This is the Science You Can Trust

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Twists.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
This Week in Science, episode number ten twenty four, recorded
on Wednesday, July thirtieth, twenty twenty five.

Speaker 1 (00:12):
This is the science you can trust. Hey everyone, I'm
doctor Kiki and.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Tonight we will fill your head with slits, fat and teeth.
But first, thanks to our amazing Patreon sponsors for their
generous support of Twists. You can become a part of
the Patreon community at patreon dot com. Slash This Week
in Science.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
Disclaimer disclaimer disclaimer. In a world where creating confusion is
an art form, facts are often treated like fickle things,
Where algorithms shape opinions faster than a research rat can
catch a cold, where science can be drowned out by
air waves of propaganda, there remains a beacon, not necessarily

(00:55):
of hope, but if flickering in the darkness all the same,
a signal cutting through the static, a conversation carried on
by giants, A method slinking past the madness, the scientific method.

Speaker 4 (01:09):
Each week, we.

Speaker 3 (01:09):
Gather here to celebrate the victories of science, wrestle with
its puzzling defeats, and share the wonders that each reveals.
The science we discuss is real, reviewed and recent, so
recent in fact, that we named the show This Week
in Science coming up next.

Speaker 4 (01:31):
I've got that kind of mind. I can't get enough.
I want to learn everything.

Speaker 5 (01:36):
I want to fill it all up with new discoveries
that happen every day of the week.

Speaker 3 (01:42):
There's only one place to go to find the knowledge
of zeke.

Speaker 4 (01:45):
I wanna know what.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
Sciences this week?

Speaker 1 (02:00):
Science?

Speaker 2 (02:02):
Good science to you, Kiki, and a good science to
you too, Justin and everyone else out there. Welcome to
this episode of This Week in Science. We are back
again to talk about science from the past week. So
many great stories, always more to learn and always more
to ask questions about. Unfortunately, Blair is not with us tonight.

(02:26):
As much as we do love having her here, sometimes.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
She has to take care of herself.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
And I think that is one of these things that
you know that we really try and make room for here.
We all need to go sometimes and take care of ourselves.
All right, this show, we're going to talk about science.
I have stories. What do I have stories about?

Speaker 1 (02:52):
I have stories about.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
Some atomic slits, Wi Fi fingerprinting, you.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
Really really deep life.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
Cultural functions and brain generics. All this and more on
tonight's episode.

Speaker 1 (03:13):
What do you Have justin.

Speaker 3 (03:15):
Yeah, here's the more I've got. Uh, how worth it was?
The COVID shot. Ancient Chinese mystery teeth, very ancient Chinese
mystery teeth.

Speaker 4 (03:27):
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (03:28):
Why tumors prefer carnivores and priming the immune system with
your mind.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
Sounds a little woo but woo woo sounds.

Speaker 4 (03:45):
But uh it's got it's science woo.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
So it's then I say.

Speaker 6 (03:51):
Woo hoo woooooooo.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
Anyways, you get it, imagine in your head that I
sounded like, you know, Mario, it's Mario Wooo.

Speaker 3 (04:08):
I don't don't even have a sound for that. I
don't never I'm like the one person that never got
into playing any Mario anything. I'm the one, the one
I didn't play any of it.

Speaker 1 (04:24):
It's okay, I don't hold it against you at all.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
Let's talk about you do though you did get into
You got into the double Slit experiment though, yes.

Speaker 3 (04:36):
Yeah, I even got a version I could play at
home for at one point.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
Okay, well we're going to jump into that in one second.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
As we jump into the show here, I do want
to remind everyone you, especially you, that subscribing to Twists
on your favorite podcast platform is the best way to
get our show edited and just you know, wonderfully in
your ears. If you like watching us, streaming or whatever,
you know, we're on YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, look for this

(05:06):
week in science all the places you like to find
great science reporting that you can trust.

Speaker 1 (05:12):
Our website is twist dot org.

Speaker 2 (05:14):
Now it's time for the science. Yeah you ready, Yeah,
bring it, bring in. I'm bringing the double slit experiment back. Well, actually,
MIT scientists are bringing the double slit experiment back at
the quantum level. So there's a paper they've just published
in Physical Review Letters from the Physical Review Journals, and

(05:38):
the researchers have titled this paper Coherent and Incoherent Light
Scattering by single atom wave packets. Now, the idea behind
the double slit experiment is that if we are to
determine whether or not light is a particle or a

(05:58):
wave man, then we need to test these ideas. And
there have been experiments over and over again that have
shown that like a wave, when you have non observance
and the way or non detection of the jiggliness, that

(06:18):
the physical aspects that a particle of photon can impart
on a material or a slit as it passes through.
Then you have this wave function kind of like the
ripples on the top of a pond. If you send
it through one little slit or one area, and you
have a board with a hole in it, a slit

(06:41):
in it. On the other side of that board, out
of the slit comes the propagation of the wave that
was behind the board. Right, the wave propagates, hits the
board with a slit, goes through the slit, and the
wave propagates on the other side. If you have multiple waves, though, right,
you have interference patterns because ripples bump into each other

(07:04):
and that interferes. And so we are able to show
that there are these weird things like interference patterns that
suggest that light is a wave. When we have two
slits and so waves going through more than one slit right,
one on either side, you have one wave propagating, and.

Speaker 1 (07:20):
Then two waves come out on the other side.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
And you have a pattern that is similar to what
you would expect from the interference now of two waves
propagating on the other side.

Speaker 1 (07:30):
Of that board.

Speaker 2 (07:32):
From the particle aspect, which is what we get from
the observation of these things, the particles they just go peep, peo, peo, pew,
and they just shoot through, right, they're supposed to just
shoot through, but there's like weird patterns that show up
right there. Anyway, the results over years and years and

(07:56):
years meals Bore Einstein arguing about the quantum macarex of
photons of light. Double slit experiment was done, and we
still to this day it's like, well, Okay, it's a
particle in a wave, no matter how we look at it.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
It's a particle in a wave.

Speaker 2 (08:12):
But we've never looked at it from what is now
considered an idealized experiment where there's no slit. What they
did in this experiment is they created an array of
super cooled atoms. Each atom individually acted in the way

(08:33):
that a slit would that each tie. A photon shot
through this array of atoms, if it a laser, right,
if a photon hit an atom, that eight atom would
jiggle and scatter light. If it's a photon, it would
cause a wave like form to appear if it's a wave.

(08:56):
So they studied light scattering of atomic wave packets in
free space. And so this is looked at in terms,
as they say, of atom photon entanglement and which way information,
which I love, is a physics term. So they had
an optical lattice these atoms that what they've learned is

(09:20):
that this optical lattice of atoms super cooled.

Speaker 1 (09:23):
So they're basically not moving at all. There's no vibrations.
It's almost complete cold.

Speaker 2 (09:29):
This is like tiny, tiny, tiny amounts of Calvin, not
even a whole Calvin, but tiny super freezing cold vibration.
The reason that nothing's happening vibrations. There's no vibrations, very
little heat in there. And they learned that they could
like ramp up what they call the fuzziness of the

(09:52):
atom by like tuning the atoms to lasers, and the
lasers could hold the atoms super still they're really not moving,
or they could loosen up the laser light and they
had what they called a fuzziness to them. So the
atoms are like their probability cloud of where the atom
is in space and how it's vibrating in this super

(10:12):
tight cold it's like fuzzier as opposed to a tight.

Speaker 1 (10:18):
Atom. It's a fuzzy atom.

Speaker 2 (10:20):
And then they shot the photons through it and pretty
much they showed that nils Bor was very correct in
his assumptions, and they unified what they call the free
space and trapped atom experiments by measuring lights scattered before
and during wave packet expansion. They showed coherence properties of

(10:43):
scattered light are independent of the presence of this cold
trap the.

Speaker 1 (10:52):
When they had the laser.

Speaker 2 (10:54):
Holding the atoms in place, when they let the laser loose,
so the atoms for it's like for a second, like
if you're on an elevator and the elevator suddenly drops,
and if you jumped at the same moment to say,
in the same place, you'd be hanging just for a
second in free space. They kind of did that in
this experiment with atoms and like shot photons at the

(11:16):
atoms to see what would happen, and they showed that
when that light was scattered that they're independent, that the
light scattering is independent of the presence of the traps.

Speaker 1 (11:31):
So the idea of particle or a wave.

Speaker 2 (11:38):
Kind of doesn't matter how you set the experiment up,
if we're observing it or not observing it. The uncertainty
principles of the whole situation that it's basically because of association.

Speaker 1 (11:51):
With other stuff that it leads to.

Speaker 2 (11:56):
The particleness versus the waveness of light. And so if
you imagine this extrapolated to all matter on the planet
being energy, right, But the more physical stuff is like
our desktop. We can talk about it as being everything
in it could be a particle or a wave, but
it is a particle making up matter underneath my fingers.

(12:21):
And the reason it is, the reason I am, the
reason you are, is because of the association association and
the collapsing of the probability wave as a result of
the associations of all of the interactions of the of
the atoms in space and time.

Speaker 1 (12:40):
And so.

Speaker 2 (12:43):
Bottom line, light energy what matter. Light is energy. Matter
is also energy. Everything is a particle in a wave.
But it's if it's associated with other stuff, if it's
being observed, there's less uncertainty about it.

Speaker 1 (13:03):
It's particle.

Speaker 3 (13:03):
Well that it's that's always been the thing with the
with it that there's been annoying, right, is the observer
effect is just an interaction effect. You've interacted with it
in some way, but that is that.

Speaker 2 (13:17):
But that is the thing that they're that they're saying
here is it's like not just we interacted with it,
it is that's just a fundamental aspect of the quantum
nature of.

Speaker 1 (13:28):
Of light that in interacting that.

Speaker 2 (13:36):
It doesn't have to be observed with an atom with
another atom, in interacting with anything, no matter what, it collapses.

Speaker 1 (13:42):
The wave function and it becomes But this still less.

Speaker 3 (13:45):
Uncertain doesn't explain to me in any way why shooting
those one by one at the submillimeter slip film can
still cause an interference pattern because they're separated by time

(14:09):
and still show interference waves, which shouldn't be the thing
in the part, I totally get like that, that's obviously
that you have an interaction.

Speaker 4 (14:20):
It's breaking the wave.

Speaker 3 (14:24):
Yeah, it's kind of like it's kind of like you're
making it stick not to the other things in the environment,
but you're making it stick to space time. You're making
it be part of clocks. Right before it you could
ignore clocks. It's the clock free I'm living in the

(14:47):
time free uh environment. But as soon as you have
an interaction, you've got to you've got to play in
that clock of whatever you've you've interacted with. And that
seems more like the that's the connection. It's not necessarily
breaking of a wave, but it's forcing a thing to
interact with time. I don't think light normally like free

(15:10):
light doesn't care about time. It goes everywhere all at
once and doesn't doesn't think about time.

Speaker 1 (15:15):
It's not even oh it doesn't even care.

Speaker 3 (15:17):
Yeah, no, it's all the same day. Man, if you're
if you're light floating.

Speaker 2 (15:25):
But it has to among all of the I guess
universal interact, like if something makes it take if maybe
it's not the observer effect of anything observing light.

Speaker 1 (15:40):
Maybe it's light actually observing other stuff.

Speaker 4 (15:45):
And I think observing really weird.

Speaker 3 (15:49):
The early experiments kept calling it observer and they kept
making it this thing, but the only way you could
observe was like materially interacting with the thing, And so well,
that's really the whether you looked at it today or
tomorrow or a month from now, your experiment would still
show if you had an interaction with it, that it
created a non interference pattern. You would just get the

(16:11):
two bars of things where everything acts like a particles
because you've interacted with it before it hit the target.
So of course it's now part of time. You've created
little time bubbles.

Speaker 1 (16:25):
Time bubbles. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (16:26):
I love one of the things that doesn't work, one
of the things in the double slit experiment that I
don't think is really talked about. I mean, I'm sure
among people who are really interested in this topic and
and how particle wave quantum mechanics works, maybe they understand
this more.

Speaker 1 (16:44):
But apparently.

Speaker 2 (16:47):
In nineteen twenty seven, and this is according to the
article from MIT ein Einstein Einstein argued that a photon
particle should pass through just one of two slits in
the process and in the process generate a slight force
on the slit. They say, like a bird rustling a
leaf as it flies by. And so he proposed that

(17:10):
one could detect such a force while also observing an
interference pattern, so you can catch the particle and wave
nature at the same time. Neil's Bore liked the quantum
uncertainty principle, and he showed that the detection of the
photon's path would wash out the interference pattern. And so

(17:33):
this double slit experiment, in which they didn't use physical slits,
they used atoms as the quote unquote leaf that the
bird would rustle, that the it would be the thing
that the photon would move around a little bit because
of its particle nature. They showed that in the end

(17:56):
if what they showed here is basically but it's only
the fuzziness of the atoms that are being rustled by
the photon that has anything to do with how the
particle or the wave detection. The duality exists. It has

(18:20):
to do completely with the interaction between matter and light,
which I think is fascinating. It just takes it to
a different level for me anyway, in terms of the
quantum dynamics of it. Neil's Bohr was more right than
Einstein according to this experiment.

Speaker 3 (18:44):
According to the original the original experiment too. It was
one of the things Einstein looked at and went, I
guess everything's not as deterministic as I thought. I mean, Einstein,
for all of his brilliance, was no no champion of
a wrong idea, and so.

Speaker 4 (19:05):
He began getting more great Yeah, okay, forget that like that.

Speaker 3 (19:13):
Yeah, I mean, it's hard to be a really smart
person and not get rid of a lot of ideas
that you had.

Speaker 2 (19:22):
I mean, you have to know that if you're having
a lot of ideas, there are going to be a
lot of bad ones in there.

Speaker 1 (19:28):
You just got to look through them all just.

Speaker 3 (19:30):
Because there's other people's ideas, but getting rid of your
own sometimes.

Speaker 4 (19:37):
It's a little tougher.

Speaker 1 (19:39):
You want to tell me a story, Uh.

Speaker 3 (19:43):
Yeah, what was this? Oh this is just a funny headline.
I didn't even bring this story, but it's here's the
headline for city dwellers, even fifteen minutes in nature can
improve mental health. And I thought, yeah, it's because it's
city dwellers. That's about as much as they can handle, right,
Or that's about as much as nature can handle from all.

Speaker 4 (20:04):
Those city dwellers, because it's like.

Speaker 3 (20:06):
Seventy percent of the population on the planet's a city dweller. Now,
I mean, we don't even need we don't want them
in nature.

Speaker 4 (20:14):
That's not what I wrought.

Speaker 1 (20:15):
I was going to go there.

Speaker 2 (20:16):
I was going to say, with the number of people
on the planet right now, honestly, stay away. We don't
want everybody in nature. It's just going to ruin nature.
So just go to your city park, thank you.

Speaker 4 (20:30):
In city parks, but proximity by zip code.

Speaker 3 (20:36):
In previous studies there upon a time have shown greater
mental health just by being near a park. Now there's
all those other things like, well, maybe there's wealthier people
in near parks and there's a poverty thing and another thing. Whatever.
If you look window and you see park, you're probably don't. Okay,
but that's not the story I brought.

Speaker 4 (20:55):
What's the story I.

Speaker 1 (20:56):
Was cheating before, talk about.

Speaker 4 (21:01):
Oh here was global analysts.

Speaker 3 (21:06):
Okay, So well let me ask you this. The COVID
nine team shots the vaccination, MRI vaccination, getting the whole
world vaccinated?

Speaker 4 (21:17):
Was it worth it?

Speaker 1 (21:22):
Was it worth it? I'm going to say, was it
worth it? Yes? It was hard. It's still worth it
to protect people.

Speaker 3 (21:32):
Don't we know?

Speaker 4 (21:35):
There was You've got to study it.

Speaker 1 (21:36):
There was data, but is there better data now?

Speaker 3 (21:41):
So this is a Stanford University led investigation into the
COVID nineteen vaccination efforts. And so some of the previous
studies were like, oh, they did them in year one,
or they had they did it in small populations. This
one claims to have a core cohort of around eight

(22:01):
billion people.

Speaker 1 (22:04):
That would be almost all the people on the planet justin.

Speaker 3 (22:08):
Yeah, they tried to collect like all of the data
from everywhere it was available.

Speaker 1 (22:14):
I guess that's a lot of data.

Speaker 4 (22:17):
This is the Stanford University led investigation.

Speaker 2 (22:20):
With LED, but this is led by Ianadis Ianitis, who
is also part of the Great Barrington Declaration.

Speaker 1 (22:31):
So I'm going to listen to this carefully, okay.

Speaker 4 (22:33):
Okay, all right.

Speaker 3 (22:35):
So they say that the vaccination effort, according to their reports,
averted and estimated two point five to three three million
deaths and preserved fourteen point eight million life years worldwide
between twenty twenty and twenty twenty four. Now, the other

(23:00):
part of this finding that I find very interesting is
that almost the entire benefit was in people aged sixty
or more. Eighty nine point six percent of the lives
saved were people sixty and older. Children and adolescents they
contributed just zero point zero one percent in their analysis.

(23:25):
The the other part of this is, and this is
where we're gonna have to kind of get into what
is years years life or life years?

Speaker 4 (23:33):
Sorry.

Speaker 3 (23:34):
Life years is a thing that they they use usually
in very large studies when they're determining health outcomes of
things like how many life years are being reduced by this,
that or the other disease, And it means basically years
that you can live where you're healthily functioning. Right, So

(23:56):
this estimated fourteen plus million years sounds like a lot
of millions of years of humanity who have saved on
the planet.

Speaker 4 (24:08):
And I agree that it is.

Speaker 3 (24:10):
However, if you take if everybody, say half the population
on the planet got the vaccine and they all had
to spend an hour going to get it, well that
four billion hours of life lost on the planet. That's
going to add up quite a bit. So you take

(24:33):
all these things into consideration. The other thing is that's
left out of this is the amount of of years
of life saved from people just being sick with the virus.
People who were vaccinated came down with less uh less
often got the got sick less often showed the symptoms

(24:54):
of the sickness. Is this? Yeah? Is that?

Speaker 2 (24:57):
And I think that's one of the not just being
sick with COVID. But we also know that COVID is
it leads to cardiac troubles, it can lead to respiratory troubles.

Speaker 1 (25:08):
Long COVID is a.

Speaker 2 (25:09):
Huge issue, like there are metabolic disease issues that come
up post COVID that getting COVID can cause more health
issues itself.

Speaker 3 (25:21):
So health issues aren't because this is looking this seems
to be looking just at death and then the life
expected life years saved from those people not dying and so,
and they do say that this is a very conservative estimate.
In their paper they point that out that this is
very conservative estimate that they're making and it's limited to this.

(25:45):
But just in case you hear that fourteen million life
years versus all the time spent doing stuff with the
to prepare and counteract the pandemic, as though that was
not worth it. Not in this very conservative is all
the sickness hours that would have been there, all the
colde morbidities, all the other things that you were talking
about that would have YEA, the heart problems in that

(26:08):
there I think are in this like people who didn't
die from from heart issues and stuff from Like there
was a classic thing on the on the Joe Rogan
where he actually I think had a researcher on, like
a real one and it was like, oh, but the
vaccine causes and then the guy was like, no, actually,

(26:32):
the COVID is worse, and then they looked it up
in real time, and of course the rechurch feller or
the smart guy or whatever, he was right, Yeah, the
virus was much worse than any any of risk.

Speaker 2 (26:47):
But anyway, so we've got life years saved just from
being COVID sick.

Speaker 1 (26:54):
This isn't even really taking into account.

Speaker 2 (26:56):
Like the kids who got who were vaccinated and didn't
get COVID or didn't get severe COVID and hey don't
have like higher rates aren't going to have lives with
higher rates of illness moving forward, like if you are
protected from COVID, because like there's a whole other side

(27:17):
of this. This isn't even looking this, but we're looking
at years of life saved from COVID nineteen vaccination twenty
three million, five hundred seventy seven, four hundred seventy four.

Speaker 1 (27:32):
And that's like at the like the low end, right.

Speaker 3 (27:39):
Well, so so the sense of the let's see, the
millions of deaths sensitivity had a range of one point
four to four million, so they grabbed, you know, towards
the middle of that there, and then the life years
was seven point four and twenty three point six million.

Speaker 4 (28:04):
Lack views stave.

Speaker 3 (28:08):
Eleven percent of that's subverted were just people living in
long term residential care. But they only made up two
percent of the life years safe because they're going to
make it that long anyway. Yeah. Yeah, So, as concluded,
the vaccine offered a clear mortality benefit, largely amongst older adults,

(28:31):
and the estimates again, they consider their own estimates to
be highly conservative.

Speaker 2 (28:44):
Which I think is really amazing. And it's it's fascinating
to see a study come out like this from out
of you. And I cannot say his last name right,
but he's from Stanford and he prior to the co
COVID outbreak, he worked on replication. He worked on some

(29:06):
really great stuff related to public health and data and
clinical trials, and he was doing some really impressive work
and then suddenly.

Speaker 1 (29:16):
COVID started.

Speaker 2 (29:17):
And he was one of the originators of the Great
Barrington Declaration, which is a group of researchers who basically
stood up and said, no, we shouldn't have vaccinate. You
don't need to push but vaccination, and you know, we
don't need to have lockdowns and like, you know, you know,
like we don't need to you know, do the things
that we're doing, have life go about the way that

(29:39):
we think it should.

Speaker 1 (29:40):
And so.

Speaker 2 (29:42):
I think it's very interesting to have this study come
out of his lab and makes it coming from his
lab makes it that much more I think.

Speaker 1 (29:50):
Like of a positive data point there. It's fascinating.

Speaker 3 (29:57):
Yeah, and it kind of reinforces what we were hearing
when the rollout of the vaccination that the it was
like the elderly and the people in the homes are
the ones who should.

Speaker 4 (30:05):
Be getting at first.

Speaker 3 (30:07):
I mean it kind of it kind of follows in
the people comorbidities and you know, underlying immunity issues, that
sort of thing. So it kind of follows along the
path that we followed, like it shows that the you know,
it kind of mirrors that to an extent. But the
danger and of course any of these is the next
time there's a novel something, keep in mind it's going

(30:30):
to be another novel thing.

Speaker 4 (30:32):
And so it is.

Speaker 3 (30:34):
It's not going to behave like the the one that
we now know are good old fashioned, good old fashioned
COVID no longer a novel virus. So even when we
have these this learning in the bank, so to speak, man,
if something else that's just novel and new and we

(30:54):
haven't encountered before and don't know how it's going to
act in the population at large, we got to go
back to the basics that we had in the beginning
of COVID, where we didn't know, you know, it's hard
to add knowledge to a novel thing.

Speaker 1 (31:08):
Oh my gosh, so hard.

Speaker 3 (31:10):
Yeah, but I think our response though it was any
scene wise, maybe much quicker.

Speaker 4 (31:17):
Yeah, because that was that was.

Speaker 1 (31:19):
Impressive anyway, it was amazing.

Speaker 2 (31:21):
If our future vaccine response can be that fast. I
love I'm looking at the end of this paper here
them writing, yeah, did you say this? If these calculations
are sound, COVID nineteen vaccination in twenty twenty to twenty
twenty four apparently saved fewer lives than measles or hepatitis
B in the same period vaccination in the same period,

(31:42):
but more than vaccination for each of the other eight pathogens. However,
life years saved by COVID nineteen vaccination for the same
period we're more than thirtyfold lower than life years saved
from measles vaccination, tenfold lower than from hepatitis B vaccination,
substantially lower than also the life years saved human papilloma virus,
yellow fever, humophilis, and in fluenzae step tococus bla, blah.

(32:05):
Even though COVID nineteen vaccines are clearly a major achievement,
their benefits do not necessarily match the benefits of several
other widely used vaccines. Decrease in trust and increased hesitancy
for these vaccines, maybe devastating.

Speaker 1 (32:23):
The COVID vaccine COVID children. Yeah, this pandemic.

Speaker 2 (32:28):
Yeah, and hopefully it'll help us figure out how to
overcome vaccine hesitancy because if we can, we can save lives.
And I think that is the message.

Speaker 1 (32:41):
That's like, that's the message. There, huge good study to bring.

Speaker 3 (32:47):
Evolutionarily speaking, again, it may just end up taking care
of itself at some point.

Speaker 2 (32:53):
Yeah, it's still going around. Yes, yes, that is grim.

Speaker 1 (32:57):
Okay is this hey?

Speaker 4 (33:00):
What is this?

Speaker 3 (33:01):
Can you they are now condust for WiFi? What does
this story?

Speaker 1 (33:05):
Oh? Yeah yeah, yeah, you know it's your fingerprint right,
like your WiFi fingerprint. What what does that even mean?

Speaker 2 (33:16):
So we've talked before on the show and in past
years about using radar, using Wi Fi and Bluetooth to
be able to like map your house and maybe even
map movements like like furniture, stable objects, or even moving
objects in the house like a person or a dog

(33:38):
that you know the Wi Fi signal because it's bouncing
around inside the walls in a particular way. If someone's
measuring how these radio signals are all bouncing around. They
can get an idea of what the house looks like,
you know, map it, and that's that's been around for
a while now. But now researchers just published in archive there.

(34:07):
It's not published published yet, but this is their their
work creating person reidentification. So video surveillance is really it's
hard to go if somebody goes from one space to
another and like puts on a jacket or like does
something and like tries to hide themselves, it's hard to

(34:28):
sometimes go, oh, we put on a baseball cap.

Speaker 1 (34:30):
I'm never gonna recognize them in a different place.

Speaker 2 (34:32):
Now, well, video can make things hard, and so these
researchers have now come up with who Fi.

Speaker 1 (34:43):
It's there.

Speaker 2 (34:44):
It's their platform who Fi hoo fi right, wi Fi
wo Fi.

Speaker 1 (34:50):
It's a pipeline taking Wi Fi signals.

Speaker 2 (34:54):
To basically figure out biometric hy printing and be able
to identify individuals based.

Speaker 1 (35:05):
On how their body moves in Wi Fi. Okay, yeah,
so that.

Speaker 4 (35:14):
I can see how.

Speaker 3 (35:17):
Like I kind of have a little bit of a
bounce to my walk, and I know some people, you know,
are gonna take up more or less space height wise
and with wise or what have you, And so can
I can see how you get like like a silhouetted
fingerprint of a human that might be traceable to an extent?

Speaker 4 (35:42):
Yes, good is how good is that silhouette?

Speaker 2 (35:46):
So what what they suggest is that they were able
to get kind of within ninety five percent accuracy of
identifying people. They use what they call CSI channel state
information process through modular deep neural network featuring transformer based encoding,

(36:08):
and they used it was trained in a very specific
algorithm to learn robust, robust, not like sporadic and generalizable
biometric signatures. So they have these very competitive results that
are highly accurate.

Speaker 1 (36:29):
When it comes down to it, which is kind of
wack a doodle.

Speaker 2 (36:33):
But the ninety five percent, even at ninety five percent
accuracy of identifying individuals is still probably is not going
to be high enough accuracy for a court of law.
But could it be high enough accuracy for just getting
a search warrant or high enough accuracy for instead of
taking your genetic data and identifying people at using the

(36:58):
Wi Fi data to do it.

Speaker 4 (37:02):
So I don't yeah, I don't know court of law.

Speaker 3 (37:04):
But if you were in a pursuit, if you were
doing if you had.

Speaker 2 (37:11):
If you had a system in place, right and you
lost them, you lost the line of.

Speaker 3 (37:16):
There are here are the three Wi Fi silhouettes or
what have you that we saw, fingerprints that we saw
that or that were recorded near this scene of the crime.

Speaker 4 (37:28):
Where did they go?

Speaker 1 (37:31):
Where did they go?

Speaker 2 (37:32):
And then you have now you have a place all
the Wi Fi right, and you're sniffing the Wi Fi
around the neighborhood and you find them in somebody's backyard.

Speaker 3 (37:43):
Or I mean, I still feel like the cameras would
be better, but maybe if this can track through walls, then.

Speaker 1 (37:53):
It won't track through.

Speaker 2 (37:57):
I have to say, lath and plaster, really good Faraday cage.
So you're gonna be safe in old houses.

Speaker 3 (38:07):
My old house is so the lead paint even he's
my cell phone signal.

Speaker 1 (38:12):
From Yeah, so that's what they like.

Speaker 2 (38:16):
They're saying reidentifications, So this person reidentification. It's the we
identified them in video, but we also have these biometric signatures,
a fingerprint of what your body looks like in Wi Fi.

Speaker 1 (38:34):
We measured you in Wi Fi and we.

Speaker 2 (38:35):
Lost you in video, but we got your Wi Fi
in this one place there at the same time. So
now We're going to look for that Wi Fi signature
other places, so it could be.

Speaker 4 (38:47):
I wonder how yeah.

Speaker 3 (38:50):
How good that mapping is. That would be that'd be
really interesting to see. I'm just trying to visualize how
you would Yeah, because it's a it's it's broad casting
through every everywhere and everyone at once.

Speaker 1 (39:03):
So if you have only your Wi Fi signal multiple
this is a reason for everyone to go back with crime. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (39:19):
Mh know, reason never to go to nature.

Speaker 2 (39:23):
If you're in if you're in the parking lot using
the justin Wi Fi, ye.

Speaker 3 (39:31):
You know you're safe, then you're you know, to be
totally safe. Mm hmm.

Speaker 1 (39:38):
Isn't that I have.

Speaker 3 (39:39):
A second story for the first half. I can't remember.

Speaker 1 (39:41):
You maybe do you? You do? Don't you?

Speaker 2 (39:45):
I think you have something that this might want to
take a bight into.

Speaker 3 (39:48):
It, right, Yeah, it's a pretty quick uh analysis A
fossil teeth from the who a Long Dong site and
and who He Province, China. They found fossils, including a
nearly complete pranium with teeth in other remains.

Speaker 4 (40:07):
These date to the early.

Speaker 3 (40:09):
Late Middle play ask the scene around three hundred thousand
years ago, and they have this really unique mix of
archaic and modern human teeth traits. So they have these
primitive traits such as very robust dental roots, modern features

(40:30):
like a reduced third molar, which is a common modern
current modern human Homo sapien thing, and there's an absence
of any the tailtale Neanderthal dental traits, indicating that this
is a very distinct population.

Speaker 2 (40:48):
I mean, aside from the roots do not look like
people teeth roots, but looking at these like just on
that they look like people teeth.

Speaker 3 (41:00):
Yeah, right, And so this is what's sort of interesting
about this is that it suggests it suggests that this
is partly a possibly Homo erectus influence and some maybe
lineage related to Homo sapiens. They say, it's kind of

(41:22):
distinct from both what they are calling Neanderthal and Denise Evan.
And it's also showing that there's like all the things
that we've been thinking about the progression of linear human Well,
we've been talking for a long.

Speaker 1 (41:38):
Time about it here.

Speaker 4 (41:41):
Yeah, we've been talking a.

Speaker 3 (41:42):
Long time about the sort of braided stream of different
hominins interacting. But then we kind of got it down
to a set list and we're like from here on out,
it's linear. Now there we go. So this could be
some covergent tooth evolution in some of these teeth. This

(42:03):
could be a very early out of Africa human population
that made it over to China.

Speaker 4 (42:10):
But who did they run into? Who was intermingling?

Speaker 3 (42:15):
If that was the scenario, it doesn't look as robust
as a denisovan a Neanderthal tooth and so but I
kind of like it because I like the fact that
they're they're reconnecting the that justin fringe hypotheses of late
surviving homo erectus in East Asia, that might be a

(42:38):
good portion of what we call Deniseivian to begin with.

Speaker 2 (42:43):
Yeah, but so we think of these things in right
when you talk it's homo erectus start species and species,
Neanderthal start species and species, denisovin start species and species.

Speaker 1 (43:00):
What about the transitional individuals?

Speaker 2 (43:04):
Right, So you have crossovers reproductive events where Neanderthals and
humans inner bread, you have events where Denisovans, erectus whatever,
where all of these individuals are. Maybe they're different, popular
sub populations are in places together, mix and mingling.

Speaker 1 (43:24):
What do you call it? Like, they have the majority
of traits that are maybe more like.

Speaker 2 (43:30):
Modern human archaic unit whatever, but their teeth are weird.

Speaker 1 (43:35):
So but it's.

Speaker 3 (43:38):
There.

Speaker 2 (43:39):
They're not a hybrid. They're kind of a hybrid, but
it's kind of it's this very weird thing where the
transitional individuals in the speciation process, right, that process from
Homo erectus neanderthal, denisovan homoonleetti, you know what, or else

(44:00):
there was Hobbits's to Homo sapien. Where's the transition? But
what do we call those? And did they just sometimes
have teeth that had roots that looked older and other
stuff that looked more modern or is it these are
individuals that are modern humans but that have archaic traits

(44:23):
because maybe they're not far enough out for those recessive
traits to be repressed.

Speaker 3 (44:31):
So the point where they're talking at at the time
point they're talking about, they're some of these teeth look
very currant modern human, but current modern humans of the
time didn't have those archaic features, so it would have
to be and I think to the point like where's

(44:52):
the transition, is that there aren't any Because now that
we know that every everything, every hominin overlapped with other hominins,
they're there's a bit of that evolution from that takes
place when you have any populations that are isolated from
each other for hundreds of thousands of years. But then

(45:12):
in each case we're finding there's intermingling events. And that's
why I've been arguing for this sort of denisivan homo
erectus overlapping that we're gonna see. I think more about
we're gonna hear more about or that's gonna get delved
into or proven or disproven as we go forward, and

(45:35):
fossils in East Asia, because that's where East Asia and Oceania,
that's where it would have to have happened. It would
also be somewhat the population that might have made it
into the Americas, if there is such a thing based
on the ancient mammoth bone, you know, cuttings and that

(45:55):
sort of thing, if there's other hidden history we found.
But I think most of what we're finding is that
there is there's these huge changes that take place from intermingling,
and that yeah, there aren't any start or stops because
those starting stops are going to be very regional and

(46:16):
they're going to be very time specific. So there isn't
that that TikTok forward evolution of mankind. It's a lot
of it's a lot of swapping, it's a lot of
a lot of that DNA swapping going on that.

Speaker 4 (46:36):
That kind of takes away from anything.

Speaker 3 (46:38):
And I'm always I'm always a little bit cautious to
about talking about Chinese archaeology because I know that there
is a state belief that the people of China are
their own people evolved separately from an out of Africa scenario.
And it's really hard at like they're showing a thing

(47:00):
that says trying to say, like, oh, this could be
in one of those steps between an archaic and amonger
human that evolved separately.

Speaker 4 (47:09):
Just in China.

Speaker 3 (47:11):
DNA has already debunked this. They have the same DNA
for everything of mind and body that any current other
current modern human has. They have the same Neanderthal mingling
event that took place in somewhere probably in the Levante

(47:31):
Northern Iran, southern Georgia. And so we know that we
had this. We also know that there's signals that some
humans got out earlier than the rest of us. Some
humans got showed up in DNA that's two hundred thousand
years then Neanderthal cave in Siberia, and now there's possibly

(47:56):
you know, if this teeth there have and it's the DNA.
I don't know why they can't get DNA out of everything.
At this point, we don't have DNA that goes with
this study. Unfortunately that may be next. But if these
are interbreeding teeth effective interbreeding with the current modern human tooth,

(48:18):
very fascinating.

Speaker 4 (48:20):
Because that would be that would be uh uh, you.

Speaker 3 (48:26):
Know, gosh, one hundred thousand years earlier than any other
price or sign of it that we've seen. And that
even that one is another like one hundred and fifty
thousand years older than any other trace that we have seen.
So very fascinating, fascinating. Three hundred thousand years old is

(48:47):
pretty pretty tough for DNA. That's a pretty old some
pretty old fossils they got there.

Speaker 1 (48:55):
That's impressively.

Speaker 3 (48:56):
Yeah, finding so muchy there's so much variation in the
haminin fossils in China. It's going to be really fascinating place.

Speaker 2 (49:03):
But I mean that is like we were talking about dinosaurs,
we're talking about humans. Like if we can when we
get the DNA, when we can get the molecular.

Speaker 4 (49:10):
You can make a hybrid difference.

Speaker 1 (49:12):
Yeah, no, we're not to make a hybrid.

Speaker 2 (49:15):
Oh now, I say we can actually figure out we
can tease apart these things, these questions much better not
just use morphology, use actual DNA evidence. Okay, so you're
talking about these ancient humans and where they're found in

(49:36):
China and this evidence of these ancient people. I want
to talk about some evidence not of ancient but of
deep life.

Speaker 1 (49:47):
Chinese researchers have.

Speaker 2 (49:50):
Discovered by doing a very large number of dives into.

Speaker 1 (49:59):
Into the deepest part of the ocean what's it called
Mariana's Trench.

Speaker 2 (50:06):
What's it called Marianna's Trench, the Mariana Trench in the
Western Pacific Ocean. Researchers have dived in their submersible. It's
named striver in the American or Western pronuncia translation venduge fenduge.

(50:27):
I'm not going to try and pronounce it because that
is going to just not come out very well. So
the word meaning striver in Chinese is what they're submersible
is called twenty three dives down to the bottoms of
Marianna's Trench in the Western Pacific Ocean, and the researchers
have published their work in Nature this week. They have

(50:51):
some amazing results from their work.

Speaker 1 (50:56):
They have taken all sorts of video and have.

Speaker 2 (50:59):
Just covered the deepest life on the planet. So by
taking their submersional submersible deep below the surface. They went
to hey what recently had an earthquake the Kamchatka Peninsula
near Russia. While the Chinese researchers were diving into an

(51:22):
area that is that.

Speaker 1 (51:26):
Is called.

Speaker 2 (51:29):
The Kamchatka It's a rift between the Kamchatka Trench, the
Curl Kamchatka Trench and the Western Allusian Trench, and that
is where the Mariana Trench is.

Speaker 1 (51:41):
In this place that they've been diving, is.

Speaker 2 (51:44):
This sub subduction zone that has just been very deep
for a very long time. So researchers have made a
number of dives down there and now are able to
say along the length of this trench, the Mariana Trench,

(52:05):
the kinds of life that they have discovered, and among
these are some pretty amazing worms. The fauna of these
cold seap sites in the Curl Kumchatka Trench in the
Western Aleutian Trench. The deepest that they discovered were some

(52:25):
they had spiky crustaceans, free floating marine worms, sea cucumbers,
of feathery armed sea lilies, and some other invertebrates. But
the deepest are fields of tube worms growing up to
thirty centimeters long, mollusks, and clams. They have discovered amazing

(52:52):
organisms that.

Speaker 1 (52:55):
Have never been seen.

Speaker 2 (52:57):
Before because these live at the various bottoms of the cold, darkest,
deepest trench on our planet. But it's pretty amazing that
people can go there without their submersibles imploding. It's really
what happens when you use science and engineering.

Speaker 1 (53:14):
You keep your scientists.

Speaker 4 (53:17):
Don Jensy.

Speaker 2 (53:21):
Anyway, this study is very it's a very exciting study
in that the researchers are able to bring forward. They're
flourishing not photosynthetic, but chemosynthetic life that has been discovered
twenty five one hundred kilometers below the surface of the ocean,

(53:45):
or actually fifty eight hundred to ninety five one hundred
meters below the surface, a distance of twenty five hundred
kilometers well through the trench. They're dominated by polykeets and bivalves,
and they are sustained by hydrogen sulfide rich seeps, methane

(54:08):
rich fluids, and that these things are transported along these
fault lines, the subduction zones that are along the deep
sediment layers in the trenches where methane is produced microbially,
and that there's also deposited organic matter that leads to

(54:32):
additional sources of nutrients and energy, and so suggests that
evenlow these things are so far beneath the surface of
our Earth, beneath the pressures and the deep deepness of
the ocean, that chemosynthetic light may be much more prevalent

(54:56):
than we ever expected. And so in terms of extremophiles
and cool things that are being discovered on our planet,
suggests that the forms of life that could be present.

Speaker 1 (55:10):
In other.

Speaker 2 (55:14):
Extreme places might be worms and fi valves.

Speaker 3 (55:20):
So that would be that would be really exciting to
find and also in some ways disappointing from the science
fiction y lens.

Speaker 2 (55:31):
But I don't know, I'm all, I am all sci
fi worms.

Speaker 1 (55:35):
We need more of them.

Speaker 3 (55:38):
Not just amazing to see what alien DNA looks like,
because I'm I'm pretty sure it would looks almost exactly
the same, but it would be fascinating that wrong, Yeah,
just no matter what happens to the planet, like will
probably still probably be some form of life surviving on

(55:59):
this planet to the bitter cold end or hot yeah,
depending on how we planet ends in a fireball or
drifting off into the cold of space, whatever happens.

Speaker 1 (56:10):
No, the Earth will abide.

Speaker 2 (56:11):
We have said this before, right, Earth abides. Yeah, I
mean humans may just be temporary here traversing this surface
of this of this planet. But look at this, this
so this particular image that we're bringing up right here,

(56:31):
So this is a coexistence of what are called frenulate
shiboglenids with Ellipidia Handsenai.

Speaker 1 (56:44):
Ah, it's like little polykeete.

Speaker 2 (56:48):
Worms that are like hair like worms and weird little
what are Alpiitia Hansenai. They look like weird little I
don't know crabs, but they're not crabs.

Speaker 1 (57:03):
I don't know a ductol platypus if it had.

Speaker 2 (57:07):
No No, it looks like squidward, like a little baby
baby squid word.

Speaker 1 (57:13):
Yeah, I don't know. I think it's fascinating.

Speaker 4 (57:16):
Wait now, who's the vella from? Who's the vella from? Uh? Oh,
never mind, it doesn't matter.

Speaker 1 (57:25):
Look at these little guys. We got polykeets, we got
uh this, we've.

Speaker 2 (57:31):
Got little worm, we got worms. We have multi They
got little water centipedes. They look like silverfish, except in
the water. I don't almost swim. Yeah, doing very well
in the deep. The pressures of the deep.

Speaker 1 (57:46):
We have organisms.

Speaker 2 (57:48):
Yeah, we got some tube worms.

Speaker 1 (57:51):
There's some cqucumbers.

Speaker 2 (57:52):
Not it not the pretty c cucumbers, the ones that
look like, yeah, threw away white?

Speaker 4 (57:58):
Is that really ice?

Speaker 1 (57:59):
It's probably methane.

Speaker 2 (58:03):
The seeps of the probably solid, yeah, or maybe dead fall,
but it could be dead fall. Clam Valley is an
area that they have that they have made note of
bi valves and and these polykeetes. I swear it's like
there are tons of little silverfish. Oh my gosh, look

(58:25):
at these little dudes. There's so much life down.

Speaker 4 (58:28):
The pressure that is the most got to be.

Speaker 1 (58:33):
The huge amounts of pressure. And they're just like, yeah,
I'm chilling, it's fine, that's good.

Speaker 4 (58:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (58:41):
I think in that environment, there's not a lot that's
gonna come get you. There's a whole lot on life
life worms that are gonna come bother you.

Speaker 7 (58:53):
Ever, if I can make it there, I can make
it where gonna be Marianna's Trench.

Speaker 3 (59:06):
But of course then they come up to the surface
and they explode because they were built.

Speaker 2 (59:10):
For him, and they would it would be the opposite
of the implosion.

Speaker 1 (59:15):
It would be the explosion anyway.

Speaker 2 (59:18):
It's very it's really amazing that these extreme limits of
carbon cycling are in existence. Under these intense pressures, cold temperatures,
life finds a way. And this is a it's a
really cool study, and it is open access if you
want to. And I'm very good people people learn me
writing about it if you want to find out more

(59:39):
about it. Hopefully it didn't just get you know, smushed
with the eight point eight magnitude earthquake on the Kchaka Peninsula,
but I don't know anything about that.

Speaker 1 (59:52):
I got to find out more.

Speaker 3 (59:55):
Oh yeah, By the time I've found out that there
it was an earthquake that could cause a tsunami, the
tsunami had happened and had thankfully not.

Speaker 1 (01:00:07):
Been And you weren't on the coast.

Speaker 3 (01:00:11):
Yeah good, No, I mean obviously if I was.

Speaker 1 (01:00:18):
When you woke up this morning, you mean, well, I was.

Speaker 3 (01:00:20):
On the you know, the north coast of Hawaii, like
I should be on the north coast of Honolai all
the time. Then I would have been paying a lot
more attention.

Speaker 1 (01:00:31):
As should we all, But we can't all be there
all the time? Can we?

Speaker 3 (01:00:36):
Maybe we should should really Okay, as we go into
the break, I just wanted to make a quick announcement
that I'll.

Speaker 4 (01:00:43):
Be right back.

Speaker 2 (01:00:44):
Oh my gosh, please don't go away long because your
stories are up first when I and saying in just
a minute, like seriously.

Speaker 3 (01:00:52):
Not that long. No, I know, but I got I
got to take a break. That would be right back
more after these messages.

Speaker 1 (01:01:01):
Why, thank you justin for tossing it into these messages.
This is this week in science.

Speaker 2 (01:01:07):
Thank you so much for joining us for another episode
of our weekly science discussion program. We hope that you're
enjoying the show. So far, we're having a great time.
We did not find any kaiju, but there were some
sulfurous scallops, that's for sure. Maybe if we fee cucumber.
I'm not really sure. This is the show that is

(01:01:28):
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Speaker 1 (01:01:35):
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(01:03:18):
us happy. Being here with you every week makes us happy.
Thank you for your support. I really can't do it
without you. Welcome back to this week in Science, everybody.
I was going to question Justin's executive function, but instead
it's time for Justin to talk about it.

Speaker 4 (01:03:36):
That is an open topic. Is definitely definitely an open topic.

Speaker 1 (01:03:41):
I know, all right, what you want to talk about?

Speaker 3 (01:03:45):
So animal fat or plant fat? Which one do you
think cancer tumors prefer.

Speaker 2 (01:03:58):
I have no answer to that, ques question. I mean, honestly,
isn't fat fat.

Speaker 4 (01:04:05):
Well?

Speaker 3 (01:04:05):
According to this study, obesity elevates the risk of at
least thirteen major cancers, including breast, coln and liver compairs
immune responses. But there's been an.

Speaker 4 (01:04:16):
Unclear causational connection between the amount of.

Speaker 3 (01:04:29):
Fat on a body answer rates. And we've seen this
also a lot of times when it comes up with
the Mediterranean diet. And my biggest complaint about any of
those studies as well documented here, the Mediterranean diet is
also a non highly processed food diet. So there's a

(01:04:51):
little bit of extraction that you always need to make,
which is that it's not necessarily that the.

Speaker 4 (01:04:56):
Mediterranean diet is any healthier.

Speaker 3 (01:04:59):
It's just food, and the other ones are actually unhealthy diets, right,
if that makes sense. Well, this one is kind of
interesting because this study compre just fat type types in diets,
and I'll just use the quota thing. Our study reveals

(01:05:19):
that the source of dietary fat, not at apacity itself,
is the primary factor that influences tumor growth in obeese mice.
We found that high fat diets derive from lard, beef,
tallow or butter compromise anti tumor immunity. Basically, the T

(01:05:44):
cells that are going around trying to disrupt tumor activity
from beginning get impeded and it accelerated and accelerate tumor growth.
In several tumor models, of abe smice diets based on
coconut oil, palm.

Speaker 4 (01:05:58):
Oil or olive oil.

Speaker 3 (01:06:00):
While do not have this effect in equally obese spice,
our findings have implications for cancer prevention and care for
people struggling with the bee city. So hey, the Italian
cooks don't use butter, they only use the olive oil,
and this is going to be also a theme that

(01:06:21):
you're going to see throughout Mediterranean diet thing as well.
So it's a very to me, this is a very
interesting study because it eliminated the processed food aspect in
a way and a sort of you know, avoided that confluence,
that confounding that's always in place. And any time they're
looking at Mediterranean based diets, which tend to use olive

(01:06:44):
oils over cooking fat and you know with lard or
butter kind of thing, right, they tend to rely more
on those those oils.

Speaker 4 (01:06:54):
That are plant derived.

Speaker 3 (01:06:56):
So it's kind of an interesting one because it takes
out the negative of confounder that we normally see in
these dietary comparisons, just focused on the fat source and
the cancer rates of these of these mice, So very
very fascinating just on that they also delved much more

(01:07:16):
into the metabolites that were involved that sort of so
they found they didn't they found some sort of positive
mechanical connections between this as well. It wasn't just an
associative bang. Yeah. So if you're if you're concerned at

(01:07:37):
all about you know, if you need one more reason
to become a vegetarian, I guess maybe this is it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:45):
But I think this is one of those interesting questions,
right people talk about, oh, well, is being a vegan healthier,
or is it healthier to just get rid of all
meat entirely, or you know, what is the best way forward?
But I what I wonder about as those that they're
talking about obesity itself already being present and then looking

(01:08:09):
to see if which which type of fat has an
impact on any further elements of metabolic change, right, And
so they're not necessarily saying that when you're healthy, one
or the other is better. You know, if you're already
in a balanced, healthy state, eating everything in moderation, it's fine.

(01:08:33):
They're already it's in a state where what I am
assuming is considered obesity, but not just obesity, probably in
a situation where maybe inflammation is already elevated. Maybe the
body is the mouse body is maybe reactive to one
aspect or another. I mean, my question is why these

(01:08:56):
are just these are these are just fat chains.

Speaker 1 (01:08:59):
These are just little.

Speaker 3 (01:09:03):
You know, different metabolites that are created by these fat chains, Uh,
interact with interact basically with the killers.

Speaker 2 (01:09:14):
Yeah, but differently, right, So why reason why why would
they be different? No, that's what I would Why would
they be different in the first place, the fat change
after digestion.

Speaker 3 (01:09:27):
And then one of the one of the things that
I think the reason for starting the baseline of obesity
is that because of course we have like I don't know,
I don't know the current statistics. I guess we could,
we could google them, but there's it's a high percentage
of humans at this point, and so your model isn't

(01:09:53):
necessarily the first.

Speaker 2 (01:09:54):
Sentence of the paper and estimated one billion people worldwide
with obesity are at risk for a variety of obesity
related diseases.

Speaker 1 (01:10:05):
So that's what they're saying. They're starting at.

Speaker 2 (01:10:07):
Re the state of obesity and the pre predisposition for
additional disease so.

Speaker 3 (01:10:14):
Well, the predispission, but also the strong correlation right correlation
study after correlations. Study has shown the connection between obest
and cancer hasn't shown mechanisms, and those those correlations break
down when we talk about people who have strict Mediterranean diets,

(01:10:38):
those correlations cease to exist. And my, you know, looking
at this has always been caveat the non Mediterranean diet
usually includes a lot of highly processed foods, so there's
other things involved. This one narrows it down to just
the type of fats and was able to find mechanical

(01:10:58):
uh ration now for increased cancer. So I think there's
a very well designed, very well thought to study.

Speaker 1 (01:11:06):
It is, and I think it's really great.

Speaker 2 (01:11:09):
I think, I think I think the next step though,
is to look at it at the microbiome level, right, like.

Speaker 1 (01:11:18):
What is it?

Speaker 2 (01:11:20):
You know, what is it about the interaction or what
what we is the the breakdown of the different obese individuals.
These are mice, so very well controlled, but is there
a difference in the starting microbiome and different populations? Do
they interact with different sources of fat in different ways?

Speaker 1 (01:11:41):
Right? That's what I would That's what I would want
to sich.

Speaker 3 (01:11:45):
As identified several metabolic intermediate of dietary fats, especially long
chain exceller carraine species that were potentially suppressing NK cells
and CTLs.

Speaker 1 (01:11:59):
THET It's interesting.

Speaker 3 (01:12:01):
Especially elevated and mice rearded on butter larden beef, but
not in the obese mice on weird on plant fat diets.

Speaker 4 (01:12:14):
And the killer T cells.

Speaker 3 (01:12:16):
These molecules caused deep metabolic dysfunction in organelles.

Speaker 4 (01:12:21):
The mitochondria basically the powerhouse MH.

Speaker 3 (01:12:25):
So this was this was compromising, uh, the mitochondria's defense system.

Speaker 2 (01:12:37):
So think about it, think about it from an evolutionary.

Speaker 3 (01:12:41):
Increased aging and everything else can be involved.

Speaker 4 (01:12:43):
In that two.

Speaker 2 (01:12:46):
But so I'm just trying to think about it in
an evolutionary perspective, Like the body already were set up
potentially for the different fats to be stored in different
ways or to interact with our imune.

Speaker 1 (01:13:00):
System in different ways.

Speaker 2 (01:13:03):
Meat very often the fat that would come with it
is going to be not all the time.

Speaker 1 (01:13:10):
It would be a rarity.

Speaker 2 (01:13:12):
Early in our evolution, right, we have tribal we're going out,
Oh we've got a buffalo, right, or we've got a
mammoth or you know how far I don't know how
far back we need to go. But like humans working
together killing an animal. Maybe that rabbit or the mammoth
is a once every once in a while kind of thing.
The rest of the time you're foraging and eating roots, tubers, berries, leaves, sticks.

(01:13:39):
You know, the food that you're eating is going to yeah,
those fast sticks, you know, the all oil sticks.

Speaker 3 (01:13:48):
And meat doesn't care.

Speaker 4 (01:13:49):
Meat doesn't keep very well.

Speaker 2 (01:13:52):
But if you think it's all like yeah, but the
stress that the body is under, which is going to
lead back to metabolism and the mitochondria and what they're
supposed to be doing during.

Speaker 1 (01:14:03):
A time of beast or famine.

Speaker 2 (01:14:06):
Right, And so maybe it's part of like that whole
management of the body's energy supply, telling the cells store
now or telling the seals you need to work harder
and to be like keep working because we still haven't
gotten the big Snickers bar.

Speaker 1 (01:14:26):
You know, we haven't gotten we haven't gotten that that
nice fatty treat yet.

Speaker 2 (01:14:30):
That's that comes from you know, not palm palm fat sticks,
but from beef bone or mammoth bone sticks.

Speaker 1 (01:14:42):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:14:42):
I imagine there's like a metabolic and evolutionarily prevalent pathway as
a result of energy energy use for survival betcha. Anyway,
I'm thinking thoughts.

Speaker 3 (01:14:56):
Another thing that we need for survival innate LIMP floud cells.

Speaker 1 (01:15:02):
Do we.

Speaker 3 (01:15:05):
Yeah, okay, so the well, maybe you better describing the
innate immune system. This is just sort of like something
comes into the bloodstream or gets into the body and
interacts in a way right away with an immune system
that's already already designed to keep it out. Is that
basically how it's doesn't have to learn from it, it's already.

Speaker 1 (01:15:29):
Doesn't it's just all ready to go.

Speaker 3 (01:15:31):
Yep. So this study was very fascinating because it was
a virtual reality study where they were, uh, they were
basically checking people's innate lymphoid cells as they interacted virtually
with things that were told to be an infectious threat

(01:15:55):
versus ones that weren't. It's pretty small sample size, but
this is you know, they've got fMRI and gg so
there EEG analysis and blood analysis, so they they've got
like a lot of analysis taking place in these sixty individuals.

Speaker 4 (01:16:17):
And so yeah, what they found was.

Speaker 3 (01:16:21):
Those innate lymphoid cells were significantly modulated in frequency and
activation by virtual infection, what meaning coming into contact in
the virtual world with something that you were believing to
be infectious.

Speaker 4 (01:16:42):
Was enough to up the level. So here's the next
here's the next thing that we do.

Speaker 3 (01:16:53):
Next time there's a big pandemic, we just start playing
videos of people sneezing.

Speaker 1 (01:17:00):
Bring out all the hypochondriacs.

Speaker 3 (01:17:03):
Yeah so, the but this is this is an immune reaction.

Speaker 8 (01:17:11):
Without contact with Yeah so, but this is the innate
immune system, right, So this is basically ramping up the
defenses that are already in your body just because.

Speaker 2 (01:17:25):
You have a cognitive awareness. Yes right, Oh wow.

Speaker 3 (01:17:34):
My results look as the anticipatory responses to key brain regions,
including interperiatal sulcus. I didn't know I had one, Maybe
I don't the pre mortar cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, and
medial prefrontal cortex. Dynamic CASM modeling demonstrated altered connectivity between

(01:17:55):
these regions and the hypothalamus when participants encountered in infectious avatars,
linking neural anticipation to immune activation via the hypothalamic pituitary
adrenal access axis. Researches concluded that the human immune system

(01:18:17):
activates not only after physical contact, but also when infection
threats breach the functional boundary of body environment interaction. Basically,
when you think you're getting infected or in danger of
being infected.

Speaker 1 (01:18:35):
Oh my gosh, so wild, so my guess.

Speaker 2 (01:18:41):
My big question here though, is does it have to
be conscious awareness of the infectious agent or we know
that our body like our faces, you know, a sniffly
nose or like, you know, different like pale face versus

(01:19:01):
nicely pink cheeks or whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:19:03):
You know, there's coloration in our skin.

Speaker 2 (01:19:05):
There are other signs that you know, lots of I
don't know, smallpox, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:19:11):
There are all sorts of signals.

Speaker 2 (01:19:14):
That aren't necessarily the things that we go, oh they're infectious,
but that are you know, our limbic system is checking out,
like looking for signals that are are It's the something's wrong,
something's wrong.

Speaker 1 (01:19:31):
Center, It's all in your head. It is Oh my gosh, yeah,
I think.

Speaker 2 (01:19:42):
That the virtual avatar an infectious avatar and.

Speaker 3 (01:19:48):
You yeah, and the I mean in a weird way.
You have to admit that your entire I means system
is your bodily functions are operating on some level with
neural connections, right were the microbiome has a connection to
the brain that your immune system is connected like your

(01:20:09):
brain is running things on a very primitive level that
you're never even aware of.

Speaker 7 (01:20:16):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (01:20:17):
And so the fact that it perceives a threat and
then upregulates the defenses makes perfect sense. It's not just
a mechanical interaction system. Your brain is part of your
immune system. So that next time somebody was like, oh
that you're this person that I A'm gonna get cancer

(01:20:39):
from talking to that person again, they're so toxic. Maybe
there is a thing like to toxic personalities, but in
this scenario that would actually ramp up your defenses. Oh
that person was so terrible, I'll never get cancer. It's
probably more oh my gosh, that is so fascinating.

Speaker 1 (01:21:06):
But it's fascinating from like also to the extent of
how far does it go?

Speaker 2 (01:21:10):
What is like for people who are hypochondriacs, if they're
afraid of all of infection all the time, are is
their body on a state of hyper awareness? Are they
sick more often because it's like having allergies? Like is
their immune system ramped up too much all the time,
or is it not at all because they're mentally too

(01:21:32):
stimulated and their bodies like I'm so over it already,
Like is it because you know, kind of like that
loss of receptivity because they're.

Speaker 1 (01:21:42):
Over stimulating body's on high alert. Yeah, so what I
wonder about it?

Speaker 4 (01:21:47):
And that's that's the thing about. That's the thing about.

Speaker 3 (01:21:51):
Whenever you see something it's going to boost your immune
system and keep it on high alert, Well you then
weaken it at the same time, because you your immune
system is supposed to ramp up and be like fresh
for a fight. It's not supposed to always be on
high alert.

Speaker 4 (01:22:07):
That's a form of disease taking.

Speaker 3 (01:22:09):
That kind of uh, that's that immune system boosting supercharge.

Speaker 4 (01:22:15):
Whatever.

Speaker 3 (01:22:16):
If those things even work, they would be they'd be
hurting you in the long run.

Speaker 2 (01:22:21):
So so one of the things that is in the
results here for the what they what they're showing here
is the response to avatar and an affectious avatar. But
then there's also the immune system, the innate immune systems
response to a flu vaccine which actually has dead flu vaccine,

(01:22:45):
dead flu virus in it. So there's infectious particles in there,
or at least antibody antigens that the body should be
attacking generally, and.

Speaker 1 (01:22:58):
It rams up in the same way.

Speaker 2 (01:22:59):
So I think, what you know, What that is signifying
is that the brain is leading a response that is
very maybe yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:23:12):
Or maybe people are just so afraid of getting a shot.

Speaker 1 (01:23:15):
It's the same thing either way.

Speaker 3 (01:23:18):
The it was never anything, it's never the ingredients of
the vaccine. It turns out it's just getting a shot.
Was enough.

Speaker 4 (01:23:29):
No, that's really it isn't that wild though?

Speaker 2 (01:23:32):
Yeah, that's amazing. This is really interesting.

Speaker 3 (01:23:37):
Yeah, yeah, I tell you that's what Next time there's
a pandemic. We just need to have on loop on
all of the tiktoks.

Speaker 1 (01:23:44):
You know, between you'll be affected. You'll be affected, you'll.

Speaker 3 (01:23:48):
Be somebody sneezing, somebody who looks really sick.

Speaker 2 (01:23:52):
Wait.

Speaker 1 (01:23:55):
True, I'm an infectious avatar.

Speaker 4 (01:23:59):
To shoot.

Speaker 2 (01:24:04):
Chee.

Speaker 1 (01:24:05):
I have an infectious avatar.

Speaker 4 (01:24:07):
You got the job. You got the job.

Speaker 3 (01:24:12):
Now casting Houston Sanford as the infectious avatar.

Speaker 1 (01:24:15):
Oh gosh, that's where we go with it. Everyone to
the fun times.

Speaker 2 (01:24:24):
Moving on from infectious avatars, let's talk about executive function.

Speaker 1 (01:24:31):
This study I think is fascinating.

Speaker 2 (01:24:33):
So we think of generally executive function as this. We
assess it with standardized tools where we ask people to
and it starts with kids. Usually ask them to sort
shapes and things into categories. We ask individuals to count

(01:24:56):
the number of things that they see. We ask people
to you know.

Speaker 3 (01:25:00):
To.

Speaker 2 (01:25:02):
Function in a way that kind of goes hand in
hand with Western society. And so questions have been asked about, Okay,
is the way that we assess executive function actually indicative
of what we think of as executive function, which is

(01:25:22):
the brain. What we say is the brain's ability to
manage information right to help, It's like the executive in charge?
Is there an executive in charge of you in your brain?
Is kind of the executive function test, and so this

(01:25:43):
is basically we've been testing it at National International Child
Development norms, like your kids are supposed to like hit
certain benchmarks by a certain age, be able to think
a certain way, do certain things on paper, take a test,
do well, Okay, then you have good executive function.

Speaker 3 (01:26:04):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:26:05):
The way that we categorize ADHD is based on these
assessments of executive function. This new study in proceedings in
the National Academy of Sciences.

Speaker 1 (01:26:18):
Researchers tested.

Speaker 2 (01:26:21):
A cultural construction of executive function in Africa, and so
the children were in the Kunene region spanning Namibia and Angola,
as well as kids in the UK and Bolivia. They
tested kids in rural areas where they received limited to
no formal schooling. Additionally, there were the samples in the

(01:26:42):
UK and Bolivia who were typically schooled so schooled in
a Western educational style, and the researchers say that all
the developmental research really to date has been done on
kids schooled in the Western educational style, and so what

(01:27:04):
they were getting to was a natural experiment in some
communities where there are no schools, some with schools, to
compare cognitive development, to see whether or not the measures
of executive function are really good measures of executive function.
How do you think that turned out?

Speaker 4 (01:27:22):
Justin that executive function was pretty universal.

Speaker 2 (01:27:30):
Well, yes, that executive function is pretty universal, but that
our ideas of what we should be testing for executive
function are based on Western schooling norms.

Speaker 1 (01:27:43):
Basically, what they found is that if.

Speaker 2 (01:27:46):
You were talking to kids from the UK and having
them memorize lists of disconnected words chair, bonnet, frog, fresno,
I don't know that the kids in in the schooling
situations could memorize these words and it was really not
a problem. Great, and we would say you are have

(01:28:08):
a great executive function. You can pay attention to whoever's
reading these words. You can memorize the words and read
them back and look at how great you're able to
manage all that information. When these the same test is
given to a non schooled or not traditionally schooled individual
in Africa, they fail miserably at that test because it's

(01:28:29):
not relevant to their lives.

Speaker 1 (01:28:31):
Or who they are.

Speaker 2 (01:28:32):
However, if you put those same kids who've grown up
in rural situations, who've been in the fields helping to
tend the cattle that are you know, the cattle for
their tribe, for their village, that are these cattle are
important members of the community. The kids can identify each

(01:28:53):
cow by name, by face, by you know, from a distance.
They have a very and if you were to ask
them to, you know, remember a list or something to
do with those cows, they would function very very well
on it, whereas the kids in the UK or traditional
school would not, because how the heck does someone who's

(01:29:16):
really never spent time spent time with cows? Remember cows
aren't all the same what, oh my gosh.

Speaker 3 (01:29:25):
Anyway, this one it also looks like a cow.

Speaker 4 (01:29:32):
Is that the right answer?

Speaker 2 (01:29:33):
That it's cow right, And yeah, so the researchers are saying, well,
it's not that anyone has executive dysfunction based on what
we're doing. It's that the test is not right. What
they are measuring is not overall control. They're not measuring

(01:29:54):
there is no executive function at this point in time.
And so the researchers say that we need to rethink
how approach human psychology and that what we can what
we consider stuff like executive function, regular cognitive development is
just a function of schooling. It's a function of your

(01:30:21):
it's not schooling, but it's a fun because most of
this stuff comes from the Western paradigm with schools. It
is it is, it's training, it's what you've it's your
early life experiences and what is important to you for survival.
And but the thing is we don't have measures that
map across different experiences.

Speaker 1 (01:30:42):
And that's the issue.

Speaker 4 (01:30:44):
Yeah, but I mean that seems like obvious, right, it
seems it is.

Speaker 3 (01:30:53):
Executive function may be a decent marker for success in
West in society.

Speaker 2 (01:31:01):
But it's not We're going to say, like if we're
going to stay across the board around the world all humans, No,
it's not.

Speaker 3 (01:31:08):
No, no, but but that that version of the test. Yeah,
of course, but you know that the kid who's really
good at remembering Fresno frog.

Speaker 4 (01:31:20):
But you tell two cows apart in rural Africa is probably.

Speaker 3 (01:31:24):
Going to be ranked pretty low on the cognitive scale
in the community.

Speaker 1 (01:31:30):
Well, if they moved to like if they moved to Fresno.

Speaker 3 (01:31:32):
I don't know what a Fresno is, but uh, you
got all the cows mixed up again, So you're going
to have to be.

Speaker 2 (01:31:40):
I'm sorry, We're going to have to hold you back
a grade.

Speaker 3 (01:31:45):
I think. Obviously, Obviously, any type of intellect is going
to have to frame itself and the survival within the
Communian's society that it's And this is one of the things.

Speaker 1 (01:31:56):
You say, you say obviously, you say.

Speaker 3 (01:31:59):
Because haven't we already figured this out with like s
A T scores that have Yeah, this is the above
or below the well yeah, and then and then the
even the marshmallow test, right, the marshmallow.

Speaker 2 (01:32:17):
Test not what we thought it was either, and that's
complete is totally different fur.

Speaker 3 (01:32:24):
The best the best strategy survival strategy based on economics. Right,
So yeah, like I'm I mean, I guess I'm like,
wofully unsurprised that cognitive function exists, but that the preset
questionnaires didn't work.

Speaker 1 (01:32:43):
Like that makes it exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:32:44):
So, these dispositions, the capacities and dispositions that we're referring
to as executive function, they very likely are referring to
things that are very significantly cultural cultural culture specific. And
so that if we want to understand individuals in their

(01:33:06):
cultural setting and the appropriate context, than how we how
we define these terms academically and you know, for medical
purposes for diagnosis, diagnoses and categorization of all the people
in all the boxes, then we need, you know, we
need to define these things more accurately, new terms.

Speaker 1 (01:33:27):
We need to need more words. What do you what
do you think?

Speaker 2 (01:33:29):
Yeah, moving on from executive function, and I think, yeah, okay.

Speaker 3 (01:33:36):
I would not rule out executive function though I feel
like that's you.

Speaker 1 (01:33:40):
Can still be executive function. We just need to have
better tests.

Speaker 3 (01:33:45):
Right, Yeah, Like I mean that's all. Yeah, that's that
would be my argument. Like I when to get away
with the whole concept of like executive function being a
core thing. But yes, of course is going to be
different based on societal what what company is your executive
running what type of uh, what type of industry are

(01:34:06):
they involved in? Right is going to make a big
difference on the decision making process.

Speaker 2 (01:34:11):
Anyway, Totally, totally, and finally, last time, last story for
the Night.

Speaker 1 (01:34:20):
Right Almost, We're here.

Speaker 4 (01:34:21):
Almost, I have one, you have more, you have really
quick one, super quickly okay.

Speaker 2 (01:34:27):
Anyway, this came from researchers related to Meta Metas Reality Labs.
They have been working on brain computer interfaces for a
long time and in twenty twenty one they had some
advancement in their BCI work, but they abandoned it. No

(01:34:49):
more anyway. They just published in Nature this last week
their paper A generic non invasive Neuromotor Interface for Human
Computer Interaction.

Speaker 1 (01:35:03):
You know what it is?

Speaker 4 (01:35:06):
No, but I have a train going by, so I
got it.

Speaker 2 (01:35:08):
Oh well, it is a wrist band. That is what
they have created for their generic Brain computer interforce interface platform.

Speaker 1 (01:35:24):
It's a muscle reading wrist band.

Speaker 2 (01:35:27):
This is it's powered on surface electromiography e semgs and
they say the wrist is the key to unlocking the
next paradigm shift in human computer interaction. We successfully prototyped
an sEMG wristband with Orion our first pair of true
augmented reality glasses. Our teams have developed advanced machine learning

(01:35:52):
models that are able to transform neural signals controlling muscles
at the wrist into commands that drive people's interactions with glasses,
eliminating the need for traditional and more cumbersome forms of input.
So they had announced this back in twenty twenty one
after they got rid of the BCI interface or the

(01:36:13):
BCEI program. But this is something that they think is
really successful. So they've developed this platform to allow individuals
to move their risks around in a way that would
allow them to interact, especially if they're wearing their augmented

(01:36:39):
reality glasses, that the movement of the wrist would be
correlated to what the glasses are seeing and lead to
the ability to create text to not need a computer to.

Speaker 1 (01:36:57):
I mean, there's a computer in there somewhere. There's a processor.
I don't know. What do you think?

Speaker 4 (01:37:04):
So what I think? What I think is that there's
a very.

Speaker 3 (01:37:12):
Specific or maybe broad brand of tech nerd that wants
everyone to wear watches again.

Speaker 4 (01:37:22):
Watch cool.

Speaker 1 (01:37:24):
It started with measurements.

Speaker 3 (01:37:26):
It's from like the first first little Cassio digital watch
that had a calculator on it to the smart watches
to like now these you and everybody want they want
to wear, like, let's see the way to make big
watches and glasses cool over and over again, and they're

(01:37:46):
gonna do it because they're tech nerds and there you know,
that's what they do.

Speaker 4 (01:37:52):
But I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:37:55):
The idea is, yeah, they can do you can do handwriting,
you can do all sorts of things. What they've developed
is this they called very sensitive easily donned sEMG wristband
and a scalable infrastructure.

Speaker 1 (01:38:10):
So this is something that is.

Speaker 2 (01:38:14):
Robust and also could adapt that it's that it is
adaptable to a situation. This infrastructure for collecting training data
from thousands of consenting participants, which I think is very
exciting that they put that in their abstract. Together, these
data enabled us to develop generic decoding models that generalize

(01:38:38):
across people, so it doesn't have to be individualized. You
can probably train it for personalization, but that the models
can decode movements that are generalized across individuals. Test users
demonstrate a closed loop medium performance of gesture decoding of
point sixty six target acquisitions per second in a continuous

(01:38:59):
navigation task. So it doesn't seem like it's it's definitely
not one hundred percent zero point eighty eight gesture detections
per second in a discrete gesture task, and handwriting at
twenty point nine words per minute probably type faster than that.
We demonstrate that the decoding performance of handwriting models can

(01:39:22):
be further improved by personalization. And this is, to their knowledge,
the first high bandwidth neuromotor interface with performance out of
the box generalization across people. So I think that's the
that's their key is that it's yeah, out of the box.
Anybody get a wristband, watch and the glasses and you're

(01:39:46):
good to go.

Speaker 4 (01:39:49):
Go do what.

Speaker 1 (01:39:52):
Not type on your.

Speaker 4 (01:39:54):
Because it's so cumbersome?

Speaker 1 (01:39:57):
What if I just want it?

Speaker 4 (01:39:57):
And then where are you writing it too? Where do
you watch? Where do you see? What are you written?

Speaker 1 (01:40:01):
What do I want to do?

Speaker 2 (01:40:03):
If you're wearing your augmented reality glasses, maybe you see
it in space in front of you, Like what if
I could draw in neon cursive in the air and
leave a note for somebody in the.

Speaker 1 (01:40:16):
Air, Like that would be pretty red.

Speaker 3 (01:40:18):
Yeah, it'd be pretty cool. And then and then you
take a sip of your coffee, and you're like, oh,
I just I just mass emailed everybody in the company.
Oh dang it, all right, anyway to do everything left
handed otherwise.

Speaker 2 (01:40:39):
I just think it's very interesting though, that they they
moved on from uh the potential helpful focus of helping
people with paralysis, people who were having issues with neuromotor
or other aspects of.

Speaker 1 (01:40:57):
Limbs and the body, got rid of their.

Speaker 3 (01:41:00):
Brain because there's not enough money in it because there's
too few people.

Speaker 2 (01:41:05):
And this is after they apparently had a very successful
trial with their BCI restoring a paralyzed participant speech, so
they were doing well. Apparently maybe there's other stuff that
went into this, but you're.

Speaker 1 (01:41:21):
I think you're right.

Speaker 2 (01:41:22):
It's like this the scale model is Okay, we got
into it with we're going to help people and you know,
do this thing that's going to help people who have
locked in syndrome or have paralysis or whatever, and then
it's they get rid of the BCI and suddenly we
have a wristband that somebody has to be able to

(01:41:44):
have the neuro motor the stuff going on at the
wrist for a person to be able to use it,
Like you can't be disabled to use it.

Speaker 1 (01:41:55):
So this is.

Speaker 2 (01:41:56):
Something that's it's for a larger non market, that's what
it is.

Speaker 4 (01:42:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:42:04):
But then yeah, uh braves based on data collected from
the wrist. Probably not actually.

Speaker 2 (01:42:19):
Probably maybe eventually, I don't know, probably, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:42:26):
But those are my stories. You said you have one
more risk.

Speaker 3 (01:42:29):
It's a computer wrist interface, Yes, Kevin, it's just an
excuse for a big watch. No, but this one's functional.
This one I'm wearing is really functional. It's not just
as just a.

Speaker 4 (01:42:41):
Faux pit boy.

Speaker 1 (01:42:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:42:47):
Well, I had one more story, and I only am
bringing this because it's not Rundown.

Speaker 4 (01:42:51):
But I'm only bringing.

Speaker 3 (01:42:52):
This because it is a tradition here at Twist to
make fun of the Australians.

Speaker 1 (01:42:58):
Oh gosh, it's been a long time.

Speaker 4 (01:43:00):
What been quite been like years?

Speaker 2 (01:43:03):
I don't everyone, you have to explain this, I guess
first if there are a lot of Australia has preceded
me something.

Speaker 3 (01:43:11):
I think it was a former guest who still had
a lingering fascination for Australia that most Americans had gotten
over in the mid eighties. Yeah, and so I think
everyone else on the show began finding ways to bash Australia,
to try to snap them out of their obsession.

Speaker 2 (01:43:36):
It was a segment on the show called Australia in
Australia Bashing. I want everyone to know I love Australia.
But this is historical. This, this is from the archives,
except it's a news story.

Speaker 4 (01:43:49):
Australia is my favorite country. I've never been to.

Speaker 3 (01:43:52):
Same.

Speaker 1 (01:43:53):
Yeah you can say that, and would never go.

Speaker 3 (01:43:56):
To because the flight's just too long. I don't want
to be on an airplane for four days and also I'm
like feeling a little bit nervous about falling off. Anyway, First,
first Australian made. This is just the headline, first Australian
made rocket right heading to orbit. Oh no, I crashed

(01:44:21):
after fourteen seconds of flight. No bailed attempt to reach orbit.

Speaker 1 (01:44:28):
Yeah wait, but was this friend? Was this?

Speaker 2 (01:44:32):
Was this Robert and his uh our friends from Australia.

Speaker 1 (01:44:38):
Who we spoke with previously. Were they involved? I wonder?

Speaker 3 (01:44:42):
Oh, I don't know. I didn't look. I didn't know.

Speaker 4 (01:44:44):
I didn't mean to be bashing at friends of the show.
Yeah this was.

Speaker 1 (01:44:48):
A rocket, yes, yeah, okay.

Speaker 3 (01:44:52):
Launched by Gilmore Space Technologies, was the first Australian designed
and manufactured orbital launch vehicle to lift off from the country.
It was designed to carry small satellites to orbit. Wohnesday
morning and the test light from a spaceport near a
small town in the north of Queensland state Bowen.

Speaker 1 (01:45:14):
Beautiful.

Speaker 3 (01:45:17):
No injuries were reported because they didn't dare put a
human being on one of those those Australian made rockets.

Speaker 1 (01:45:24):
It's a beautiful story.

Speaker 3 (01:45:25):
This is it was.

Speaker 4 (01:45:27):
It was made a nice, nice impact.

Speaker 3 (01:45:30):
I'm sure so. So the the thing is this is
the first launch of this rocket. Exceedingly rare for a
first launch to go off successfully.

Speaker 1 (01:45:50):
Then again, rockets in general.

Speaker 3 (01:45:53):
Were how many how many years into the space race Australia.
You're just now getting around.

Speaker 2 (01:46:02):
But this is a private company. Come but this is
a private company. This isn't the Australian government. This is
a private company, Gilmour Space. This is it's not so.
This is a part of like the international news space community,
these companies that are funded as part of the human endeavor.

Speaker 1 (01:46:24):
Yeah, to get off this rock.

Speaker 3 (01:46:28):
Haven't read in the chat. So is one of the
two engines failed. If you watch the video closely, you
can see the failure.

Speaker 2 (01:46:36):
I will have to see the video. There are some
really pretty pictures out here. Here's an image of its
beautiful rocket rocket flare the diamonds coming.

Speaker 1 (01:46:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:46:51):
This so the oh, here's the finding the video we're
getting here, everybody, I'm going to put it in a
window and I will share this.

Speaker 1 (01:46:59):
No, don't play it. I'm going to get it for you, sure, right,
hold on, ah ah No, it's launching. It's gonna go. Okay,
there it is. Who it's launching. Woo oh wait where
do you go? Oh? All right, I'm gonna see about

(01:47:25):
even the camera.

Speaker 3 (01:47:26):
The cameraman was following the rocket and kept growing up.

Speaker 4 (01:47:31):
The rocket fell out of the shot. Basically what happens here.

Speaker 3 (01:47:36):
It's tracking the cameras tracking the rocket as it goes up,
and it keeps tracking even though the rocket has stopped.

Speaker 1 (01:47:42):
No, it's going. It's got some it's got some sideways.

Speaker 3 (01:47:46):
Clear. It did clear the launch tower, it did get
a little bit above the launch down, and then I
just fell. It looked like it was trying to do
one of those, uh the SpaceX launches where the rocket
it comes down back onto the landing pad and gets caught.

Speaker 4 (01:48:03):
But it has it's not one of those.

Speaker 1 (01:48:06):
Not.

Speaker 4 (01:48:07):
This one just blew up.

Speaker 1 (01:48:09):
Well, it blew up because there's nobody an unexpected fashion.

Speaker 4 (01:48:15):
It was almost the perfect landing.

Speaker 3 (01:48:16):
I mean it was coming right back down to the pad.

Speaker 1 (01:48:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:48:19):
Well, Gilmour Space Technologies, congratulations on a learning experience. I
mean this is definitely historic and I think one of
the things that yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:48:35):
Not quite to the space race, but I would say
to the rocket science race again about eighty eighty years late.

Speaker 4 (01:48:47):
But welcome.

Speaker 2 (01:48:50):
It has a launch pad near Bowen, Australia and this
Australian made rocket. Apparently it looks as though they are there.
There's not really or hasn't been a space in Australia
for launches to take place, and so there is a

(01:49:14):
oh no, why is this giving me trouble? Come on stories.
They've got five million dollars from the Australian government otherwise
venture funded for this ares rocket and the development of
a launch site near Bowen. They've built a spaceport.

Speaker 3 (01:49:35):
So that's five minute where that's private funding and a
and a five million Australian dollar grant, which is yeah money,
I think is like a couple hundred bucks.

Speaker 4 (01:49:45):
I'm not really sure it's not.

Speaker 3 (01:49:47):
It's not as much so it is it is a
very bootstrap rocket.

Speaker 1 (01:49:55):
Let's see.

Speaker 2 (01:49:56):
I got thirty six million dollars in funding in February
twenty twenty four launch license from the Australian Space Agency,
which I think is Kevin Bruden who sent me a
Australian Space Agency t shirt that is one of my favorites.
Gilmore was pushed back on its launch, but they they've

(01:50:16):
had a few things, but yeah, now they've got what
they are calling Gilmore's. Gilmour Space is Bowen Orbital Spaceport,
which is Australia's first licensed commercial orbital launch facility. So
it's going to put going to put Australia on the
map in space.

Speaker 3 (01:50:36):
It might just be a bad spot to launch from,
it says. The country has been the site of hundreds
of suborbital vehicle launches, but there have only been two
successfully making it to orbit, and none of them were
from Australian companies.

Speaker 2 (01:50:51):
I guess, well, Australia suborbital launch.

Speaker 3 (01:50:58):
Extra it's the extra gravity in Australia, that's what's doing.

Speaker 2 (01:51:03):
Oh jeez, Kevin Rearden. Since it's Australia, they don't launch
a rocket up, they have to launch it down.

Speaker 3 (01:51:13):
The easier you think that would be easier. But apparently
maybe maybe we just maybe it's a perspective thing. Maybe
they're actually on the top of the planet this whole time,
and we've just been picturing it upside down in our minds.

Speaker 4 (01:51:28):
That might be. That might be why it's it's so
much harder.

Speaker 2 (01:51:34):
Oh my goodness, all right, well, I think we made
it to the end of this program.

Speaker 1 (01:51:39):
What do you think?

Speaker 4 (01:51:40):
Sure?

Speaker 1 (01:51:41):
Fur, Sure? Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 (01:51:43):
So, as we on the program, I would like to
wish Blair a really good night and everyone else thank
you so much.

Speaker 1 (01:51:52):
For joining us. Thanks for being here in the chat room,
all of you who were here chatting with us. I
love your comments.

Speaker 2 (01:51:59):
I wish I could give each and every one of
you a Snickers bar, but I can't unfortunately. I mean
it's probably the peanut allergies. But anyway, everyone, thanks for
keeping our chat room just wonderful places to hang out.
Gord Urn Lore, everyone else who's there really just being
good and keeping keeping an eye on everyone.

Speaker 1 (01:52:21):
Thank you for doing that.

Speaker 2 (01:52:23):
Fada, Thank you for your help with show notes and
with our social media identity for Thank you for recording
the show. Rachel, Thank you for editing and of course,
Thank you to our Patreon sponsors.

Speaker 1 (01:52:38):
Thank you too. Don d ah Wait it didn't do
the do there we go?

Speaker 2 (01:52:45):
Da Da Da, Robert Norland, Lauren Gifford, Dana Luisi and Mandel,
Alan Biola, Aaron Anathama, Arthur Kepler, Craigpot's, Mary Gurg, Teresa Smith,
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(01:53:06):
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(01:53:27):
Bob Calder, Marjorie Palud, Disney Packet, Piccararo.

Speaker 1 (01:53:30):
And Tony Steele.

Speaker 3 (01:53:33):
Woo woo.

Speaker 2 (01:53:35):
Thank you all for your support, and if you would
like to support us on Patreon, please head over to
twist dot org and click on that Patreon link ten
dollars and more. I'll mispronounce your name too.

Speaker 1 (01:53:50):
On next week's show.

Speaker 3 (01:53:53):
We will be back Wednesday, eight pm Pacific time, broadcasting
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(01:54:27):
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Speaker 4 (01:54:32):
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(01:54:54):
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(01:55:15):
and we are discussing science with you again next week
because we gotta go. But remember, if you learned anything
from today's show, it's.

Speaker 1 (01:55:24):
All in your head. This week in.

Speaker 5 (01:55:29):
Science, This week in science, This week in science.

Speaker 1 (01:55:39):
This week in science.

Speaker 3 (01:55:40):
At the end of the world.

Speaker 5 (01:55:42):
So I'm setting up shop, got my banner unfurled, it says.

Speaker 3 (01:55:46):
The scientist is in.

Speaker 4 (01:55:47):
I'm gonna sell my advice. Tell them how to stop.

Speaker 5 (01:55:50):
The robots with a simple device. I'll reverse all the
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you is a couple of cras. This week science is
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I use the scientific method for all that it's worth,

(01:56:12):
and I'll broadcast.

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My opinion all over they.

Speaker 1 (01:56:17):
Go.

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It's this week in science.

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This week in science, This week in science, Yes, science, science, science, Science.
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