May 23, 2025 • 33 mins
We explore the science behind HBO's "The Last of Us," investigating whether a fungal apocalypse could happen in real life and if a vaccine for fungal infections is possible. The Royal Tyrrell Museum's new "Breakthroughs" exhibit showcases five groundbreaking fossil discoveries that revolutionized our understanding of prehistoric life. Lastly we look at the cause of the orange color in orange cats!
• Fungal infections like cordyceps jumping to humans is extremely unlikely, though climate change impacts fungal evolution
• Scientists have no approved fungal vaccines available, with only four new antifungal drugs approved in the last decade
• The Royal Tyrrell Museum in Alberta showcases world-class dinosaur specimens including Canada's best-preserved nodosaur
• Five breakthrough fossils include a Mosasaurus with preserved cartilage, feathered Ornithomimus, and exceptionally preserved Borealopelta
• Recent studies reveal orange cats share a single genetic mutation near the RH-GAP36 gene that originated 900 years ago
• Female orange cats are rare because they need the mutation on both X chromosomes, while males only need one copy
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello science enthusiasts.
I'm Jason Zukoski.
And I'm Chris Zukoski, we'rethe 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.
Hi everybody, welcome back tothe Science Podcast.
We hope you're happy andhealthy out there.
This is episode 15 of season 7.
Guess what?
We had Rain, so much rain, forthe last two weeks.
(00:45):
I think we've mentioned beforethat rain is not a very normal
thing for us in alberta.
It's quite dry.
We do get rain.
It's not like it never getsrain.
But um chris is from the coast.
Uh, she grew up close to theocean in the, in the valley
around vancouver, and it wouldrain for weeks and weeks at a
(01:05):
time, months at a time, and Ithink that gets people a little
down out there.
I don't know.
You can let us know if you'refrom the coast, if the rain gets
you down.
So we just don't have that.
We have so many sunny days inAlberta.
We have as many sunny days asFlorida does.
We have as much sunshine asFlorida, which is hard to
(01:26):
believe, but it's true.
It is true because we havereally clear skies almost all
the time, except for the lasttwo weeks it has poured, but
that has allowed us to get dogsinto their super cute raincoats
that we got from Canada Pooch,so be on the lookout for that.
Okay.
Well, what's on the science showthis week?
We got two science articlesthis week, two science news
(01:48):
items to look at.
The first one is all about theLast of Us, part two or season
two, and if we could make avaccine for a fungal infection.
I kind of nerd out about theshow and the game.
I love the game, love the show.
Chris, not so much.
Maybe some people also don'tlove it.
It is very gritty and violent.
(02:09):
The other science news itemwe're going to look at is the
exciting mega display the RoyalTerrell Museum is putting
together.
That is the world famousdinosaur museum just south of us
.
And in pet science, chris founda fun article that has finally
figured out what makes an orangecat orange.
All right, let's get on withthe show.
(02:29):
There's no time like ScienceTime this week in Science News.
Well, let's talk about a verybig show happening on HBO.
It's actually season two of abreakout hit that I really liked
.
I'm not sure you enjoy it, butthe show is called the Last of
(02:52):
Us.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Now, I didn't realize it was just season two,
probably because you played thevideo game before the series
came out and it really was justa continuation of the game that
you were playing.
So it seems like the Last of Ushas been in our house for quite
some time.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
A great game, very violent, set in a, as we'll talk
, a dystopian future.
And, of course, people whoplayed the first game really
grew to love.
There was two characters, ellieand Joel.
You play as Joel and you pickup this young girl named Ellie,
(03:33):
and Joel over the course of thegame forms a very strong bond
with her as a father figure.
So I was playing it and I wasseeing myself in Joel's shoes
because I'm a father myself.
And then, of course, the gamehas got some intense moments.
It's definitely got some horrorelements.
(03:53):
Did you watch the season onewith me the TV show or was it
too much for you, chris?
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Jason, it's a little bit too much for me.
Like I can watch parts but thenI have to run away and be like,
ah oh no, but Jason, I couldn'teven handle that.
The cat brought in a mouse,killed a mouse in the garage, so
I can't imagine a world ravagedby a mind controlling fungus
that is turning people intozombies.
(04:17):
But I let you watch it becauseyou really enjoyed it and I
watched parts, so I am familiarwith the story, but
unfortunately, any of the reallyviolent parts I had to step out
.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
So, simply put, in the Last of Us there is a fungus
called cordyceps that normallyonly affects insects and it
infects them.
It takes control of their brain, it makes them do odd stuff to
get in the way and thus infectmore insects.
Due to climate change, thefungus now has been able to
(04:52):
infect humans, who run a littlehot compared to insects, and in
the game one of the maincharacters, ellie is immune, is
immune.
So the whole plot line isgetting this girl from one area
of the United States to anentirely different area through
a zombie apocalypse wherehumanity has been destroyed by
(05:15):
this fungal infection.
I think I did a pretty good jobsumming up the game.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Yes, you summed it up , but then you also didn't give
any spoilers, which I think isreally important.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Oh yeah, there's some pretty serious spoilers for
season one and as I've playedthe game, I know what happens in
season two and there's somevery intense moments in season
two and of course that's insocial media and also people are
becoming more interested in theidea.
Can humans be infected with afungus?
(05:48):
Could the cordyceps apocalypsein this TV show happen to us?
Speaker 2 (05:54):
But then also can humans be immune, like Ellie?
To the fungus or the fungi.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Yeah, so can they.
Sometimes the fungus thatcauses valley fever, for example
, can trigger lifelong immunityin people who grow up in endemic
regions.
So sometimes if you survive itlike you get sick with a virus,
your body will get immune to it.
That's what happened to Ellie.
(06:22):
She survived the originalinfection and she became immune
to subsequent bites frominfected humans or spores.
But in other cases fungus likeyeast or ringworm or athlete's
foot will come back again andagain like a bad penny.
You have no lasting immunityfrom infections like that.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
So the immunity would depend on exposure levels and
your actual, your personalimmune strength that you have
inside your body.
Did you know, Jason, my momthought I had ringworm when I
was a baby.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Oh, I think I got ringworm.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Oh, I didn't have ringworm.
My sister bit me and I hadrings all on my arms because my
sister bit me but it wasn'tringworm.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Oh God Okay.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
That might've been worse getting bit by your human
sister but at least we got tothe bottom of that I didn't have
ringworm and that they couldintervene to see why my sister
was biting me and that theycould intervene to see why my
sister was biting me In the game, ellie's immunity starts in her
brain.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Is that possible?
Can you have brain-basedimmunity?
And most experts who studyfungus say no, that's
unrealistic.
So it was a interesting plotdevice for the game and the TV
show, but not really great.
Real fungal infections in thebrain are super dangerous.
(07:50):
If you get a brain infectionand it is with fungus, it can
slow it with drugs and it'sincurable.
Like you will die unless you'reextremely lucky and somehow
your body fights it off.
T-cells are the immune system'smain defense against fungi.
They're found in blood, bonemarrow and lymph nodes and not
(08:13):
necessarily in the brain.
So if you do get a fungalinfection and it does work its
way to your brain, verydangerous.
Not to bring up a sad point,but I will.
My mom died of a braininfection and when she was in
intensive care for the monthsbefore she died they were very
(08:34):
concerned about a braininfection from opening because
they had to open up her head toput in shunts and things like
that.
So not getting too sad, butfrom our experience with my mom,
they were very worried about afungus infection in the brain.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
But who else is a high risk group?
People with high spore exposure, people who are in jobs like
landscaping, or actually peoplewho go camping which I'm not, so
that is a win for meconstruction workers, and then
also people with a weakenedimmune system already, such as
(09:11):
older adults or those onimmunosuppressive drugs.
They're at a higher risk ofgetting the infection.
And then also there's areasthat seem to be endemic, like
parts of Arizona and Californiathat would create exposure to
the spores.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Now I don't want to give away too many spoilers for
season one or the first game.
If you haven't played the game,I'm not sure how many gamers
listen to our show.
But one of the plot points isthat because Ellie in the game
and the TV show is immune,scientists really want to make a
vaccine based on her immunity.
But that's another questionthat scientists have answers for
(09:55):
.
Can we make a vaccine forfungus?
And the answer is maybe, butnot really, because as of right
now there are no approved fungalvaccines available.
They just don't exist.
There are pharmaceuticalcompanies developing valley
fever vaccines for dogs andhumans, and they use a
(10:18):
genetically altered fungus thatcannot change form to become
infectious.
It's in trials for both dogsand humans, but doesn't exist
yet.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Because there are other treatments that you can
use.
There are antifungal drugs, butthey are limited and the World
Health Organization warns ofrising resistance and few new
treatments.
There has only been fourantifungal drugs approved in the
last decade globally.
(10:48):
There actually are nine othersin development, but of those
nine, three are in late stagetrials.
Now.
This is unlike bacteria, whichhas many antibiotic options.
The fungi have few drugtreatments that are available to
them, and some fungalinfections have no licensed
(11:10):
therapy at all.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
There is a drug on the horizon named alorofim and
this has been in development for25 years.
It prevents fungal DNA RNAproduction, targeting a pretty
dangerous fungus namedAspergillus, now one of the.
I do have to talk a little bitabout the TV show.
If you watch season one, thereis a cold open, before it gets
(11:36):
to anything, of two scientistsin like the sixties on one of
those talk shows beinginterviewed.
It's chilling.
The reporter is asking these twoscientists what do you think is
the biggest threat to humanity?
And the one scientist goes oh,it's a virus, like a super virus
could take us all out and it'svery spooky.
(11:57):
And then it hands to this otherscientist and he's no, the
thing that keeps me up at nightis fungus, because we have no
drugs, we have no vaccine for afungus.
If it infects humanity likeviruses do game over for the
human race.
So it's a very chilling openingfor a TV show about the end of
(12:20):
humanity because of this fungusnamed cordyceps that started to
infect humans.
They talked to a researcher,chris, about this very topic and
they asked that researcher hey,what's the plan for fungus
vaccines?
And what the researcher said?
There isn't one.
(12:42):
No, they said we should havestarted 25 years ago.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Yeah, that's the problem because it takes 20.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
It took 25 years to get like the four or the few
that are out and the few morethat are coming.
So, yeah, we don't have toworry, though, like I've talked
to some scientists on socialmedia who study fungus and the
chances of something likecordyceps jumping to human is
very low to infinitesimallysmall, so we just have to
(13:08):
continue to watch out for thethings that are more dangerous
to us, like bacteria and virus.
All right, that's our firstscience news article.
Our second science news articleis a science story close to
home the royal tyrell museum.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
I love that place I know we just went back there to
the badlands of alberta and ofcourse it was a stop on the way
when we stayed at the windmillin rosebud yeah we thought it
was so fun to go to the royaltyrell museum to see what was
new, what was different, toexperience the giant sloth and I
(13:46):
love the triceratops and youlove the ankylosaurus, and so it
was a really great opportunityto spend time together and nerd
out over dinosaurs oh man, it isa bit out of the way like the
royal torel museum.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Drumheller is where this museum is located and, yeah
, it's in the badlands ofalberta.
Um, you go down south, farenough south and a little east,
and you hit literally desert.
It is like the desert.
It is very different from therest of alberta.
There's cactus, it's crazy dryand it's one of the richest
(14:22):
places in the world forCretaceous fossils, if you can
believe it.
That is why that museum, only acouple hours drive away, is one
of the most famous museums inthe entire world.
Is that?
Luckily, a whole bunch ofdinosaurs croaked in that area a
long time ago.
So that's where our story takesplace.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Exactly.
Have you ever taken studentsthere on a field trip?
Speaker 1 (14:45):
They always take the French immersion kids or the
French exchange kids Like they.
You know how I don't was Adamon that.
I don't think so.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
No.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
He didn't do the exchange.
Anyways, like an exchange is,kids from France come here and
then they stay with families andthen our kids go there and stay
with families.
Anyways, like an exchange is,kids from France come here and
then they stay with families andthen our kids go there and stay
with families.
That's like a little exchange.
The French kids are notimpressed with our architecture,
like at all.
If you're like, hey, kids,let's go look at this old
building, and the oldestbuilding's a hundred years old
(15:14):
and they have churches that werebuilt 2,000 years ago.
But what we have that Francedon't have is the Royal Tyrell
Museum, and the kids are alwaysso impressed when they go.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
And it's so impressive.
You're right, and they'velaunched a new exhibit that's
titled Breakthroughs, whichshowcases five of its most
scientifically significantfossils, and the goal is to
highlight the literalbreakthroughs in paleontology
that are archived at the museumover its 40-year history.
(15:49):
I can't believe the museum hasonly been there 40 years.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Like we went on that mine tour down there and
dinosaur fossils were not valuedwhen they were mining for coal.
Like nobody cared, they justchucked them down the hill.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
They weren't valuable yeah, no, they weren't valuable
.
That was really surprising tome, like when we were there and
they were saying, yeah, look atall this like hot, what did they
call it?
The hot slurry or somethingslag that was on the side of the
hill there and they're likedon't go in there.
That's not great to go, butthere's dinosaur bones there,
but don't try and get thembecause it will be dangerous for
(16:26):
you.
And I was thinking I reallywant them but, it's dangerous.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
A miner in like 1940, 1950, like hauled out a T-Rex
skull and stupid bones and justchucked it down the hill.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Cause just chucked it down the hill.
Because just chucked it downthe hill, but alberta, you're
right, is one of the richestplaces in the world for those
fossils, the cretaceous fossils.
They were around approximately143 to 66 million years ago yeah
, what are the what's?
Speaker 1 (16:55):
what are the five groundbreaking fossils?
Speaker 2 (16:57):
okay, the okay, so fun, jason.
The five groundbreaking fossils.
Okay, okay, so fun, jason.
The five groundbreaking fossils.
The first one is the Mosasaurus, and the second word looks like
Missouri Ennis and cysts.
And the fun fact is it's not adinosaur.
The Mosasaurus is a marinereptile that comes from 75
(17:18):
million years ago and it wasfound in alberta's ancient
inland seas, which is so weirdbecause alberta now doesn't have
any seas at all.
We have to travel a whole otherprovince over to go to the
ocean trip to get to the oceanyeah, so where did?
Speaker 1 (17:35):
those inland sea go.
We could have had beachfrontproperty where we live.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Where is our beachfront property?
The specimen that they'reshowing is a young mosasaur that
was exceptionally preserved,which showed the soft cartilage,
which is rarely fossilized, andfish bones from its last meal.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Yeah, it got fossilized with a snack in its
belly.
That's wild, all right.
The second one is a featherdinosaur, ornithomimus, and that
was found in DinosaurProvincial Park in 1995.
This was the first NorthAmerican dinosaur with feather
evidence.
I remember being in high schoolwhen they discovered this thing
(18:18):
.
It was a big deal and it hasbeen on display in the Royal
Terrell Museum.
I remember seeing this ondisplay.
They continually do research onthese fossils right, and just
recently technicians discoveredfeathers on the arms.
This helps support the birddinosaur evolutionary link.
Feathers were probably used asmating signals in this bird, not
(18:42):
necessarily flight Other bigdinosaurs that we think of from
when we were kids as beingsmooth, kind of like a I don't
know, a monitor lizard or asnake.
They were probably covered withfeathers, which is wild.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
That is interesting, like you're thinking that
they're smooth in their matingritual, but really they're not
smooth because they're coveredin feathers.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Yeah, Now this next one.
Chris is my favoritest one, andwe saw this we saw this one
when we were down there the lasttime.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
It's the crown jewel.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Yeah, it's a huge deal.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Now I don't want to botch the name, so what's the
name of it?
Boreal pelta okay, I could haveprobably said no problem yeah,
it's a nodosaur.
It's a relative of theankylosaurus and you love the
ankylosaurus oh it's my favoritedinosaur so I know this was an
armored herbivore and it's from110 million years ago and it's
(19:42):
actually considered the world'smost well-preserved armored
dinosaur, because it waspreserved in 3D with intact skin
and armor, with also stomachcontents that included plants
and charcoal.
Now, the cool thing about thisis it was so well preserved
because it likely washed intothe sea very quickly and was
(20:05):
rapidly buried, which preventedany scavengers or decay
happening to the carcass.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Us talking about this fossil doesn't do it justice.
There we walked into a room andit was in a glass case.
It's huge, right, this is agiant creature that lived a long
time ago.
You can see the pattern on itsskin and its armor.
That's how well preserved itwas.
I was, I could have stared atthis thing for hours.
(20:34):
You can see its head, you cansee its skin and, yeah, like
it's armored back, like I wantedto touch it.
I so wanted to touch it, but ofcourse it was under glass.
The story of this boreal peltais bananas because it came from
fort mack, fort mcmurray upnorth.
They were drilling or diggingup a mine and they hit it with a
(20:56):
bobcat, like a front-end loader, um.
So they could have beendestroyed and part of it was
nicked.
So there's a whole section ofit that got nicked off and
that's because they hit it whenthey were digging.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
And when we were in there, we were talking about the
coal trail, which is thehighway on which we live, and
another woman was there and wehad a whole conversation about
the boreal pelta and then alsothe dinosaurs that were found on
our road.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Yeah, oh, that's right.
They were widening the highwayand they had a dinosaur dig and
that stopped everything for ayear.
Yeah, I remember how frustratedsome people were.
They're like stupid dinosaurs.
Yeah, there's dinosaur fossilseverywhere in Alberta.
If you dig in the right spot,you'll hit a dinosaur fossil.
The next one is a nest of theHypocrysaurus that was
(21:45):
discovered a long time ago, 1987.
What makes this one cool?
What's so cool about this nest?
Speaker 2 (21:51):
The nest included dinosaur eggs with preserved
embryos.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Yeah, the embryos is the crazy part, Like not an egg
but the buoys inside the egg.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
And what that does is it provided insight into the
nesting behavior and also thedevelopment of those embryos
inside the egg.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
And the fifth really cool display.
The fifth cool celebration isthe Gorgosaurus that was
discovered in 2009.
If you think a Tyrannosaurus,it's a younger version of that
and it was found with prey stillin its digestive system.
This, of course, is fascinatingto dinosaur researchers because
(22:35):
it gives them clues about whatthe feeding habits of juvenile
Tyrannosaurus were.
A baby tyrannosaurus rex?
No, it was more like a teenager.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Yeah, a juvenile one, but it is still cool to find
out what they eat, and findingthese preserved fossils is just
amazing.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
I've talked to paleontologists before and two
separate paleontologists saidthat the dinosaur that they
would be the most terrified torun into would be a juvenile
tyrannosaur, because the bigtyrannosaurus rex would probably
see humans as too small for ameal like we're just stupid
(23:14):
little things, right.
And baby tyrannosauruses wouldbe not much bigger than a
chicken or turkey, but thejuveniles would be the size of a
polar bear and they would seeus as a delicious treat and they
would run incredibly fast.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
I thought the velociraptors were the scary
ones.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
No spoiler alert for people and a little fun fact
that I'm going to bursteverybody's bubble Velociraptors
are about one to two times thesize of a turkey, so they're
actually quite small.
When, who was it?
Was it Steven Spielberg?
Yes, Steven Spielberg.
They wanted to do that movie.
They hired a paleontologist andthe paleontologist was like
(23:57):
actually, Steven, thevelociraptors aren't really big
Like you want to make themreally big, they're not that big
.
If you want to make a raptorthat big, you need to call it
the Utah raptor.
The Utah raptor was like six,seven feet tall.
You have the wrong one and he'sshut up, You're fired.
So he just got rid of the.
They got rid of their expertsso they could do whatever they
(24:18):
wanted.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
That's yeah.
Yeah, there you go.
That's Hollywood for you.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
And I guess, as we wrap up, what's the people come
see this museum.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Because it houses over 160,000 fossils and
geological specimens, and soit's a must visit destination.
On TripAdvisor no, I don't knowif it's.
I don't know.
No, it is.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Yeah, like it's.
If you come to Alberta, it's onthe top 10.
Things to see in Alberta is theRoyal Terrell Museum.
Since opening in 1985, it'sbeen a big deal.
Visitors come from over 150countries and the museum sees up
to half a million guestsannually.
So the little town ofDrumheller pulls in a lot of
(25:01):
folks who go to the RoyalTerrell Museum.
There's lots of cool things.
Yeah, there's lots of coolthings to see in Drumheller too,
Like old timey that mine.
What was the mine called?
If you're coming, you shouldcheck out that mine too.
I forget what it's called.
Anyways, there's a mine touryou can take.
Highly worth it.
Okay, I think we should getsome kickbacks from the Alberta
(25:22):
government for tourism.
Between our show here andBunsen and Beaker and Bernoulli,
I think a lot of people want tocome visit Alberta.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Yeah, it's a great place to be, and if you like the
heat and cactus and hoodoos andall the things that come along
with stepping into magma, thencome on down to the Badlands.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
All right, that's science news for this week.
This week, in pet science,chris, we're doing one of the
articles you found.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Oh yeah, about the orange cats.
Why are they orange and why isginger orange?
And there's a joke.
And I didn't realize that therewas a joke about orange cats.
But the orange cats are oftencalled chaotic or goofy and as
if they share one communal braincell.
And so when I first startedposting about Ginger on social
(26:13):
media, someone's yep, she hasthe one communal brain cell
right now and I looked at youand I said what is that?
Speaker 1 (26:21):
comment.
I didn't get that.
I thought people were makingfun of us.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
I know and then I Googled, I went to Google and
Google definitely told me thatorange cats are often very goofy
and share that communal braincell.
But surprisingly, behind thejoke is something with their DNA
(26:45):
.
It falls in their genetic code.
Most orange cats actually doshare a single genetic mutation.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
This is a really new science news item.
Two independent studies werepublished on May 15th in Current
Biology and they both revealeda DNA deletion that causes
pigment cells to produce thatyellow-red or ginger color
rather than the brown-blackcorrelation.
This mutation has baffledscientists for a while as a
(27:13):
mystery as to what makes catsorange.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
So the science behind the mutation is a deletion near
a gene called the R-GAP36.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
That's funny it's called the R-GAP, like it's a
pirate or something.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
I guess you could say RH-GAP36.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Yeah, RH-GAP.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Okay, yeah, what it does is it actually boosts the
production of the RH gap 36protein, but selectively, only
in the pigment cells, and whatthat does is it prevents the
brown black pigment genes fromactivating.
So what does that do?
That leaves cells producingonly that yellow red pigment,
(28:00):
which is actually a simplerpigment to make, if you're into
making pigment in the DNA code.
And only cats are like thisWeird, Unlike most mammals, even
if you include big cats liketigers, it's the domestic cat's
ginger coloration and it'sactually linked to the sex
(28:22):
chromosomes.
So if you're looking at mammals, there's only two pigments
produced.
There's a black-brown and ayellow-red pigment.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
The other comment that we got lots, and of course
I did some research and figuredout why was people thought
Ginger was a boy?
Because most orange cats aremale.
Now the reason why is the generesponsible for the orange fur
lies on the X chromosome.
Male cats, xys, right, x,female, y, male need only one
(28:58):
copy of the mutation to beginger, but females need the
mutation on both X chromosomesto be fully orange.
So in order to have a femalekitty cat that is orange, both
parents need to pass on themutation.
So like the male needs to passon an X chromosome with the
(29:21):
mutation and the female does, sothe chances are just a lot
lower.
If only one X has the mutation,the cat can become a calico or
a tortoise shell, which is apatchwork of orange and black.
That's because you've just gotsome on the X and the Y kind of
does its own thing due to the Xinactivation instead of the full
activation Y kind of does itsown thing due to the X
(29:43):
inactivation instead of the fullactivation.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
And that's so.
When we say why most orangecats are male, that's why they
say most calicos, ortortoiseshells, are female.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Because you'd have X, which is your orange mutation,
and the other X likely doesn'thave it.
How did they figure this out,Chris?
Speaker 2 (30:00):
They took a sample.
They took all orange cats froma global sample of 258 cats and
they had the same DNA deletion.
And no non-orange cats carriedthat deletion and that suggested
that the mutation originatedfrom a single ancestral cat,
(30:26):
that the mutation originatedfrom a single ancestral cat and
researchers one cat.
And yeah, if you think, hey,let's make babies like rabbits.
Cats are busy too, andresearchers estimate that the
ginger ancestor lived over 900years ago and that's supported
by historical paintings ofcalico cats.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
Aw, that makes sense.
People loved cats just as muchback then as they do today.
Before these studies, the R-GAP, the RH-GAP-36,.
It wasn't known to affect furcolor.
It was just associated withhormone-producing organs like
the pituitary gland, so its roleand the coloration is unique to
(31:03):
our domestic kitty cats.
This is just a really coolexample of a genetic adaptation
in our pets.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
Yeah, exactly so.
Tigers and lions eat your heartout.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
That's right.
Is Ginger goofy?
Though she can be goofy, Idon't think she's like chaotic
dumb.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
She's pretty sassy yeah, I don't think she's goofy.
I think she's just a normal catwho actually is figuring out
how to feed herself with theautomatic feeder oh yeah, I
forgot about that so that's anew development that shows that
she watches and learns yeah, andthen tries.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
She sneaks out to the garage and murders mice.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
That happened yesterday.
She was so proud of herself.
She brought the gift to thestairs.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
I know she's a good girl.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Hi, I have a gift for you.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
That's good, though that's what cats were.
That's a good job that cats do.
They get rid of vermin.
I do feel sad for the littlemouse, but you know the cat's
going to do what cat's going todo.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
It shouldn't have been in the garage.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
That's right.
It's got the whole wide worldto live.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
I did.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Made some poor choices.
All right, that's Pet Sciencefor this week.
That's it for this week's show.
Thanks for coming back weekafter week.
Special shout out to the toptier of our Paw Pack community.
You help make the podcast free.
Thanks for supporting us.
If you want to hear your namein a shout out, just check out a
link in our show notes andthere will be a link to sign up
(32:35):
to be part of the Paw Pack.
We'd love your support at anytier.
All right, chris, who are thetop dogs?
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Amelia Fetig Rhi, oda Carol Hainel, jennifer Challen,
linnea Janik Karen Chronister,vicky Otero, christy Walker,
sarah Bram, wendy, diane Masonand Luke Helen Chin, elizabeth
Bourgeois, marianne McNally,catherine Jordan, shelley Smith,
laura Steffensen, tracyLeinbach, anne Uchida, heather
(33:06):
Burbach, kelly Tracy Halbert,ben Rather, debbie Anderson.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Sandy Breimer, mary Rader, bianca Hyde, andrew Lin,
brenda Clark, brianne Hawes,peggy McKeel For science,
empathy and cuteness.
Hello science enthusiasts.
I'm Jason Zukoski.
And I'm Chris Zukoski, we'rethe 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.
Hi everybody, welcome back tothe Science Podcast.
We hope you're happy andhealthy out there.
This is episode 15 of season 7.
Guess what?
We had Rain, so much rain, forthe last two weeks.
(00:45):
I think we've mentioned beforethat rain is not a very normal
thing for us in alberta.
It's quite dry.
We do get rain.
It's not like it never getsrain.
But um chris is from the coast.
Uh, she grew up close to theocean in the, in the valley
around vancouver, and it wouldrain for weeks and weeks at a
(01:05):
time, months at a time, and Ithink that gets people a little
down out there.
I don't know.
You can let us know if you'refrom the coast, if the rain gets
you down.
So we just don't have that.
We have so many sunny days inAlberta.
We have as many sunny days asFlorida does.
We have as much sunshine asFlorida, which is hard to
(01:26):
believe, but it's true.
It is true because we havereally clear skies almost all
the time, except for the lasttwo weeks it has poured, but
that has allowed us to get dogsinto their super cute raincoats
that we got from Canada Pooch,so be on the lookout for that.
Okay.
Well, what's on the science showthis week?
We got two science articlesthis week, two science news
(01:48):
items to look at.
The first one is all about theLast of Us, part two or season
two, and if we could make avaccine for a fungal infection.
I kind of nerd out about theshow and the game.
I love the game, love the show.
Chris, not so much.
Maybe some people also don'tlove it.
It is very gritty and violent.
(02:09):
The other science news itemwe're going to look at is the
exciting mega display the RoyalTerrell Museum is putting
together.
That is the world famousdinosaur museum just south of us
.
And in pet science, chris founda fun article that has finally
figured out what makes an orangecat orange.
All right, let's get on withthe show.
(02:29):
There's no time like ScienceTime this week in Science News.
Well, let's talk about a verybig show happening on HBO.
It's actually season two of abreakout hit that I really liked
.
I'm not sure you enjoy it, butthe show is called the Last of
(02:52):
Us.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Now, I didn't realize it was just season two,
probably because you played thevideo game before the series
came out and it really was justa continuation of the game that
you were playing.
So it seems like the Last of Ushas been in our house for quite
some time.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
A great game, very violent, set in a, as we'll talk
, a dystopian future.
And, of course, people whoplayed the first game really
grew to love.
There was two characters, ellieand Joel.
You play as Joel and you pickup this young girl named Ellie,
(03:33):
and Joel over the course of thegame forms a very strong bond
with her as a father figure.
So I was playing it and I wasseeing myself in Joel's shoes
because I'm a father myself.
And then, of course, the gamehas got some intense moments.
It's definitely got some horrorelements.
(03:53):
Did you watch the season onewith me the TV show or was it
too much for you, chris?
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Jason, it's a little bit too much for me.
Like I can watch parts but thenI have to run away and be like,
ah oh no, but Jason, I couldn'teven handle that.
The cat brought in a mouse,killed a mouse in the garage, so
I can't imagine a world ravagedby a mind controlling fungus
that is turning people intozombies.
(04:17):
But I let you watch it becauseyou really enjoyed it and I
watched parts, so I am familiarwith the story, but
unfortunately, any of the reallyviolent parts I had to step out
.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
So, simply put, in the Last of Us there is a fungus
called cordyceps that normallyonly affects insects and it
infects them.
It takes control of their brain, it makes them do odd stuff to
get in the way and thus infectmore insects.
Due to climate change, thefungus now has been able to
(04:52):
infect humans, who run a littlehot compared to insects, and in
the game one of the maincharacters, ellie is immune, is
immune.
So the whole plot line isgetting this girl from one area
of the United States to anentirely different area through
a zombie apocalypse wherehumanity has been destroyed by
(05:15):
this fungal infection.
I think I did a pretty good jobsumming up the game.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Yes, you summed it up , but then you also didn't give
any spoilers, which I think isreally important.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Oh yeah, there's some pretty serious spoilers for
season one and as I've playedthe game, I know what happens in
season two and there's somevery intense moments in season
two and of course that's insocial media and also people are
becoming more interested in theidea.
Can humans be infected with afungus?
(05:48):
Could the cordyceps apocalypsein this TV show happen to us?
Speaker 2 (05:54):
But then also can humans be immune, like Ellie?
To the fungus or the fungi.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Yeah, so can they.
Sometimes the fungus thatcauses valley fever, for example
, can trigger lifelong immunityin people who grow up in endemic
regions.
So sometimes if you survive itlike you get sick with a virus,
your body will get immune to it.
That's what happened to Ellie.
(06:22):
She survived the originalinfection and she became immune
to subsequent bites frominfected humans or spores.
But in other cases fungus likeyeast or ringworm or athlete's
foot will come back again andagain like a bad penny.
You have no lasting immunityfrom infections like that.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
So the immunity would depend on exposure levels and
your actual, your personalimmune strength that you have
inside your body.
Did you know, Jason, my momthought I had ringworm when I
was a baby.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Oh, I think I got ringworm.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Oh, I didn't have ringworm.
My sister bit me and I hadrings all on my arms because my
sister bit me but it wasn'tringworm.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Oh God Okay.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
That might've been worse getting bit by your human
sister but at least we got tothe bottom of that I didn't have
ringworm and that they couldintervene to see why my sister
was biting me and that theycould intervene to see why my
sister was biting me In the game, ellie's immunity starts in her
brain.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Is that possible?
Can you have brain-basedimmunity?
And most experts who studyfungus say no, that's
unrealistic.
So it was a interesting plotdevice for the game and the TV
show, but not really great.
Real fungal infections in thebrain are super dangerous.
(07:50):
If you get a brain infectionand it is with fungus, it can
slow it with drugs and it'sincurable.
Like you will die unless you'reextremely lucky and somehow
your body fights it off.
T-cells are the immune system'smain defense against fungi.
They're found in blood, bonemarrow and lymph nodes and not
(08:13):
necessarily in the brain.
So if you do get a fungalinfection and it does work its
way to your brain, verydangerous.
Not to bring up a sad point,but I will.
My mom died of a braininfection and when she was in
intensive care for the monthsbefore she died they were very
(08:34):
concerned about a braininfection from opening because
they had to open up her head toput in shunts and things like
that.
So not getting too sad, butfrom our experience with my mom,
they were very worried about afungus infection in the brain.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
But who else is a high risk group?
People with high spore exposure, people who are in jobs like
landscaping, or actually peoplewho go camping which I'm not, so
that is a win for meconstruction workers, and then
also people with a weakenedimmune system already, such as
(09:11):
older adults or those onimmunosuppressive drugs.
They're at a higher risk ofgetting the infection.
And then also there's areasthat seem to be endemic, like
parts of Arizona and Californiathat would create exposure to
the spores.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Now I don't want to give away too many spoilers for
season one or the first game.
If you haven't played the game,I'm not sure how many gamers
listen to our show.
But one of the plot points isthat because Ellie in the game
and the TV show is immune,scientists really want to make a
vaccine based on her immunity.
But that's another questionthat scientists have answers for
(09:55):
.
Can we make a vaccine forfungus?
And the answer is maybe, butnot really, because as of right
now there are no approved fungalvaccines available.
They just don't exist.
There are pharmaceuticalcompanies developing valley
fever vaccines for dogs andhumans, and they use a
(10:18):
genetically altered fungus thatcannot change form to become
infectious.
It's in trials for both dogsand humans, but doesn't exist
yet.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Because there are other treatments that you can
use.
There are antifungal drugs, butthey are limited and the World
Health Organization warns ofrising resistance and few new
treatments.
There has only been fourantifungal drugs approved in the
last decade globally.
(10:48):
There actually are nine othersin development, but of those
nine, three are in late stagetrials.
Now.
This is unlike bacteria, whichhas many antibiotic options.
The fungi have few drugtreatments that are available to
them, and some fungalinfections have no licensed
(11:10):
therapy at all.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
There is a drug on the horizon named alorofim and
this has been in development for25 years.
It prevents fungal DNA RNAproduction, targeting a pretty
dangerous fungus namedAspergillus, now one of the.
I do have to talk a little bitabout the TV show.
If you watch season one, thereis a cold open, before it gets
(11:36):
to anything, of two scientistsin like the sixties on one of
those talk shows beinginterviewed.
It's chilling.
The reporter is asking these twoscientists what do you think is
the biggest threat to humanity?
And the one scientist goes oh,it's a virus, like a super virus
could take us all out and it'svery spooky.
(11:57):
And then it hands to this otherscientist and he's no, the
thing that keeps me up at nightis fungus, because we have no
drugs, we have no vaccine for afungus.
If it infects humanity likeviruses do game over for the
human race.
So it's a very chilling openingfor a TV show about the end of
(12:20):
humanity because of this fungusnamed cordyceps that started to
infect humans.
They talked to a researcher,chris, about this very topic and
they asked that researcher hey,what's the plan for fungus
vaccines?
And what the researcher said?
There isn't one.
(12:42):
No, they said we should havestarted 25 years ago.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Yeah, that's the problem because it takes 20.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
It took 25 years to get like the four or the few
that are out and the few morethat are coming.
So, yeah, we don't have toworry, though, like I've talked
to some scientists on socialmedia who study fungus and the
chances of something likecordyceps jumping to human is
very low to infinitesimallysmall, so we just have to
(13:08):
continue to watch out for thethings that are more dangerous
to us, like bacteria and virus.
All right, that's our firstscience news article.
Our second science news articleis a science story close to
home the royal tyrell museum.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
I love that place I know we just went back there to
the badlands of alberta and ofcourse it was a stop on the way
when we stayed at the windmillin rosebud yeah we thought it
was so fun to go to the royaltyrell museum to see what was
new, what was different, toexperience the giant sloth and I
(13:46):
love the triceratops and youlove the ankylosaurus, and so it
was a really great opportunityto spend time together and nerd
out over dinosaurs oh man, it isa bit out of the way like the
royal torel museum.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Drumheller is where this museum is located and, yeah
, it's in the badlands ofalberta.
Um, you go down south, farenough south and a little east,
and you hit literally desert.
It is like the desert.
It is very different from therest of alberta.
There's cactus, it's crazy dryand it's one of the richest
(14:22):
places in the world forCretaceous fossils, if you can
believe it.
That is why that museum, only acouple hours drive away, is one
of the most famous museums inthe entire world.
Is that?
Luckily, a whole bunch ofdinosaurs croaked in that area a
long time ago.
So that's where our story takesplace.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Exactly.
Have you ever taken studentsthere on a field trip?
Speaker 1 (14:45):
They always take the French immersion kids or the
French exchange kids Like they.
You know how I don't was Adamon that.
I don't think so.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
No.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
He didn't do the exchange.
Anyways, like an exchange is,kids from France come here and
then they stay with families andthen our kids go there and stay
with families.
Anyways, like an exchange is,kids from France come here and
then they stay with families andthen our kids go there and stay
with families.
That's like a little exchange.
The French kids are notimpressed with our architecture,
like at all.
If you're like, hey, kids,let's go look at this old
building, and the oldestbuilding's a hundred years old
(15:14):
and they have churches that werebuilt 2,000 years ago.
But what we have that Francedon't have is the Royal Tyrell
Museum, and the kids are alwaysso impressed when they go.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
And it's so impressive.
You're right, and they'velaunched a new exhibit that's
titled Breakthroughs, whichshowcases five of its most
scientifically significantfossils, and the goal is to
highlight the literalbreakthroughs in paleontology
that are archived at the museumover its 40-year history.
(15:49):
I can't believe the museum hasonly been there 40 years.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Like we went on that mine tour down there and
dinosaur fossils were not valuedwhen they were mining for coal.
Like nobody cared, they justchucked them down the hill.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
They weren't valuable yeah, no, they weren't valuable
.
That was really surprising tome, like when we were there and
they were saying, yeah, look atall this like hot, what did they
call it?
The hot slurry or somethingslag that was on the side of the
hill there and they're likedon't go in there.
That's not great to go, butthere's dinosaur bones there,
but don't try and get thembecause it will be dangerous for
(16:26):
you.
And I was thinking I reallywant them but, it's dangerous.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
A miner in like 1940, 1950, like hauled out a T-Rex
skull and stupid bones and justchucked it down the hill.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Cause just chucked it down the hill.
Because just chucked it downthe hill, but alberta, you're
right, is one of the richestplaces in the world for those
fossils, the cretaceous fossils.
They were around approximately143 to 66 million years ago yeah
, what are the what's?
Speaker 1 (16:55):
what are the five groundbreaking fossils?
Speaker 2 (16:57):
okay, the okay, so fun, jason.
The five groundbreaking fossils.
Okay, okay, so fun, jason.
The five groundbreaking fossils.
The first one is the Mosasaurus, and the second word looks like
Missouri Ennis and cysts.
And the fun fact is it's not adinosaur.
The Mosasaurus is a marinereptile that comes from 75
(17:18):
million years ago and it wasfound in alberta's ancient
inland seas, which is so weirdbecause alberta now doesn't have
any seas at all.
We have to travel a whole otherprovince over to go to the
ocean trip to get to the oceanyeah, so where did?
Speaker 1 (17:35):
those inland sea go.
We could have had beachfrontproperty where we live.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Where is our beachfront property?
The specimen that they'reshowing is a young mosasaur that
was exceptionally preserved,which showed the soft cartilage,
which is rarely fossilized, andfish bones from its last meal.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Yeah, it got fossilized with a snack in its
belly.
That's wild, all right.
The second one is a featherdinosaur, ornithomimus, and that
was found in DinosaurProvincial Park in 1995.
This was the first NorthAmerican dinosaur with feather
evidence.
I remember being in high schoolwhen they discovered this thing
(18:18):
.
It was a big deal and it hasbeen on display in the Royal
Terrell Museum.
I remember seeing this ondisplay.
They continually do research onthese fossils right, and just
recently technicians discoveredfeathers on the arms.
This helps support the birddinosaur evolutionary link.
Feathers were probably used asmating signals in this bird, not
(18:42):
necessarily flight Other bigdinosaurs that we think of from
when we were kids as beingsmooth, kind of like a I don't
know, a monitor lizard or asnake.
They were probably covered withfeathers, which is wild.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
That is interesting, like you're thinking that
they're smooth in their matingritual, but really they're not
smooth because they're coveredin feathers.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Yeah, Now this next one.
Chris is my favoritest one, andwe saw this we saw this one
when we were down there the lasttime.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
It's the crown jewel.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Yeah, it's a huge deal.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Now I don't want to botch the name, so what's the
name of it?
Boreal pelta okay, I could haveprobably said no problem yeah,
it's a nodosaur.
It's a relative of theankylosaurus and you love the
ankylosaurus oh it's my favoritedinosaur so I know this was an
armored herbivore and it's from110 million years ago and it's
(19:42):
actually considered the world'smost well-preserved armored
dinosaur, because it waspreserved in 3D with intact skin
and armor, with also stomachcontents that included plants
and charcoal.
Now, the cool thing about thisis it was so well preserved
because it likely washed intothe sea very quickly and was
(20:05):
rapidly buried, which preventedany scavengers or decay
happening to the carcass.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Us talking about this fossil doesn't do it justice.
There we walked into a room andit was in a glass case.
It's huge, right, this is agiant creature that lived a long
time ago.
You can see the pattern on itsskin and its armor.
That's how well preserved itwas.
I was, I could have stared atthis thing for hours.
(20:34):
You can see its head, you cansee its skin and, yeah, like
it's armored back, like I wantedto touch it.
I so wanted to touch it, but ofcourse it was under glass.
The story of this boreal peltais bananas because it came from
fort mack, fort mcmurray upnorth.
They were drilling or diggingup a mine and they hit it with a
(20:56):
bobcat, like a front-end loader, um.
So they could have beendestroyed and part of it was
nicked.
So there's a whole section ofit that got nicked off and
that's because they hit it whenthey were digging.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
And when we were in there, we were talking about the
coal trail, which is thehighway on which we live, and
another woman was there and wehad a whole conversation about
the boreal pelta and then alsothe dinosaurs that were found on
our road.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Yeah, oh, that's right.
They were widening the highwayand they had a dinosaur dig and
that stopped everything for ayear.
Yeah, I remember how frustratedsome people were.
They're like stupid dinosaurs.
Yeah, there's dinosaur fossilseverywhere in Alberta.
If you dig in the right spot,you'll hit a dinosaur fossil.
The next one is a nest of theHypocrysaurus that was
(21:45):
discovered a long time ago, 1987.
What makes this one cool?
What's so cool about this nest?
Speaker 2 (21:51):
The nest included dinosaur eggs with preserved
embryos.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Yeah, the embryos is the crazy part, Like not an egg
but the buoys inside the egg.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
And what that does is it provided insight into the
nesting behavior and also thedevelopment of those embryos
inside the egg.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
And the fifth really cool display.
The fifth cool celebration isthe Gorgosaurus that was
discovered in 2009.
If you think a Tyrannosaurus,it's a younger version of that
and it was found with prey stillin its digestive system.
This, of course, is fascinatingto dinosaur researchers because
(22:35):
it gives them clues about whatthe feeding habits of juvenile
Tyrannosaurus were.
A baby tyrannosaurus rex?
No, it was more like a teenager.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Yeah, a juvenile one, but it is still cool to find
out what they eat, and findingthese preserved fossils is just
amazing.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
I've talked to paleontologists before and two
separate paleontologists saidthat the dinosaur that they
would be the most terrified torun into would be a juvenile
tyrannosaur, because the bigtyrannosaurus rex would probably
see humans as too small for ameal like we're just stupid
(23:14):
little things, right.
And baby tyrannosauruses wouldbe not much bigger than a
chicken or turkey, but thejuveniles would be the size of a
polar bear and they would seeus as a delicious treat and they
would run incredibly fast.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
I thought the velociraptors were the scary
ones.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
No spoiler alert for people and a little fun fact
that I'm going to bursteverybody's bubble Velociraptors
are about one to two times thesize of a turkey, so they're
actually quite small.
When, who was it?
Was it Steven Spielberg?
Yes, Steven Spielberg.
They wanted to do that movie.
They hired a paleontologist andthe paleontologist was like
(23:57):
actually, Steven, thevelociraptors aren't really big
Like you want to make themreally big, they're not that big
.
If you want to make a raptorthat big, you need to call it
the Utah raptor.
The Utah raptor was like six,seven feet tall.
You have the wrong one and he'sshut up, You're fired.
So he just got rid of the.
They got rid of their expertsso they could do whatever they
(24:18):
wanted.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
That's yeah.
Yeah, there you go.
That's Hollywood for you.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
And I guess, as we wrap up, what's the people come
see this museum.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Because it houses over 160,000 fossils and
geological specimens, and soit's a must visit destination.
On TripAdvisor no, I don't knowif it's.
I don't know.
No, it is.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Yeah, like it's.
If you come to Alberta, it's onthe top 10.
Things to see in Alberta is theRoyal Terrell Museum.
Since opening in 1985, it'sbeen a big deal.
Visitors come from over 150countries and the museum sees up
to half a million guestsannually.
So the little town ofDrumheller pulls in a lot of
(25:01):
folks who go to the RoyalTerrell Museum.
There's lots of cool things.
Yeah, there's lots of coolthings to see in Drumheller too,
Like old timey that mine.
What was the mine called?
If you're coming, you shouldcheck out that mine too.
I forget what it's called.
Anyways, there's a mine touryou can take.
Highly worth it.
Okay, I think we should getsome kickbacks from the Alberta
(25:22):
government for tourism.
Between our show here andBunsen and Beaker and Bernoulli,
I think a lot of people want tocome visit Alberta.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Yeah, it's a great place to be, and if you like the
heat and cactus and hoodoos andall the things that come along
with stepping into magma, thencome on down to the Badlands.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
All right, that's science news for this week.
This week, in pet science,chris, we're doing one of the
articles you found.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Oh yeah, about the orange cats.
Why are they orange and why isginger orange?
And there's a joke.
And I didn't realize that therewas a joke about orange cats.
But the orange cats are oftencalled chaotic or goofy and as
if they share one communal braincell.
And so when I first startedposting about Ginger on social
(26:13):
media, someone's yep, she hasthe one communal brain cell
right now and I looked at youand I said what is that?
Speaker 1 (26:21):
comment.
I didn't get that.
I thought people were makingfun of us.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
I know and then I Googled, I went to Google and
Google definitely told me thatorange cats are often very goofy
and share that communal braincell.
But surprisingly, behind thejoke is something with their DNA
(26:45):
.
It falls in their genetic code.
Most orange cats actually doshare a single genetic mutation.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
This is a really new science news item.
Two independent studies werepublished on May 15th in Current
Biology and they both revealeda DNA deletion that causes
pigment cells to produce thatyellow-red or ginger color
rather than the brown-blackcorrelation.
This mutation has baffledscientists for a while as a
(27:13):
mystery as to what makes catsorange.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
So the science behind the mutation is a deletion near
a gene called the R-GAP36.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
That's funny it's called the R-GAP, like it's a
pirate or something.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
I guess you could say RH-GAP36.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Yeah, RH-GAP.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Okay, yeah, what it does is it actually boosts the
production of the RH gap 36protein, but selectively, only
in the pigment cells, and whatthat does is it prevents the
brown black pigment genes fromactivating.
So what does that do?
That leaves cells producingonly that yellow red pigment,
(28:00):
which is actually a simplerpigment to make, if you're into
making pigment in the DNA code.
And only cats are like thisWeird, Unlike most mammals, even
if you include big cats liketigers, it's the domestic cat's
ginger coloration and it'sactually linked to the sex
(28:22):
chromosomes.
So if you're looking at mammals, there's only two pigments
produced.
There's a black-brown and ayellow-red pigment.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
The other comment that we got lots, and of course
I did some research and figuredout why was people thought
Ginger was a boy?
Because most orange cats aremale.
Now the reason why is the generesponsible for the orange fur
lies on the X chromosome.
Male cats, xys, right, x,female, y, male need only one
(28:58):
copy of the mutation to beginger, but females need the
mutation on both X chromosomesto be fully orange.
So in order to have a femalekitty cat that is orange, both
parents need to pass on themutation.
So like the male needs to passon an X chromosome with the
(29:21):
mutation and the female does, sothe chances are just a lot
lower.
If only one X has the mutation,the cat can become a calico or
a tortoise shell, which is apatchwork of orange and black.
That's because you've just gotsome on the X and the Y kind of
does its own thing due to the Xinactivation instead of the full
activation Y kind of does itsown thing due to the X
(29:43):
inactivation instead of the fullactivation.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
And that's so.
When we say why most orangecats are male, that's why they
say most calicos, ortortoiseshells, are female.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Because you'd have X, which is your orange mutation,
and the other X likely doesn'thave it.
How did they figure this out,Chris?
Speaker 2 (30:00):
They took a sample.
They took all orange cats froma global sample of 258 cats and
they had the same DNA deletion.
And no non-orange cats carriedthat deletion and that suggested
that the mutation originatedfrom a single ancestral cat,
(30:26):
that the mutation originatedfrom a single ancestral cat and
researchers one cat.
And yeah, if you think, hey,let's make babies like rabbits.
Cats are busy too, andresearchers estimate that the
ginger ancestor lived over 900years ago and that's supported
by historical paintings ofcalico cats.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
Aw, that makes sense.
People loved cats just as muchback then as they do today.
Before these studies, the R-GAP, the RH-GAP-36,.
It wasn't known to affect furcolor.
It was just associated withhormone-producing organs like
the pituitary gland, so its roleand the coloration is unique to
(31:03):
our domestic kitty cats.
This is just a really coolexample of a genetic adaptation
in our pets.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
Yeah, exactly so.
Tigers and lions eat your heartout.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
That's right.
Is Ginger goofy?
Though she can be goofy, Idon't think she's like chaotic
dumb.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
She's pretty sassy yeah, I don't think she's goofy.
I think she's just a normal catwho actually is figuring out
how to feed herself with theautomatic feeder oh yeah, I
forgot about that so that's anew development that shows that
she watches and learns yeah, andthen tries.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
She sneaks out to the garage and murders mice.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
That happened yesterday.
She was so proud of herself.
She brought the gift to thestairs.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
I know she's a good girl.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Hi, I have a gift for you.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
That's good, though that's what cats were.
That's a good job that cats do.
They get rid of vermin.
I do feel sad for the littlemouse, but you know the cat's
going to do what cat's going todo.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
It shouldn't have been in the garage.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
That's right.
It's got the whole wide worldto live.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
I did.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Made some poor choices.
All right, that's Pet Sciencefor this week.
That's it for this week's show.
Thanks for coming back weekafter week.
Special shout out to the toptier of our Paw Pack community.
You help make the podcast free.
Thanks for supporting us.
If you want to hear your namein a shout out, just check out a
link in our show notes andthere will be a link to sign up
(32:35):
to be part of the Paw Pack.
We'd love your support at anytier.
All right, chris, who are thetop dogs?
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Amelia Fetig Rhi, oda Carol Hainel, jennifer Challen,
linnea Janik Karen Chronister,vicky Otero, christy Walker,
sarah Bram, wendy, diane Masonand Luke Helen Chin, elizabeth
Bourgeois, marianne McNally,catherine Jordan, shelley Smith,
laura Steffensen, tracyLeinbach, anne Uchida, heather
(33:06):
Burbach, kelly Tracy Halbert,ben Rather, debbie Anderson.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Sandy Breimer, mary Rader, bianca Hyde, andrew Lin,
brenda Clark, brianne Hawes,peggy McKeel For science,
empathy and cuteness.
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