker 3 (45:53):
What's that I don't?
Speaker 1 (45:54):
know that, I don't know that, I know.
No, they're sweet, they'regiant freshwater predatory fish
pike.
Speaker 3 (45:58):
There we go oh, that I know, yeah, pike pike, we just
call them jackfish this iscanadian this is one of the
things I teach my students isdifferent.
Like fish, the same common namecan refer to different actual
species and the same species cancan refer to different actual
species.
And the same species can havemany common names.
So it's around the world.
So here's the last anecdote.
I promise you, If you saw afish on a menu called a
(46:22):
slimehead, would you eat it?
Speaker 1 (46:24):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (46:26):
Yeah, it doesn't sound good, does it?
No, no, it was rebranded backin the 90s as orange rough Okay,
and it's one of the mostpopular ocean fish in the world
now.
Speaker 1 (46:35):
Oh.
Speaker 3 (46:35):
Same fish just got a new name because when it was
called Slimehead it was sold foranimal feed and pet food, and
when they decided to rename itas Orange Ruffy, now it's sold
for human food and they get alot more money per fish.
Speaker 1 (46:49):
That is like the story of lobster on the east
coast of the United States.
They gave the lobster to theinmates and now it's more of a
luxury dish.
Speaker 3 (46:59):
Part of that is we changed how we cook it.
It used to be that people juststuck the lobster in a pot and
boiled it, so it was notdelicious, whereas if you steam
it and serve it with butter it'spretty gosh darn good.
Speaker 1 (47:10):
But yeah, butter is the key.
Katie, thanks for talking to usa little bit about your job and
some science and genetics.
It was fascinating.
We always end the interviewasking our guests to share a pet
story with us from their life,and I was wondering if you could
do that.
Speaker 3 (47:26):
Oh sure, I have a lot of stories about my childhood
cat.
Speaker 1 (47:30):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (47:31):
So he was an orange and white cat.
His name was Rascal.
We got him when he was a littlebaby kitten and he at the time
he was allowed to be anindoor-outdoor cat and he loved
hunting small critters.
So one time he came to the doorand he looked like he was
limping like hunched up, holdinghis leg, not right.
(47:52):
Oh my gosh, something got him.
He must be hurt.
We pick him up and he's nothurt.
He's actually hugging a smallsongbird against himself and he
let it go in the house.
So my sister and I were tryingto get ready for school, my dad
is trying to get out the doorfor work, my mom was trying to
(48:14):
get us kids out the door so shecould go to work.
And here we are in the livingroom chasing this bird around
and the cat rascal.
He was so proud of himself.
You know when cats bring youthings, it's a sign they love
you.
So he brought us this bird asan I love you thing.
My current cats are all indoorcats and so we have a one of our
(48:35):
cats.
His name is sir puck.
He's a black cat, he likes tohunt a microphone cover and
he'll bring us that becausethat's the most worthy adversary
he can find.
Yes, does your ginger bring yougift gifts, or she uh, not
allowed out unless she's in thecat backpack yeah, so she.
Speaker 1 (48:53):
We live in a very dangerous place that to let cats
go free oh yeah, moose, mooselegs yeah, predator, she went
that day along, something wouldeat her, probably in her catio.
She caught has caught a mouseand a bird like oh my, they came
into her area like.
Like I feel that's their fault.
Yeah, that's on the bird that'son the mouse.
(49:15):
They have a wide world ofCanada to go.
Speaker 3 (49:17):
Yeah, that's natural selection at work.
That's that bird was being dumb.
Speaker 1 (49:22):
Yeah, they got taken out by Ginger.
She is a cat.
Yeah, what was the name?
I'm sorry.
What was the name of the catthat brought the bird in the
(49:42):
house?
His name was rascal.
Oh, rascal, very fitting.
Yep, yep, he was.
He was something.
A very fun cat.
Thanks for sharing your petstory, doc.
Very sweet and also exciting,and people can relate to animals
bringing things into the houseoh gosh, yes yeah, oh, yeah,
yeah, anyway, I could tell catstories all day but oh gosh.
Speaker 3 (49:52):
Yes, yeah, oh, yeah, yeah.
Anyway, I could tell catstories all day, but I promise I
will not.
Speaker 1 (49:58):
We're at the end of our chat.
Are you on social mediaanywhere that people could
follow you or connect with you?
Speaker 3 (50:04):
You can find me on research gate as Katie Burnett
and you can find me on I'm stillon the Facebook as Katie and
Zemlansky Burnett, but you canjust look for Katie Burnett.
It's not a common last name,yeah.
Speaker 1 (50:19):
Perfect.
We'll make sure a couple ofthose links are in our show
notes for folks to check out.
Thank you for being a guest.
Really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (50:27):
Thank you for having me.
It's been a delight.
Speaker 1 (50:29):
That's it for this week show.
Thanks for having me.
It's been a delight.
That's it for this week's show.
Thanks for coming back weekafter week to listen to the
Science Podcast.
Special thanks to our gueststhis week and a shout out to the
top tier of our Patreon group,the Paw Pack.
If you'd like to support us,check out the show notes and one
of the perks is you get yourname shouted out at the end to
show our appreciation.
(50:50):
Chris, let's hear those names.
Speaker 2 (50:53):
Amelia Fettig Rhi Oda , carol Haino, jennifer Challen,
linnea Janik Karen Chronister,vicky Otero, Christy Walker
(51:38):
no-transcript.
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