July 12, 2025 • 32 mins
We dive into the environmental impact of AI technologies and explore the science behind how pet touch affects human well-being.
• Generative AI consumes significant energy with a ChatGPT query using approximately 10 times more energy than a Google search
• By 2028, data centers could account for 12% of US energy use, up from 4.4% currently
• Companies rarely disclose the true energy costs of training and running AI models
• Smaller AI models can achieve similar results with dramatically lower carbon footprints
• Practical solutions include choosing efficient models, using AI during off-peak hours, and minimizing unnecessary words in prompts
• Recent study of 443 pet owners shows both giving and receiving touch contributes to owner well-being
• Stroking pets shows stronger positive effects on well-being than hugging or holding
• Pet leaning behavior (like when dogs press against their owners) is particularly beneficial for emotional health
• The act of giving touch to pets may be more beneficial than receiving touch from them
• The physical mechanisms of touch involve specialized nerve fibers that respond differently in hairy versus non-hairy skin
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hello science enthusiasts.
I'm Jason Zukoski.
And I'm Chris Zukoski, we'rethe pet parents of Bunsen,
beaker, bernoulli and Ginger.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
The science animals on social media.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
If you love science.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
And you love pets.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
You've come to the right spot, so put on your
safety glasses and hold on toyour tail.
This is the Science Podcast.
Hi there, Welcome back to theScience Podcast.
We hope you're happy andhealthy out there.
This is episode 21 of seasonseven and it's a minipod because
we're talking to you from thepast.
(00:45):
This is scheduled for whenwe're on holidays, which is odd.
Hello, future Chris.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Hello, future Jason.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
We're only doing two articles this week just because
we don't have a lot of timebefore we go.
It's been a very busy week.
Are you excited to head to theisland?
Speaker 1 (01:06):
I am Jason.
It's been a while since we'vebeen on a nice holiday together.
You definitely haven't goneanywhere since COVID.
I, of course, got to spend timein the eastern part of Canada
in the Maritimes with Adam andthe Royals, and you missed out
on that and you gave yourselffood poisoning.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
So it's okay.
Last summer we didn't doanything because we had
Bernoulli.
He was I don't think.
I don't think there's any tripthat would be as fun as a puppy
like.
He was just fun every singleday.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
It was right and that was a decision that we made,
when I said, hey, what aboutgetting a new dog?
But that would mean that wewould be spending the summer
with the puppy.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Yeah, and that was fine and then bunsen got sick
and he survived, of course, butthat also we were thinking about
, maybe in the last bit ofaugust, when the puppy was older
, going, and then bunsen, ofcourse, got sick and we're like,
nope, that's the end of this.
So it all worked out and I'mgonna miss the dogs big time.
I know Bunsen and Beaker willbe fine.
(02:14):
I don't know what it is, butI'm just feeling like I'm gonna
miss Bernoulli so much becausehe's the baby.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
I think he'll be fine , though he he is the baby, but
I know our dogs will be fine.
They're in good hands and wejust love them so much.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
All right, what's on the show?
This week In science news we'regoing to talk about the impact
of AI on the environment and inpet science.
There's a study about beingtouched as a human and how it's
beneficial and perhaps the rolethat pets will have in that area
, of the benefits emotionally ofbeing touched.
(02:53):
All right, let's get on withthe show.
There's no time like sciencetime.
This week in science news we'regoing to talk about generative
AI and its environmental impact.
Now we've posted some AI stuffin the last four months and for
(03:15):
the most part, people have been.
They like it.
It's like the video, thegenerative Google VO3 stuff and
for the most part, people likeit.
But we do get some very angrycomments every single time we
post it.
Even back to when we wouldoccasionally post photos,
actually cause people to DM usand unfollow us and leave angry
(03:40):
comments.
So I thought we would look atthe environmental impact of AI,
this generative AI stuff, asthat is one of the things that
some of the upset folks havesaid in our comments on social
media.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Because you think, oh , create this cute picture of a
dog looking like it's the pophead.
It actually does take a lot ofenergy to do that, more so than
you think, because it's the pophead.
It actually does take a lot ofenergy to do that, more so than
you think, because it generatesthe image quite quickly.
It's oh, let me generate thatfor you.
And seconds later you have yourdog dressed up as a Barbie in a
(04:18):
box.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
I think the one thing that's starting to become very
clear to me, though, chris, isthat it's AI is now everywhere.
My mail app on my phone has AI.
Do you have that on your phone?
If I go into my mail app, itsummarizes some of the unread
texts, and on my phone, whenpeople leave messages in its
voice, it summarizes what themessage was like, using AI.
(04:43):
Like it's everywhere, I don'tknow if we can get away with it.
A lot of it is extremely handyand time-saving, but what we're
going to be looking at is theenvironmental cost.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
So OpenAI is a company and the CEO, Sam Altman,
claimed he was talking aboutthe average chat GPT query used
energy similar to an oven forjust one second and experts
chimed in and they argued thatfigure lacked context because
(05:19):
the definition of an averagequery is quite unclear.
But we do know that each AIinteraction consumes energy and
emits carbon, which raises thoseenvironmental concerns.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
So if we look at LLMs that's large language models
they're described by the numberof parameters or internal
variables tuned during training,and the more parameters you
have, the greater the learningcapacity, but then the higher
energy demands.
So the better the AI, the moreenergy it requires to both train
(06:01):
and give you the answer.
For example, I have GPT-4.
I actually pay for chat GPT andthat has 1 trillion parameters
and these models are hosted inhuge data centers with very
powerful GPUs to process thesequeries quickly, because the
last thing you'd want if you'reselling a product is if you ask
(06:22):
a question and it'll get back toyou like an hour from now.
Early LLMs used to do that.
Now these data centers alreadyaccount for about 4.4% of US
energy use and the shocking statis that could rise to about 12%
by 2028.
So only three years from now.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Yeah, by 2028.
So only three years from now,yeah, and think about what AI
can do three weeks from now, noteven in comparison to three
years from now.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Yeah, that Google VO stuff blows me away still, and
we'll talk about the energy costof it, but that's the prompt to
video.
I made Bunsen, beaker andBernoulli snowboard with Norbert
and it was cool.
I just typed it in and it madethem do it, which is wild.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
And it's getting more accurate as it gets more
information.
Now there's I want to talk alittle bit about the challenges
in measuring the LLM carbonfootprint.
So there is a training phasewhich requires weeks of
processing on thousands of GPUsand Adam worked in the tech
(07:33):
department at Staples and he satme down and he talked about
GPUs and he talked about CPUsand I listened to him and he was
so passionate about it and thenI was like are you mining
Bitcoin in the basement?
Because he was talking aboutthe GPU, cpu and it.
I'm not gonna lie, it went overmy head.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
But who stands for graphics processing unit, for
everybody who's listening.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Yeah, and it's different than the CPU, which is
the.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Central processing unit.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
During the training phase, like I did, got off the
rails there talking about theGPU.
It does require weeks ofprocessing on thousands of GPUs
and it has a high energy use,but companies rarely disclose
the data, like what kind ofcomputational time or what kind
of energy type, what kind ofdata is being used.
(08:26):
And so the emissions fromtraining are largely unknown.
So it's in a mystery box, right?
You don't know what's there.
And then, after the trainingphase, there's the inference
phase.
(08:49):
The inference phase, and soemissions will occur every time
a model is used.
So you ask chat GPT somethingthat's your query input and
people are gravitating towardschat GPT as opposed to Google
and for simple questions thattypically Google would have been
able to answer.
And so these?
That's a challenge because chatGPT takes up more energy.
The inference emissions areexpected to surpass training
(09:11):
over a model's lifetime, andthat impact will vary and it
varies by the center that thedata is located.
It also will vary based on thesource of energy Energy is
stored in a grid and it could berenewable versus a fossil fuel
type of energy but also time ofday.
So if you're at the peak timeor the off-peak power demand,
(09:36):
how is that having an impact onthe emissions and the inference
phase.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
So estimating how much large language models use
in energy is tricky, becausethese companies really don't
want to tell everybody how muchenergy went into training.
And if it's bad news, I can seewhy they're not going to tell
everybody that Without politicalor social pressure, you'll
(10:02):
never know.
We'll never know.
If nobody's telling them totell the public how much energy
they're using and it's a lotthey'll be like why do we need
to tell you this?
This is bad news for us.
Okay, so we can make someinferences about how much energy
is being used, but we have touse it at scale, right.
(10:23):
It's difficult to determine oneperson.
We have to look at using it atscale.
So a 70 billion parameterreasoning model answering around
600,000 queries, like askingthem a question to do something,
is about the same emissions asa round-trip flight from London
to New York in a plane.
(10:45):
This is current models, becausethings change so fast in
technology that they'reconstantly using better cards.
Nvidia's new H100 chip is evenmore powerful than the A100, and
that means it's going to usemore energy.
Another thing that you have totake into account is this is
(11:06):
just the energy to answer thequestion, chris, but these
systems have to be cooled, theyget so hot that an enormous
amount of energy goes intokeeping them cool from starting
on fire and melting down LikeAdam's computer.
He's got some weird coolingsystem right, like some crazy
cooling system.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Yeah, and you go into his room and he has Annalisa's
computer in there, so that'sjust double the infrastructure
to create heat, and I'm thinkingwe have air conditioning and
we're cooling down the computersthat are ramping up.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
So determining how much energy is used in these
large language models isdifficult, and the estimations
online are invariably off andthey're probably low.
That's what the I guess theirconclusion is.
So what can we do about this?
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Well, there's definite ways to reduce the AI
environmental impact.
For sure, choose a differentmodel, use a smaller model.
Another example is there is astandard model Quen 2.5, and
that matched the reasoning modelCognito 70B's accuracy with
(12:20):
using less than one third of thecarbon footprint.
And there also are someavailable tools which you know.
I liken this to being in thecar and you think of how much
fuel am I using and you watchthe fuel gauge go down as you're
driving around town.
If you look at if there was somekind of meter that you could
(12:42):
look at and be like whoa, myquery, my reasoning task query,
is using so much energy on ascale that might be beneficial
to help curb that behavior thatyou're seeking AI, putting your
questions into AI.
So Hugging Face's AI energyscore ranks models by efficiency
(13:03):
across tasks.
Another energy ML energyprovides similar comparisons,
which helps users choose greenermodels, also looking at
behavioral changes.
And so, instead of going at themost power hungry time, use AI
at off peak times, so the coolerperiods will have less grid
(13:27):
strain.
And here's another oneminimizing the unnecessary words
and prompts.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
I love this one.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
I know I like to be very polite when I'm talking to
AI, please and thank you, butwhat that does is that's
needless because it just adds tothat processing.
So if you refrain frompoliteness, that will reduce the
processing.
And some people are actuallyquite friendly with AI and chat
(13:59):
GPT and they're asking itphilosophical questions, which
this is another branch that wecould talk about on another
podcast.
It's like the lonelinesssituation that's happening in
some areas of the world thatpeople are experiencing and so
they're seeking other outlets.
(14:20):
But that outlet, without agauge on it, could definitely be
ramping up the consumption, andthere's always the opportunity
for implementing policy, soimplementing energy rating
standards for AI models.
So, similar to your appliancein the laundry room, your washer
(14:41):
dryer, your microwave, hasenergy labels that are written
on it.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Like a transparency right, Like some kind of
transparency.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Yeah, so if you're at the store and you're comparing
models, they all have a stickeron it Like a transparency, right
, like some kind of transparency.
Yeah, so if you're at the storeand you're comparing models,
they all have a sticker on it soyou can make a more informed
choice.
But then also, I liken this tothe e-scooters in town.
The company that they, that ourcity, leases to, has max speeds
on the scooters, and so you canonly go a certain speed on
(15:13):
those scooters, versus buying ascooter at a different store
that doesn't have that policy orthat restriction, and so you
could be clocking at 50kilometers an hour and you can
get into some serious damage toyour body if you got into an
accident on a scooter at thatspeed.
Another policy suggestion isrequiring high usage models.
(15:34):
So less, but so greater than 10million daily, but greater than
10 million daily users to meetminimum efficiency grades.
So being scored this is B plusor higher.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
We literally had to get some new lights and they
said the incandescent bulbs arebeing phased out.
Like you, literally aren't evengoing to be able to get them
anymore jason.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
That legislation came in 2013.
I taught about it in socialstudies 9 lights out to
inefficient bulbs.
It's been a while's taken awhile.
2013 was the target year.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Yeah, but yeah, I guess we don't really have that
long to wait, because the bigchallenge is as AI grows, there
may not be enough energy.
You ask ChatGPT for help withyour homework and it's the straw
that breaks the camel's back inyour area and you lose power
and there's a brownout.
So if ai accounts for 12 ofentire energy demand, the rest
(16:38):
of energy has to go down orsocieties have to make more
power, like one of the two.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Something's got to give right and what needs to get
improve.
I'm just letting my studentsknow, I'm letting people know
that chat GPT does not do mathvery well.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Oh yeah, like it's not great at everything for sure
, no, it's things and it'sterrible at other stuff.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
You would think procedural step-by-step it would
be able to handle, but itcannot distribute a negative
into a set of brackets.
It's so bizarre.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Who knows what we'll be able to do in three years,
though, chris.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
Who knows?
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Okay.
So I guess it's tough to makeestimates about how much energy
is being used.
But as we close, I have thistable that was put together by
an engineering firm.
I have this table that was puttogether by an engineering firm
and a single Google search useszero, decimal, zero, zero, zero,
(17:37):
three kilowatt hours and it'sabout 10 times the energy.
If you use a chat, gpt, promptand a Google VO three estimate
is about twice the energy.
That's what the early estimatesare.
(17:58):
So those Google VO3 estimatesmay be about 20 times the energy
of a single Google search.
Now, it could be way worse thanthat because we have all of
these unknown variables, butthat's what the data today says.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
And that's only for one query or one video.
How many people are making avideo in an hour?
What is our global population?
8 billion.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Yeah, those good those, those Yeti videos are
extremely popular on socialmedia, like they're everywhere.
There's thousands of accountsmaking these Yeti videos.
I don't know if you've evenseen them yet, chris, but
they're everywhere.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
I've only seen them because you've shown me.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Yeah, they're on my algorithm because I watched a
few.
All right, that's science newsfor this week.
This week in pet science, we'regoing to talk about friendly
touching.
Now I think I should probablystart by saying I do not like
being touched by people I do notknow, or even people I do know,
(19:07):
or even my friends or mycoworkers.
I have a very small group ofpeople that I enjoy being
touched by.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Yeah, jason.
And so for me, I'm more of notnecessarily a touchy, feely kind
of person, but a gentle touchon the shoulder is part of my
love language.
And part of my love language ishey, let's hold hands as we
walk down the street, and youare not a hand holder.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
I'll do it for you.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
I'll do it for you, you do which I appreciate, but
that took a little while for meto to reconcile right.
So you will hold my hand, butyou are like a noble gas, you're
like oh, I'll bond with you,but I just want to be hanging
out with my own element, right?
Speaker 2 (20:01):
yeah, yeah, I'm not blind to the science, like I
absolutely know and I've donestudies on.
I absolutely know and I've readstudies that people do need
touch in their day.
Uh, friendly human touch isknown to enhance well-being
through your feelings,emotionally and your senses, and
I guess our modern societylimits that for people that need
(20:25):
that and maybe it's taboo.
You don't touch people.
Maybe it's because we're moreseparated and we're more
sequestered, and this study thatwe're going to look at is how
pets may fill this gap, andmaybe that's where I get my fill
from is I'm okay with my familytouching me and hugging and
(20:48):
holding hands with you, but,like I touched the dogs all day
long, all day long I touchedthem and they seem to be okay
with it.
Ginger less she's sometimes youcan touch me.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Every once in a while .
Now.
What I really liked about thisstudy is it basically
incorporated a literature reviewand talked about a lot of the
prior research and madeconnections to that.
The prior research has focusedmostly on human to human touch
benefits and lots of studies areout there about newborn babies
(21:22):
and the skin to skin with theirmother.
But the prior research hasshown mixed results regarding
pet ownership and well-being andrarely explore but prior
research has rarely explored thespecific role of touch type.
So whether you're giving thepets to your dog or you're
(21:44):
receiving a boop in that petowner interactions.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
So pretty conclusive that touch is super important
for humans and, as you said,especially for the little ones.
But this one's looking at pets.
So we have 443 pet owners morecats in this study, which is
interesting 246 cats as the petowner has, and dogs are about
197.
(22:10):
And they're basically Asia toEurope, from Austria to Hong
Kong.
This is the area that they'regetting it from.
The mean age is about 30 yearsand it's diverse in gender and
occupation and health status.
There was an online survey thatwas done that assessed their
(22:31):
owner and pet touch types howfrequent, how long, what's the
context and how effective wasthe response of touch.
And then, on a validated scale,there was subjected well-being
analysis.
So they were like said how theyfelt and you do much better
with the data analysis, being amath brain, but I think they did
(22:52):
pretty good with their dataanalysis.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
For sure.
So they did go into a lot ofhow they did their controls.
They looked at multipleregression models that were
controlled for mental health andthen they did separate models
for owner touch and then pettouch, which is reciprocated,
and they standardized thevariables to interpret it but to
(23:19):
interpret the effect size intheir data analysis and they did
some pretty important keyfindings.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
So here are the somatosensory variables that the
study found and their I guesstheir findings.
That is like a sensation whichcan occur anywhere on your body.
Okay, so that's whatsomatosensory is.
With owner touch strokingfrequency and duration
positively predicted ownerwell-being Stroking effects were
stronger than for other touchtypes hugging and holding and
(23:51):
the area of physical contactduring stroking also predicted
better well-being.
And with pet touch, pet nudgingfrequency had a small positive
association with ownerwell-being.
What's a pet nudge?
Is that like when Bernoullidolphin punts you into petting
him?
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Or like he rubs up against you.
Well, that's funny because ifwe're sitting at the table and
Bernoulli comes over, he's boopand his head is so strong that
your elbow flies off and it's.
I'm like I would say that wouldbe a negative association.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Yeah, because you throw your coffee everywhere if
you're not careful.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Yeah, exactly, but with Ginger, when she comes
close she's very gentle, and somaybe that came more from the
cats.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Ah, and then it does say pet rubbing frequency
negatively predicted wellbeing.
I don't know what that means.
Maybe they rub up against youif you're feeling sad.
Pet rubbing frequencynegatively predicted well-being.
I don't know what that means.
Maybe they rub up against youif you're feeling sad.
So I don't that's.
I guess.
If your pet's rubbing you allthe time in this study, that
negatively predicts how well youwere feeling.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Oh, Because that could reflect the pet
sensitivity to the ownerdistress.
So the owner might have beenfeeling negative in their
well-being and the pets oh wait,what was going on?
Or they could have got someshocking news from their bank
account and they're like, oh no,and then the last thing that
they might want is a pet to berubbing against them as they're
(25:16):
fretting about something thatmight've happened.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Yeah, Pet leaning was associated with a positive
effect that predicted ownerwellbeing and that make when Lee
and Bunsen sit on your feet andlean into you.
That is a good feeling.
That is such a good feeling.
Bernoulli was leaning into youthe other day and he was so
happy and we just had to stopand be part of that moment
(25:40):
because it was such a fun moment.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Yeah, yeah, I love it , I absolutely love it when the
dogs come in and lean in andthat's a trait of the burner.
To come in and do the burnerlean, it's called, but if they
sit on your feet, you areabsolutely chosen.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
And negatively associated with wellbeing is if
you're resting and your pet isjumping around.
I thought that was a funfinding and that makes sense.
You're trying to sleep and thecat's jumping on your head, or I
guess the dogs are jumpingaround.
It would be frustrating or ifthey're unexpected.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
You're sitting there and then unexpected jump on the
lap ah, I didn't ask for this,there's not really a consent.
Sometimes they're like I'm gonnajump on you and there, ah, I
didn't ask for this, there's notreally a consent.
Sometimes they're like I'mgoing to jump on you and there's
no time to be like, okay, thatsounds like a good idea.
Another part of this studylooked at touch giving versus
(26:39):
receiving of that touch and bothgiving so stroking your animal
and receiving.
So that comes in, with thenudging and the leaning touch,
contributed to owner wellbeingand if an owner is giving touch
like stroking, that wasparticularly significant,
(27:00):
despite a more traditional focuson receiving touch in social
touch literature.
So again, this study reallywent into the other types of
research that has been done andthey talked about some potential
mechanisms.
And this is where bodilyscience, biology, comes in.
Biology comes in and it talkedabout AB fibers and T afferents
(27:28):
via the non palmer skin talk,but skin via non palmer skin
contact, and so they talkedabout the your palms not having
hair versus other areas of yourbody that have hair, and the
hairy parts tend to respond moreto touch than the non hairy
(27:50):
parts.
And yeah, and there's emotionaland relational benefits from
engaging in caregiving touch.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
So I think, as we wrap up and we look to the
future, it'd be interesting, asthey noted, to look at this long
term.
Long term.
Do people with pets that theycan touch and be touched by, do
they have better well-being thanpeople who don't have pets?
And then also, how did the petsrespond, as this is their
(28:23):
response relative to the ownerwell-being?
Luckily we have three animalsGinger too.
All of our animals like to betouched.
Beaker does not like to behugged.
She does not, so if you hug hershe'll tolerate it, but she
doesn't like it.
Whereas Bunsen and Bernoullithey love a hug, they love being
(28:45):
hugged.
Bernoulli especially, he justloves a hug, especially by Adam
hey.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
Yeah He'll.
He does a trust fall into Adamand he's hug me, please hug me.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Yeah, but where I'm going is if your pet doesn't
really respond well to beingtouched, perhaps that has an
impact on your well-being.
Like you go to pet your dog andit runs away from you.
That would be heartbreaking.
And then also, they only lookto cats and dogs.
It would be interesting to lookat other animals that like to
(29:19):
be touched.
I see a lot of people on socialmedia with their birds and
their parrots, and the parrotslike to get petted.
I don't know if you want to getpetted by a parrot, though
They've got scratchy feet, but Idigress.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
But I think a parrot will nudge you.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Yeah, that's true, yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Which is part of the touch that was looked at in this
study.
So this study offered someconclusions.
They talked about pet ownertouch, especially stroking,
shows a small but meaningfulassociation with owner
well-being and the somatosensorywhich is bottom up.
(29:58):
So those are variables likefrequency and duration and
non-somatosensory variables.
So that's the context that thesituation is happening in.
So both somatosensory andnon-somatosensory factors do
play roles, but tactilestimulation appears more
(30:24):
consistently beneficial to ownerwell-being and the study
highlights that the nature andcontext of touch matters and
touch giving may be as or moreimportant than touch receiving
in human pet interactions.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
There you go.
It's nice to have some goodnews and the good news is that
if you're petting your pet,seems based on this study, it's
good for your well-being.
Makes me going to miss my dogseven more when we're gone and
Ginger, but definitely it'sgoing to be a big thing we're
not going to have around.
(31:08):
Maybe there'll be some dogs.
Maybe there'll be some dogs onthe Island We'll get to see.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
And that's what I did when I went to Halifax and
Prince Edward Island.
I saw all the dogs and I pettedall the dogs.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Yeah, all right, that's pet science for this week
.
That's Pet Science for thisweek.
That's it for this week's show.
Thanks for coming back weekafter week to listen to the
Science Podcast.
And a shout out to all the topdogs.
That's the top tier of ourPatreon community, the Paw Pack.
You can sign up in our shownotes.
All right, chris, let's hearthose names that are part of the
top dogs.
(31:40):
That are part of the Top DogsFor science, empathy and
(32:41):
cuteness.
Hello science enthusiasts.
I'm Jason Zukoski.
And I'm Chris Zukoski, we'rethe pet parents of Bunsen,
beaker, bernoulli and Ginger.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
The science animals on social media.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
If you love science.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
And you love pets.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
You've come to the right spot, so put on your
safety glasses and hold on toyour tail.
This is the Science Podcast.
Hi there, Welcome back to theScience Podcast.
We hope you're happy andhealthy out there.
This is episode 21 of seasonseven and it's a minipod because
we're talking to you from thepast.
(00:45):
This is scheduled for whenwe're on holidays, which is odd.
Hello, future Chris.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Hello, future Jason.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
We're only doing two articles this week just because
we don't have a lot of timebefore we go.
It's been a very busy week.
Are you excited to head to theisland?
Speaker 1 (01:06):
I am Jason.
It's been a while since we'vebeen on a nice holiday together.
You definitely haven't goneanywhere since COVID.
I, of course, got to spend timein the eastern part of Canada
in the Maritimes with Adam andthe Royals, and you missed out
on that and you gave yourselffood poisoning.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
So it's okay.
Last summer we didn't doanything because we had
Bernoulli.
He was I don't think.
I don't think there's any tripthat would be as fun as a puppy
like.
He was just fun every singleday.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
It was right and that was a decision that we made,
when I said, hey, what aboutgetting a new dog?
But that would mean that wewould be spending the summer
with the puppy.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Yeah, and that was fine and then bunsen got sick
and he survived, of course, butthat also we were thinking about
, maybe in the last bit ofaugust, when the puppy was older
, going, and then bunsen, ofcourse, got sick and we're like,
nope, that's the end of this.
So it all worked out and I'mgonna miss the dogs big time.
I know Bunsen and Beaker willbe fine.
(02:14):
I don't know what it is, butI'm just feeling like I'm gonna
miss Bernoulli so much becausehe's the baby.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
I think he'll be fine , though he he is the baby, but
I know our dogs will be fine.
They're in good hands and wejust love them so much.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
All right, what's on the show?
This week In science news we'regoing to talk about the impact
of AI on the environment and inpet science.
There's a study about beingtouched as a human and how it's
beneficial and perhaps the rolethat pets will have in that area
, of the benefits emotionally ofbeing touched.
(02:53):
All right, let's get on withthe show.
There's no time like sciencetime.
This week in science news we'regoing to talk about generative
AI and its environmental impact.
Now we've posted some AI stuffin the last four months and for
(03:15):
the most part, people have been.
They like it.
It's like the video, thegenerative Google VO3 stuff and
for the most part, people likeit.
But we do get some very angrycomments every single time we
post it.
Even back to when we wouldoccasionally post photos,
actually cause people to DM usand unfollow us and leave angry
(03:40):
comments.
So I thought we would look atthe environmental impact of AI,
this generative AI stuff, asthat is one of the things that
some of the upset folks havesaid in our comments on social
media.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Because you think, oh , create this cute picture of a
dog looking like it's the pophead.
It actually does take a lot ofenergy to do that, more so than
you think, because it's the pophead.
It actually does take a lot ofenergy to do that, more so than
you think, because it generatesthe image quite quickly.
It's oh, let me generate thatfor you.
And seconds later you have yourdog dressed up as a Barbie in a
(04:18):
box.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
I think the one thing that's starting to become very
clear to me, though, chris, isthat it's AI is now everywhere.
My mail app on my phone has AI.
Do you have that on your phone?
If I go into my mail app, itsummarizes some of the unread
texts, and on my phone, whenpeople leave messages in its
voice, it summarizes what themessage was like, using AI.
(04:43):
Like it's everywhere, I don'tknow if we can get away with it.
A lot of it is extremely handyand time-saving, but what we're
going to be looking at is theenvironmental cost.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
So OpenAI is a company and the CEO, Sam Altman,
claimed he was talking aboutthe average chat GPT query used
energy similar to an oven forjust one second and experts
chimed in and they argued thatfigure lacked context because
(05:19):
the definition of an averagequery is quite unclear.
But we do know that each AIinteraction consumes energy and
emits carbon, which raises thoseenvironmental concerns.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
So if we look at LLMs that's large language models
they're described by the numberof parameters or internal
variables tuned during training,and the more parameters you
have, the greater the learningcapacity, but then the higher
energy demands.
So the better the AI, the moreenergy it requires to both train
(06:01):
and give you the answer.
For example, I have GPT-4.
I actually pay for chat GPT andthat has 1 trillion parameters
and these models are hosted inhuge data centers with very
powerful GPUs to process thesequeries quickly, because the
last thing you'd want if you'reselling a product is if you ask
(06:22):
a question and it'll get back toyou like an hour from now.
Early LLMs used to do that.
Now these data centers alreadyaccount for about 4.4% of US
energy use and the shocking statis that could rise to about 12%
by 2028.
So only three years from now.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Yeah, by 2028.
So only three years from now,yeah, and think about what AI
can do three weeks from now, noteven in comparison to three
years from now.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Yeah, that Google VO stuff blows me away still, and
we'll talk about the energy costof it, but that's the prompt to
video.
I made Bunsen, beaker andBernoulli snowboard with Norbert
and it was cool.
I just typed it in and it madethem do it, which is wild.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
And it's getting more accurate as it gets more
information.
Now there's I want to talk alittle bit about the challenges
in measuring the LLM carbonfootprint.
So there is a training phasewhich requires weeks of
processing on thousands of GPUsand Adam worked in the tech
(07:33):
department at Staples and he satme down and he talked about
GPUs and he talked about CPUsand I listened to him and he was
so passionate about it and thenI was like are you mining
Bitcoin in the basement?
Because he was talking aboutthe GPU, cpu and it.
I'm not gonna lie, it went overmy head.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
But who stands for graphics processing unit, for
everybody who's listening.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Yeah, and it's different than the CPU, which is
the.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Central processing unit.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
During the training phase, like I did, got off the
rails there talking about theGPU.
It does require weeks ofprocessing on thousands of GPUs
and it has a high energy use,but companies rarely disclose
the data, like what kind ofcomputational time or what kind
of energy type, what kind ofdata is being used.
(08:26):
And so the emissions fromtraining are largely unknown.
So it's in a mystery box, right?
You don't know what's there.
And then, after the trainingphase, there's the inference
phase.
(08:49):
The inference phase, and soemissions will occur every time
a model is used.
So you ask chat GPT somethingthat's your query input and
people are gravitating towardschat GPT as opposed to Google
and for simple questions thattypically Google would have been
able to answer.
And so these?
That's a challenge because chatGPT takes up more energy.
The inference emissions areexpected to surpass training
(09:11):
over a model's lifetime, andthat impact will vary and it
varies by the center that thedata is located.
It also will vary based on thesource of energy Energy is
stored in a grid and it could berenewable versus a fossil fuel
type of energy but also time ofday.
So if you're at the peak timeor the off-peak power demand,
(09:36):
how is that having an impact onthe emissions and the inference
phase.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
So estimating how much large language models use
in energy is tricky, becausethese companies really don't
want to tell everybody how muchenergy went into training.
And if it's bad news, I can seewhy they're not going to tell
everybody that Without politicalor social pressure, you'll
(10:02):
never know.
We'll never know.
If nobody's telling them totell the public how much energy
they're using and it's a lotthey'll be like why do we need
to tell you this?
This is bad news for us.
Okay, so we can make someinferences about how much energy
is being used, but we have touse it at scale, right.
(10:23):
It's difficult to determine oneperson.
We have to look at using it atscale.
So a 70 billion parameterreasoning model answering around
600,000 queries, like askingthem a question to do something,
is about the same emissions asa round-trip flight from London
to New York in a plane.
(10:45):
This is current models, becausethings change so fast in
technology that they'reconstantly using better cards.
Nvidia's new H100 chip is evenmore powerful than the A100, and
that means it's going to usemore energy.
Another thing that you have totake into account is this is
(11:06):
just the energy to answer thequestion, chris, but these
systems have to be cooled, theyget so hot that an enormous
amount of energy goes intokeeping them cool from starting
on fire and melting down LikeAdam's computer.
He's got some weird coolingsystem right, like some crazy
cooling system.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Yeah, and you go into his room and he has Annalisa's
computer in there, so that'sjust double the infrastructure
to create heat, and I'm thinkingwe have air conditioning and
we're cooling down the computersthat are ramping up.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
So determining how much energy is used in these
large language models isdifficult, and the estimations
online are invariably off andthey're probably low.
That's what the I guess theirconclusion is.
So what can we do about this?
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Well, there's definite ways to reduce the AI
environmental impact.
For sure, choose a differentmodel, use a smaller model.
Another example is there is astandard model Quen 2.5, and
that matched the reasoning modelCognito 70B's accuracy with
(12:20):
using less than one third of thecarbon footprint.
And there also are someavailable tools which you know.
I liken this to being in thecar and you think of how much
fuel am I using and you watchthe fuel gauge go down as you're
driving around town.
If you look at if there was somekind of meter that you could
(12:42):
look at and be like whoa, myquery, my reasoning task query,
is using so much energy on ascale that might be beneficial
to help curb that behavior thatyou're seeking AI, putting your
questions into AI.
So Hugging Face's AI energyscore ranks models by efficiency
(13:03):
across tasks.
Another energy ML energyprovides similar comparisons,
which helps users choose greenermodels, also looking at
behavioral changes.
And so, instead of going at themost power hungry time, use AI
at off peak times, so the coolerperiods will have less grid
(13:27):
strain.
And here's another oneminimizing the unnecessary words
and prompts.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
I love this one.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
I know I like to be very polite when I'm talking to
AI, please and thank you, butwhat that does is that's
needless because it just adds tothat processing.
So if you refrain frompoliteness, that will reduce the
processing.
And some people are actuallyquite friendly with AI and chat
(13:59):
GPT and they're asking itphilosophical questions, which
this is another branch that wecould talk about on another
podcast.
It's like the lonelinesssituation that's happening in
some areas of the world thatpeople are experiencing and so
they're seeking other outlets.
(14:20):
But that outlet, without agauge on it, could definitely be
ramping up the consumption, andthere's always the opportunity
for implementing policy, soimplementing energy rating
standards for AI models.
So, similar to your appliancein the laundry room, your washer
(14:41):
dryer, your microwave, hasenergy labels that are written
on it.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Like a transparency right, Like some kind of
transparency.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Yeah, so if you're at the store and you're comparing
models, they all have a stickeron it Like a transparency, right
, like some kind of transparency.
Yeah, so if you're at the storeand you're comparing models,
they all have a sticker on it soyou can make a more informed
choice.
But then also, I liken this tothe e-scooters in town.
The company that they, that ourcity, leases to, has max speeds
on the scooters, and so you canonly go a certain speed on
(15:13):
those scooters, versus buying ascooter at a different store
that doesn't have that policy orthat restriction, and so you
could be clocking at 50kilometers an hour and you can
get into some serious damage toyour body if you got into an
accident on a scooter at thatspeed.
Another policy suggestion isrequiring high usage models.
(15:34):
So less, but so greater than 10million daily, but greater than
10 million daily users to meetminimum efficiency grades.
So being scored this is B plusor higher.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
We literally had to get some new lights and they
said the incandescent bulbs arebeing phased out.
Like you, literally aren't evengoing to be able to get them
anymore jason.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
That legislation came in 2013.
I taught about it in socialstudies 9 lights out to
inefficient bulbs.
It's been a while's taken awhile.
2013 was the target year.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Yeah, but yeah, I guess we don't really have that
long to wait, because the bigchallenge is as AI grows, there
may not be enough energy.
You ask ChatGPT for help withyour homework and it's the straw
that breaks the camel's back inyour area and you lose power
and there's a brownout.
So if ai accounts for 12 ofentire energy demand, the rest
(16:38):
of energy has to go down orsocieties have to make more
power, like one of the two.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Something's got to give right and what needs to get
improve.
I'm just letting my studentsknow, I'm letting people know
that chat GPT does not do mathvery well.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Oh yeah, like it's not great at everything for sure
, no, it's things and it'sterrible at other stuff.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
You would think procedural step-by-step it would
be able to handle, but itcannot distribute a negative
into a set of brackets.
It's so bizarre.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Who knows what we'll be able to do in three years,
though, chris.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
Who knows?
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Okay.
So I guess it's tough to makeestimates about how much energy
is being used.
But as we close, I have thistable that was put together by
an engineering firm.
I have this table that was puttogether by an engineering firm
and a single Google search useszero, decimal, zero, zero, zero,
(17:37):
three kilowatt hours and it'sabout 10 times the energy.
If you use a chat, gpt, promptand a Google VO three estimate
is about twice the energy.
That's what the early estimatesare.
(17:58):
So those Google VO3 estimatesmay be about 20 times the energy
of a single Google search.
Now, it could be way worse thanthat because we have all of
these unknown variables, butthat's what the data today says.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
And that's only for one query or one video.
How many people are making avideo in an hour?
What is our global population?
8 billion.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Yeah, those good those, those Yeti videos are
extremely popular on socialmedia, like they're everywhere.
There's thousands of accountsmaking these Yeti videos.
I don't know if you've evenseen them yet, chris, but
they're everywhere.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
I've only seen them because you've shown me.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Yeah, they're on my algorithm because I watched a
few.
All right, that's science newsfor this week.
This week in pet science, we'regoing to talk about friendly
touching.
Now I think I should probablystart by saying I do not like
being touched by people I do notknow, or even people I do know,
(19:07):
or even my friends or mycoworkers.
I have a very small group ofpeople that I enjoy being
touched by.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Yeah, jason.
And so for me, I'm more of notnecessarily a touchy, feely kind
of person, but a gentle touchon the shoulder is part of my
love language.
And part of my love language ishey, let's hold hands as we
walk down the street, and youare not a hand holder.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
I'll do it for you.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
I'll do it for you, you do which I appreciate, but
that took a little while for meto to reconcile right.
So you will hold my hand, butyou are like a noble gas, you're
like oh, I'll bond with you,but I just want to be hanging
out with my own element, right?
Speaker 2 (20:01):
yeah, yeah, I'm not blind to the science, like I
absolutely know and I've donestudies on.
I absolutely know and I've readstudies that people do need
touch in their day.
Uh, friendly human touch isknown to enhance well-being
through your feelings,emotionally and your senses, and
I guess our modern societylimits that for people that need
(20:25):
that and maybe it's taboo.
You don't touch people.
Maybe it's because we're moreseparated and we're more
sequestered, and this study thatwe're going to look at is how
pets may fill this gap, andmaybe that's where I get my fill
from is I'm okay with my familytouching me and hugging and
(20:48):
holding hands with you, but,like I touched the dogs all day
long, all day long I touchedthem and they seem to be okay
with it.
Ginger less she's sometimes youcan touch me.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Every once in a while .
Now.
What I really liked about thisstudy is it basically
incorporated a literature reviewand talked about a lot of the
prior research and madeconnections to that.
The prior research has focusedmostly on human to human touch
benefits and lots of studies areout there about newborn babies
(21:22):
and the skin to skin with theirmother.
But the prior research hasshown mixed results regarding
pet ownership and well-being andrarely explore but prior
research has rarely explored thespecific role of touch type.
So whether you're giving thepets to your dog or you're
(21:44):
receiving a boop in that petowner interactions.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
So pretty conclusive that touch is super important
for humans and, as you said,especially for the little ones.
But this one's looking at pets.
So we have 443 pet owners morecats in this study, which is
interesting 246 cats as the petowner has, and dogs are about
197.
(22:10):
And they're basically Asia toEurope, from Austria to Hong
Kong.
This is the area that they'regetting it from.
The mean age is about 30 yearsand it's diverse in gender and
occupation and health status.
There was an online survey thatwas done that assessed their
(22:31):
owner and pet touch types howfrequent, how long, what's the
context and how effective wasthe response of touch.
And then, on a validated scale,there was subjected well-being
analysis.
So they were like said how theyfelt and you do much better
with the data analysis, being amath brain, but I think they did
(22:52):
pretty good with their dataanalysis.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
For sure.
So they did go into a lot ofhow they did their controls.
They looked at multipleregression models that were
controlled for mental health andthen they did separate models
for owner touch and then pettouch, which is reciprocated,
and they standardized thevariables to interpret it but to
(23:19):
interpret the effect size intheir data analysis and they did
some pretty important keyfindings.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
So here are the somatosensory variables that the
study found and their I guesstheir findings.
That is like a sensation whichcan occur anywhere on your body.
Okay, so that's whatsomatosensory is.
With owner touch strokingfrequency and duration
positively predicted ownerwell-being Stroking effects were
stronger than for other touchtypes hugging and holding and
(23:51):
the area of physical contactduring stroking also predicted
better well-being.
And with pet touch, pet nudgingfrequency had a small positive
association with ownerwell-being.
What's a pet nudge?
Is that like when Bernoullidolphin punts you into petting
him?
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Or like he rubs up against you.
Well, that's funny because ifwe're sitting at the table and
Bernoulli comes over, he's boopand his head is so strong that
your elbow flies off and it's.
I'm like I would say that wouldbe a negative association.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Yeah, because you throw your coffee everywhere if
you're not careful.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Yeah, exactly, but with Ginger, when she comes
close she's very gentle, and somaybe that came more from the
cats.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Ah, and then it does say pet rubbing frequency
negatively predicted wellbeing.
I don't know what that means.
Maybe they rub up against youif you're feeling sad.
Pet rubbing frequencynegatively predicted well-being.
I don't know what that means.
Maybe they rub up against youif you're feeling sad.
So I don't that's.
I guess.
If your pet's rubbing you allthe time in this study, that
negatively predicts how well youwere feeling.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Oh, Because that could reflect the pet
sensitivity to the ownerdistress.
So the owner might have beenfeeling negative in their
well-being and the pets oh wait,what was going on?
Or they could have got someshocking news from their bank
account and they're like, oh no,and then the last thing that
they might want is a pet to berubbing against them as they're
(25:16):
fretting about something thatmight've happened.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Yeah, Pet leaning was associated with a positive
effect that predicted ownerwellbeing and that make when Lee
and Bunsen sit on your feet andlean into you.
That is a good feeling.
That is such a good feeling.
Bernoulli was leaning into youthe other day and he was so
happy and we just had to stopand be part of that moment
(25:40):
because it was such a fun moment.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Yeah, yeah, I love it , I absolutely love it when the
dogs come in and lean in andthat's a trait of the burner.
To come in and do the burnerlean, it's called, but if they
sit on your feet, you areabsolutely chosen.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
And negatively associated with wellbeing is if
you're resting and your pet isjumping around.
I thought that was a funfinding and that makes sense.
You're trying to sleep and thecat's jumping on your head, or I
guess the dogs are jumpingaround.
It would be frustrating or ifthey're unexpected.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
You're sitting there and then unexpected jump on the
lap ah, I didn't ask for this,there's not really a consent.
Sometimes they're like I'm gonnajump on you and there, ah, I
didn't ask for this, there's notreally a consent.
Sometimes they're like I'mgoing to jump on you and there's
no time to be like, okay, thatsounds like a good idea.
Another part of this studylooked at touch giving versus
(26:39):
receiving of that touch and bothgiving so stroking your animal
and receiving.
So that comes in, with thenudging and the leaning touch,
contributed to owner wellbeingand if an owner is giving touch
like stroking, that wasparticularly significant,
(27:00):
despite a more traditional focuson receiving touch in social
touch literature.
So again, this study reallywent into the other types of
research that has been done andthey talked about some potential
mechanisms.
And this is where bodilyscience, biology, comes in.
Biology comes in and it talkedabout AB fibers and T afferents
(27:28):
via the non palmer skin talk,but skin via non palmer skin
contact, and so they talkedabout the your palms not having
hair versus other areas of yourbody that have hair, and the
hairy parts tend to respond moreto touch than the non hairy
(27:50):
parts.
And yeah, and there's emotionaland relational benefits from
engaging in caregiving touch.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
So I think, as we wrap up and we look to the
future, it'd be interesting, asthey noted, to look at this long
term.
Long term.
Do people with pets that theycan touch and be touched by, do
they have better well-being thanpeople who don't have pets?
And then also, how did the petsrespond, as this is their
(28:23):
response relative to the ownerwell-being?
Luckily we have three animalsGinger too.
All of our animals like to betouched.
Beaker does not like to behugged.
She does not, so if you hug hershe'll tolerate it, but she
doesn't like it.
Whereas Bunsen and Bernoullithey love a hug, they love being
(28:45):
hugged.
Bernoulli especially, he justloves a hug, especially by Adam
hey.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
Yeah He'll.
He does a trust fall into Adamand he's hug me, please hug me.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Yeah, but where I'm going is if your pet doesn't
really respond well to beingtouched, perhaps that has an
impact on your well-being.
Like you go to pet your dog andit runs away from you.
That would be heartbreaking.
And then also, they only lookto cats and dogs.
It would be interesting to lookat other animals that like to
(29:19):
be touched.
I see a lot of people on socialmedia with their birds and
their parrots, and the parrotslike to get petted.
I don't know if you want to getpetted by a parrot, though
They've got scratchy feet, but Idigress.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
But I think a parrot will nudge you.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Yeah, that's true, yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Which is part of the touch that was looked at in this
study.
So this study offered someconclusions.
They talked about pet ownertouch, especially stroking,
shows a small but meaningfulassociation with owner
well-being and the somatosensorywhich is bottom up.
(29:58):
So those are variables likefrequency and duration and
non-somatosensory variables.
So that's the context that thesituation is happening in.
So both somatosensory andnon-somatosensory factors do
play roles, but tactilestimulation appears more
(30:24):
consistently beneficial to ownerwell-being and the study
highlights that the nature andcontext of touch matters and
touch giving may be as or moreimportant than touch receiving
in human pet interactions.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
There you go.
It's nice to have some goodnews and the good news is that
if you're petting your pet,seems based on this study, it's
good for your well-being.
Makes me going to miss my dogseven more when we're gone and
Ginger, but definitely it'sgoing to be a big thing we're
not going to have around.
(31:08):
Maybe there'll be some dogs.
Maybe there'll be some dogs onthe Island We'll get to see.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
And that's what I did when I went to Halifax and
Prince Edward Island.
I saw all the dogs and I pettedall the dogs.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Yeah, all right, that's pet science for this week
.
That's Pet Science for thisweek.
That's it for this week's show.
Thanks for coming back weekafter week to listen to the
Science Podcast.
And a shout out to all the topdogs.
That's the top tier of ourPatreon community, the Paw Pack.
You can sign up in our shownotes.
All right, chris, let's hearthose names that are part of the
top dogs.
(31:40):
That are part of the Top DogsFor science, empathy and
(32:41):
cuteness.
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