May 29, 2025 • 54 mins
We dive into the fascinating world of extinct giant sloths, explore how dogs are inspiring better swimming robots, and discuss the alarming resurgence of measles with immunologist Dr. Elisabeth Marnick.
• Ancient sloths evolved wide body size diversity based primarily on their habitat preference
• Tree-dwelling sloths evolved to be smaller while ground-dwelling species became massive
• The largest ground sloths were predated by enormous short-faced bears and likely hunted by humans
• Engineers created an amphibious robot that mimics dogs' swimming motion rather than reptiles or insects
• The dog-inspired robot achieves better transition between land and water with superior stability
And our guest:
• Dr. Elizabeth Marnick explains that measles causes "immune amnesia," erasing the body's memory of other infections
• The MMR vaccine is 97% effective at preventing measles infection with two doses
• One in four measles cases requires hospitalization, with potentially severe complications
• Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis can appear 7-10 years after measles infection and is 100% fatal
• Science communicators face significant challenges combating misinformation on social media
Dr. Marnick's Links
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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 everybody and welcomeback to the Science Podcast.
We hope you're happy andhealthy out there.
This is episode 16 of season 7.
As we march on to June, thesummer looms.
For Chris and I I think I'vementioned this we're in the busy
(00:46):
part of our time as teachers,pushing kids towards curriculum
as it warms in Alberta, canada,and kids long for a hot summer
and being outside with theirfriends.
Really, the last thing theywanna do is my chemistry or
Chris's math.
To be fair, they're sucking itup pretty good.
The dogs are all doing great,ginger's doing awesome.
(01:09):
So, aside from being reallybusy, everything is perfect with
our family and we ourselves arehappy and healthy.
All right, what's on the sciencepodcast?
This week?
In science news, I get to talkabout my favoritest extinct
animal, my most favorite extinctanimal, the giant sloth, or
sloth or a slow sloth.
(01:31):
And in pet science, we aremixing robotics and dogs, with
an amphibious robot that learneda thing or two from watching
dogs swim.
And our amazing guest this weekis Dr Elizabeth Marnick, who's
a science communicator, andshe's going to tell us a little
bit about measles, which istimely considering, especially
in the province where I live andmost people in North America
(01:53):
there are measles outbreaks.
All right, let's get on withthe show.
There's no time like sciencetime.
This week in science news I'mexcited we get to talk about my
favoritest extinct animals ever.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Not all of them are extinct that we're going to talk
about today, Jason, but thereis the one I actually thought
you would open up with going toCosta Rica and talk about the
parking lot incident where youhad all the high school students
standing around and and yeah, asloth fell out of the tree
(02:34):
Super high up and plopped rightin front of everybody on the
ground and everybody thought hewas dead.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
But it shook its head , got up and continued on its
way like it was nothing, but itshook its head got up and
continued on its way like it wasnothing.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Yeah, but even your tour guide thought that was very
exciting development.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
He thought the sloth kept crawling out on this limb
and he's oh, we need to go.
I can't do a Costa Rican accentand I'm like why?
He's like the sloth, it willfall.
I've seen this before and I'mlike, oh God, because the sloth
was going fall.
I've seen this before and I'mlike oh god, because the sloth
was going to fall and die,probably.
So we're trying to shove allthe kids on the bus but they're
looking at the sloth then.
Then the branch bends more andthe kids stop moving and they're
like no sloth, no, don't sloth.
(03:18):
And then it just fell.
But it was totally unhurt.
It got up like the Undertakerfrom wrestling and started
crawling back to a tree.
It's crazy.
That's the sloth story.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
That is a crazy sloth story.
Now, when you were in CostaRica, you learned how to say it
sloth.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
No, they say sloth.
It's the Brits that say sloth.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
And I just love how the Brits say sloth, so I say
sloth sometimes.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
I know you do.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Yeah, and sometimes on Fun Facts with Bernoulli, it
actually says sloth.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
That's so funny, because I thought you had
programmed the voice to saysloth and I was like, how did
you do that?
And then, as it went on, itchanged to sloth and it went
sloth, sloth, sloth, sloth and Ithought, wow, that is
incredible.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Our science story, of course, is about the sloths,
but the ancient sloths and howand why they had such a wide
variety of body sizes littlesmall things that could climb
(04:29):
trees nimbly, to enormous likehard to believe polar bear, or
bigger sized ground sloths.
And those are my favoritesloths the giant ground sloth.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
That contrast in diversity has puzzled scientists
for decades, because there wasa wide range of body size, but
then also their ecologicalniches.
Now you could say niche likeniche, or niche, depending on
what you say.
Sloth, sloth, niche, jason,what does determine, or what did
(05:00):
determine sloth body size diddetermine?
Speaker 1 (05:03):
sloth body size.
There were previous ideas aboutwhat maybe influenced the sloth
size, or sloth size, like youmentioned, their habitat type.
Sorry, those great big sloths.
They lived in the plains andthe smaller sloths lived in
probably what would be similarto Costa Rica today, more ferny
(05:24):
jungle areas.
It could be what they ate.
Also, the climate had a hugeimpact, as well as what they
were predated on.
The biggest of the groundsloths I think they're called
the megatheriums.
They were huge.
They were predated by theshort-faced bear in what is now
(05:45):
the northwestern United Statesor southern Canada, and the
short-faced bear is no joke.
If you think about the biggestpolar bear, it was like another
one and a half times bigger thanthat.
So these short-faced bears ateor predated these enormous, like
car-sized creatures.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Wow, but also humans had an impact, like humans had a
more definite impact on thewoolly mammoth, but some
scientists do agree, even thoughthat not all the evidence is
there, that humans did have animpact as well.
The study comes from BuenosAires and the strongest
predictor of sloth body sizeactually was habitat preference,
(06:26):
and the tree dwellers, or theclimbers, evolved to be smaller,
and then those ground dwellersthat you were talking about
evolved to be larger.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
There you go.
That kind of goes in line withprevious ideas.
This study, of course, has somegood data.
The examined 49 different slothlineages, both living and
extinct.
They looked at the fossilmorphology, the protein and DNA
evidence in their bones, theevolutionary relationships
through time and then anycorrelation with climate change
(06:57):
over the years.
They looked at the tinybrown-throated sloth to the
mega-therium my favorite, thegiant ground sloth and of course
some of them were extinct.
And of course some of them werenot like the sloths the
three-toed sloth that existstoday in Costa Rica or Central
(07:18):
America.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
So the sloths actually have a really cool
origin story.
They emerged 35 million yearsago, in the late Eocene epoch,
and they evolved in isolation,actually in South America, which
was then an island continent,and, as we know, when you are in
(07:40):
an area that allows for likehigh diversification, there were
over a hundred genera evolvedand they were adapted to
different environments.
I'm just thinking of darwin andthe finches when I'm speaking
of this.
So they the adaptations to thedifferent environments included
(08:01):
the smaller tree sloths livingin the tropical forests and
those larger ground slothsliving in the open grasslands.
And as the climate fluctuated,the sloths repeatedly switched
between tree and ground habitats.
So maybe they were a slow sloth, as they were switching between
their habitats and you knowwhat the size changes followed
(08:24):
those switches consistently overtime.
So that's what scientists found.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
I teach this, chris.
This is exciting that this isaccurate to what I've been
teaching in my science class,because we look at extinct
mammals and, of course, thesloth is one of the ones that I
teach because I know a lot aboutit.
In the movie Ice Age there'sManny the woolly mammoth and
then Sid the sloth right so, sidthe sloth and he is not a
(08:49):
megatherium, he's one of themid-sized giant sloths.
So he looks tiny compared to awoolly mammoth, but if you look
at him he's about I don't knowhalf the size of a saber-toothed
tiger.
So he's big.
Right, sid is enormous comparedto the sloths of today, but he
just looks little.
And Sid is patterned after oneof the smaller ground sloths
(09:12):
that would have been around thetime that the mammoths were a
thing.
That's super cool.
Back to why this new sciencenews item is so cool is that it
does paint a good picture of areoccurring evolutionary pattern
tied to habitat, and itdirectly ties the environment to
how there was extreme body sizedifferences, the last common
(09:35):
ancestor of all sloths today.
So think of all the sloths thatyou know that are in the trees
and the ones that fall out oftrees in front of shocked sleepy
high school kids in Costa Ricawas likely very large and
terrestrial.
So not a jungle sloth, not atree sloth, but a sloth that
lived on the ground.
Now there's not a lot of directfossil evidence for between
(09:59):
that big sloth and the sloths oftoday, so the sloth evolution
continues to be incomplete.
And just one more thing that isquite common to have very
little fossil evidence of thecreatures that lived in jungles
because they decayed so quicklyand the bones were not preserved
(10:25):
.
The same way there's a lot ofevidence of those big
terrestrial sloths because whenthey died out in the open it was
easier for them to befossilized or easier for their
bones to not decay away.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
So the study did follow long-term trends and that
means a lot of things.
It really does show oremphasize how sloths uniquely
demonstrate the size environmentcorrelation.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Now we come to the sad part of the study how all
those giant sloths went extinct.
Because they're not aroundtoday, right, we just got the
slow guys hanging upside down inthe jungles they're so slow
that moss grows on them it'scamouflaged.
That would be my excuse if Imove so slow.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Moss grew on me yeah, is it moss or is it more of a
fungus?
Speaker 1 (11:20):
it's mossy algae stuff, and they're covered with
bugs too.
Like bugs live in them.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Oh, lovely.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Yeah, they look cute, but if you get up close they're
super nasty.
I had the Brazilian exchangestudents that I have every year.
Our school has a good, we havea good relationship with Brazil,
so we have a bunch of Braziliankids that come up every year in
the first semester and they'rewonderful kids and they're
always in my science classsemester and they're wonderful
(11:46):
kids and they're always in myscience class and the group.
This year we're talking aboutsloths because one of the girls
lived deep in brazil, like shewasn't from those big coastal
cities they have, um, and shecould actually speak like I
forget what language it is, butit's like native brazilian, like
what the natives of brazilwould speak, not necessarily
portuguese or spanish, it'snative speak of early Brazilians
(12:06):
.
And she knew so much aboutsloths because they're all over
the place where her house is andshe's like yeah, they're gross,
don't touch them.
Oh, wow, okay, yeah, the mainsuspect for why sloths went
extinct is human activity, notnecessarily the change in
climate.
As humans moved around and tookup more space, they lost their
(12:27):
habitat and there was a lot ofmeat in a big sloth if you
killed it for your family andthe ground sloths vanished about
15 000 years ago and thatcoincides with the human
migration across the Americasduring the late Pleistocene
period.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
And some sloth bones from Argentina show cut marks
from stone tools and thatsupports human hunting.
But evidence is sparse comparedto other megafauna, like the
mammoths, like the mammothsoths.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
it was very obvious, but so there's less evidence
about the hunting of the groundsloth yeah, what I've read and
it's not in this study is thatthe ground sloths were not
prepared to defend themselvesagainst like human hunting, like
hunting in packs and theintelligence that the you know,
(13:28):
not necessarily our ancestors,but the early humans of the
Americas had.
All of those humans came acrossthe land bridge during the ice
age and brought with them, likecrazy, good hunting techniques
that they learned in their treks.
And all of the animals,especially the mammals, were
just like totally unaware andcould not adapt fast enough.
(13:52):
A giant sloth could defenditself maybe against a
short-faced bear, but notagainst a tribe of 20 people.
Right, it's vastly verydifferent.
And then on the mammoth thingcool story, chris, is that
mammoths were really hard tokill.
So when early people did defeatone, it was a big deal, and
(14:13):
maybe that's why there's morepictorial references of early
artwork of those hunters takingdown a mammoth.
Maybe the big sloths were justnot that hard to kill, so it
wasn't a big deal.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
It is a big deal if you're able to provide for your
family.
And putting down thatinformation in pictures be like
Fred killed the big mammoth.
Look at all the glory that hebrought home to the clan.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Anyways, that kind of rounds out our news item about
sloths.
That's science news for thisweek.
This week in pet science, wehave a mashup of science,
robotics and dogs.
Now I picked this one, chris,for two reasons Spark which is
(15:09):
the TELUS Science Center in incalgary they have a robotic dog
named flint, so we've met flint.
Um, in fact, when they firstgot flint, they wanted some
publicity about it and they hadus bring bunsen and beaker to
meet flint, and that was supercute gosh.
That was like three or fouryears ago, hey we've been twice.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Yeah, we've been twice once, when it was summer
camp and there were about amillion children in summer camp
and they got to experiencebeaker and bernoulli, and we
have video of that, and the dogswere just so good.
So that was the second visit,but the first visit was more of
(15:46):
hey, let's see your dog, yourdogs, interact with flint with
the robot and bunsen was yeah,bunsen could care less, he's
whatever.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
But beaker was concerned.
She tried to sniff flint's butt, but the butt looks like its
head and she was a littleperplexed by him.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
It is perplexing.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Yeah, anyways, the other reason is this robotic dog
that we're going to be talkingabout.
It's not Flint, so it's not oneof those Boston dynamics things
.
It swims and it learned how toswim better by programming it
like a dog and bully all of asudden has figured out how to
swim and it is his favoritething in the world to swim is.
(16:27):
He just loves it.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
I know it's incredible, it's incredible.
And when I was at Waggles onSaturday, the owner, char, she's
so amazing.
And I and she said, hey, areyou?
We're going to be going atabout 1230 over to put the to
the pond side and you can putBernoulli's life jacket on him.
So he's prepared and ready togo.
And I cause of course I bringit, cause I'm always panicked
(16:51):
that he's going to drown.
But I've said he's beenswimming at home and I said he's
been here at Waggles for doggydaycare.
Has he been swimming in thewater in the pond side?
And she's oh no, he is a shorebird.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
That's so confusing.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Yeah he's, he just likes to go on the shore.
But I'm like, okay, maybe thenmaybe he won't go in, because at
home he does in our littlebeaver created pool.
But sure enough, he was soexcited to go over to pondside.
He zooms down towards the waterand in he goes and I said, look
(17:29):
, Char, and she's whoa.
That is incredible.
And she also said that he hasexcellent swimming ability.
Like his body is up and he'sdoing really well.
She said he is a well-developeddog, which makes us proud, of
course, because he's such a goodboy.
But yeah, we watched him likefrom non-swimmer to practicing,
(17:52):
like he'll go in when we go onour creek walks and you can see
him just doing circles and laps,and so I'm so proud of him.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
He goes in and he swims for enjoyment, like he
practices.
This is the greatest.
He just swims little circles.
I wish there was more water forhim to swim in now, but it was
a great place to learn how toswim because when he was a non
to learn how to swim because hewas, he could.
When he was a non-swimmer andyou thrash about, he could
thrash his way to the shorewithout us having to jump in to
(18:20):
get him it's very deep in places, jay but, let's let's talk
about the study yeah, all right.
This was published in ioppublishing's bio inspiration and
biomimetrics journal, and theinspiration for this came from
dogs.
The amphibious robots that theyhad before were mostly inspired
(18:41):
by reptiles and insects.
Those reptile and inspiredrobots struggle with like
agility and dynamic movement andthey can't carry things.
So they think of a scuttlingrobot, right, think of a
slithering robot, and it justhad problems going from, for
example, like one type of groundto the other Between land and
(19:04):
water.
They were being tripped up.
Also, they didn't move fast inthe water, so the programmers
were like reptiles should beable to swim in the ocean.
If you've seen those oceaniguanas, they move very quickly
and as well insects swim verywell too, like they scuttle
about.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
So they got their inspiration from dogs like you
were saying, dogs have a smoothtransition between the land and
the water and we've thrownsticks to Bernoulli and Beaker,
of course, and they just goright in.
And when we took Beaker to dockdiving, which she just loves,
(19:42):
and it gives her an outlet toswim in a safe place the, the
owner there, the trainer, shesaid, wow, she has good dynamics
and speed in her movement, likeshe has good form, so she has
four-paw drive.
Some dogs will swim withtwo-paw drive and they're not as
efficient in the water, butBeaker has all four paws going
(20:04):
and so this dog, this robot, hasbeen based on that movement and
so that overcomes manychallenges that have been seen
in the insect-based amphibiousrobots.
The engineering featuresspecific to the amphibious robot
that's based on dogs is theirunique paddling mechanism
(20:29):
efficient swimming stroke.
She does the four, the four pawpaddle, and the robot was
specifically designed to mimicthat and that allows for both
the efficient propulsion andhaving stability in the water,
as well as having structure andbalance, so there's precise
(20:49):
weight distribution and buoyancycontrol.
So when we're talking aboutBernoulli, like he gets his butt
up there and his butt is fullof hair and it's wow, how is
that not weighing you down.
But the robot maintains astable aquatic movement and
performance in the water, andwhat they've done is they've
(21:10):
made a double joint leg designwhich will improve the range of
motion and it enables thatflexible switching between
different paddling gates.
So I just think of how wellBeaker turns and how they go
from swimming quickly to slowlyor retrieving something in the
water.
We watch Bernoulli and he doesdo this splash and then he tries
(21:33):
to bite the splash water.
But then we also think he'strying to look ahead to see oh,
is there a stick that I cancapture?
Speaker 1 (21:40):
yeah, I think he's trying to get himself up high
out of the water so he can see.
I don't know, maybe because hisbig nose is in the way, not
sure?
not sure yeah, and Beaker.
My favorite thing about Beakerwatching her swim, because when
she does dock diving you canactually see her swim right.
When she goes to get the thing,she glides.
She gets up so much speed andshe just glides.
(22:01):
If you push off the wall andyou glide like a pencil float,
that's how Beaker goes towardsthe item because she's going so
quickly and she's so streamlined.
And then she goes and she bitesit and just with a little kick
of her foot she turns.
It's phenomenal, it's reallycool.
But back to the robot.
They tested its gait andperformance in three distinct
(22:24):
paddling ways.
There was doggy paddle one,which was optimized for speed.
Doggy paddle two, which wasoptimized for propulsion.
I'm not sure what thedifference between speed and
propulsion is.
Maybe it could carry more stuffif it was having more
propulsion.
And then there was a trot lightgate which prioritized
(22:44):
stability in the water, and theyfound that in the water it had
a max speed of 0.57 kilometersan hour with the doggy paddle
style, and the trot light gatewas the most stable when it was
in the water as well.
On land, that trot light gatetranslated to a 1.26 kilometer
an hour speed and that showedthat it was quite a bit faster
(23:08):
on land, but not that muchslower in the water.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
So this has lots of potential applications to things
that are in our real world, andI think of our students saying
what am I learning?
Why is this important?
How does this apply to the realworld?
This robotic swimming dog couldhelp with environmental
research, so monitoring wetlandsand swamps or aquatic
(23:33):
ecosystems, not by remotesensing but by being there
actually and experiencing it, sobeing able to perform search
and rescue in flood prone orcoastal areas where it is
dangerous for live dogs to go,and humans as well.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Sometimes nature has the best solutions for us and
you need to look.
But definitely if you've seenthe Flint robot or the spot
robot, those Boston Dynamicsrobots, they are very dog-like
in how they move and dogs areincredibly versatile animals
(24:23):
that can move quickly, rarelyfall over right.
That's a huge benefit to arobot not being tipsy.
The bipedal robots are muchmore difficult to get around
because on two legs you haveonly two points of stability
versus four and it's notnecessarily making it look like
a dog, it's making it move likea dog.
(24:45):
That was the big breakthroughand it overcame some limitations
of the past.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
So moving forward, we might see more examples of
crossover between biology androbotics.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
If you want a fast robot, we probably shouldn't use
the animals of the first study,the sloth.
No, maybe if you want a robotthat just hangs around all day
upside down.
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
(25:23):
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
have live streams every Sundaywith our community.
It have tons of bonus Bunsenand Beaker content there and we
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
(25:44):
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.
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.
(26:05):
It's time for Ask an Expert onthe Science Podcast, and I have
Dr Elizabeth Marnick, sciencecommunicator with us today.
Doc, how are you doing?
Speaker 3 (26:16):
I am doing good.
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
Yeah, I'm excited we found your Instagram.
As we moved from the siteformerly known as Twitter more
and more, it was cool findingyour posts and it's a thrill to
have you.
We love your SciComm.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Where are you in the world?
Where are you calling into theshow from?
Speaker 3 (26:35):
I am in Maine, right outside of Acadia National Park.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Oh, wow, okay, so on the East Coast.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
Yes, east Coast.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Gotcha.
Okay, gotcha Gotcha.
Have you lived there a lot orhave you ping ponged around?
Are you from that area?
Speaker 3 (26:57):
I was born and raised in Connecticut, so I'm a New
England born in the US.
But I moved to Maine forgraduate school to get my PhD,
fell in love with the area andmy husband and have stayed since
then.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Two for one, hey.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
And yeah, so, speaking of your education, like
I introduced you as a doctor,what's your training in science?
Speaker 3 (27:13):
Yeah, so I have a PhD and my work was focused on
understanding the role of theimmune system.
So I was interested inunderstanding a very specific
type of immune system cell andhow it functions, and that cell
is called a T cell.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
T cell.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
Yes, and then I wanted to know how does this get
altered in the context ofautoimmune disease?
So I used mice and studiedthings like lupus and rheumatoid
arthritis to try to understandwhat might be going wrong in
individuals who have thoseautoimmune diseases.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Lupus is no fun.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
It is not.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
That's an awful thing , yeah, and did you answer any
of your questions?
Is there more to answer?
And did you answer any of your?
Speaker 3 (27:54):
questions.
Is there more to answer?
There is always more to answerin science.
I did get some nice data thatreally showed us that there's
different kinds of T-cells andthere's this one kind of T-cell
that kind of goes a little crazyin certain autoimmune diseases.
So I got to find out someinteresting things about how
that T-cell works.
But there's always a lot ofquestions that come up from any
(28:18):
experiment that you do, sothere's a lot more things that
need to be answered,unfortunately but also
fortunately, depending on howyou look at it.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Science has never done, asking why, just like a
small child.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
My two year old is in that stage right now, and that
is correct.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Why, why, how come?
Why?
It never ends.
Were you a science kid?
Were you drawn to science ordid you have a flashpoint at
some point as a teen, orsomething like that?
Speaker 3 (28:45):
Yeah, so I was raised in a family that was actually
very much anti-science.
I was not vaccinated until Iwas in my 20s, about to go to
graduate school.
So, I found science reallythrough some really great
teachers in 11th grade.
I was homeschooled for a reallylong time and it wasn't until I
didn't go back to public schooluntil 11th grade.
(29:06):
So 11th grade was my first timeever being in a real science
class doing real scienceexperiments.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
And that's when I fell in love with it what an
interesting origin.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Similar to another scientist I had on my show,
debunk the funk, he's got agreat youtube channel.
Yes, he was a conspiracytheorist and who believed all of
these weird anti-scienceconspiracies, and now he's got a
phd and much similar to youlike understanding the immune
system it happens is I'm reallygrateful for those teachers I
(29:42):
wanted to chat to you with youabout measles that some of your
latest posts on, uh, yourinstagram science whiz liz great
username, by the way.
I love that thank you so measlesis in the news.
In can and the United Statesthere are outbreaks of measles
which are spooky, for me atleast.
And if we could just chat alittle bit about measles,
(30:02):
because it is a disease thatmost people have forgotten about
.
So I guess my first question islike what is measles?
Speaker 3 (30:12):
Yeah, so measles is a virus, and the thing with
viruses is that they can'treplicate.
They can't copy themselves bythemselves.
They have to have help, and theway that they get that help is
by infecting other organisms andusing their own cells to
reproduce.
So measles does that andunfortunately, along the way, it
(30:35):
can cause a lot of problems.
So sometimes people will befine after having a measles
infection and have a relativelymild case, but that's not always
true.
The data really shows that oneout of four cases of measles
will end up hospitalized and oneto two people per every 1000
case will end up dying frommeasles.
So this is a very seriousinfection that we had eliminated
(30:59):
in the United States untilvaccination rates have started
to decline and now we'restarting to see outbreaks like
what's happening in Texas andthe United States and what's
happening in Canada, I thinkOntario is currently where the
biggest outbreak is there right?
Speaker 1 (31:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
And there's been two deaths, two child deaths, or
maybe it's more by now.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
So we had one child in the US die who was
unvaccinated, and then we hadone adult, who was unvaccinated,
die so far, which is veryunfortunate because it could
have been prevented withvaccination.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Okay, so I can ask a couple of follow-up questions
here.
Yes please do so.
The COVID vaccine limited.
The severest severeness of thedisease is the.
You could still get COVID eventhough you've been.
You've got the COVID vaccineLike I got COVID.
After I got all the shots Ibounced back from it.
Is the measles vaccine similarto that, Like you limit the
(31:57):
severeness of it, or is it morelike some of the other vaccines
where it's just so mild youdon't even know you have it,
kind of thing?
Speaker 3 (32:04):
So the measles vaccine, which is part of the,
it's called the MMR vaccination.
So it's a vaccine that protectsagainst measles, mumps and
rubella.
But, for the measles aspect ofit.
One dose is about 93% effectiveat preventing infection and two
doses which is what everyoneshould be getting is 97%
(32:25):
effective at preventinginfection.
So it's very different from theCOVID vaccine in the sense that
it's way more effective atpreventing infection in the
first place.
Now, the more measles that'scirculating in the community,
the more people are exposed.
So it's still not 100%effective.
So you can still potentiallyget measles after being
(32:48):
vaccinated.
It's just less common.
And if you do get measles afterbeing vaccinated then, yes, the
severity of the measles wouldbe reduced compared to somebody
who was unvaccinated.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
So correct me if I'm wrong please, because, way more
than me, this is the differencebetween rate of infection and
rate of disease, because that'ssomething the COVID vaccine was
really good at was lesseningdisease, If you got it.
Is that correct?
Speaker 3 (33:17):
Yeah, that's a way that you could think about it.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
But this, but measles vaccination is very good at
preventing even the infection inthe first place.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Okay, nice Okay.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
Now, the other thing about measles that I don't know
if your audience is aware of isthat it can cause something
called immune amnesia.
Have you heard of this?
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Okay, yes, but I would be BSing to try to explain
it to you.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
Yeah.
So it's crazy.
And as an immunologist, when Iheard about this I was like oh
my God, this is fascinating.
And then at the other hand Iwas like oh my God, this is
terrifying.
So one of the things thatmeasles does is, as it's
replicating I mentioned beforeviruses have to copy themselves
in your cells it damages yourmemory immune cells.
(34:06):
So normally after you have aninfection, your B cells and your
T cells some of them are whatwe call memory cells, so they
stick around and then if you'reexposed to that pathogen again,
they help prevent you fromeither getting infected or they
prevent you from getting as sickas you did that first time you
were infected, which is good.
That's why things likevaccination works and that's why
(34:29):
oftentimes the second time youhave an infection it's not as
bad as that first case.
But measles erases a percentageof those memory cells for prior
infections.
So this is why, before we hadthe measles vaccine, people were
noticing that a child couldsurvive measles and then within
(34:51):
another year or two could diefrom another infectious disease.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
They didn't understand why.
Sorry, could they die frommeasles again?
I apologize if I missed thatpart.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
No, they were dying from other infectious diseases
that were not measles, becausemeasles had erased that memory
that they had.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Okay, I'm sorry, doc.
Thanks, that's okay.
Yeah, oh man.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
Yeah, yeah, oh man, yeah.
So that's.
The crazy thing about measlesis that we don't know of another
virus that can do this type ofthing.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
So if you think about covid, let's say you're
unvaccinated against covid,you've survived covid measles
and you get measles.
You could.
That could eliminate some ofthe memory for covid, which is
an infectious disease.
Is that correct okay?
And of the memory for COVID,which is an infectious disease.
Is that correct Okay?
Speaker 3 (35:42):
And then the next.
So then if you get COVID again,it's your immune system won't
remember it.
Potentially so it would be likeyou were having it for the
first time.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
Yeah, that's fascinating but also terrifying.
I can see what you're thinkingthere.
Speaker 3 (35:57):
Exactly.
And then this is why, after themeasles vaccine came out,
scientists started noticing thatchildren were surviving, and
that they were surviving measles.
But their survival rate wasincreasing even more than that,
and that was because, bypreventing a measles infection,
you were also helping save livesfrom other infections they
(36:18):
could die from after gettingmeasles.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
So these reports of parents I don't know how true
they are right Because this islike I'm hearing from social
media the reports of in, Ibelieve, Texas of parents having
a measles party where you'regetting all the kids together to
get measles, kind of like theold school chicken pox party
idea.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
It's an extremely bad idea for many reasons, but
immune amnesia is definitely oneof them.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Yeah, I grew up at a time where chicken pox was a
thing and I remember my parentsbut it was like the weird
thinking at the time.
I think they took one of mysisters to a chicken pox party
back in the day.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
And that was probably yeah, because I remember
chickenpox parties from when Iwas little as well, and that's
because the vaccine wasn't outyet.
Plus, my mom didn't vaccinateme anyway, so she wouldn't have
vaccinated me if there was avaccine.
But I know the chickenpoxvaccine didn't come out until
sometime, I think in the 90s,but I'd have to look at the
(37:21):
exact time that it came outIsn't that wild?
Speaker 1 (37:23):
Like I was.
I'm sorry, let me start thatagain.
My day job I teach high schoolchemistry.
I'm a school teacher and ourgrade nines.
In Canada they get immunizedfor HPV in grade nine.
So we were having a discussionbecause they're being called
down to the office by or to theinoculation room by last name,
(37:45):
and then I was telling the kidsabout chickenpox and I was like
how many of you know somebodythat had chickenpox?
And nobody, none of them knewsomebody who had chickenpox.
And I had to tell them thatevery kid got chickenpox when I
was young and some kids got itand it wasn't bad and some kids
got it so bad A lot of myparents age.
(38:05):
And an offshoot of that is theyhave the like they get flare up
, flare ups of shingles.
I'm like, have you guys everheard of shingles?
And they're like we don't evenknow what you're talking about.
So I had to tell them aboutshingles.
They're like that's horrible.
I'm like, yeah, that's whythere's vaccines, guys.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
Yeah, I had chickenpox as a kid.
It was not great.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
No.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
I remember I think I was eight at the time it was not
fun.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
And measles is magnitudes worse, because I'd
imagine some people probablydied from chickenpox not like
measles, for sure.
Speaker 3 (38:36):
Measles is definitely significantly worse because
besides death and besides immuneamnesia, measles can also cause
inflammation of the brainduring an active infection.
So that can obviously lead todeath as well, but also other
complications rare complicationwhere it causes a neurological
(39:00):
damage that doesn't startshowing up until seven to 10
years after somebody had measles.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
Like post-polio syndrome.
Speaker 3 (39:09):
It's like that.
Yeah, it's subacute.
Oh, actually, let me pause.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
It's okay.
Speaker 3 (39:13):
I always remember the abbreviation and not the full
name, so this complication iscalled subacute sclerosing
panencephalitis.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
And it shows up seven to 10 years after somebody has
had a measles infection and it's100% fatal.
There's nothing anyone can doonce you start developing this
condition.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
God, that's bad, that's not good.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
It's very bad and it's more likely in children who
are infected very young.
So again, forgetting thatmeasles vaccination not only is
preventing measles but it's alsopreventing all of those
complications that can happen topeople who get measles.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
Oh, my goodness, so can we bust some measles myths
before we move on.
All vaccines, all treatmentcomes with risk.
So I'd imagine there's a verysmall chance of some kind of
serious reaction to the vaccine,but it's not like a 1% chance
(40:12):
like what you just mentioned.
Speaker 3 (40:14):
Correct.
The measles vaccine isconsidered very safe.
We have tons of safety dataabout MMR, which is the vaccine
that contains measles, and weknow that the risks from that
vaccine are magnitudes lowerthan the risk from those
infections themselves.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
One more question.
Let's say you were likeyourself.
You didn't get vaccinated untilyour 20s.
Can you get this vaccinewhenever?
You didn't get vaccinated untilyour twenties?
Can you get the this vaccinewhenever you want, is it not?
Is it age dependent or yeah?
Speaker 3 (40:45):
So I got measles for the.
I got the MMR vaccine for thefirst time in my twenties and if
you haven't been vaccinated formeasles, or you don't know if
you've been vaccinated formeasles, you can go ahead and
get it at any time.
If you've been vaccinated formeasles.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
you can go ahead and get it at any time, so an extra
one's not going to do you anyharm.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
Correct.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
When the COVID vaccines were out.
You might get a kick out ofthis, liz.
Canada had the.
We had, let's see.
There was the AstraZeneca,there was the Pfizer, there was
Moderna, there was another one,there was a fourth one, the jj
(41:24):
one.
Remember the jj one?
Oh, I do, yep, yeah, okay.
So I had three vaccines, butthey were different ones.
Canada had astrazeneca.
I don't know if the states did,um, no, and then there was the
pfizer and moderna.
So I got the pfizer, modernaand I was like I was really
hoping the jj one would beapproved, be approved in Alberta
, because I was collecting themlike the stones on Thanos'
gauntlet and I was like if I getall five, I will be vaccine man
(41:49):
and be invincible.
I was just there was a fifthone or something some other
country was using.
I'm like, yeah, bring it toCanada, they can collect them
all like Pokemon.
Speaker 3 (41:58):
Now Canada has Novavax right.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
That's it.
It was Nov.
Right, that's it.
It was Novavax.
That's it.
There's a fifth one.
That was it.
Yeah, but by the time I hadthree, I was good Anyways.
So thanks for talking to usabout measles, yeah, so one more
.
One more kind of big questionbefore we move into our end
there.
Social media is bad for science.
(42:22):
Sometimes takes spread likewildfire.
I don't know how manymisinformation reels I see, or
TikToks where it's like absolutenonsense and it's got millions
of views.
So I think it's really easy forfolks to be exposed to all this
misinformation.
And I guess, as somebody who'son Instagram and I love your
(42:42):
infographics, by the way like Iread them every time you post
one what kind of advice can yougive to the average person using
social media If they'reinterested in good science?
What should they do?
And I know that's a bigquestion, but I'd love for your
take on it.
Speaker 3 (42:57):
Yeah, I think the hardest thing is that it can be
really challenging to know whatinformation is good versus bad,
and I think one of the mostimportant things to think about
is who is it that is presentingthe information?
So try to do some digging intowhat their background is and who
(43:18):
they are, but then also try toverify the information that
they're providing you.
So if you hear this wild claimin a TikTok or in a post, go to
other websites, open up a tab inyour computer browser and start
to search for information aboutthat topic, and sometimes you
can even add a fact check.
(43:39):
So, say, if you wanted to knowabout the risk of measles or
something, or you hear a weirdmeasles rumor type in the rumor
plus fact check, and sometimesit will pull up information that
can help you figure out is whatyou're listening or reading
true or is it not?
The other thing that can oftenbe helpful is do they provide
(44:03):
references for the informationthat they're providing and what
type of references are theyusing?
This is not always easy tofigure out, but, for example,
when I am posting aboutsomething, I try to make it very
clear what references I'm usingto make the statements that I'm
making, because I don't wantpeople to necessarily just trust
(44:24):
things that I say.
I want them to go and factcheck and I try to cultivate
that with everything that I do,providing the actual references
for the information.
That's in whatever I'm talkingabout.
Speaker 1 (44:38):
I do notice that with your posts.
I think we need to do, like myaccount, the Bunsen and Beaker
Bernoulli stuff when we'retalking about more serious
science.
I think I need to do a betterjob of that, of having a
reference link somewhere in ourvideo or in the comments.
I do see that with a ton ofyour stuff.
Sometimes it's like in the leadwith picture.
I'm just going through yourInstagram and it's yes, yeah.
(44:58):
Yeah, so you do a really goodjob, yeah it depends, yeah, but
I think that's important.
Speaker 3 (45:03):
And then I think too, is seeing.
I think sometimes you have togo off social media and do some
digging on your own to see ifthe information that's being
presented to you is accurate ornot.
Speaker 1 (45:13):
And that's a tough spot because people want to
scroll right.
Speaker 3 (45:16):
It is a tough spot, but it is, and then, once you
figure out certain accounts, youcan start to trust what they're
saying more.
But it's still always good tobe skeptical, and that's really
what I have now cultivated inmyself is that anytime I see
something I am automaticallyskeptical, no matter what it is,
and I try to go do some diggingon my own before I make any
(45:37):
conclusions.
Speaker 1 (45:39):
That's what I tell my kids.
I'm like, if you're on socialmedia anything you see your
first thing your brain shouldsay is that's crazy, that's
bananas.
Like no matter what.
Oh, the sun came up, that'sbananas.
And then you should fact checkit because it's probably AI also
.
Oh yeah, like being skepticalis a really good tip there.
(46:01):
I love that.
Speaker 3 (46:03):
Yeah, and then it's just.
It's hard, and I do believethat scientists and medical
professionals do need to be onsocial media, because that's
where the people are, but it isalso.
It does social media itselfpresents a problem and
unfortunately I think it's here,at least for now.
Maybe eventually we'll be backto no social media, who knows,
(46:23):
but it's here for now, so wehave to figure out how to live
with it as we can.
Speaker 1 (46:28):
And I, for us, we see it to not probably near as much
as somebody who's all sciencelike yourself, but it is not a
kind place where people arecordial to one another when
there's disagreement.
I can't imagine some of thestuff that you would get as a
science communicator, because weget it and we're gently talking
about science with cute, cuddlydogs.
Speaker 3 (46:48):
Yeah, it's wild and definitely I block liberally for
people who are like threateningor combative.
Like I always want to engagewith people and answer questions
but at some point like it's nothelpful for me if they're like
attacking.
Like I had one person comeafter me and say that my kids
should be taken away from mebecause they were vaccinated.
(47:10):
So I immediately blocked thatperson and I was like that's not
helpful for anybody.
Speaker 1 (47:15):
No, yeah, there has to be.
This conversation doesn't startwith threats and there's no
conversation that can happen ifthat's the way it starts.
Exactly Because we do it likevery softly and the amount of
(47:39):
nonsense we get is incrediblesometimes and I can't believe
what the average sciencecommunicator who does it all the
time gets.
Speaker 3 (47:49):
Yeah, and it's.
I also have a full-time day job.
That isn't sciencecommunication, so I think a lot
of us are doing it on the side,but we do it on topics that are
a lot more controversial, andthe more controversial your
topic is, the more the trollsand the bully accounts come
after you unfortunately.
Speaker 1 (48:08):
Thanks for keeping your chin up.
I appreciate it.
Yeah, hey, one of our lastquestions before we end our
interview is we ask all of ourguests to share a pet story from
their life.
I was wondering if you couldshare a pet story with us.
Speaker 3 (48:23):
Yeah, so growing up, the only pet I had was goldfish.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (48:30):
Well, we had these two goldfish that we called
Goldie and King Kong.
You can maybe guess.
You can maybe guess.
I named the one, goldie, when Iwas little.
My brother named the other one,king kong.
But we had one of them thatended up living for five years.
What?
Speaker 1 (48:49):
it was insane it was insane.
Speaker 3 (48:52):
But then by the end of this, we think it was maybe
king kong that lived this long,at this point by the end of his
life.
It kept jumping out of its tankand my mom would find this
goldfish on the side of the tank, like on the outside of the
tank, and then we would put itback in the tank and it somehow
still survived oh my god for thewhole last year of its life it
(49:15):
kept jumping out of it tank.
It was the craziest thing I'veever had happen.
Unfortunately, he or she didend up dying, but it was about
five years of having this onegoldfish, which was crazy.
Speaker 1 (49:30):
That's impressive.
Now you're sure you're notdoing, you're sure you weren't a
victim of what parents do.
Is they just like?
When the thing dies that has ashort lifespan, they just get a
new one and replace it.
Speaker 3 (49:39):
I am positive because my mom didn't have a car, so
there was no way that she couldhave went and got a new goldfish
in that period of time.
Speaker 1 (49:47):
I apologize for putting that out there, but I
teach kids and they have storiesthey like to share when we're
talking about pets and they'relike yeah, that's what my mom
did.
We had three different gerbilsand they looked different.
I was like I think that's adifferent gerbil, and they're
like nope, that's Penny.
Speaker 3 (50:03):
Yeah, yeah, if it was a very good con, that still
convinces me.
So who knows?
Speaker 1 (50:07):
Yeah, that's a tough fish.
I think when our oldest son wasa little guy, we got goldfish
because we didn't have a lot ofmoney starting out as a couple
and fish are really cheap theyare.
It lasted a week maybe and itwas very sad and we had a whole
(50:29):
funeral for it.
So four years is veryimpressive for goldfish.
That's wild.
Speaker 3 (50:35):
It was impressive.
But yeah, we still don't haveany pets.
I don't have any pets yet, butwe do plan on eventually getting
a dog once our kids are alittle bit older.
We're just still in the kind ofthick of it, so we're waiting
for them to get a little older.
Speaker 1 (50:51):
First when our first boy was, I think, 10 or 11.
And then our youngest Adam waslike four, and there's yeah, I
don't know how we would havehandled dogs when they were
toddlers or babies.
Wow, I have a lot of respectfor parents that have a dog and
they've got little kids.
Speaker 3 (51:11):
I'm like wow Me too, because it's hard enough.
Speaker 1 (51:13):
Yeah, it's like you already have dogs, literally,
because toddlers are likepuppies.
They're like they're thethey're in.
There's so much work a lot ofand they're a lot of fun like
puppies too.
Speaker 3 (51:24):
Yes, yep, I would agree with that.
Speaker 1 (51:27):
Well, thanks for sharing your story about.
You're going to make you'regoing to make a lot of people
jealous or listening and they'relike, wow, my goldfish last at
a month.
That's wild.
Thanks for being a guest on ourshow today, doc.
You have a really fun instagramaccount and you're at science
whiz liz, and that's w-h-i-zcorrect or z for the americans,
(51:52):
w-h-i-z liz, l-i-z correct.
Okay, perfect, perfect.
Is there anywhere else you'dlike to point people to, or are
those cool?
Speaker 3 (52:01):
Instagram is where I have my most active.
I also have a sub stack whichis called from the science
classroom with science with Liz,where I go into longer
information with easier to clickreferences, because Instagram
doesn't make referencing easy.
So, both of those places arethe best place to find me.
Speaker 1 (52:21):
We'll have a link to your sub stack.
We also have a sub stack.
I think I've actuallysubscribed to your sub stack.
Thank you so much for being ourguest, taking some time out of
your busy life.
Really appreciate it.
And a very timely subject onmeasles.
Speaker 3 (52:35):
Yes, thank you very much for having me, and let's
hope that by the time this comesout, there's less measles cases
.
I don't think that's going tobe the case, but we can hope.
We can hope.
Yeah, we can hope.
Okay, bye.
Speaker 1 (52:50):
That's it for this week's show.
Thanks for coming back weekafter week to listen to us.
Thanks to Dr Elizabeth Marnick,who was our guest, and also,
again, a shout out to the TopDogs, our top tier of our
Patreon community on Circle.
If you want to hear your name,check out that link in the show
notes.
We would love your support andthat's a perk.
All right, Chris?
Who are the Top Dogs?
Speaker 2 (53:11):
Amelia Fettig, rhi Oda, carol Haino, jennifer
Challen, linnea, janet, karenChronister, jennifer Challen,
Linnea, janik Karen Chronister,vicky Otero, christy Walker,
sarah Bram, wendy, diane Masonand Luke Helen Chin, elizabeth
(53:31):
Bourgeois, marianne McNally,catherine Jordan, shelley Smith,
laura Steffensen, tracyLeinbach, anne Uchida, heather
Burback, kelly Tracy Halbert.
Speaker 1 (53:52):
For science, empathy and cuteness.
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 everybody and welcomeback to the Science Podcast.
We hope you're happy andhealthy out there.
This is episode 16 of season 7.
As we march on to June, thesummer looms.
For Chris and I I think I'vementioned this we're in the busy
(00:46):
part of our time as teachers,pushing kids towards curriculum
as it warms in Alberta, canada,and kids long for a hot summer
and being outside with theirfriends.
Really, the last thing theywanna do is my chemistry or
Chris's math.
To be fair, they're sucking itup pretty good.
The dogs are all doing great,ginger's doing awesome.
(01:09):
So, aside from being reallybusy, everything is perfect with
our family and we ourselves arehappy and healthy.
All right, what's on the sciencepodcast?
This week?
In science news, I get to talkabout my favoritest extinct
animal, my most favorite extinctanimal, the giant sloth, or
sloth or a slow sloth.
(01:31):
And in pet science, we aremixing robotics and dogs, with
an amphibious robot that learneda thing or two from watching
dogs swim.
And our amazing guest this weekis Dr Elizabeth Marnick, who's
a science communicator, andshe's going to tell us a little
bit about measles, which istimely considering, especially
in the province where I live andmost people in North America
(01:53):
there are measles outbreaks.
All right, let's get on withthe show.
There's no time like sciencetime.
This week in science news I'mexcited we get to talk about my
favoritest extinct animals ever.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Not all of them are extinct that we're going to talk
about today, Jason, but thereis the one I actually thought
you would open up with going toCosta Rica and talk about the
parking lot incident where youhad all the high school students
standing around and and yeah, asloth fell out of the tree
(02:34):
Super high up and plopped rightin front of everybody on the
ground and everybody thought hewas dead.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
But it shook its head , got up and continued on its
way like it was nothing, but itshook its head got up and
continued on its way like it wasnothing.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Yeah, but even your tour guide thought that was very
exciting development.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
He thought the sloth kept crawling out on this limb
and he's oh, we need to go.
I can't do a Costa Rican accentand I'm like why?
He's like the sloth, it willfall.
I've seen this before and I'mlike, oh God, because the sloth
was going fall.
I've seen this before and I'mlike oh god, because the sloth
was going to fall and die,probably.
So we're trying to shove allthe kids on the bus but they're
looking at the sloth then.
Then the branch bends more andthe kids stop moving and they're
like no sloth, no, don't sloth.
(03:18):
And then it just fell.
But it was totally unhurt.
It got up like the Undertakerfrom wrestling and started
crawling back to a tree.
It's crazy.
That's the sloth story.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
That is a crazy sloth story.
Now, when you were in CostaRica, you learned how to say it
sloth.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
No, they say sloth.
It's the Brits that say sloth.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
And I just love how the Brits say sloth, so I say
sloth sometimes.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
I know you do.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Yeah, and sometimes on Fun Facts with Bernoulli, it
actually says sloth.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
That's so funny, because I thought you had
programmed the voice to saysloth and I was like, how did
you do that?
And then, as it went on, itchanged to sloth and it went
sloth, sloth, sloth, sloth and Ithought, wow, that is
incredible.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Our science story, of course, is about the sloths,
but the ancient sloths and howand why they had such a wide
variety of body sizes littlesmall things that could climb
(04:29):
trees nimbly, to enormous likehard to believe polar bear, or
bigger sized ground sloths.
And those are my favoritesloths the giant ground sloth.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
That contrast in diversity has puzzled scientists
for decades, because there wasa wide range of body size, but
then also their ecologicalniches.
Now you could say niche likeniche, or niche, depending on
what you say.
Sloth, sloth, niche, jason,what does determine, or what did
(05:00):
determine sloth body size diddetermine?
Speaker 1 (05:03):
sloth body size.
There were previous ideas aboutwhat maybe influenced the sloth
size, or sloth size, like youmentioned, their habitat type.
Sorry, those great big sloths.
They lived in the plains andthe smaller sloths lived in
probably what would be similarto Costa Rica today, more ferny
(05:24):
jungle areas.
It could be what they ate.
Also, the climate had a hugeimpact, as well as what they
were predated on.
The biggest of the groundsloths I think they're called
the megatheriums.
They were huge.
They were predated by theshort-faced bear in what is now
(05:45):
the northwestern United Statesor southern Canada, and the
short-faced bear is no joke.
If you think about the biggestpolar bear, it was like another
one and a half times bigger thanthat.
So these short-faced bears ateor predated these enormous, like
car-sized creatures.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Wow, but also humans had an impact, like humans had a
more definite impact on thewoolly mammoth, but some
scientists do agree, even thoughthat not all the evidence is
there, that humans did have animpact as well.
The study comes from BuenosAires and the strongest
predictor of sloth body sizeactually was habitat preference,
(06:26):
and the tree dwellers, or theclimbers, evolved to be smaller,
and then those ground dwellersthat you were talking about
evolved to be larger.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
There you go.
That kind of goes in line withprevious ideas.
This study, of course, has somegood data.
The examined 49 different slothlineages, both living and
extinct.
They looked at the fossilmorphology, the protein and DNA
evidence in their bones, theevolutionary relationships
through time and then anycorrelation with climate change
(06:57):
over the years.
They looked at the tinybrown-throated sloth to the
mega-therium my favorite, thegiant ground sloth and of course
some of them were extinct.
And of course some of them werenot like the sloths the
three-toed sloth that existstoday in Costa Rica or Central
(07:18):
America.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
So the sloths actually have a really cool
origin story.
They emerged 35 million yearsago, in the late Eocene epoch,
and they evolved in isolation,actually in South America, which
was then an island continent,and, as we know, when you are in
(07:40):
an area that allows for likehigh diversification, there were
over a hundred genera evolvedand they were adapted to
different environments.
I'm just thinking of darwin andthe finches when I'm speaking
of this.
So they the adaptations to thedifferent environments included
(08:01):
the smaller tree sloths livingin the tropical forests and
those larger ground slothsliving in the open grasslands.
And as the climate fluctuated,the sloths repeatedly switched
between tree and ground habitats.
So maybe they were a slow sloth, as they were switching between
their habitats and you knowwhat the size changes followed
(08:24):
those switches consistently overtime.
So that's what scientists found.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
I teach this, chris.
This is exciting that this isaccurate to what I've been
teaching in my science class,because we look at extinct
mammals and, of course, thesloth is one of the ones that I
teach because I know a lot aboutit.
In the movie Ice Age there'sManny the woolly mammoth and
then Sid the sloth right so, sidthe sloth and he is not a
(08:49):
megatherium, he's one of themid-sized giant sloths.
So he looks tiny compared to awoolly mammoth, but if you look
at him he's about I don't knowhalf the size of a saber-toothed
tiger.
So he's big.
Right, sid is enormous comparedto the sloths of today, but he
just looks little.
And Sid is patterned after oneof the smaller ground sloths
(09:12):
that would have been around thetime that the mammoths were a
thing.
That's super cool.
Back to why this new sciencenews item is so cool is that it
does paint a good picture of areoccurring evolutionary pattern
tied to habitat, and itdirectly ties the environment to
how there was extreme body sizedifferences, the last common
(09:35):
ancestor of all sloths today.
So think of all the sloths thatyou know that are in the trees
and the ones that fall out oftrees in front of shocked sleepy
high school kids in Costa Ricawas likely very large and
terrestrial.
So not a jungle sloth, not atree sloth, but a sloth that
lived on the ground.
Now there's not a lot of directfossil evidence for between
(09:59):
that big sloth and the sloths oftoday, so the sloth evolution
continues to be incomplete.
And just one more thing that isquite common to have very
little fossil evidence of thecreatures that lived in jungles
because they decayed so quicklyand the bones were not preserved
(10:25):
.
The same way there's a lot ofevidence of those big
terrestrial sloths because whenthey died out in the open it was
easier for them to befossilized or easier for their
bones to not decay away.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
So the study did follow long-term trends and that
means a lot of things.
It really does show oremphasize how sloths uniquely
demonstrate the size environmentcorrelation.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Now we come to the sad part of the study how all
those giant sloths went extinct.
Because they're not aroundtoday, right, we just got the
slow guys hanging upside down inthe jungles they're so slow
that moss grows on them it'scamouflaged.
That would be my excuse if Imove so slow.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Moss grew on me yeah, is it moss or is it more of a
fungus?
Speaker 1 (11:20):
it's mossy algae stuff, and they're covered with
bugs too.
Like bugs live in them.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Oh, lovely.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Yeah, they look cute, but if you get up close they're
super nasty.
I had the Brazilian exchangestudents that I have every year.
Our school has a good, we havea good relationship with Brazil,
so we have a bunch of Braziliankids that come up every year in
the first semester and they'rewonderful kids and they're
always in my science classsemester and they're wonderful
(11:46):
kids and they're always in myscience class and the group.
This year we're talking aboutsloths because one of the girls
lived deep in brazil, like shewasn't from those big coastal
cities they have, um, and shecould actually speak like I
forget what language it is, butit's like native brazilian, like
what the natives of brazilwould speak, not necessarily
portuguese or spanish, it'snative speak of early Brazilians
(12:06):
.
And she knew so much aboutsloths because they're all over
the place where her house is andshe's like yeah, they're gross,
don't touch them.
Oh, wow, okay, yeah, the mainsuspect for why sloths went
extinct is human activity, notnecessarily the change in
climate.
As humans moved around and tookup more space, they lost their
(12:27):
habitat and there was a lot ofmeat in a big sloth if you
killed it for your family andthe ground sloths vanished about
15 000 years ago and thatcoincides with the human
migration across the Americasduring the late Pleistocene
period.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
And some sloth bones from Argentina show cut marks
from stone tools and thatsupports human hunting.
But evidence is sparse comparedto other megafauna, like the
mammoths, like the mammothsoths.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
it was very obvious, but so there's less evidence
about the hunting of the groundsloth yeah, what I've read and
it's not in this study is thatthe ground sloths were not
prepared to defend themselvesagainst like human hunting, like
hunting in packs and theintelligence that the you know,
(13:28):
not necessarily our ancestors,but the early humans of the
Americas had.
All of those humans came acrossthe land bridge during the ice
age and brought with them, likecrazy, good hunting techniques
that they learned in their treks.
And all of the animals,especially the mammals, were
just like totally unaware andcould not adapt fast enough.
(13:52):
A giant sloth could defenditself maybe against a
short-faced bear, but notagainst a tribe of 20 people.
Right, it's vastly verydifferent.
And then on the mammoth thingcool story, chris, is that
mammoths were really hard tokill.
So when early people did defeatone, it was a big deal, and
(14:13):
maybe that's why there's morepictorial references of early
artwork of those hunters takingdown a mammoth.
Maybe the big sloths were justnot that hard to kill, so it
wasn't a big deal.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
It is a big deal if you're able to provide for your
family.
And putting down thatinformation in pictures be like
Fred killed the big mammoth.
Look at all the glory that hebrought home to the clan.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Anyways, that kind of rounds out our news item about
sloths.
That's science news for thisweek.
This week in pet science, wehave a mashup of science,
robotics and dogs.
Now I picked this one, chris,for two reasons Spark which is
(15:09):
the TELUS Science Center in incalgary they have a robotic dog
named flint, so we've met flint.
Um, in fact, when they firstgot flint, they wanted some
publicity about it and they hadus bring bunsen and beaker to
meet flint, and that was supercute gosh.
That was like three or fouryears ago, hey we've been twice.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Yeah, we've been twice once, when it was summer
camp and there were about amillion children in summer camp
and they got to experiencebeaker and bernoulli, and we
have video of that, and the dogswere just so good.
So that was the second visit,but the first visit was more of
(15:46):
hey, let's see your dog, yourdogs, interact with flint with
the robot and bunsen was yeah,bunsen could care less, he's
whatever.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
But beaker was concerned.
She tried to sniff flint's butt, but the butt looks like its
head and she was a littleperplexed by him.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
It is perplexing.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Yeah, anyways, the other reason is this robotic dog
that we're going to be talkingabout.
It's not Flint, so it's not oneof those Boston dynamics things
.
It swims and it learned how toswim better by programming it
like a dog and bully all of asudden has figured out how to
swim and it is his favoritething in the world to swim is.
(16:27):
He just loves it.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
I know it's incredible, it's incredible.
And when I was at Waggles onSaturday, the owner, char, she's
so amazing.
And I and she said, hey, areyou?
We're going to be going atabout 1230 over to put the to
the pond side and you can putBernoulli's life jacket on him.
So he's prepared and ready togo.
And I cause of course I bringit, cause I'm always panicked
(16:51):
that he's going to drown.
But I've said he's beenswimming at home and I said he's
been here at Waggles for doggydaycare.
Has he been swimming in thewater in the pond side?
And she's oh no, he is a shorebird.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
That's so confusing.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Yeah he's, he just likes to go on the shore.
But I'm like, okay, maybe thenmaybe he won't go in, because at
home he does in our littlebeaver created pool.
But sure enough, he was soexcited to go over to pondside.
He zooms down towards the waterand in he goes and I said, look
(17:29):
, Char, and she's whoa.
That is incredible.
And she also said that he hasexcellent swimming ability.
Like his body is up and he'sdoing really well.
She said he is a well-developeddog, which makes us proud, of
course, because he's such a goodboy.
But yeah, we watched him likefrom non-swimmer to practicing,
(17:52):
like he'll go in when we go onour creek walks and you can see
him just doing circles and laps,and so I'm so proud of him.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
He goes in and he swims for enjoyment, like he
practices.
This is the greatest.
He just swims little circles.
I wish there was more water forhim to swim in now, but it was
a great place to learn how toswim because when he was a non
to learn how to swim because hewas, he could.
When he was a non-swimmer andyou thrash about, he could
thrash his way to the shorewithout us having to jump in to
(18:20):
get him it's very deep in places, jay but, let's let's talk
about the study yeah, all right.
This was published in ioppublishing's bio inspiration and
biomimetrics journal, and theinspiration for this came from
dogs.
The amphibious robots that theyhad before were mostly inspired
(18:41):
by reptiles and insects.
Those reptile and inspiredrobots struggle with like
agility and dynamic movement andthey can't carry things.
So they think of a scuttlingrobot, right, think of a
slithering robot, and it justhad problems going from, for
example, like one type of groundto the other Between land and
(19:04):
water.
They were being tripped up.
Also, they didn't move fast inthe water, so the programmers
were like reptiles should beable to swim in the ocean.
If you've seen those oceaniguanas, they move very quickly
and as well insects swim verywell too, like they scuttle
about.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
So they got their inspiration from dogs like you
were saying, dogs have a smoothtransition between the land and
the water and we've thrownsticks to Bernoulli and Beaker,
of course, and they just goright in.
And when we took Beaker to dockdiving, which she just loves,
(19:42):
and it gives her an outlet toswim in a safe place the, the
owner there, the trainer, shesaid, wow, she has good dynamics
and speed in her movement, likeshe has good form, so she has
four-paw drive.
Some dogs will swim withtwo-paw drive and they're not as
efficient in the water, butBeaker has all four paws going
(20:04):
and so this dog, this robot, hasbeen based on that movement and
so that overcomes manychallenges that have been seen
in the insect-based amphibiousrobots.
The engineering featuresspecific to the amphibious robot
that's based on dogs is theirunique paddling mechanism
(20:29):
efficient swimming stroke.
She does the four, the four pawpaddle, and the robot was
specifically designed to mimicthat and that allows for both
the efficient propulsion andhaving stability in the water,
as well as having structure andbalance, so there's precise
(20:49):
weight distribution and buoyancycontrol.
So when we're talking aboutBernoulli, like he gets his butt
up there and his butt is fullof hair and it's wow, how is
that not weighing you down.
But the robot maintains astable aquatic movement and
performance in the water, andwhat they've done is they've
(21:10):
made a double joint leg designwhich will improve the range of
motion and it enables thatflexible switching between
different paddling gates.
So I just think of how wellBeaker turns and how they go
from swimming quickly to slowlyor retrieving something in the
water.
We watch Bernoulli and he doesdo this splash and then he tries
(21:33):
to bite the splash water.
But then we also think he'strying to look ahead to see oh,
is there a stick that I cancapture?
Speaker 1 (21:40):
yeah, I think he's trying to get himself up high
out of the water so he can see.
I don't know, maybe because hisbig nose is in the way, not
sure?
not sure yeah, and Beaker.
My favorite thing about Beakerwatching her swim, because when
she does dock diving you canactually see her swim right.
When she goes to get the thing,she glides.
She gets up so much speed andshe just glides.
(22:01):
If you push off the wall andyou glide like a pencil float,
that's how Beaker goes towardsthe item because she's going so
quickly and she's so streamlined.
And then she goes and she bitesit and just with a little kick
of her foot she turns.
It's phenomenal, it's reallycool.
But back to the robot.
They tested its gait andperformance in three distinct
(22:24):
paddling ways.
There was doggy paddle one,which was optimized for speed.
Doggy paddle two, which wasoptimized for propulsion.
I'm not sure what thedifference between speed and
propulsion is.
Maybe it could carry more stuffif it was having more
propulsion.
And then there was a trot lightgate which prioritized
(22:44):
stability in the water, and theyfound that in the water it had
a max speed of 0.57 kilometersan hour with the doggy paddle
style, and the trot light gatewas the most stable when it was
in the water as well.
On land, that trot light gatetranslated to a 1.26 kilometer
an hour speed and that showedthat it was quite a bit faster
(23:08):
on land, but not that muchslower in the water.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
So this has lots of potential applications to things
that are in our real world, andI think of our students saying
what am I learning?
Why is this important?
How does this apply to the realworld?
This robotic swimming dog couldhelp with environmental
research, so monitoring wetlandsand swamps or aquatic
(23:33):
ecosystems, not by remotesensing but by being there
actually and experiencing it, sobeing able to perform search
and rescue in flood prone orcoastal areas where it is
dangerous for live dogs to go,and humans as well.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Sometimes nature has the best solutions for us and
you need to look.
But definitely if you've seenthe Flint robot or the spot
robot, those Boston Dynamicsrobots, they are very dog-like
in how they move and dogs areincredibly versatile animals
(24:23):
that can move quickly, rarelyfall over right.
That's a huge benefit to arobot not being tipsy.
The bipedal robots are muchmore difficult to get around
because on two legs you haveonly two points of stability
versus four and it's notnecessarily making it look like
a dog, it's making it move likea dog.
(24:45):
That was the big breakthroughand it overcame some limitations
of the past.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
So moving forward, we might see more examples of
crossover between biology androbotics.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
If you want a fast robot, we probably shouldn't use
the animals of the first study,the sloth.
No, maybe if you want a robotthat just hangs around all day
upside down.
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
(25:23):
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
have live streams every Sundaywith our community.
It have tons of bonus Bunsenand Beaker content there and we
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
(25:44):
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.
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.
(26:05):
It's time for Ask an Expert onthe Science Podcast, and I have
Dr Elizabeth Marnick, sciencecommunicator with us today.
Doc, how are you doing?
Speaker 3 (26:16):
I am doing good.
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
Yeah, I'm excited we found your Instagram.
As we moved from the siteformerly known as Twitter more
and more, it was cool findingyour posts and it's a thrill to
have you.
We love your SciComm.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Where are you in the world?
Where are you calling into theshow from?
Speaker 3 (26:35):
I am in Maine, right outside of Acadia National Park.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Oh, wow, okay, so on the East Coast.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
Yes, east Coast.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Gotcha.
Okay, gotcha Gotcha.
Have you lived there a lot orhave you ping ponged around?
Are you from that area?
Speaker 3 (26:57):
I was born and raised in Connecticut, so I'm a New
England born in the US.
But I moved to Maine forgraduate school to get my PhD,
fell in love with the area andmy husband and have stayed since
then.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Two for one, hey.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
And yeah, so, speaking of your education, like
I introduced you as a doctor,what's your training in science?
Speaker 3 (27:13):
Yeah, so I have a PhD and my work was focused on
understanding the role of theimmune system.
So I was interested inunderstanding a very specific
type of immune system cell andhow it functions, and that cell
is called a T cell.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
T cell.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
Yes, and then I wanted to know how does this get
altered in the context ofautoimmune disease?
So I used mice and studiedthings like lupus and rheumatoid
arthritis to try to understandwhat might be going wrong in
individuals who have thoseautoimmune diseases.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Lupus is no fun.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
It is not.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
That's an awful thing , yeah, and did you answer any
of your questions?
Is there more to answer?
And did you answer any of your?
Speaker 3 (27:54):
questions.
Is there more to answer?
There is always more to answerin science.
I did get some nice data thatreally showed us that there's
different kinds of T-cells andthere's this one kind of T-cell
that kind of goes a little crazyin certain autoimmune diseases.
So I got to find out someinteresting things about how
that T-cell works.
But there's always a lot ofquestions that come up from any
(28:18):
experiment that you do, sothere's a lot more things that
need to be answered,unfortunately but also
fortunately, depending on howyou look at it.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Science has never done, asking why, just like a
small child.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
My two year old is in that stage right now, and that
is correct.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Why, why, how come?
Why?
It never ends.
Were you a science kid?
Were you drawn to science ordid you have a flashpoint at
some point as a teen, orsomething like that?
Speaker 3 (28:45):
Yeah, so I was raised in a family that was actually
very much anti-science.
I was not vaccinated until Iwas in my 20s, about to go to
graduate school.
So, I found science reallythrough some really great
teachers in 11th grade.
I was homeschooled for a reallylong time and it wasn't until I
didn't go back to public schooluntil 11th grade.
(29:06):
So 11th grade was my first timeever being in a real science
class doing real scienceexperiments.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
And that's when I fell in love with it what an
interesting origin.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Similar to another scientist I had on my show,
debunk the funk, he's got agreat youtube channel.
Yes, he was a conspiracytheorist and who believed all of
these weird anti-scienceconspiracies, and now he's got a
phd and much similar to youlike understanding the immune
system it happens is I'm reallygrateful for those teachers I
(29:42):
wanted to chat to you with youabout measles that some of your
latest posts on, uh, yourinstagram science whiz liz great
username, by the way.
I love that thank you so measlesis in the news.
In can and the United Statesthere are outbreaks of measles
which are spooky, for me atleast.
And if we could just chat alittle bit about measles,
(30:02):
because it is a disease thatmost people have forgotten about
.
So I guess my first question islike what is measles?
Speaker 3 (30:12):
Yeah, so measles is a virus, and the thing with
viruses is that they can'treplicate.
They can't copy themselves bythemselves.
They have to have help, and theway that they get that help is
by infecting other organisms andusing their own cells to
reproduce.
So measles does that andunfortunately, along the way, it
(30:35):
can cause a lot of problems.
So sometimes people will befine after having a measles
infection and have a relativelymild case, but that's not always
true.
The data really shows that oneout of four cases of measles
will end up hospitalized and oneto two people per every 1000
case will end up dying frommeasles.
So this is a very seriousinfection that we had eliminated
(30:59):
in the United States untilvaccination rates have started
to decline and now we'restarting to see outbreaks like
what's happening in Texas andthe United States and what's
happening in Canada, I thinkOntario is currently where the
biggest outbreak is there right?
Speaker 1 (31:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
And there's been two deaths, two child deaths, or
maybe it's more by now.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
So we had one child in the US die who was
unvaccinated, and then we hadone adult, who was unvaccinated,
die so far, which is veryunfortunate because it could
have been prevented withvaccination.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Okay, so I can ask a couple of follow-up questions
here.
Yes please do so.
The COVID vaccine limited.
The severest severeness of thedisease is the.
You could still get COVID eventhough you've been.
You've got the COVID vaccineLike I got COVID.
After I got all the shots Ibounced back from it.
Is the measles vaccine similarto that, Like you limit the
(31:57):
severeness of it, or is it morelike some of the other vaccines
where it's just so mild youdon't even know you have it,
kind of thing?
Speaker 3 (32:04):
So the measles vaccine, which is part of the,
it's called the MMR vaccination.
So it's a vaccine that protectsagainst measles, mumps and
rubella.
But, for the measles aspect ofit.
One dose is about 93% effectiveat preventing infection and two
doses which is what everyoneshould be getting is 97%
(32:25):
effective at preventinginfection.
So it's very different from theCOVID vaccine in the sense that
it's way more effective atpreventing infection in the
first place.
Now, the more measles that'scirculating in the community,
the more people are exposed.
So it's still not 100%effective.
So you can still potentiallyget measles after being
(32:48):
vaccinated.
It's just less common.
And if you do get measles afterbeing vaccinated then, yes, the
severity of the measles wouldbe reduced compared to somebody
who was unvaccinated.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
So correct me if I'm wrong please, because, way more
than me, this is the differencebetween rate of infection and
rate of disease, because that'ssomething the COVID vaccine was
really good at was lesseningdisease, If you got it.
Is that correct?
Speaker 3 (33:17):
Yeah, that's a way that you could think about it.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
But this, but measles vaccination is very good at
preventing even the infection inthe first place.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Okay, nice Okay.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
Now, the other thing about measles that I don't know
if your audience is aware of isthat it can cause something
called immune amnesia.
Have you heard of this?
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Okay, yes, but I would be BSing to try to explain
it to you.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
Yeah.
So it's crazy.
And as an immunologist, when Iheard about this I was like oh
my God, this is fascinating.
And then at the other hand Iwas like oh my God, this is
terrifying.
So one of the things thatmeasles does is, as it's
replicating I mentioned beforeviruses have to copy themselves
in your cells it damages yourmemory immune cells.
(34:06):
So normally after you have aninfection, your B cells and your
T cells some of them are whatwe call memory cells, so they
stick around and then if you'reexposed to that pathogen again,
they help prevent you fromeither getting infected or they
prevent you from getting as sickas you did that first time you
were infected, which is good.
That's why things likevaccination works and that's why
(34:29):
oftentimes the second time youhave an infection it's not as
bad as that first case.
But measles erases a percentageof those memory cells for prior
infections.
So this is why, before we hadthe measles vaccine, people were
noticing that a child couldsurvive measles and then within
(34:51):
another year or two could diefrom another infectious disease.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
They didn't understand why.
Sorry, could they die frommeasles again?
I apologize if I missed thatpart.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
No, they were dying from other infectious diseases
that were not measles, becausemeasles had erased that memory
that they had.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Okay, I'm sorry, doc.
Thanks, that's okay.
Yeah, oh man.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
Yeah, yeah, oh man, yeah.
So that's.
The crazy thing about measlesis that we don't know of another
virus that can do this type ofthing.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
So if you think about covid, let's say you're
unvaccinated against covid,you've survived covid measles
and you get measles.
You could.
That could eliminate some ofthe memory for covid, which is
an infectious disease.
Is that correct okay?
And of the memory for COVID,which is an infectious disease.
Is that correct Okay?
Speaker 3 (35:42):
And then the next.
So then if you get COVID again,it's your immune system won't
remember it.
Potentially so it would be likeyou were having it for the
first time.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
Yeah, that's fascinating but also terrifying.
I can see what you're thinkingthere.
Speaker 3 (35:57):
Exactly.
And then this is why, after themeasles vaccine came out,
scientists started noticing thatchildren were surviving, and
that they were surviving measles.
But their survival rate wasincreasing even more than that,
and that was because, bypreventing a measles infection,
you were also helping save livesfrom other infections they
(36:18):
could die from after gettingmeasles.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
So these reports of parents I don't know how true
they are right Because this islike I'm hearing from social
media the reports of in, Ibelieve, Texas of parents having
a measles party where you'regetting all the kids together to
get measles, kind of like theold school chicken pox party
idea.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
It's an extremely bad idea for many reasons, but
immune amnesia is definitely oneof them.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Yeah, I grew up at a time where chicken pox was a
thing and I remember my parentsbut it was like the weird
thinking at the time.
I think they took one of mysisters to a chicken pox party
back in the day.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
And that was probably yeah, because I remember
chickenpox parties from when Iwas little as well, and that's
because the vaccine wasn't outyet.
Plus, my mom didn't vaccinateme anyway, so she wouldn't have
vaccinated me if there was avaccine.
But I know the chickenpoxvaccine didn't come out until
sometime, I think in the 90s,but I'd have to look at the
(37:21):
exact time that it came outIsn't that wild?
Speaker 1 (37:23):
Like I was.
I'm sorry, let me start thatagain.
My day job I teach high schoolchemistry.
I'm a school teacher and ourgrade nines.
In Canada they get immunizedfor HPV in grade nine.
So we were having a discussionbecause they're being called
down to the office by or to theinoculation room by last name,
(37:45):
and then I was telling the kidsabout chickenpox and I was like
how many of you know somebodythat had chickenpox?
And nobody, none of them knewsomebody who had chickenpox.
And I had to tell them thatevery kid got chickenpox when I
was young and some kids got itand it wasn't bad and some kids
got it so bad A lot of myparents age.
(38:05):
And an offshoot of that is theyhave the like they get flare up
, flare ups of shingles.
I'm like, have you guys everheard of shingles?
And they're like we don't evenknow what you're talking about.
So I had to tell them aboutshingles.
They're like that's horrible.
I'm like, yeah, that's whythere's vaccines, guys.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
Yeah, I had chickenpox as a kid.
It was not great.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
No.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
I remember I think I was eight at the time it was not
fun.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
And measles is magnitudes worse, because I'd
imagine some people probablydied from chickenpox not like
measles, for sure.
Speaker 3 (38:36):
Measles is definitely significantly worse because
besides death and besides immuneamnesia, measles can also cause
inflammation of the brainduring an active infection.
So that can obviously lead todeath as well, but also other
complications rare complicationwhere it causes a neurological
(39:00):
damage that doesn't startshowing up until seven to 10
years after somebody had measles.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
Like post-polio syndrome.
Speaker 3 (39:09):
It's like that.
Yeah, it's subacute.
Oh, actually, let me pause.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
It's okay.
Speaker 3 (39:13):
I always remember the abbreviation and not the full
name, so this complication iscalled subacute sclerosing
panencephalitis.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
And it shows up seven to 10 years after somebody has
had a measles infection and it's100% fatal.
There's nothing anyone can doonce you start developing this
condition.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
God, that's bad, that's not good.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
It's very bad and it's more likely in children who
are infected very young.
So again, forgetting thatmeasles vaccination not only is
preventing measles but it's alsopreventing all of those
complications that can happen topeople who get measles.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
Oh, my goodness, so can we bust some measles myths
before we move on.
All vaccines, all treatmentcomes with risk.
So I'd imagine there's a verysmall chance of some kind of
serious reaction to the vaccine,but it's not like a 1% chance
(40:12):
like what you just mentioned.
Speaker 3 (40:14):
Correct.
The measles vaccine isconsidered very safe.
We have tons of safety dataabout MMR, which is the vaccine
that contains measles, and weknow that the risks from that
vaccine are magnitudes lowerthan the risk from those
infections themselves.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
One more question.
Let's say you were likeyourself.
You didn't get vaccinated untilyour 20s.
Can you get this vaccinewhenever?
You didn't get vaccinated untilyour twenties?
Can you get the this vaccinewhenever you want, is it not?
Is it age dependent or yeah?
Speaker 3 (40:45):
So I got measles for the.
I got the MMR vaccine for thefirst time in my twenties and if
you haven't been vaccinated formeasles, or you don't know if
you've been vaccinated formeasles, you can go ahead and
get it at any time.
If you've been vaccinated formeasles.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
you can go ahead and get it at any time, so an extra
one's not going to do you anyharm.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
Correct.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
When the COVID vaccines were out.
You might get a kick out ofthis, liz.
Canada had the.
We had, let's see.
There was the AstraZeneca,there was the Pfizer, there was
Moderna, there was another one,there was a fourth one, the jj
(41:24):
one.
Remember the jj one?
Oh, I do, yep, yeah, okay.
So I had three vaccines, butthey were different ones.
Canada had astrazeneca.
I don't know if the states did,um, no, and then there was the
pfizer and moderna.
So I got the pfizer, modernaand I was like I was really
hoping the jj one would beapproved, be approved in Alberta
, because I was collecting themlike the stones on Thanos'
gauntlet and I was like if I getall five, I will be vaccine man
(41:49):
and be invincible.
I was just there was a fifthone or something some other
country was using.
I'm like, yeah, bring it toCanada, they can collect them
all like Pokemon.
Speaker 3 (41:58):
Now Canada has Novavax right.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
That's it.
It was Nov.
Right, that's it.
It was Novavax.
That's it.
There's a fifth one.
That was it.
Yeah, but by the time I hadthree, I was good Anyways.
So thanks for talking to usabout measles, yeah, so one more
.
One more kind of big questionbefore we move into our end
there.
Social media is bad for science.
(42:22):
Sometimes takes spread likewildfire.
I don't know how manymisinformation reels I see, or
TikToks where it's like absolutenonsense and it's got millions
of views.
So I think it's really easy forfolks to be exposed to all this
misinformation.
And I guess, as somebody who'son Instagram and I love your
(42:42):
infographics, by the way like Iread them every time you post
one what kind of advice can yougive to the average person using
social media If they'reinterested in good science?
What should they do?
And I know that's a bigquestion, but I'd love for your
take on it.
Speaker 3 (42:57):
Yeah, I think the hardest thing is that it can be
really challenging to know whatinformation is good versus bad,
and I think one of the mostimportant things to think about
is who is it that is presentingthe information?
So try to do some digging intowhat their background is and who
(43:18):
they are, but then also try toverify the information that
they're providing you.
So if you hear this wild claimin a TikTok or in a post, go to
other websites, open up a tab inyour computer browser and start
to search for information aboutthat topic, and sometimes you
can even add a fact check.
(43:39):
So, say, if you wanted to knowabout the risk of measles or
something, or you hear a weirdmeasles rumor type in the rumor
plus fact check, and sometimesit will pull up information that
can help you figure out is whatyou're listening or reading
true or is it not?
The other thing that can oftenbe helpful is do they provide
(44:03):
references for the informationthat they're providing and what
type of references are theyusing?
This is not always easy tofigure out, but, for example,
when I am posting aboutsomething, I try to make it very
clear what references I'm usingto make the statements that I'm
making, because I don't wantpeople to necessarily just trust
(44:24):
things that I say.
I want them to go and factcheck and I try to cultivate
that with everything that I do,providing the actual references
for the information.
That's in whatever I'm talkingabout.
Speaker 1 (44:38):
I do notice that with your posts.
I think we need to do, like myaccount, the Bunsen and Beaker
Bernoulli stuff when we'retalking about more serious
science.
I think I need to do a betterjob of that, of having a
reference link somewhere in ourvideo or in the comments.
I do see that with a ton ofyour stuff.
Sometimes it's like in the leadwith picture.
I'm just going through yourInstagram and it's yes, yeah.
(44:58):
Yeah, so you do a really goodjob, yeah it depends, yeah, but
I think that's important.
Speaker 3 (45:03):
And then I think too, is seeing.
I think sometimes you have togo off social media and do some
digging on your own to see ifthe information that's being
presented to you is accurate ornot.
Speaker 1 (45:13):
And that's a tough spot because people want to
scroll right.
Speaker 3 (45:16):
It is a tough spot, but it is, and then, once you
figure out certain accounts, youcan start to trust what they're
saying more.
But it's still always good tobe skeptical, and that's really
what I have now cultivated inmyself is that anytime I see
something I am automaticallyskeptical, no matter what it is,
and I try to go do some diggingon my own before I make any
(45:37):
conclusions.
Speaker 1 (45:39):
That's what I tell my kids.
I'm like, if you're on socialmedia anything you see your
first thing your brain shouldsay is that's crazy, that's
bananas.
Like no matter what.
Oh, the sun came up, that'sbananas.
And then you should fact checkit because it's probably AI also
.
Oh yeah, like being skepticalis a really good tip there.
(46:01):
I love that.
Speaker 3 (46:03):
Yeah, and then it's just.
It's hard, and I do believethat scientists and medical
professionals do need to be onsocial media, because that's
where the people are, but it isalso.
It does social media itselfpresents a problem and
unfortunately I think it's here,at least for now.
Maybe eventually we'll be backto no social media, who knows,
(46:23):
but it's here for now, so wehave to figure out how to live
with it as we can.
Speaker 1 (46:28):
And I, for us, we see it to not probably near as much
as somebody who's all sciencelike yourself, but it is not a
kind place where people arecordial to one another when
there's disagreement.
I can't imagine some of thestuff that you would get as a
science communicator, because weget it and we're gently talking
about science with cute, cuddlydogs.
Speaker 3 (46:48):
Yeah, it's wild and definitely I block liberally for
people who are like threateningor combative.
Like I always want to engagewith people and answer questions
but at some point like it's nothelpful for me if they're like
attacking.
Like I had one person comeafter me and say that my kids
should be taken away from mebecause they were vaccinated.
(47:10):
So I immediately blocked thatperson and I was like that's not
helpful for anybody.
Speaker 1 (47:15):
No, yeah, there has to be.
This conversation doesn't startwith threats and there's no
conversation that can happen ifthat's the way it starts.
Exactly Because we do it likevery softly and the amount of
(47:39):
nonsense we get is incrediblesometimes and I can't believe
what the average sciencecommunicator who does it all the
time gets.
Speaker 3 (47:49):
Yeah, and it's.
I also have a full-time day job.
That isn't sciencecommunication, so I think a lot
of us are doing it on the side,but we do it on topics that are
a lot more controversial, andthe more controversial your
topic is, the more the trollsand the bully accounts come
after you unfortunately.
Speaker 1 (48:08):
Thanks for keeping your chin up.
I appreciate it.
Yeah, hey, one of our lastquestions before we end our
interview is we ask all of ourguests to share a pet story from
their life.
I was wondering if you couldshare a pet story with us.
Speaker 3 (48:23):
Yeah, so growing up, the only pet I had was goldfish.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (48:30):
Well, we had these two goldfish that we called
Goldie and King Kong.
You can maybe guess.
You can maybe guess.
I named the one, goldie, when Iwas little.
My brother named the other one,king kong.
But we had one of them thatended up living for five years.
What?
Speaker 1 (48:49):
it was insane it was insane.
Speaker 3 (48:52):
But then by the end of this, we think it was maybe
king kong that lived this long,at this point by the end of his
life.
It kept jumping out of its tankand my mom would find this
goldfish on the side of the tank, like on the outside of the
tank, and then we would put itback in the tank and it somehow
still survived oh my god for thewhole last year of its life it
(49:15):
kept jumping out of it tank.
It was the craziest thing I'veever had happen.
Unfortunately, he or she didend up dying, but it was about
five years of having this onegoldfish, which was crazy.
Speaker 1 (49:30):
That's impressive.
Now you're sure you're notdoing, you're sure you weren't a
victim of what parents do.
Is they just like?
When the thing dies that has ashort lifespan, they just get a
new one and replace it.
Speaker 3 (49:39):
I am positive because my mom didn't have a car, so
there was no way that she couldhave went and got a new goldfish
in that period of time.
Speaker 1 (49:47):
I apologize for putting that out there, but I
teach kids and they have storiesthey like to share when we're
talking about pets and they'relike yeah, that's what my mom
did.
We had three different gerbilsand they looked different.
I was like I think that's adifferent gerbil, and they're
like nope, that's Penny.
Speaker 3 (50:03):
Yeah, yeah, if it was a very good con, that still
convinces me.
So who knows?
Speaker 1 (50:07):
Yeah, that's a tough fish.
I think when our oldest son wasa little guy, we got goldfish
because we didn't have a lot ofmoney starting out as a couple
and fish are really cheap theyare.
It lasted a week maybe and itwas very sad and we had a whole
(50:29):
funeral for it.
So four years is veryimpressive for goldfish.
That's wild.
Speaker 3 (50:35):
It was impressive.
But yeah, we still don't haveany pets.
I don't have any pets yet, butwe do plan on eventually getting
a dog once our kids are alittle bit older.
We're just still in the kind ofthick of it, so we're waiting
for them to get a little older.
Speaker 1 (50:51):
First when our first boy was, I think, 10 or 11.
And then our youngest Adam waslike four, and there's yeah, I
don't know how we would havehandled dogs when they were
toddlers or babies.
Wow, I have a lot of respectfor parents that have a dog and
they've got little kids.
Speaker 3 (51:11):
I'm like wow Me too, because it's hard enough.
Speaker 1 (51:13):
Yeah, it's like you already have dogs, literally,
because toddlers are likepuppies.
They're like they're thethey're in.
There's so much work a lot ofand they're a lot of fun like
puppies too.
Speaker 3 (51:24):
Yes, yep, I would agree with that.
Speaker 1 (51:27):
Well, thanks for sharing your story about.
You're going to make you'regoing to make a lot of people
jealous or listening and they'relike, wow, my goldfish last at
a month.
That's wild.
Thanks for being a guest on ourshow today, doc.
You have a really fun instagramaccount and you're at science
whiz liz, and that's w-h-i-zcorrect or z for the americans,
(51:52):
w-h-i-z liz, l-i-z correct.
Okay, perfect, perfect.
Is there anywhere else you'dlike to point people to, or are
those cool?
Speaker 3 (52:01):
Instagram is where I have my most active.
I also have a sub stack whichis called from the science
classroom with science with Liz,where I go into longer
information with easier to clickreferences, because Instagram
doesn't make referencing easy.
So, both of those places arethe best place to find me.
Speaker 1 (52:21):
We'll have a link to your sub stack.
We also have a sub stack.
I think I've actuallysubscribed to your sub stack.
Thank you so much for being ourguest, taking some time out of
your busy life.
Really appreciate it.
And a very timely subject onmeasles.
Speaker 3 (52:35):
Yes, thank you very much for having me, and let's
hope that by the time this comesout, there's less measles cases
.
I don't think that's going tobe the case, but we can hope.
We can hope.
Yeah, we can hope.
Okay, bye.
Speaker 1 (52:50):
That's it for this week's show.
Thanks for coming back weekafter week to listen to us.
Thanks to Dr Elizabeth Marnick,who was our guest, and also,
again, a shout out to the TopDogs, our top tier of our
Patreon community on Circle.
If you want to hear your name,check out that link in the show
notes.
We would love your support andthat's a perk.
All right, Chris?
Who are the Top Dogs?
Speaker 2 (53:11):
Amelia Fettig, rhi Oda, carol Haino, jennifer
Challen, linnea, janet, karenChronister, jennifer Challen,
Linnea, janik Karen Chronister,vicky Otero, christy Walker,
sarah Bram, wendy, diane Masonand Luke Helen Chin, elizabeth
(53:31):
Bourgeois, marianne McNally,catherine Jordan, shelley Smith,
laura Steffensen, tracyLeinbach, anne Uchida, heather
Burback, kelly Tracy Halbert.
Speaker 1 (53:52):
For science, empathy and cuteness.
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