August 15, 2025 • 21 mins
We explore fascinating examples of mutualism in nature and therapeutic relationships between humans and animals through two distinct scientific studies.
• Squamillaria plants in Fiji function as apartment buildings for up to five different ant species
• These plants have internal chambers with separate entrances preventing deadly conflicts between rival ant colonies
• When chamber walls are broken, ants engage in fatal battles lasting only 30 minutes
• The plant benefits from ant waste providing nutrients while ants receive safe housing
• Some ant species even plant seeds in nearby bark, acting as farmers for their future homes
• Facility dogs in physical therapy settings help patients persist 2.6 minutes longer in rehabilitation tasks
• Participants without dogs at home showed even greater improvement with a facility dog present
• Dogs may improve therapy outcomes through positive distraction and emotional support
• First tasks with dogs present showed lower pain and heart rate measurements
• Our own pets Bunsen, Beaker, and Bernoulli would need training before becoming therapy animals
Our all links to social media and more!
For Science, Empathy, and Cuteness!
Being Kind is a Superpower.
https://twitter.com/bunsenbernerbmd
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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.
And I'm Chris Zukoski, we'rethe pet parents of Bunsen,
beaker, bernoulli and Ginger.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
The science animals on social media.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
If you love science.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
And you love pets.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
You've come to the right spot, so put on your
safety glasses and hold on toyour tail.
This is the Science Podcast.
Hi everybody, and welcome backto the Science Podcast.
We hope you're happy andhealthy out there.
This is episode 24 of season 7.
We didn't have a podcast lastweek because the technology
(00:46):
failed, chris.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
We were going to try a new thing.
It's called the video podcast.
All the cool kids are doing it,and it didn't record the
appropriate level of soundquality, so we're looking into
that and how we can improve that, so then we can join all the
cool cats and kittens next week.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Yeah, exactly, so we'll try that.
Next week we have a.
We had a very busy week,exciting week.
We were in the mountains, wewere driving to Edmonton to
shoot this dog training coursewith Marla Smith, so that was
fun.
It was a very busy week andwe're just now round two of this
episode which we did last weekand nobody heard because it
(01:29):
sucked.
The audio was terrible.
All right, what's on the showthis week?
This week in science news weare going to look at the
squamillaria plants, which arefun plants in Fiji that stop
ants from going to war with eachother.
This is actually a really coolstudy.
And in pet science we are goingto be looking at how pets may
(01:51):
help folks who are doing likeoccupational therapy and
physical therapy.
All right, let's get to it.
There's no time like sciencetime.
This week in science news we'regoing to talk a little bit
about mutualism.
Now in Alberta, in grade nine,one of the things you have to
(02:13):
teach is symbiosis, and you'vetaught science nine before.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Yeah, I sure have.
I love that unit inbiodiversity because actually a
lot of the kids like it too,because it's animals and fun and
it makes a lot of sense andyeah kids love the punnett
squares they love genetics andit's just a really great time to
teach and really great contentto teach yeah, exactly my
(02:43):
favorite things in the whole.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Symbiosis isn't mutualism, which is what this
story is about, it's parasitismbecause I can show a whole bunch
of creepy videos and make thekids squirm, and a lot of them
really like it.
But but today we're talkingabout mutualism.
Mutualism, of course, is whereyou have two animals living in
close proximity and they bothbenefit from their interactions,
(03:05):
and we are looking at therelationship between a whole
schwack of different types ofants and the squamalaria plant.
This was a study led by DurhamUniversity.
Now this plant belongs to thesame family as coffee, go coffee
.
I think you and I are on teamcoffee team coffee in quinine,
(03:27):
which I think makes quinone,which might help with malaria.
Don't quote me on that.
This is found in tropicalfeijian trees growing as these
fat aerial tubers, and they'resometimes the size of a
basketball, and I burst outlaughing when I read what
(03:48):
they're named by the locals intradition Fijian language.
If you translate it, they arecalled now cover up small
children who are listening.
They are called the testicle ofthe tree and if you Google
image, squameleria plant.
That's what it looks like, notto get too graphic.
(04:10):
But there you go.
They have leafy shoots and theyact like an apartment building
for the creatures that liveinside them.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
And the creatures that live inside them are ants,
and the ants sublet thedifferent compartments because
it's a unique situation wheremultiple species can live there.
So the tubers, they do hostmultiple ant colonies and
interestingly, they can hold upto five genetically distinct ant
(04:42):
species, which is a surprisinglevel of diversity in such close
quarters.
So we talk about niche inScience 9, and we talk about
high diversity in the highlyspecialized areas near the
equator, and then we talk aboutthe broad niche up north where
(05:02):
we live, where the level ofdiversity is not as unique as
close to the equator.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
No, if you go outside in January and you start poking
around for animals, you'regoing to find two maybe.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
You're going to find, like this, snow hare.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Yeah, you're going to find a rabbit and some birds
that should have left long ago.
There's some snowbirds orsomething.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Yeah, or like fly cells, maybe a moose.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
on Christmas morning there was a moose hanging out in
our bushes.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Yeah, in our yard.
It was a Chris Moose.
Merry, chris Moose-mas.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Yeah, it just about died because I walked right up
to it, because it was in ourdogwood eating the stems.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
You're like like moose.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Yeah, yeah, you got that on the ring camera.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
That was crazy, that is crazy, but we're talking
about the testicle of the treehere, the tuber.
So the plant's inner structurecontains multiple isolated
chambers, each holding aseparate entrance, and there's
no internal doors that areconnecting the chambers, and so
(06:09):
that design is excellent becauseit prevents contact and
conflict, which maintains peacebetween potential ant rivals.
But when the walls between thechambers were broken during
research, ants from thedifferent colonies immediately
engaged in deadly battles, whichoften resulted in all of the
(06:34):
colonies dying within 30 minutes.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Whoa.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
It was a fight to the death.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
There's a scene in Saving Private Ryan that I'm
reminded of.
I'm sure you've seen SavingPrivate Ryan with Tom Hanks and
Matt Damon.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Yeah, I've seen that movie.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Yeah, there's like a point where they're at the
midway point and they're tryingto track down this Private Ryan
guy and the American squad guy.
They look in a building and heleans up against this brick wall
and the brick wall falls overand they're fighting in this
town like building to building.
Anyway, this brick wall fallsover and behind the brick wall
(07:13):
is an entire squad of Nazis.
So they look at each other fora second and then, yes, that's a
deadly battle where a wholebunch of people died.
It's like those ants they wereright beside each other, not
knowing each other was there,but as soon as they saw each
other, all heck broke looseterrible it also reminds me of
(07:34):
some of the stories you saidwhere you and your sister would
fight so bad you had to go torestaurants where there was a
partition between your legs, soyou can oh yeah, the restaurant
called spuds right across theline.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Okay, yeah, it had a brick wall between, so my sister
and I couldn't kick each otherunder the table.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Yeah, cause that's a deadly battle.
They did CT scans anddissections to show the plant's
architecture and how it preventsconflict by strictly separating
them, so there was no way forants in apartment block A to
mess with ants in apartmentblock B.
The plant may also chemicallydeter the ants from chewing the
(08:16):
walls.
There could be something in thewall that tastes bad.
Ants have mandibles that canchew through lots of stuff, and
why wouldn't they just chewthrough this plant?
No, maybe it tastes really bad.
The idea is that compounds likecalcium carbonate are things
that ants don't like to chew on.
Perhaps this plant is just likefull of it and some ant is.
(08:37):
You know what?
I'm just going to eat the walland it tasted bad and he told
his friends, so they stoppeddoing it.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
And the plant evolved going hey, the ants don't seem
to like this, so we're justgoing to keep making it.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Exactly.
But obviously the ants get ahouse, and with how expensive
houses are today, that's goodfor these younger ants.
But what does the plant getfrom this interaction?
The ants have to go to thebathroom eventually and they are
messy eaters.
So they leave behind droppings,food scraps and litter, and all
(09:10):
of those things decompose andenrich the plant.
It delivers things the plantmaybe wouldn't normally get.
It would get normally nitrogen,but it could get more things
like nitrogen and phosphorus.
It absorbs them through thewall.
So from one person's trash,another person's treasure.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
One person's, one ant's poop to a healthy tuber?
Okay, well, there's beenevolution of the what Poop been.
Evolution of Poop to a prize,what?
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Poop to a prize.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Poop to a prize.
The evolution of the ant-plantpartnership has evolved.
So in newer plant-antpartnerships only one ant
species lives in the tuber, sothat means there's no need for
walls, just a single sharedchamber.
And another thing that hasevolved is ants planting seeds
(09:59):
in nearby tree bark and theyguard the seedlings, which acts
like little tiny farmers.
That's super cute.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
They got to grow a house, right.
Yeah, this brings us to a coolkind of conclusion that nature
doesn't always conform to whatwe think.
Where one thing evolves andanother thing evolves, both
species benefit, influencingeach other, and they just get
better together.
You and I are both teachers,chris, I'd imagine with seating
(10:33):
we do the same thing with kidsthat don't get along, or if
they're next to each other,they're up to no good.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
I guess I do randomized seating plans every
month and normally I don't runinto problems where students
can't sit beside each other, soI just knock on wood.
That can continue.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Oh man, what kind of consequence would that be?
I was like you got to go in thetesticle in one of these five
section rooms if you're notpaying attention, and you have
to be cordoned off in thislittle room.
I guess it's like when you kicka kid out, like they're just
out of control, which hashappened before and they got to
go to the principal's office.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Or go sit in the sad chair.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Go sit in the sad chair.
All right, there you go.
It's a cool kind of mutualisticrelationship there, and that's
science news for this week.
This week in pet science we aregoing to be looking at a pretty
wholesome study thatinvestigated the effects of a
facility dog in physical therapy.
(11:32):
Now, both you and I have had tohave some physical therapy in
our life.
I hurt my back helping myparents move the first time.
Pretty bad, not as bad as you.
You actually seriously injuredyour back when you're moving
your classroom one time.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
I actually moved my classroom from one end of the
hall where I called it wasBeverly Hills, because it was so
nice.
I had two windows, lots oflight.
And then I moved down the halland then I had one window, so
not as much light.
I was like, oh, this isn'tquite as nice as my Beverly
Hills classroom.
I had to move out the door intothe real world and I moved into
(12:13):
a different classroom at adifferent school.
But I'm going to do it formyself first.
So what I would do is I'm like,no, I got this, I can, I can do
this.
And I grabbed a Rubbermaid tuband and books weigh a lot, paper
weighs a lot, and I lifted itand I turned and I tweaked and I
said to myself self, I'm suregonna feel that tomorrow, but I
(12:36):
didn't think anything of it.
So I packed all my stuff, I putit all in the van, away, it
went, and then what happened isyou and I walked around New York
all summer like we went on areally nice holiday, and then I
got home and I my back was alittle bit sore, but I thought
that's okay, I can go for a run,and I did.
(12:58):
I can run and then, like it allwas a disaster, I came home and
you said why is your spineshoved over to one side?
yeah, you look like an s yeah,you said why are you an s?
And I said I'm not an s andyou're like no, your whole body
(13:21):
is shifted to one side.
Look in the mirror.
And then, once I looked in themirror, it was devastating.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Um, um cause I did look like.
Pablo Picasso no it wasn't alot of physio that you had to do
.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Yeah, and I'm always very careful I don't want to
hurt my back again because it'svery painful going for that
physical therapy.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Knock on wood, I have not injured my back in a long
time.
I think most of my injurieswere like I did something in
martial arts and then I didsomething right after it A lot
of jumping and fleeing yourselfaround in martial arts and I've
retired from that.
But back to the study.
It might have been nice to havea facilities dog while I was
doing some of my rehab from myinjuries.
(14:08):
And just as a reminder, afacilities dog is a highly
trained canine that works with ahandler in things like
courtroom houses, schools orhospitals and they provide
support and comfort.
So very cute, very good dogs.
This study was aimed to explorewhether a facility dog could
help overcome barriers ininpatient rehabilitation.
(14:32):
So this study is from physicaland occupational therapy and
pediatrics.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
And the type of study was a randomized, controlled
crossover trial, and they had 69inpatients recovering from a
variety of acute conditions.
So acute meaning quite severe.
Now, 69 inpatients or an N of69 isn't a lot, but that just
(15:01):
leads us to maybe suggest, hey,this is a great area to explore
and subsequent studies can lookat this as well, and subsequent
studies can look at this as well.
What they decided to do washave patients performing one of
five common rehabilitation tasksand each participant completed
the same task twice during arehabilitation session, and then
(15:24):
there was a random assignmentwhich determined whether the
facility dog was present duringtheir first or their second
trial.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Oh man, can you imagine you're in pain and you
go to get some physio, do somephysio and you're in the group
that doesn't get to see the dog?
That would suck, Because I lovedogs.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
They would have had to agree to be part of it, and
so they would have had to knowthat there was a potential for a
dog.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
And potential for no dog.
Like that would bedisappointing.
So the facility dog was present, along with an hat, with the
handler and a physical therapist.
The control condition involvedonly the physical therapist and
the handler, no dog.
So I guess the handler stuckaround to watch you do your
exercises.
They measured your taskpersistence.
(16:13):
So that's the time spentengaged in the rehab task, and
some of the rehab tasks likearen't super fun.
Like I had to roll on my backon this foam thing.
I have it.
It feels really good whenyou're done, but while you're
doing it it can be sucks.
So I get that Like you do itfor longer.
Your self-rated pain, so howmuch you're in pain that you
(16:34):
think, self-rated exertion andphysiological measures which
include your heart rate.
They ran some statisticalanalysis and what did they find,
chris?
Speaker 2 (16:43):
They found that participants persisted
approximately 2.6 minutes longerwhen they were working with the
facility dog.
They also found thatparticipants without a dog at
home also persistedsignificantly longer with the
facility dog present, comparedto those who already owned a dog
(17:04):
.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Yeah, and in continuing, both measures varied
by task order and dog presence,as we said before, and they
looked at the pain and the heartrate results.
So the physiological results,so the first task with the dog,
the pain and the heart rate werelower and then the second task
with the dog, the pain and heartrate were significantly higher.
(17:30):
So that suggests a possibleshared physiological response to
cumulative effort or arousal.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Oh, so the second time around people had more pain
.
Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Yeah, so that that could be because they've already
gone through it once and the sothat could be because they've
already gone through it once andit does hurt the first time you
go through, and so doing thetask again talks about your
response to that effort.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
They just wanted.
After the first time they'relike you know what?
I just want to pet the dog.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Or I want to show off for the dog.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Oh, okay, there you go.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
So that's why your heart rate was higher.
Some interpretation of thisstudy could be that the presence
of a facility dog may improvepatient participation and that
could be because of cognitivefactors so they were distracted
from the discomfort, whichincreased the focus on the task
and emotional factors.
So having a positive emotionalresponse elicited by interacting
with the dog and I know thatwould be me and I know I get
distracted if I go for physiobecause my physiotherapist will
(18:38):
talk to me all throughout whenhe's going in and getting those
muscles loosened.
And he's talking to me andsometimes I can't talk through
it.
He's talking to me andsometimes I can't talk through
it.
It's too painful but it'sdefinitely a distraction than if
he was just going at my lowerback muscle for 45 seconds with
(18:59):
no distraction.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Do you think having a dog there would be better If
you could pet the dog and seethe dog.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
I think it would be better.
I think it would be better too.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Oh yeah, I think I would be more likely to go into
physio if I knew a dog was thererather than not, because it
like some people skip physiobecause it is painful.
It's what's the?
It's stretching, moving thosemuscles, and that you've done
something to exactly come forthe stay for the pain.
Yeah, bunsen, beaker, bernoulliwould not be good facility dogs
(19:36):
right now?
Because if you were evershowing pain.
I think they would just try andcome and stop what was happening
, Especially with you.
If somebody was doing somethingto you and you looked like you
were in pain, I think Bunsen andBernoulli would freak out on
that person.
They'd think they were hurtingyou.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
You know what Beaker would do?
What he would lick your hand.
I know and she would fling upher head and want you to pet her
.
That's what she would dobecause she's a sweetheart.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Yeah, all right, there you go.
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
(20:22):
Top Dogs.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Amelia Fettig, Rhi Oda, Carol Haino, Jennifer
Challen, Linnea Janik, KarenChronister, Vicky Otero, Christy
Walker, Sarah Bram, Wendy,Diane Mason and Luke Helen Chin,
Elizabeth Bourgeois, MarianneMcNally, Catherine Jordan,
Shelley Smith, Laura Steffensen,Tracy Leinbach, Anne Uchida,
(20:47):
Heather Burback, Kelly TracyHalbert, Ben Rathart, Debbie
Anderson, Sandy Brimer, MaryRader, Bianca Hyde For science,
empathy and cuteness.
Hello science enthusiasts.
I'm Jason Zukoski.
And I'm Chris Zukoski, we'rethe pet parents of Bunsen,
beaker, bernoulli and Ginger.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
The science animals on social media.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
If you love science.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
And you love pets.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
You've come to the right spot, so put on your
safety glasses and hold on toyour tail.
This is the Science Podcast.
Hi everybody, and welcome backto the Science Podcast.
We hope you're happy andhealthy out there.
This is episode 24 of season 7.
We didn't have a podcast lastweek because the technology
(00:46):
failed, chris.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
We were going to try a new thing.
It's called the video podcast.
All the cool kids are doing it,and it didn't record the
appropriate level of soundquality, so we're looking into
that and how we can improve that, so then we can join all the
cool cats and kittens next week.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Yeah, exactly, so we'll try that.
Next week we have a.
We had a very busy week,exciting week.
We were in the mountains, wewere driving to Edmonton to
shoot this dog training coursewith Marla Smith, so that was
fun.
It was a very busy week andwe're just now round two of this
episode which we did last weekand nobody heard because it
(01:29):
sucked.
The audio was terrible.
All right, what's on the showthis week?
This week in science news weare going to look at the
squamillaria plants, which arefun plants in Fiji that stop
ants from going to war with eachother.
This is actually a really coolstudy.
And in pet science we are goingto be looking at how pets may
(01:51):
help folks who are doing likeoccupational therapy and
physical therapy.
All right, let's get to it.
There's no time like sciencetime.
This week in science news we'regoing to talk a little bit
about mutualism.
Now in Alberta, in grade nine,one of the things you have to
(02:13):
teach is symbiosis, and you'vetaught science nine before.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Yeah, I sure have.
I love that unit inbiodiversity because actually a
lot of the kids like it too,because it's animals and fun and
it makes a lot of sense andyeah kids love the punnett
squares they love genetics andit's just a really great time to
teach and really great contentto teach yeah, exactly my
(02:43):
favorite things in the whole.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Symbiosis isn't mutualism, which is what this
story is about, it's parasitismbecause I can show a whole bunch
of creepy videos and make thekids squirm, and a lot of them
really like it.
But but today we're talkingabout mutualism.
Mutualism, of course, is whereyou have two animals living in
close proximity and they bothbenefit from their interactions,
(03:05):
and we are looking at therelationship between a whole
schwack of different types ofants and the squamalaria plant.
This was a study led by DurhamUniversity.
Now this plant belongs to thesame family as coffee, go coffee
.
I think you and I are on teamcoffee team coffee in quinine,
(03:27):
which I think makes quinone,which might help with malaria.
Don't quote me on that.
This is found in tropicalfeijian trees growing as these
fat aerial tubers, and they'resometimes the size of a
basketball, and I burst outlaughing when I read what
(03:48):
they're named by the locals intradition Fijian language.
If you translate it, they arecalled now cover up small
children who are listening.
They are called the testicle ofthe tree and if you Google
image, squameleria plant.
That's what it looks like, notto get too graphic.
(04:10):
But there you go.
They have leafy shoots and theyact like an apartment building
for the creatures that liveinside them.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
And the creatures that live inside them are ants,
and the ants sublet thedifferent compartments because
it's a unique situation wheremultiple species can live there.
So the tubers, they do hostmultiple ant colonies and
interestingly, they can hold upto five genetically distinct ant
(04:42):
species, which is a surprisinglevel of diversity in such close
quarters.
So we talk about niche inScience 9, and we talk about
high diversity in the highlyspecialized areas near the
equator, and then we talk aboutthe broad niche up north where
(05:02):
we live, where the level ofdiversity is not as unique as
close to the equator.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
No, if you go outside in January and you start poking
around for animals, you'regoing to find two maybe.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
You're going to find, like this, snow hare.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Yeah, you're going to find a rabbit and some birds
that should have left long ago.
There's some snowbirds orsomething.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Yeah, or like fly cells, maybe a moose.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
on Christmas morning there was a moose hanging out in
our bushes.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Yeah, in our yard.
It was a Chris Moose.
Merry, chris Moose-mas.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Yeah, it just about died because I walked right up
to it, because it was in ourdogwood eating the stems.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
You're like like moose.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Yeah, yeah, you got that on the ring camera.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
That was crazy, that is crazy, but we're talking
about the testicle of the treehere, the tuber.
So the plant's inner structurecontains multiple isolated
chambers, each holding aseparate entrance, and there's
no internal doors that areconnecting the chambers, and so
(06:09):
that design is excellent becauseit prevents contact and
conflict, which maintains peacebetween potential ant rivals.
But when the walls between thechambers were broken during
research, ants from thedifferent colonies immediately
engaged in deadly battles, whichoften resulted in all of the
(06:34):
colonies dying within 30 minutes.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Whoa.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
It was a fight to the death.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
There's a scene in Saving Private Ryan that I'm
reminded of.
I'm sure you've seen SavingPrivate Ryan with Tom Hanks and
Matt Damon.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Yeah, I've seen that movie.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Yeah, there's like a point where they're at the
midway point and they're tryingto track down this Private Ryan
guy and the American squad guy.
They look in a building and heleans up against this brick wall
and the brick wall falls overand they're fighting in this
town like building to building.
Anyway, this brick wall fallsover and behind the brick wall
(07:13):
is an entire squad of Nazis.
So they look at each other fora second and then, yes, that's a
deadly battle where a wholebunch of people died.
It's like those ants they wereright beside each other, not
knowing each other was there,but as soon as they saw each
other, all heck broke looseterrible it also reminds me of
(07:34):
some of the stories you saidwhere you and your sister would
fight so bad you had to go torestaurants where there was a
partition between your legs, soyou can oh yeah, the restaurant
called spuds right across theline.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Okay, yeah, it had a brick wall between, so my sister
and I couldn't kick each otherunder the table.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Yeah, cause that's a deadly battle.
They did CT scans anddissections to show the plant's
architecture and how it preventsconflict by strictly separating
them, so there was no way forants in apartment block A to
mess with ants in apartmentblock B.
The plant may also chemicallydeter the ants from chewing the
(08:16):
walls.
There could be something in thewall that tastes bad.
Ants have mandibles that canchew through lots of stuff, and
why wouldn't they just chewthrough this plant?
No, maybe it tastes really bad.
The idea is that compounds likecalcium carbonate are things
that ants don't like to chew on.
Perhaps this plant is just likefull of it and some ant is.
(08:37):
You know what?
I'm just going to eat the walland it tasted bad and he told
his friends, so they stoppeddoing it.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
And the plant evolved going hey, the ants don't seem
to like this, so we're justgoing to keep making it.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Exactly.
But obviously the ants get ahouse, and with how expensive
houses are today, that's goodfor these younger ants.
But what does the plant getfrom this interaction?
The ants have to go to thebathroom eventually and they are
messy eaters.
So they leave behind droppings,food scraps and litter, and all
(09:10):
of those things decompose andenrich the plant.
It delivers things the plantmaybe wouldn't normally get.
It would get normally nitrogen,but it could get more things
like nitrogen and phosphorus.
It absorbs them through thewall.
So from one person's trash,another person's treasure.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
One person's, one ant's poop to a healthy tuber?
Okay, well, there's beenevolution of the what Poop been.
Evolution of Poop to a prize,what?
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Poop to a prize.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Poop to a prize.
The evolution of the ant-plantpartnership has evolved.
So in newer plant-antpartnerships only one ant
species lives in the tuber, sothat means there's no need for
walls, just a single sharedchamber.
And another thing that hasevolved is ants planting seeds
(09:59):
in nearby tree bark and theyguard the seedlings, which acts
like little tiny farmers.
That's super cute.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
They got to grow a house, right.
Yeah, this brings us to a coolkind of conclusion that nature
doesn't always conform to whatwe think.
Where one thing evolves andanother thing evolves, both
species benefit, influencingeach other, and they just get
better together.
You and I are both teachers,chris, I'd imagine with seating
(10:33):
we do the same thing with kidsthat don't get along, or if
they're next to each other,they're up to no good.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
I guess I do randomized seating plans every
month and normally I don't runinto problems where students
can't sit beside each other, soI just knock on wood.
That can continue.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Oh man, what kind of consequence would that be?
I was like you got to go in thetesticle in one of these five
section rooms if you're notpaying attention, and you have
to be cordoned off in thislittle room.
I guess it's like when you kicka kid out, like they're just
out of control, which hashappened before and they got to
go to the principal's office.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Or go sit in the sad chair.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Go sit in the sad chair.
All right, there you go.
It's a cool kind of mutualisticrelationship there, and that's
science news for this week.
This week in pet science we aregoing to be looking at a pretty
wholesome study thatinvestigated the effects of a
facility dog in physical therapy.
(11:32):
Now, both you and I have had tohave some physical therapy in
our life.
I hurt my back helping myparents move the first time.
Pretty bad, not as bad as you.
You actually seriously injuredyour back when you're moving
your classroom one time.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
I actually moved my classroom from one end of the
hall where I called it wasBeverly Hills, because it was so
nice.
I had two windows, lots oflight.
And then I moved down the halland then I had one window, so
not as much light.
I was like, oh, this isn'tquite as nice as my Beverly
Hills classroom.
I had to move out the door intothe real world and I moved into
(12:13):
a different classroom at adifferent school.
But I'm going to do it formyself first.
So what I would do is I'm like,no, I got this, I can, I can do
this.
And I grabbed a Rubbermaid tuband and books weigh a lot, paper
weighs a lot, and I lifted itand I turned and I tweaked and I
said to myself self, I'm suregonna feel that tomorrow, but I
(12:36):
didn't think anything of it.
So I packed all my stuff, I putit all in the van, away, it
went, and then what happened isyou and I walked around New York
all summer like we went on areally nice holiday, and then I
got home and I my back was alittle bit sore, but I thought
that's okay, I can go for a run,and I did.
(12:58):
I can run and then, like it allwas a disaster, I came home and
you said why is your spineshoved over to one side?
yeah, you look like an s yeah,you said why are you an s?
And I said I'm not an s andyou're like no, your whole body
(13:21):
is shifted to one side.
Look in the mirror.
And then, once I looked in themirror, it was devastating.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Um, um cause I did look like.
Pablo Picasso no it wasn't alot of physio that you had to do
.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Yeah, and I'm always very careful I don't want to
hurt my back again because it'svery painful going for that
physical therapy.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Knock on wood, I have not injured my back in a long
time.
I think most of my injurieswere like I did something in
martial arts and then I didsomething right after it A lot
of jumping and fleeing yourselfaround in martial arts and I've
retired from that.
But back to the study.
It might have been nice to havea facilities dog while I was
doing some of my rehab from myinjuries.
(14:08):
And just as a reminder, afacilities dog is a highly
trained canine that works with ahandler in things like
courtroom houses, schools orhospitals and they provide
support and comfort.
So very cute, very good dogs.
This study was aimed to explorewhether a facility dog could
help overcome barriers ininpatient rehabilitation.
(14:32):
So this study is from physicaland occupational therapy and
pediatrics.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
And the type of study was a randomized, controlled
crossover trial, and they had 69inpatients recovering from a
variety of acute conditions.
So acute meaning quite severe.
Now, 69 inpatients or an N of69 isn't a lot, but that just
(15:01):
leads us to maybe suggest, hey,this is a great area to explore
and subsequent studies can lookat this as well, and subsequent
studies can look at this as well.
What they decided to do washave patients performing one of
five common rehabilitation tasksand each participant completed
the same task twice during arehabilitation session, and then
(15:24):
there was a random assignmentwhich determined whether the
facility dog was present duringtheir first or their second
trial.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Oh man, can you imagine you're in pain and you
go to get some physio, do somephysio and you're in the group
that doesn't get to see the dog?
That would suck, Because I lovedogs.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
They would have had to agree to be part of it, and
so they would have had to knowthat there was a potential for a
dog.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
And potential for no dog.
Like that would bedisappointing.
So the facility dog was present, along with an hat, with the
handler and a physical therapist.
The control condition involvedonly the physical therapist and
the handler, no dog.
So I guess the handler stuckaround to watch you do your
exercises.
They measured your taskpersistence.
(16:13):
So that's the time spentengaged in the rehab task, and
some of the rehab tasks likearen't super fun.
Like I had to roll on my backon this foam thing.
I have it.
It feels really good whenyou're done, but while you're
doing it it can be sucks.
So I get that Like you do itfor longer.
Your self-rated pain, so howmuch you're in pain that you
(16:34):
think, self-rated exertion andphysiological measures which
include your heart rate.
They ran some statisticalanalysis and what did they find,
chris?
Speaker 2 (16:43):
They found that participants persisted
approximately 2.6 minutes longerwhen they were working with the
facility dog.
They also found thatparticipants without a dog at
home also persistedsignificantly longer with the
facility dog present, comparedto those who already owned a dog
(17:04):
.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Yeah, and in continuing, both measures varied
by task order and dog presence,as we said before, and they
looked at the pain and the heartrate results.
So the physiological results,so the first task with the dog,
the pain and the heart rate werelower and then the second task
with the dog, the pain and heartrate were significantly higher.
(17:30):
So that suggests a possibleshared physiological response to
cumulative effort or arousal.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Oh, so the second time around people had more pain
.
Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Yeah, so that that could be because they've already
gone through it once and the sothat could be because they've
already gone through it once andit does hurt the first time you
go through, and so doing thetask again talks about your
response to that effort.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
They just wanted.
After the first time they'relike you know what?
I just want to pet the dog.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Or I want to show off for the dog.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Oh, okay, there you go.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
So that's why your heart rate was higher.
Some interpretation of thisstudy could be that the presence
of a facility dog may improvepatient participation and that
could be because of cognitivefactors so they were distracted
from the discomfort, whichincreased the focus on the task
and emotional factors.
So having a positive emotionalresponse elicited by interacting
with the dog and I know thatwould be me and I know I get
distracted if I go for physiobecause my physiotherapist will
(18:38):
talk to me all throughout whenhe's going in and getting those
muscles loosened.
And he's talking to me andsometimes I can't talk through
it.
He's talking to me andsometimes I can't talk through
it.
It's too painful but it'sdefinitely a distraction than if
he was just going at my lowerback muscle for 45 seconds with
(18:59):
no distraction.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Do you think having a dog there would be better If
you could pet the dog and seethe dog.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
I think it would be better.
I think it would be better too.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Oh yeah, I think I would be more likely to go into
physio if I knew a dog was thererather than not, because it
like some people skip physiobecause it is painful.
It's what's the?
It's stretching, moving thosemuscles, and that you've done
something to exactly come forthe stay for the pain.
Yeah, bunsen, beaker, bernoulliwould not be good facility dogs
(19:36):
right now?
Because if you were evershowing pain.
I think they would just try andcome and stop what was happening
, Especially with you.
If somebody was doing somethingto you and you looked like you
were in pain, I think Bunsen andBernoulli would freak out on
that person.
They'd think they were hurtingyou.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
You know what Beaker would do?
What he would lick your hand.
I know and she would fling upher head and want you to pet her
.
That's what she would dobecause she's a sweetheart.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Yeah, all right, there you go.
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
(20:22):
Top Dogs.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Amelia Fettig, Rhi Oda, Carol Haino, Jennifer
Challen, Linnea Janik, KarenChronister, Vicky Otero, Christy
Walker, Sarah Bram, Wendy,Diane Mason and Luke Helen Chin,
Elizabeth Bourgeois, MarianneMcNally, Catherine Jordan,
Shelley Smith, Laura Steffensen,Tracy Leinbach, Anne Uchida,
(20:47):
Heather Burback, Kelly TracyHalbert, Ben Rathart, Debbie
Anderson, Sandy Brimer, MaryRader, Bianca Hyde For science,
empathy and cuteness.
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