May 30, 2016 • 8 mins
Some farmed salmon may be deeply depressed. Nile crocodiles have been found thriving in Florida. Plus, a former fast food CEO says that raising the U.S. minimum wage would cause restaurants to replace their employees with robots.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to How Stuff Works Now. I'm your host, Lauren Vogelbaum,
a researcher and writer. Here at House to Works. Every week,
I'm bringing you three stories from our team about the
weird and wondrous developments we've seen in science, technology, and culture.
This week, Florida has a new invasive species, one of
the deadliest species of crocodile on the planet. No worries,
(00:24):
though also a former fast food CEO, says that raising
the minimum wage would lead to an entirely different kind
of invasive species taking over. He says that robots would
take those jobs. But first, senior writer and Stuff to
Blow Your Mind podcast co host Robert Lamb brings us
the story of a troubling, if bizarre study of farm
(00:44):
raised salmon. Some of these fish are highly depressed. Yes,
a new study published in Royal Society Open Science argues
that growth stunted anorects and dropout fish that float listlessly
at the surface of their overcrowded tanks are suffering from
severe depression. After all, we're not talking about a ritzy
(01:06):
aquarium or a stock pond here. These dropouts swim about
in cramped, unnatural, stressful aquaculture environments that have more in
common with cattle feed lots, over stuffed prisons, or those
human battery towers in the matrix. Now, I know what
you're thinking. Even fish pain remains something of a contingious issue.
So how do we get to the idea of depressed fish? Well,
(01:28):
according to lead study author Marco Vendus, the doomed dropout
fish express behavior and brain chemistry in line with depression
in other organisms, namely high levels of the stress response
hormone cortisol. They found that dropout salmon's serotainergic systems, which
regulate cortisol, were overactive, over stimulated, and defunct. The fish
(01:48):
were so stressed that they didn't respond to further stress
human fish ethics, aside growth, stunted dropout fish are a
common and costly occurrence in salmon aquaculture, so farmers have
more to gain than a sadness free fish sticker in
tackling the problem, and they don't necessarily have to improve
tank conditions. If they can improve the fish themselves through
(02:10):
research into stress coping, genetic markers, and selective breeding, hey,
then you don't have to change a thing. Though the
paper also indicates that several common agricultural practices may play
a role, including the employment of stressful vaccinations soon after
multiplication the naturally stressful physiological adaptation of juvenile salmon from
(02:30):
freshwater to seawater. Vendus, a marine biologist at the University
of Gothenburg, also believes these findings could eventually aid in
the medical prevention of human stress based pathologies, as well
as the depression you might be feeling right now about
the source of your fish sticks. Next up, more bad news.
(02:52):
The senior writer and my fellow Forward Thinking podcast co
host Jonathan Strickland reports on a former McDonald's executive's conviction
that raising the United States minimum wage to fifteen dollars
an hour would basically initiate the robot uprising. Ed Rendcy,
former president and CEO of McDonald's USA, recently said on
(03:15):
Fox Business that if the minimum wage in the US
rose to fifteen dollars an hour, it would make sense
for fast food companies to buy thirty five thousand dollar
robot arms and replace human employees. Rinsey went on to
say that keeping employee wages to a reasonable amount would
delay the robo apocalypse. His definition of reasonable is keeping
(03:37):
the minimum wage at seven dollars twenty five cents an hour.
So let's do the math. Let's say the federal minimum
wage goes up to fifteen dollars an hour and you're
scheduled to work a full forty hours each week. That
amounts to thirty one two hundred dollars before taxes. Employers
only have to buy each robot arm once. They have
(03:58):
to keep paying employee ease every year, so a little
after a year, the investment would appear to make sense.
Even factoring in maintenance and repair, an employer would probably
see a return on investment before a second year passes.
At the current minimum wage of seven dollars twenty five
cents an hour, an employee would earn fifteen thousand, eighty
(04:19):
dollars before taxes. If the boss replaced that employee with
a robot, it would take about two and a half
years to see a return on investment. Actually, it gets
way more complicated than that. Many minimum wage employees can
only get part time hours, which saves employers on additional costs. Also,
a robot wouldn't just replace one employee, it would replace
(04:41):
all the part time workers for that particular position. By
the way ed Rindsey started working for McDonald's way back
in nineteen sixty six. Assuming he made the minimum wage
at the time, he earned a dollar twenty five an
hour working the grill. Adjusted for inflation, that's equal to
nine dollars twenty three cents in a day's money. Um,
(05:02):
there's a lot more to go into here. For one thing,
robots must prove to be at least as efficient and
reliable as humans in kitchen jobs to be a viable option.
For another, numerous studies show the current minimum wage in
the US is unlivable. Then there's the fact that automation
is inevitable for many, if not all jobs. In that future.
(05:24):
We'll have to figure out how to separate work from income,
Otherwise no one will be able to afford the burgers.
All those robo cooks will be flipping. Finally, this week,
Jim McCormick, co host of both Stuff to Blow Your
Mind and Forward Thinking, walks us through a study that's
(05:47):
confirmed the presence of nile crocodiles surviving in the wild
of South Florida. Native to a broad region of the
African continent, the nile croc dial or Crocodilus niloticus is
among the deadliest apex predators on this planet, growing up
to six meters or almost twenty feet in length. This
(06:09):
is one of the few wild animals that will regularly
look at a human being and think, yeah, that could
be prey. The researchers side a figure that there were
at least four hundred and ninety three attacks on humans,
leading to three hundred and fifty four fatalities between two
thousand ten and fourteen. Now, crocodiles are more dangerous to
humans than the native crocodilians of Florida, such as the
(06:31):
American alligator. In this study published in the Journal of
Herpetological Conservation and Biology, four unusual looking crocodiles were captured
in South Florida between two thousand and four. Researchers use
DNA matching to show that at least two of these
were indeed nile crocodiles most closely related to a population
found in South Africa. Identical genetic markers indicate that at
(06:55):
least two of these animals were directly related to one another,
meaning they probably came from the same source. But what
was the source? It's a mystery, So whoever is bringing
nile crocodiles to Florida and releasing them. Please please stop,
okay stop. By tracking the growth, movement and foraging behaviors
(07:15):
of one of the animals, researchers also confirmed that nile
crocodiles can not only survive in the wild in Florida,
they seem to be doing extremely well. One specimen that
was recaptured after a period in the wild had grown
forty point five centimeters or about sixteen inches per year,
twenty percent faster than some nile crocodiles in their native range.
(07:36):
So it's possible that we have found a glorious king
crocodile incubator and it's Florida. The researchers stressed that there's
no evidence of an established population of nile crocodiles in
the wilderness of Florida, but there's also no way to
be sure that the ones we found in this study
were alone. In thirty years, are we going to be
reading reports of nile crocodiles feasting on our South Florida
(07:59):
cattle and Verglades tourists. I guess we'll wait and see.
I do want to emphasize that there is not currently
a known danger of nile crocodile attacks in Florida. The
real story here isn't about killer crocodiles, but about the
broader problem of invasive species. Florida already has the greatest
number of invasive amphibians and reptiles of any place in
(08:20):
the world, including animals like the Burmese python. And that's
our show for this week. Thank you so much for
tuning in. Subscribe now for more of the latest and
strangest science news, and hey, send us your idea for
a new stories, plus any suggestions you have for other
podcasts to listen to, shoot an email at now podcast
(08:42):
at how stuff works dot com. And if you dug Joe,
Jonathan and Robert's work, check out stuff to blow your
mind and forward thinking. Plus to access thousands of other
stories like these, check out our home planet now dot
how stuff works dot com.
Welcome to How Stuff Works Now. I'm your host, Lauren Vogelbaum,
a researcher and writer. Here at House to Works. Every week,
I'm bringing you three stories from our team about the
weird and wondrous developments we've seen in science, technology, and culture.
This week, Florida has a new invasive species, one of
the deadliest species of crocodile on the planet. No worries,
(00:24):
though also a former fast food CEO, says that raising
the minimum wage would lead to an entirely different kind
of invasive species taking over. He says that robots would
take those jobs. But first, senior writer and Stuff to
Blow Your Mind podcast co host Robert Lamb brings us
the story of a troubling, if bizarre study of farm
(00:44):
raised salmon. Some of these fish are highly depressed. Yes,
a new study published in Royal Society Open Science argues
that growth stunted anorects and dropout fish that float listlessly
at the surface of their overcrowded tanks are suffering from
severe depression. After all, we're not talking about a ritzy
(01:06):
aquarium or a stock pond here. These dropouts swim about
in cramped, unnatural, stressful aquaculture environments that have more in
common with cattle feed lots, over stuffed prisons, or those
human battery towers in the matrix. Now, I know what
you're thinking. Even fish pain remains something of a contingious issue.
So how do we get to the idea of depressed fish? Well,
(01:28):
according to lead study author Marco Vendus, the doomed dropout
fish express behavior and brain chemistry in line with depression
in other organisms, namely high levels of the stress response
hormone cortisol. They found that dropout salmon's serotainergic systems, which
regulate cortisol, were overactive, over stimulated, and defunct. The fish
(01:48):
were so stressed that they didn't respond to further stress
human fish ethics, aside growth, stunted dropout fish are a
common and costly occurrence in salmon aquaculture, so farmers have
more to gain than a sadness free fish sticker in
tackling the problem, and they don't necessarily have to improve
tank conditions. If they can improve the fish themselves through
(02:10):
research into stress coping, genetic markers, and selective breeding, hey,
then you don't have to change a thing. Though the
paper also indicates that several common agricultural practices may play
a role, including the employment of stressful vaccinations soon after
multiplication the naturally stressful physiological adaptation of juvenile salmon from
(02:30):
freshwater to seawater. Vendus, a marine biologist at the University
of Gothenburg, also believes these findings could eventually aid in
the medical prevention of human stress based pathologies, as well
as the depression you might be feeling right now about
the source of your fish sticks. Next up, more bad news.
(02:52):
The senior writer and my fellow Forward Thinking podcast co
host Jonathan Strickland reports on a former McDonald's executive's conviction
that raising the United States minimum wage to fifteen dollars
an hour would basically initiate the robot uprising. Ed Rendcy,
former president and CEO of McDonald's USA, recently said on
(03:15):
Fox Business that if the minimum wage in the US
rose to fifteen dollars an hour, it would make sense
for fast food companies to buy thirty five thousand dollar
robot arms and replace human employees. Rinsey went on to
say that keeping employee wages to a reasonable amount would
delay the robo apocalypse. His definition of reasonable is keeping
(03:37):
the minimum wage at seven dollars twenty five cents an hour.
So let's do the math. Let's say the federal minimum
wage goes up to fifteen dollars an hour and you're
scheduled to work a full forty hours each week. That
amounts to thirty one two hundred dollars before taxes. Employers
only have to buy each robot arm once. They have
(03:58):
to keep paying employee ease every year, so a little
after a year, the investment would appear to make sense.
Even factoring in maintenance and repair, an employer would probably
see a return on investment before a second year passes.
At the current minimum wage of seven dollars twenty five
cents an hour, an employee would earn fifteen thousand, eighty
(04:19):
dollars before taxes. If the boss replaced that employee with
a robot, it would take about two and a half
years to see a return on investment. Actually, it gets
way more complicated than that. Many minimum wage employees can
only get part time hours, which saves employers on additional costs. Also,
a robot wouldn't just replace one employee, it would replace
(04:41):
all the part time workers for that particular position. By
the way ed Rindsey started working for McDonald's way back
in nineteen sixty six. Assuming he made the minimum wage
at the time, he earned a dollar twenty five an
hour working the grill. Adjusted for inflation, that's equal to
nine dollars twenty three cents in a day's money. Um,
(05:02):
there's a lot more to go into here. For one thing,
robots must prove to be at least as efficient and
reliable as humans in kitchen jobs to be a viable option.
For another, numerous studies show the current minimum wage in
the US is unlivable. Then there's the fact that automation
is inevitable for many, if not all jobs. In that future.
(05:24):
We'll have to figure out how to separate work from income,
Otherwise no one will be able to afford the burgers.
All those robo cooks will be flipping. Finally, this week,
Jim McCormick, co host of both Stuff to Blow Your
Mind and Forward Thinking, walks us through a study that's
(05:47):
confirmed the presence of nile crocodiles surviving in the wild
of South Florida. Native to a broad region of the
African continent, the nile croc dial or Crocodilus niloticus is
among the deadliest apex predators on this planet, growing up
to six meters or almost twenty feet in length. This
(06:09):
is one of the few wild animals that will regularly
look at a human being and think, yeah, that could
be prey. The researchers side a figure that there were
at least four hundred and ninety three attacks on humans,
leading to three hundred and fifty four fatalities between two
thousand ten and fourteen. Now, crocodiles are more dangerous to
humans than the native crocodilians of Florida, such as the
(06:31):
American alligator. In this study published in the Journal of
Herpetological Conservation and Biology, four unusual looking crocodiles were captured
in South Florida between two thousand and four. Researchers use
DNA matching to show that at least two of these
were indeed nile crocodiles most closely related to a population
found in South Africa. Identical genetic markers indicate that at
(06:55):
least two of these animals were directly related to one another,
meaning they probably came from the same source. But what
was the source? It's a mystery, So whoever is bringing
nile crocodiles to Florida and releasing them. Please please stop,
okay stop. By tracking the growth, movement and foraging behaviors
(07:15):
of one of the animals, researchers also confirmed that nile
crocodiles can not only survive in the wild in Florida,
they seem to be doing extremely well. One specimen that
was recaptured after a period in the wild had grown
forty point five centimeters or about sixteen inches per year,
twenty percent faster than some nile crocodiles in their native range.
(07:36):
So it's possible that we have found a glorious king
crocodile incubator and it's Florida. The researchers stressed that there's
no evidence of an established population of nile crocodiles in
the wilderness of Florida, but there's also no way to
be sure that the ones we found in this study
were alone. In thirty years, are we going to be
reading reports of nile crocodiles feasting on our South Florida
(07:59):
cattle and Verglades tourists. I guess we'll wait and see.
I do want to emphasize that there is not currently
a known danger of nile crocodile attacks in Florida. The
real story here isn't about killer crocodiles, but about the
broader problem of invasive species. Florida already has the greatest
number of invasive amphibians and reptiles of any place in
(08:20):
the world, including animals like the Burmese python. And that's
our show for this week. Thank you so much for
tuning in. Subscribe now for more of the latest and
strangest science news, and hey, send us your idea for
a new stories, plus any suggestions you have for other
podcasts to listen to, shoot an email at now podcast
(08:42):
at how stuff works dot com. And if you dug Joe,
Jonathan and Robert's work, check out stuff to blow your
mind and forward thinking. Plus to access thousands of other
stories like these, check out our home planet now dot
how stuff works dot com.
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