March 14, 2025 • 30 mins
The Science Podcast explores cutting-edge taste technology that lets you experience flavors in virtual reality through chemical delivery to your tongue, along with updates on private lunar missions and the genetic basis of Labrador retrievers' food obsession.
• New "eTaste" technology delivers five basic taste chemicals directly to users' tongues through a flexible conduit while in virtual reality
• Device successfully simulated complex flavors like lemonade, cake, fried egg, fish soup, and coffee with 87% accuracy
• Private lunar missions making history with Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost successfully landing on Mare Crisium
• Intuitive Machines' Athena Lander tipped over in a crater but still collected valuable data
• Researchers identified five genes linked to obesity in Labradors, most notably DENND1B which increases body fat by 8%
• Labs with high obesity-risk genes showed stronger food-seeking behaviors
• Strict feeding regimens by owners can maintain healthy weight even in genetically predisposed Labradors
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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 six of seasonseven.
The full melt was on last weekbut, old man, winter came right
(00:44):
back.
It has snowed a whole bunch andit's been chilly not super cold
, but chilly enough that chrisis again annoyed with the winter
.
It's chilly enough that if yougo outside without a coat you
get kind of cold.
You might freeze.
It's actually pretty cold today, with the sun shining.
Sigh, hey, that's okay.
It's great for the dogs to havemore snow.
March is usually the month weget the most snow and I think
(01:07):
we're just.
We just kind of block it fromour minds that spring is right
around the corner and we justforget that there's so much snow
.
That happens in march.
Beaker joined bernoulli at doggydaycare last week, um for three
days in the week, and she didso good and the photos that
they're sending us this week areadorable of the two of them
together.
So it's really good to seeBeaker come out of her shell a
(01:29):
bit and be able to interact withdogs.
She's doing great.
All reports are.
She's totally getting alongwith everybody, which is awesome
.
Bunsen, I think, has gotten alittle bit better this week, so
all of that rest is paying off.
He's moving more confidently.
He really wants to go outside,which is a bad thing because he
wants to tear around and we gotto keep him on rest, all right.
(01:50):
Well, what's on the sciencepodcast this week?
We have three science articles.
The first one is all aboutbeing able to taste things in
virtual reality.
The second is about all of thebig landings or failures to land
on the moon that's happenedthis month and in pet science.
New genetic testing may linkwhy Labrador retrievers are so
(02:11):
hungry.
All right, let's get on withthe show.
There's no time like ScienceTime.
This week in science news,let's talk about virtual reality
.
Chris, have you ever, did youever, come with us to play
virtual reality in town?
Speaker 2 (02:29):
yeah, I sure did, absolutely I did.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Do you remember what game it was that we, we were
playing?
Speaker 2 (02:34):
I only remember when we went to the theater and it
was a science, virtual realitywhere you were able to get the
SBD orbitals out of the sky.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Just as context, you had an atom and, depending on
the atom, how many electrons ithas, you could use your hands to
throw or shoot electrons intothe system and then they would
appear in the very chaotic andweird orbitals that the quantum
mechanical model of the atom has.
It's quite nerdy, but I teachit in high school chemistry and
(03:11):
it was really fun for the kidsto do that.
They thought that was cool.
So you never actually played avirtual reality game, because I
went with Adam a few times whenhe was young.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Okay, maybe not.
Can you explain what you did?
Speaker 1 (03:22):
There's.
They had a couple of fun onesand it it's.
You're in a room so you canmove a little bit, but if you
run too far anywhere you'regoing to smash into a wall.
So you're allowed, you candodge stuff.
So it's like stuff is shootingat you and you can jump out of
the way.
But the one that Adam and I gotaddicted to and then our time
ran out was I think it wascalled office work and you were
(03:46):
just like in an office and thensomebody came by and they're
like you make 15 copies.
So you had to somehow make 15copies of a paper in the office
and Adam just like grabbingstuff and chucking it around and
making a mess, and then theboss would get upset so that
actually sounds like an episodeof the office, but Michael was
(04:06):
throwing all the stuff around inaccounting.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
And then there was Dwight's regime, where he added
a copy code that was 15 digitslong and Kevin couldn't do it.
Yeah, he kept screwing up, hekept screwing up, couldn't do it
.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Yeah, he kept screwing up.
He kept screwing up, so to tryto make 15 copies imagine that
with that code, wow, all right,we're going down a little bit of
a rabbit hole with this reallyfun news item, and it was
actually reported in ScienceAdvances at the end of February.
Here's the picture, chrisYou've got those goggles on your
(04:42):
face and you see a tasty treatlike a cake.
What's your favorite cake?
It's not black forest.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
I always get that wrong no, I do not enjoy black
forest cake right, right, what'syour favorite cake?
Speaker 1 (04:56):
I don't know you don't have a favorite cake no,
okay let's use me, because youknow what my favorite cake is
carrot cake carrot cake.
Okay, so imagine, and you, youdon't mind carrot cake either as
long as it doesn't have raisinsall right, okay.
So imagine a raisin free carrotcake in your virtual world.
You grab it with your virtualhands, you bring it to your and
(05:21):
you can actually taste it.
Now, this isn't a concept, it'sreal and it's created through a
device called eTaste.
It's called eTaste.
That's hilarious.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
This actually delivers virtual tastes, but it
squirts chemicals onto thetongue.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Right.
So it's not like shooting, likechanging your brain chemistry,
so you have the sensation oftaste.
It actually goes right ontoyour tongue, which sounds gross.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
So this advancement actually moves towards the next
generation of human-machineinterfaces with virtual reality.
Machine interfaces with virtualreality and how eTaste works is
where the system can detectchemicals in the different
foodstuffs that we eat and theywirelessly transmit the
(06:17):
information to a user's deviceand then that device delivers
the same or equivalent chemicalsto the user's tongue, which
simulates the taste.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
So here's a little bit more.
Etaste uses five ediblechemicals to simulate some
general flavors Glucose forsweet, citric acid for sour,
sodium chloride for salty,magnesium chloride for bitter
and glutamate for umami, whichis savory, and those chemicals
(06:54):
are infused into gels with thedevice, and the gels get mixed
into little tiny channels and apump delivers them to your
tongue.
Now how do they get on yourtongue?
A flexible ribbon-like conduitis inserted into your mouth,
while you're doing the virtualreality, to administer the
chemical mixture.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
So like a straw.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
It's a ribbon-like conduit straight onto your
tongue.
I don't know if this issomething you want to share with
family members.
Like I'll play for five minutes, then you play and then you
have to share the flexible,ribbon-like conduit.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Oh, they probably have thought of that and have
separate conduits.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Okay, don't take our word for it.
Let's take the word of thepeople in the study.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Jason, the first test was done with 10 participants.
So I don't know that's a reallyhearty sample size, but 10
participants did distinguishbetween five different
intensities of sourness, whichwas produced by the device.
So that was the first test.
Was the sour test?
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Now to be fair, Chris , if you saw a flyer saying come
, put a flexible ribbon-likeconduit into your mouth, I'm not
sure they'd get as manyparticipants as hey, we're
testing.
If people are less stressedwhen they pet dogs, you're
probably going to get morepeople for the dog study.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Maybe unless they have allergies.
The second test researcherssimulated five complex tastes
based on chemical compositions.
They simulated lemonade, cake,fried egg, fish soup and coffee.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Could you have fish soup?
You're a vegetarian.
Is that breaking the rules ifit's simulated fish soup?
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Jason, I would avoid this test or this study.
With a 10-foot pole, this issomething I would not
participate in.
I had six trained participantsin the second test.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
And the fish soup probably.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Probably the fish soup was like no.
So six trained participantslearned to recognize those
flavors, and participantsachieved an 87% accuracy in
identifying the correct flavors.
Which ones were easier toidentify?
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Probably sweet and sour.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Lemonade and cake.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Right.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
And then other ones were more difficult, like the
fried egg.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
It sounds like an episode of Hell's Kitchen, where
the chefs are blindfolded andRamsey gives them different
types of meat and then if theyget the, if they give them pork
and they say, oh, that's chicken, he just berates them.
It's probably harder than itlooks.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
I was thinking it was like an episode of Survivor
where they did do those foodthings, where they spun a wheel
or flicked a spinner and had toeat galoots.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Oh yeah, super gross stuff.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Super gross stuff.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
If you're thinking about how science has attempted
to simulate taste before.
There have been attempts usingelectrical stimulation, and it's
worked, but not really, becausescientists really don't know
how taste perception works.
This maybe works better becauseit's chemical and it provides a
(10:12):
wider range of flavors thanjust zapping your tongue.
There are some problems withthis, though, because one of the
big things that humans havewith flavor is smell, though,
because one of the big thingsthat humans have with flavor is
smell.
If you've ever had a really badcold before you lose your sense
of smell, then you lose some ofyour ability to detect the
(10:32):
flavor.
Now, I don't know if that'swhat has happened to you, chris,
but you've mentioned before.
I was in that university study,and my sense of smell really
helped me pass all of thesetests when I had to be a guinea
pig.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
And eating is a truly an immersive experience,
including the smell and thetexture and the temperature of
the food and when you're, youknow breaking bread with your
family or your friends.
It's all about the socialaspect of eating.
So researchers are working onincorporating smell into the
(11:12):
e-test using gas sensors andmachine learning.
Okay, and I guess some possibleapplications of this technology
could include immersive gamingexperiences but, more
interestingly, sensoryrehabilitation, which, for
example, is helping people wholost their sense of taste due to
(11:35):
COVID-19.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
That's very altruistic.
I was just thinking of thevideo game Skyrim.
Do you remember Skyrim?
Duncan, our older son, and Iplayed this game game Skyrim.
Do you remember Skyrim?
Duncan, our older son, and Iplayed this game called Skyrim.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Jason, I could not forget because it was like the
biggest world and you played itfor a very long time because you
got quite.
I think you actually finishedthe game.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
I did, I finished Skyrim you betcha.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Yeah, but.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
I've always said that there's so much walking in
Skyrim that if somehow you couldput me on like a 360 degree
treadmill like in Ready PlayerOne, I would have been in such
good shape for how much moving Ihad to do.
And then in Skyrim you cancollect like a crazy amount of
(12:23):
random objects that you juststeal from homes and like.
At one point I had 60 cheesewheels in my backpack so it
might've been helpful If I waseating the cheese wheel to
actually smell and taste it inthe game.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
But is this the game that Jazargo says he has no more
?
Room to carry things.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Yeah, jazargo has no more room to carry things.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Yes, oh, okay.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
I gave him many of my cheese wheels.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Yes, and he was protesting how much crap you
were carrying around.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
I didn't want to.
I was a kleptomaniac in thatgame.
It's really hard to say goodbyeto your loot.
You never know when you'regoing to need the like the 60
books you stole from the libraryAnyways.
So there's a huge problem withgetting people to do this.
I think we can all agree onwhat it is, and that's putting
an unfamiliar device in yourmouth hole.
(13:20):
So again, you said you wouldhave stayed away from this with
a 10-foot pole.
My guess like this if they hadthis, at best buy and it was
like put this in your mouth andyou can taste the cheese wheels.
I'm not sure best buy or Amazonwould sell a ton of these.
So probably the design needssome significant improvements
(13:43):
before it comes to a house nearyou.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Now, I don't know what this device looks like in
its current stages, butdefinitely the look, feel and
comfort of the device is goingto be paramount for the success
of this device.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
I would try it, chris , I would try it.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Jason, you would try anything cool.
You're like, yeah, I'll trythat, that's cool.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Yeah, as long as I'm not going to get like hepatitis
from it or something.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Well, maybe meningitis.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Okay, as long as it's clean and it's what as long as
it's clean and it's what.
As long as it's clean, hygienic, I would put the thing in my
mouth to taste the food in agame.
I like me a fried egg withoutthe calories.
That's our first sciencearticle.
All right, going from virtualreality to real reality.
(14:33):
Chris, let's head to the moonit's very exciting.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
It's been a historic year for lunar landings on the
moon go lunar landings on themoon.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
I hear it's the top destination.
I wonder what the yelp viewsare.
Five out of five beautifulviews.
One out of five no oxygen,something like that probably or
one out of five.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
I landed on my side and now I can't recharge in
terms of one of the one of theprobes yeah, one of the landers
yeah, we'll get to that thoughyeah, so the moon is a big
destination.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
There's some a lot of exciting stuff that's happened
lately because two privatelanders have touched down within
a week of each other.
Now, one of the landers did it.
It was viral all over socialmedia In fact, we covered it in
Fun Facts with Bernoulli andthat's a milestone for private
spaceflight.
Well, the other one tipped overon its side and sadly could not
(15:30):
continue.
Before we get to the success,let's talk about the one that
didn't quite land.
It got there, though.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
That's right, and so I think we should celebrate that
success, because going to themoon is hard and as much as the
other one is a success.
They can learn from thefailures, the mistakes or
challenges that the failedattempt presented, and they can
learn and change for the nextattempt.
(16:00):
So, having said that, the landerwas named the Athena Lander and
it was built by a Houston-basedcompany, and the company was
called Intuitive Machines, andit just landed, or the attempted
land was on March 6th and itwas going to be landed in
Monsmouton, near the moon'ssouth pole, and that's a flat
(16:23):
top mountain believed to beolder than the surrounding
terrain on the moon, and itmissed its intended landing site
by 250 meters and, as you said,it ended up landing inside a
crater and that caused thelander to tip over, which
prevented any proper solar panelorientation, and the extreme
(16:47):
cold and lack of sunlight insidethe crater meant that,
unfortunately, athena'sbatteries could not recharge.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Oh, very sad.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
A day later the mission was declared over, but
the teams are continuing toanalyze data before there's
total power loss.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Yeah, it did get a day's worth of data.
Like, even though it tippedover, it got there, it got data
on the way down, it got datawhen it tipped over, it got data
from inside a crater.
That's cool.
So, yeah, we'll see what comesout of that.
A spokesperson for NASA, nikkiFox, says landing on the moon is
extremely hard, so it makessense.
I took incredible amount ofresources during the space race
(17:34):
that John F Kennedy touched offin the 60s to get the Apollo
program to the moon.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
It would have been exciting because D'Athena was
attempting to land in anunexplored region, but there's
still opportunity to exploreunexplored regions of the moon.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Just send another one At first.
You don't succeed and you tipover, fly, fly again.
That brings us to FireflyAerospace's Blue Ghost, and this
one did have a successfullanding.
I love the name Firefly becauseone of my favorite TV shows of
all time is called Firefly.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Can't take this guy from you.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Blue Ghost landed on March 2nd and its landing site
was Mare Chrism, which is avolcanic plain on the moon's
near side.
It launched on January 15th andit landed soft and safely,
without crashing or tipping over, and there's a very cool image
of it on the lunar surface withthe Earth visible in the
(18:33):
background.
It's like such a cool shotbecause the thing was sent there
by a private company.
It's not a NASA probe, eventhough they work with NASA.
It was a private company'sprobe.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
The image was a photo of its own shadow on the lunar
surface.
And then you're right Earth wasvisible in the background.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
This area was chosen because of the low magnetic
activity compared to otherregions on the moon, and that's
what Blue Ghost wants to measureis lunar magnetism.
And there's a whole bunch ofdoodads on it that are going to
be looking at the upcoming totallunar eclipse.
We're seeing that on March 14th, right, that's happening for us
here in Canada on Thursday.
(19:12):
Other sensors that it has on itare helping pave the way for
the next mission coming to themoon, like with Jeremy Hans has
on it, are helping pave the wayfor the next, the next mission
coming to the moon, like withjeremy hansen on it, a canadian
astronaut the artemis missionthe artemis mission, so cool so
we'll have more informationabout blue ghost as the data
comes in.
It literally just landed there.
(19:34):
What like a week ago.
There's been no real release oftheir findings and we'll keep
everybody in the loop on that.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
But it's super cool and there's lots of future
private lunar missions planned,lots planned throughout 2028.
And Nikki Fox from NASA thatyou spoke of earlier says land
all over the place.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Yeah, super helpful for NASA with their Artemis
missions.
The next Artemis mission isn'tgoing to land on the moon, but
it's going to take a couplepasses.
It just reminds me of one of myfavorite shows, and that's For
All Mankind.
I've watched that whole seasona couple times through.
We're getting to the pointwhere having humans on the moon
(20:17):
will be like an ongoing thing,like it was in the TV show,
which is very cool for me.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
It's like your TV is becoming alive, very much like
your virtual reality.
You're going to be able to eatyour cake.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
That's right.
Oh, that would have helped.
That'll help people on the moon.
Maybe you can't have real cake,but you can put the thing in
your mouth and have simulatedvirtual reality cake in space
moon cake.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Oh my goodness, moon cake.
What was it called?
Speaker 1 (20:49):
uh, a ribbon like put the ribbon thing in your mouth
and then get some chemicalssquirted in it.
Yeah, anyways, that's sciencenews for this week.
This weekend pet science, let'stalk about the labrador
retriever.
Aren't labs cute, chris?
They're so cute they are socute, I love them, but I love
(21:09):
golden retrievers more we'rebiased because of beaker and
calvin, but labrador retrieversare so friendly and they're just
very what's the word I'mlooking for.
They're just like steady, happydogs, like they're happy all
the time.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
So you can count on them.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Yeah, you can count on them.
Now.
Our study talks about theirfood obsession.
We've posted, but maybe notdone a thing, on the science
podcast, but there was some ideathat there's a genetic
component to Labradors and theirfood obsession, because anybody
who owns a Labrador knows thatnot all of them, but a large
(21:49):
percentage of them go bananasfor food.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
They do have persistent food-seeking behavior
, begging under the table andstealing unattended food.
Callum was good at that and asa result, labs are among the
most overweight dog breeds,along with golden retrievers and
cocker spaniels and beagles.
So if we could connect that toa gene.
(22:14):
But we're going to keep talkingabout it.
But it's not like somethingthat you should just test your
dog for.
There's other ways to mitigatethat food obsession or like just
don't feed them under the tableyeah, watch the food.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
We really watch beakers weight and she is like
slim and athletic, like she islike a dart.
And we maybe didn't watchcallan's weight sometimes and
she got a little chonky but thatwas from the boys feeding her
double breakfasts and doublesuppers sometimes Cause she was
a good girl and very cute.
And why not give Callan anotherbreakfast?
(22:53):
Cause you give kids jobs rightwhen their jobs was to feed the
dog and they're like no, you atethat awfully fast.
Maybe you should have twoscoops instead of one.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Double scoop.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Just like ice cream.
This was published in scienceon march 6th, so a very recent
article.
I was led by eleanor raffin atthe university of cambridge.
Previous findings, before thestudy we're going to talk about,
found that this po, there's agene called the pomc gene, and
it was linked to overeating inlabradors, so the dogs that had
(23:27):
it ate more food.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
However, this mutation of the POMC gene did
not fully explain the breed'sobesity risk, and here's where
the new genetic discoveries fromthis study comes into play 241
British Labrador retrievers werepart of the study, and the data
that was collected included thebody fat mass and the food
(23:53):
seeking behavior, such as baking, and it also looked at how
strictly owners controlled theirdog's diet.
They found, or they identified,five genes with the potential
to be associated with obesity inLabradors, and the strongest
link was found in a gene calledDENND1B.
(24:16):
So that's really easy toremember.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
DENND1B.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Exactly DENND1B.
Yeah, exactly.
So labs with the DEND1B varianthad 8% more body fat than those
without it, and that geneactually also affects the human
body mass index, which is theBMI, and our food response in
(24:44):
the brain.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Maybe that's why I'm hungry all the time.
I'm a Labrador retriever.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
You are, you probably have the DEND1B gene.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
So from this, researchers developed a scoring
system to assess Labradorobesity risk based on their
genetic profile.
You rank the Labradors based oninherited obesity-prone genes.
Some labs inherit a whole bunchof the genes and some have few
or none, so it's like you'reprobably going to get fat to
(25:13):
your.
Okay, I don't know what's.
What kind of ranking system isthat?
Speaker 2 (25:17):
You can rank all individuals based on whether
they inherited a bunch ofobesity prone genes or not.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
I guess you can zero.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Yeah, five out of five Yelp review.
You have the five.
You were a hungry hippo, oh butthere is impacts of genetics on
food behavior.
So they found that labs withhigh obesity risk genes were
more likely to beg for food andthey were more food motivated
(25:46):
than low risk dogs.
And I can see that, like whenyou're training with Beaker and
how she loves to work for treatsand the Burners they love to
work for treats too.
That makes me feel successfulas a trainer when they are
working so hard to please,working so hard to please.
(26:15):
And I do have a friend who hada husky Athena that would not
work for treats.
She was so stubborn and it'shuh Now.
I know we're talking abouttotally different dog breeds,
but I'm just talking about beingthe more food motivated and for
me that excites me for training.
But it's not good for labs thathave the higher risk of those
obesity genes.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
So food motivated dogs are generally a lot easier
to train, but then that mightlead to obesity.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Right.
So to combat that, a strictdiet regulation by owners makes
a huge difference.
So the high risk labs withstrict owners maintained a
healthy weight, whereas morerelaxed owners led to overweight
dogs.
But, interestingly, low risklabs stated a healthy weight
(27:08):
regardless of how their ownersfed them.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Oh, that's just like people.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
That's not fair.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
It isn't fair.
I'm hungry all the time and I'mlike some people just are not
hungry.
What is wrong with you?
Do you not wake up wanting toeat the world?
That's what happens with me.
I'm a lab, so should ownerstest their labs?
Chris Should.
If you've got a Labradorretriever, should you go test it
for these five genes?
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Probably not.
Oh, it's probably expensive.
It probably is expensive, and adog that constantly seeks food
would definitely overeat ifgiven the chance, and the best
approach is to ration foodcarefully for dogs that are
especially prone to obesity, anddiscipline is key.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
So don't give them second breakfasts and second
suppers.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
Owners need to have that strict control over the
food portions to prevent weightgain.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
And we are very strict with our dogs.
Now Bunsen and Bernoulli looklike they're chubby but they are
sleek.
They are thin and trim andmuscly.
You remember how wheneverBunsen, as he's older, he's had
to have IVs put in for things orhis surgery, and we just you
(28:22):
feel his body and he's just somuscly.
He's so muscly and there's notlike a lot of fat on that guy.
No, there you go.
If you have a lab, they'renarrowing down the reasons why
your lab wants food all the timeand the conclusion is don't
give them food all the time.
That's pet science for thisweek.
That's it for this week show.
(28:43):
Thanks for coming back weekafter week to listen to us and a
special shout out to the topdogs.
That's the top tier of ourpatreon, like page the pop hack.
We'd love your support.
If you love what we do and youwant to help us out and keep the
podcast free, sign up.
A perk is the top dogs gettheir name shouted out by chris
at the end of the show.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Take it away, chris amelia Fetig Rhi Oda, carol
Hainel, jennifer Challen, linneaJanik Karen Chronister, vicky
Otero, christy Walker, sarahBram Wendy, diane Mason and Luke
Helen Chin, elizabeth Bourgeois, marianne McNally, catherine
(29:24):
Jordan, shelley Smith, lauraStephenson, tracy Leinbach.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Anne Uchida 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 six of seasonseven.
The full melt was on last weekbut, old man, winter came right
(00:44):
back.
It has snowed a whole bunch andit's been chilly not super cold
, but chilly enough that chrisis again annoyed with the winter
.
It's chilly enough that if yougo outside without a coat you
get kind of cold.
You might freeze.
It's actually pretty cold today, with the sun shining.
Sigh, hey, that's okay.
It's great for the dogs to havemore snow.
March is usually the month weget the most snow and I think
(01:07):
we're just.
We just kind of block it fromour minds that spring is right
around the corner and we justforget that there's so much snow
.
That happens in march.
Beaker joined bernoulli at doggydaycare last week, um for three
days in the week, and she didso good and the photos that
they're sending us this week areadorable of the two of them
together.
So it's really good to seeBeaker come out of her shell a
(01:29):
bit and be able to interact withdogs.
She's doing great.
All reports are.
She's totally getting alongwith everybody, which is awesome
.
Bunsen, I think, has gotten alittle bit better this week, so
all of that rest is paying off.
He's moving more confidently.
He really wants to go outside,which is a bad thing because he
wants to tear around and we gotto keep him on rest, all right.
(01:50):
Well, what's on the sciencepodcast this week?
We have three science articles.
The first one is all aboutbeing able to taste things in
virtual reality.
The second is about all of thebig landings or failures to land
on the moon that's happenedthis month and in pet science.
New genetic testing may linkwhy Labrador retrievers are so
(02:11):
hungry.
All right, let's get on withthe show.
There's no time like ScienceTime.
This week in science news,let's talk about virtual reality
.
Chris, have you ever, did youever, come with us to play
virtual reality in town?
Speaker 2 (02:29):
yeah, I sure did, absolutely I did.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Do you remember what game it was that we, we were
playing?
Speaker 2 (02:34):
I only remember when we went to the theater and it
was a science, virtual realitywhere you were able to get the
SBD orbitals out of the sky.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Just as context, you had an atom and, depending on
the atom, how many electrons ithas, you could use your hands to
throw or shoot electrons intothe system and then they would
appear in the very chaotic andweird orbitals that the quantum
mechanical model of the atom has.
It's quite nerdy, but I teachit in high school chemistry and
(03:11):
it was really fun for the kidsto do that.
They thought that was cool.
So you never actually played avirtual reality game, because I
went with Adam a few times whenhe was young.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Okay, maybe not.
Can you explain what you did?
Speaker 1 (03:22):
There's.
They had a couple of fun onesand it it's.
You're in a room so you canmove a little bit, but if you
run too far anywhere you'regoing to smash into a wall.
So you're allowed, you candodge stuff.
So it's like stuff is shootingat you and you can jump out of
the way.
But the one that Adam and I gotaddicted to and then our time
ran out was I think it wascalled office work and you were
(03:46):
just like in an office and thensomebody came by and they're
like you make 15 copies.
So you had to somehow make 15copies of a paper in the office
and Adam just like grabbingstuff and chucking it around and
making a mess, and then theboss would get upset so that
actually sounds like an episodeof the office, but Michael was
(04:06):
throwing all the stuff around inaccounting.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
And then there was Dwight's regime, where he added
a copy code that was 15 digitslong and Kevin couldn't do it.
Yeah, he kept screwing up, hekept screwing up, couldn't do it
.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Yeah, he kept screwing up.
He kept screwing up, so to tryto make 15 copies imagine that
with that code, wow, all right,we're going down a little bit of
a rabbit hole with this reallyfun news item, and it was
actually reported in ScienceAdvances at the end of February.
Here's the picture, chrisYou've got those goggles on your
(04:42):
face and you see a tasty treatlike a cake.
What's your favorite cake?
It's not black forest.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
I always get that wrong no, I do not enjoy black
forest cake right, right, what'syour favorite cake?
Speaker 1 (04:56):
I don't know you don't have a favorite cake no,
okay let's use me, because youknow what my favorite cake is
carrot cake carrot cake.
Okay, so imagine, and you, youdon't mind carrot cake either as
long as it doesn't have raisinsall right, okay.
So imagine a raisin free carrotcake in your virtual world.
You grab it with your virtualhands, you bring it to your and
(05:21):
you can actually taste it.
Now, this isn't a concept, it'sreal and it's created through a
device called eTaste.
It's called eTaste.
That's hilarious.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
This actually delivers virtual tastes, but it
squirts chemicals onto thetongue.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Right.
So it's not like shooting, likechanging your brain chemistry,
so you have the sensation oftaste.
It actually goes right ontoyour tongue, which sounds gross.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
So this advancement actually moves towards the next
generation of human-machineinterfaces with virtual reality.
Machine interfaces with virtualreality and how eTaste works is
where the system can detectchemicals in the different
foodstuffs that we eat and theywirelessly transmit the
(06:17):
information to a user's deviceand then that device delivers
the same or equivalent chemicalsto the user's tongue, which
simulates the taste.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
So here's a little bit more.
Etaste uses five ediblechemicals to simulate some
general flavors Glucose forsweet, citric acid for sour,
sodium chloride for salty,magnesium chloride for bitter
and glutamate for umami, whichis savory, and those chemicals
(06:54):
are infused into gels with thedevice, and the gels get mixed
into little tiny channels and apump delivers them to your
tongue.
Now how do they get on yourtongue?
A flexible ribbon-like conduitis inserted into your mouth,
while you're doing the virtualreality, to administer the
chemical mixture.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
So like a straw.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
It's a ribbon-like conduit straight onto your
tongue.
I don't know if this issomething you want to share with
family members.
Like I'll play for five minutes, then you play and then you
have to share the flexible,ribbon-like conduit.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Oh, they probably have thought of that and have
separate conduits.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Okay, don't take our word for it.
Let's take the word of thepeople in the study.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Jason, the first test was done with 10 participants.
So I don't know that's a reallyhearty sample size, but 10
participants did distinguishbetween five different
intensities of sourness, whichwas produced by the device.
So that was the first test.
Was the sour test?
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Now to be fair, Chris , if you saw a flyer saying come
, put a flexible ribbon-likeconduit into your mouth, I'm not
sure they'd get as manyparticipants as hey, we're
testing.
If people are less stressedwhen they pet dogs, you're
probably going to get morepeople for the dog study.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Maybe unless they have allergies.
The second test researcherssimulated five complex tastes
based on chemical compositions.
They simulated lemonade, cake,fried egg, fish soup and coffee.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Could you have fish soup?
You're a vegetarian.
Is that breaking the rules ifit's simulated fish soup?
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Jason, I would avoid this test or this study.
With a 10-foot pole, this issomething I would not
participate in.
I had six trained participantsin the second test.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
And the fish soup probably.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Probably the fish soup was like no.
So six trained participantslearned to recognize those
flavors, and participantsachieved an 87% accuracy in
identifying the correct flavors.
Which ones were easier toidentify?
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Probably sweet and sour.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Lemonade and cake.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Right.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
And then other ones were more difficult, like the
fried egg.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
It sounds like an episode of Hell's Kitchen, where
the chefs are blindfolded andRamsey gives them different
types of meat and then if theyget the, if they give them pork
and they say, oh, that's chicken, he just berates them.
It's probably harder than itlooks.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
I was thinking it was like an episode of Survivor
where they did do those foodthings, where they spun a wheel
or flicked a spinner and had toeat galoots.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Oh yeah, super gross stuff.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Super gross stuff.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
If you're thinking about how science has attempted
to simulate taste before.
There have been attempts usingelectrical stimulation, and it's
worked, but not really, becausescientists really don't know
how taste perception works.
This maybe works better becauseit's chemical and it provides a
(10:12):
wider range of flavors thanjust zapping your tongue.
There are some problems withthis, though, because one of the
big things that humans havewith flavor is smell, though,
because one of the big thingsthat humans have with flavor is
smell.
If you've ever had a really badcold before you lose your sense
of smell, then you lose some ofyour ability to detect the
(10:32):
flavor.
Now, I don't know if that'swhat has happened to you, chris,
but you've mentioned before.
I was in that university study,and my sense of smell really
helped me pass all of thesetests when I had to be a guinea
pig.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
And eating is a truly an immersive experience,
including the smell and thetexture and the temperature of
the food and when you're, youknow breaking bread with your
family or your friends.
It's all about the socialaspect of eating.
So researchers are working onincorporating smell into the
(11:12):
e-test using gas sensors andmachine learning.
Okay, and I guess some possibleapplications of this technology
could include immersive gamingexperiences but, more
interestingly, sensoryrehabilitation, which, for
example, is helping people wholost their sense of taste due to
(11:35):
COVID-19.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
That's very altruistic.
I was just thinking of thevideo game Skyrim.
Do you remember Skyrim?
Duncan, our older son, and Iplayed this game game Skyrim.
Do you remember Skyrim?
Duncan, our older son, and Iplayed this game called Skyrim.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Jason, I could not forget because it was like the
biggest world and you played itfor a very long time because you
got quite.
I think you actually finishedthe game.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
I did, I finished Skyrim you betcha.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Yeah, but.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
I've always said that there's so much walking in
Skyrim that if somehow you couldput me on like a 360 degree
treadmill like in Ready PlayerOne, I would have been in such
good shape for how much moving Ihad to do.
And then in Skyrim you cancollect like a crazy amount of
(12:23):
random objects that you juststeal from homes and like.
At one point I had 60 cheesewheels in my backpack so it
might've been helpful If I waseating the cheese wheel to
actually smell and taste it inthe game.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
But is this the game that Jazargo says he has no more
?
Room to carry things.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Yeah, jazargo has no more room to carry things.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Yes, oh, okay.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
I gave him many of my cheese wheels.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Yes, and he was protesting how much crap you
were carrying around.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
I didn't want to.
I was a kleptomaniac in thatgame.
It's really hard to say goodbyeto your loot.
You never know when you'regoing to need the like the 60
books you stole from the libraryAnyways.
So there's a huge problem withgetting people to do this.
I think we can all agree onwhat it is, and that's putting
an unfamiliar device in yourmouth hole.
(13:20):
So again, you said you wouldhave stayed away from this with
a 10-foot pole.
My guess like this if they hadthis, at best buy and it was
like put this in your mouth andyou can taste the cheese wheels.
I'm not sure best buy or Amazonwould sell a ton of these.
So probably the design needssome significant improvements
(13:43):
before it comes to a house nearyou.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Now, I don't know what this device looks like in
its current stages, butdefinitely the look, feel and
comfort of the device is goingto be paramount for the success
of this device.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
I would try it, chris , I would try it.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Jason, you would try anything cool.
You're like, yeah, I'll trythat, that's cool.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Yeah, as long as I'm not going to get like hepatitis
from it or something.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Well, maybe meningitis.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Okay, as long as it's clean and it's what as long as
it's clean and it's what.
As long as it's clean, hygienic, I would put the thing in my
mouth to taste the food in agame.
I like me a fried egg withoutthe calories.
That's our first sciencearticle.
All right, going from virtualreality to real reality.
(14:33):
Chris, let's head to the moonit's very exciting.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
It's been a historic year for lunar landings on the
moon go lunar landings on themoon.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
I hear it's the top destination.
I wonder what the yelp viewsare.
Five out of five beautifulviews.
One out of five no oxygen,something like that probably or
one out of five.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
I landed on my side and now I can't recharge in
terms of one of the one of theprobes yeah, one of the landers
yeah, we'll get to that thoughyeah, so the moon is a big
destination.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
There's some a lot of exciting stuff that's happened
lately because two privatelanders have touched down within
a week of each other.
Now, one of the landers did it.
It was viral all over socialmedia In fact, we covered it in
Fun Facts with Bernoulli andthat's a milestone for private
spaceflight.
Well, the other one tipped overon its side and sadly could not
(15:30):
continue.
Before we get to the success,let's talk about the one that
didn't quite land.
It got there, though.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
That's right, and so I think we should celebrate that
success, because going to themoon is hard and as much as the
other one is a success.
They can learn from thefailures, the mistakes or
challenges that the failedattempt presented, and they can
learn and change for the nextattempt.
(16:00):
So, having said that, the landerwas named the Athena Lander and
it was built by a Houston-basedcompany, and the company was
called Intuitive Machines, andit just landed, or the attempted
land was on March 6th and itwas going to be landed in
Monsmouton, near the moon'ssouth pole, and that's a flat
(16:23):
top mountain believed to beolder than the surrounding
terrain on the moon, and itmissed its intended landing site
by 250 meters and, as you said,it ended up landing inside a
crater and that caused thelander to tip over, which
prevented any proper solar panelorientation, and the extreme
(16:47):
cold and lack of sunlight insidethe crater meant that,
unfortunately, athena'sbatteries could not recharge.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Oh, very sad.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
A day later the mission was declared over, but
the teams are continuing toanalyze data before there's
total power loss.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Yeah, it did get a day's worth of data.
Like, even though it tippedover, it got there, it got data
on the way down, it got datawhen it tipped over, it got data
from inside a crater.
That's cool.
So, yeah, we'll see what comesout of that.
A spokesperson for NASA, nikkiFox, says landing on the moon is
extremely hard, so it makessense.
I took incredible amount ofresources during the space race
(17:34):
that John F Kennedy touched offin the 60s to get the Apollo
program to the moon.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
It would have been exciting because D'Athena was
attempting to land in anunexplored region, but there's
still opportunity to exploreunexplored regions of the moon.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Just send another one At first.
You don't succeed and you tipover, fly, fly again.
That brings us to FireflyAerospace's Blue Ghost, and this
one did have a successfullanding.
I love the name Firefly becauseone of my favorite TV shows of
all time is called Firefly.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Can't take this guy from you.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Blue Ghost landed on March 2nd and its landing site
was Mare Chrism, which is avolcanic plain on the moon's
near side.
It launched on January 15th andit landed soft and safely,
without crashing or tipping over, and there's a very cool image
of it on the lunar surface withthe Earth visible in the
(18:33):
background.
It's like such a cool shotbecause the thing was sent there
by a private company.
It's not a NASA probe, eventhough they work with NASA.
It was a private company'sprobe.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
The image was a photo of its own shadow on the lunar
surface.
And then you're right Earth wasvisible in the background.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
This area was chosen because of the low magnetic
activity compared to otherregions on the moon, and that's
what Blue Ghost wants to measureis lunar magnetism.
And there's a whole bunch ofdoodads on it that are going to
be looking at the upcoming totallunar eclipse.
We're seeing that on March 14th, right, that's happening for us
here in Canada on Thursday.
(19:12):
Other sensors that it has on itare helping pave the way for
the next mission coming to themoon, like with Jeremy Hans has
on it, are helping pave the wayfor the next, the next mission
coming to the moon, like withjeremy hansen on it, a canadian
astronaut the artemis missionthe artemis mission, so cool so
we'll have more informationabout blue ghost as the data
comes in.
It literally just landed there.
(19:34):
What like a week ago.
There's been no real release oftheir findings and we'll keep
everybody in the loop on that.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
But it's super cool and there's lots of future
private lunar missions planned,lots planned throughout 2028.
And Nikki Fox from NASA thatyou spoke of earlier says land
all over the place.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Yeah, super helpful for NASA with their Artemis
missions.
The next Artemis mission isn'tgoing to land on the moon, but
it's going to take a couplepasses.
It just reminds me of one of myfavorite shows, and that's For
All Mankind.
I've watched that whole seasona couple times through.
We're getting to the pointwhere having humans on the moon
(20:17):
will be like an ongoing thing,like it was in the TV show,
which is very cool for me.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
It's like your TV is becoming alive, very much like
your virtual reality.
You're going to be able to eatyour cake.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
That's right.
Oh, that would have helped.
That'll help people on the moon.
Maybe you can't have real cake,but you can put the thing in
your mouth and have simulatedvirtual reality cake in space
moon cake.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Oh my goodness, moon cake.
What was it called?
Speaker 1 (20:49):
uh, a ribbon like put the ribbon thing in your mouth
and then get some chemicalssquirted in it.
Yeah, anyways, that's sciencenews for this week.
This weekend pet science, let'stalk about the labrador
retriever.
Aren't labs cute, chris?
They're so cute they are socute, I love them, but I love
(21:09):
golden retrievers more we'rebiased because of beaker and
calvin, but labrador retrieversare so friendly and they're just
very what's the word I'mlooking for.
They're just like steady, happydogs, like they're happy all
the time.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
So you can count on them.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Yeah, you can count on them.
Now.
Our study talks about theirfood obsession.
We've posted, but maybe notdone a thing, on the science
podcast, but there was some ideathat there's a genetic
component to Labradors and theirfood obsession, because anybody
who owns a Labrador knows thatnot all of them, but a large
(21:49):
percentage of them go bananasfor food.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
They do have persistent food-seeking behavior
, begging under the table andstealing unattended food.
Callum was good at that and asa result, labs are among the
most overweight dog breeds,along with golden retrievers and
cocker spaniels and beagles.
So if we could connect that toa gene.
(22:14):
But we're going to keep talkingabout it.
But it's not like somethingthat you should just test your
dog for.
There's other ways to mitigatethat food obsession or like just
don't feed them under the tableyeah, watch the food.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
We really watch beakers weight and she is like
slim and athletic, like she islike a dart.
And we maybe didn't watchcallan's weight sometimes and
she got a little chonky but thatwas from the boys feeding her
double breakfasts and doublesuppers sometimes Cause she was
a good girl and very cute.
And why not give Callan anotherbreakfast?
(22:53):
Cause you give kids jobs rightwhen their jobs was to feed the
dog and they're like no, you atethat awfully fast.
Maybe you should have twoscoops instead of one.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Double scoop.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Just like ice cream.
This was published in scienceon march 6th, so a very recent
article.
I was led by eleanor raffin atthe university of cambridge.
Previous findings, before thestudy we're going to talk about,
found that this po, there's agene called the pomc gene, and
it was linked to overeating inlabradors, so the dogs that had
(23:27):
it ate more food.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
However, this mutation of the POMC gene did
not fully explain the breed'sobesity risk, and here's where
the new genetic discoveries fromthis study comes into play 241
British Labrador retrievers werepart of the study, and the data
that was collected included thebody fat mass and the food
(23:53):
seeking behavior, such as baking, and it also looked at how
strictly owners controlled theirdog's diet.
They found, or they identified,five genes with the potential
to be associated with obesity inLabradors, and the strongest
link was found in a gene calledDENND1B.
(24:16):
So that's really easy toremember.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
DENND1B.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Exactly DENND1B.
Yeah, exactly.
So labs with the DEND1B varianthad 8% more body fat than those
without it, and that geneactually also affects the human
body mass index, which is theBMI, and our food response in
(24:44):
the brain.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Maybe that's why I'm hungry all the time.
I'm a Labrador retriever.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
You are, you probably have the DEND1B gene.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
So from this, researchers developed a scoring
system to assess Labradorobesity risk based on their
genetic profile.
You rank the Labradors based oninherited obesity-prone genes.
Some labs inherit a whole bunchof the genes and some have few
or none, so it's like you'reprobably going to get fat to
(25:13):
your.
Okay, I don't know what's.
What kind of ranking system isthat?
Speaker 2 (25:17):
You can rank all individuals based on whether
they inherited a bunch ofobesity prone genes or not.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
I guess you can zero.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Yeah, five out of five Yelp review.
You have the five.
You were a hungry hippo, oh butthere is impacts of genetics on
food behavior.
So they found that labs withhigh obesity risk genes were
more likely to beg for food andthey were more food motivated
(25:46):
than low risk dogs.
And I can see that, like whenyou're training with Beaker and
how she loves to work for treatsand the Burners they love to
work for treats too.
That makes me feel successfulas a trainer when they are
working so hard to please,working so hard to please.
(26:15):
And I do have a friend who hada husky Athena that would not
work for treats.
She was so stubborn and it'shuh Now.
I know we're talking abouttotally different dog breeds,
but I'm just talking about beingthe more food motivated and for
me that excites me for training.
But it's not good for labs thathave the higher risk of those
obesity genes.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
So food motivated dogs are generally a lot easier
to train, but then that mightlead to obesity.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Right.
So to combat that, a strictdiet regulation by owners makes
a huge difference.
So the high risk labs withstrict owners maintained a
healthy weight, whereas morerelaxed owners led to overweight
dogs.
But, interestingly, low risklabs stated a healthy weight
(27:08):
regardless of how their ownersfed them.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Oh, that's just like people.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
That's not fair.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
It isn't fair.
I'm hungry all the time and I'mlike some people just are not
hungry.
What is wrong with you?
Do you not wake up wanting toeat the world?
That's what happens with me.
I'm a lab, so should ownerstest their labs?
Chris Should.
If you've got a Labradorretriever, should you go test it
for these five genes?
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Probably not.
Oh, it's probably expensive.
It probably is expensive, and adog that constantly seeks food
would definitely overeat ifgiven the chance, and the best
approach is to ration foodcarefully for dogs that are
especially prone to obesity, anddiscipline is key.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
So don't give them second breakfasts and second
suppers.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
Owners need to have that strict control over the
food portions to prevent weightgain.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
And we are very strict with our dogs.
Now Bunsen and Bernoulli looklike they're chubby but they are
sleek.
They are thin and trim andmuscly.
You remember how wheneverBunsen, as he's older, he's had
to have IVs put in for things orhis surgery, and we just you
(28:22):
feel his body and he's just somuscly.
He's so muscly and there's notlike a lot of fat on that guy.
No, there you go.
If you have a lab, they'renarrowing down the reasons why
your lab wants food all the timeand the conclusion is don't
give them food all the time.
That's pet science for thisweek.
That's it for this week show.
(28:43):
Thanks for coming back weekafter week to listen to us and a
special shout out to the topdogs.
That's the top tier of ourpatreon, like page the pop hack.
We'd love your support.
If you love what we do and youwant to help us out and keep the
podcast free, sign up.
A perk is the top dogs gettheir name shouted out by chris
at the end of the show.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Take it away, chris amelia Fetig Rhi Oda, carol
Hainel, jennifer Challen, linneaJanik Karen Chronister, vicky
Otero, christy Walker, sarahBram Wendy, diane Mason and Luke
Helen Chin, elizabeth Bourgeois, marianne McNally, catherine
(29:24):
Jordan, shelley Smith, lauraStephenson, tracy Leinbach.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Anne Uchida For science, empathy and cuteness.
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