6.25.25

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome. This is Marsha for Radio I and today I
will be reading National Geographic magazine dated May twenty twenty five,
which is donated by the publisher as a reminder. Radio
Eye is a reading service intended for people who are
blind or have other disabilities that make it difficult to
read printed material. Please join me now for the first

(00:23):
article entitled How Penguins Learned to Live on the Edge
by Renee Ebersol. Roughly six hundred miles off the coast
of mainland Ecuador, conservation biologist d Bourzma cruised in an
inflatable zodiac through the blue waters surrounding Bartolomy Island, a

(00:46):
small part of the Pacific Ocean archipelago known as the
Galopicus Islands. She was joined by several other scientists, all
of whom scanned the shoreline for an elusive black and
white seabird standing about a foot and half tall. Galopicus
penguins are the rarest and among the smallest penguins in
the world, but most notably, they are the only ones

(01:06):
living at the equator, existing on these volcanic islands in
the blazing hot sun. How could you not fall in
love with these birds? Asked the seventy eight year old
director of the University of Washington's Center for ecosystem Sentinels
and a national geographic explorer. They're comical, they're curious, their enduring, endearing.

(01:27):
Borizma suddenly pointed to five penguins near a cave, then another,
and another seven in total once the goat got close
enough to shore. Once the boat got close enough to shore,
two Ecuadorians veterinarian m Gavidens Escobar and park guard Marlon Ramone,

(01:48):
leaped out, easily scaling the sharp and slippery rocks. In
less than five minutes, Escobar was back lightly gripping a
penguin under its chin with one hand and propping its
feet in his other. He passed it to Boorzma, who
was ready with her calipers to ascertain the size of
the bird's bill and feet. Then she pulled out her
yellow tape measure to discern the length of the bird's wingspan.

(02:11):
We're measuring him for a suit, she joked. These were
the first steps in the process of recording information that
allows researchers to monitor the health of the colony in
the area. Next, Boorzma cinched a red cord around the
penguin's chest and attached it to a scale. Now the
flightless bird was dangling in mid air, flippers whirling. That's

(02:33):
a big one, she told her colleague Caroline Capello, a
wildlife ecologist who has studied penguins in the galopagus alongside
Borizma for more than a decade. Capello recorded the data.
A little more than five pounds and likely a male.
Freeing the feisty bird from the cord, Boorizma then secured
its head between her left fore arm and knee in

(02:54):
a well practiced maneuver to protect her legs from painful bites.
You're all right, You're all right, she told the squirming penguin.
You're so soft, Yes, you are. Calm down. We're going
to let you go in just a minute. The penguin's
flippers thick at the top and tapered to a thin
trailing edge, ideally shaped for soaring through water or in
great condition, she noted, smoothing them with her hands protected

(03:17):
by beige wool fingerless gloves, she affixed a tiny metal
tag into the webbing of its left foot and gently
set it down on the edge of the zodiac, seemingly
unfazed by the ordeal, the penguin surveyed the water, then
leaned forward and quietly plopped into the Pacific to again
swim among green sea turtles and marine iguanas. Touching a

(03:40):
bird like that is electric brsmas sad as she watched
it vanish beneath the surface. It is also an increasingly
rare opportunity for researchers. Today, Galopicus penguins join the more
than half of all penguin species that are classified as
endangered or vulnerable, imperiled by such threats as warming temperatures, overfishing,

(04:01):
habitat destruction, and pollution. Gurzma, who has been called the
Jane Goodall of penguins, consider these birds to be marine
sentinels or canaries in a coal mine, describing how one
species rapid decline signals a significant natural or human made
change happening within its environment. Still, she believes that the

(04:24):
species has the capacitated to hang on, in part because
researchers continue to gain a better understanding of how these
creatures leverage centuries of adaptations to be resilient in the
increasingly unpredicable world around them. Fifty four years ago, when
I started this. I thought Galopicus penguins would be gone
by now, she said, But they're still here. The Galopicus

(04:46):
penguins evolutionary journey illustrates how environmental pressures shape species over
millions of years. Genetic studies suggest they descended from Humboldt
penguins roughly two million years ago the Pleistocene epoch, a
period marked by well wide ranging climatic changes. The earliest

(05:08):
Galopitus penguin ancestors probably came to the islands by surfing
the northbound Humboldt Current that brings cold, nutrient rich water
along the coast of South America, likely settling on the
western part of the archipelago on Isabella and Ferdnana Islands,
the penguins found plentiful food and shelter. While the Humboldt

(05:31):
and another current, the Cromwells, still flow here, they now
bring nutrients and food intermittently in duration and intensity. One
of the significant factors to how Galopicus penguins adapted to
living in this warm climate is that they nest in cool,
shady crevices on the islands. The coastlines are sculpted by
explosive volcanic eruptions, and erosion, providing cracks and lava tunnels

(05:55):
where punguins can avoid overheating. Their small dature allows them
to squeeze into these dark spaces where they and their
chicks hide from predators such as Galopicus snakes and sally
light foot crabs. With a thinner layer of fat and
fewer feathers than most other penguins, these birds evolved for
life in the subtropics. Galopicus penguins, along with the Humboldt,

(06:20):
Megellanic and African species, belong to a group known as
banded penguins for the distinctive black and white patterning around
their chests and heads. They all live in warmer climates
and regulate their body temperature by panting similar to a
dog on a hot day, and they stand with their
flippers outstretched to release heat. White feathers on Galopicus penguins

(06:43):
faces and their featherless ankles and feet further help shunt
warmth from their stout little bodies. The birds can also
shed feathers around their faces during hot periods. But the
adaptation that sets Galopicus penguins apart is their flexibility as
to when they mold replace feathers and breed, rather than

(07:03):
having one fixed molting and mating season as other penguin
species do. The timing is based on whether enough nutrients
are being delivered from cold ocean currents and upwellings to
give them energy to replace their feathers, which, unlike other
penguin cycles, occurs before breeding and up to twice a year.
They can delay molting and mating until food is available

(07:26):
and there's a better chance of successfully starting a family.
All this adds up to a boom or bust way
of life. By tracking and measuring Galopicus penguins weight and
population numbers over decades, Burizma made the incredible discovery that
their breeding is tightly in sync with the rhythms of
al Ninos and La Ninas. The birds thrive during La

(07:47):
Nina conditions when there are strong currents of cold, nutrient
rich water flowing north, providing plentiful fish, squid, and crustaceans
for the penguins. When Al Nino's warm weather in the
sunde Central and Eastern Pacific displaces the cool currents, it
drastically reduces upwelling and their food supply. In years when

(08:09):
provisions are scarce, some penguins starve and breeding comes to
a standstill, it could take decades for the population to recover.
During a severe El Nino in the early nineteen eighties,
the population fell by more than half. Now, as global
temperatures heat up, el Ninos are becoming more frequent and extreme,
threatening to further reduce the availability of nutrients, while rising

(08:32):
sea levels are inundating nesting sites. Still, Borisma has come
to believe that even with the increasing frequency of El
nino's and extreme weather events, some Galopogus penguins will persist
because their ecosystem is also supported by periodic deep water
upwellings bringing pulses of nutrients to sustain the food chain.

(08:52):
But if for some reason the currents change and productivity
goes down, she said, they'll have trouble because there will
be nowhere left for them to go but Peru or
Chile and NAT's a long swim. Wursma estimates there are
maybe two thousand Galopicus penguins left, less than half as
many as there were fifty years ago when she started

(09:12):
her trailblazing research. But she believes that a couple of
crucial actions can protect their future. In order to survive
and thrive. Gallipicus penguins need humans to help them overcome
two major threats introduced predators mainly rats and cats, and
natural nesting areas becoming increasingly inhospitable. Solving the first issue

(09:34):
is fairly straightforward. Cats and rats arrived in the Galopicus
nearly two hundred years ago. With sailors and whalers. They
can easily scale difficult terrain and squeeze into nests of
penguins and other sea birds, devouring eggs and chicks. Recently,
the Galopicus National Park Partners partnered with environmental organization Jokotoko

(09:55):
to undertake an invasive species eradication program on f Floriana
Island in the southern part of the archipelago. In October
twenty twenty three, park managers began exterminating the rats and
cats on Floriana, using traps and unmanned ultra light helicopters
to disperse pellets of rudenticide and tocsin laced sausages across

(10:19):
the entire island. The program appears to be working. Previously,
a small number of penguins remained in the area, Borizma said,
but not easily removing the predators and continuing to monitor
for their presence will give penguins a fair shot at
long term survival. To mitigate the second threat, Borisma and
our colleagues are hoping to obtain funding to build artificial

(10:42):
nests and help the birds recolonize Floriana. Borizma first began
thinking about constructing nests some years ago when she was
puzzled by a penguin pair nesting on top of lava
along the western edge of the archipelago on Ferdinand Ferdanina
Island without any shade. The birds took turns sitting on

(11:02):
the eggs from early evening until morning, but then retreated
during the heat of the day, leaving the eggs unprotected. Eventually,
the eggs died. Gorzma realized that there weren't enough shaded
nest sites to go around, and that might be limiting
how many baby penguins could join the population each year.
Fifteen years ago, she began experimenting with artificial nest designs

(11:26):
that would blend into the environment so they wouldn't mar
the island's natural beauty. The park didn't want doggy igloos
or something like that. They like what they use at
zoos she said when option was an inconspicuous little penguin
carport made from stacked lava rocks. The other, the one
the penguins wound up preferring, was created by digging cavernous

(11:47):
holes directly into the hard lava substrate. As in all
real estate, location was key. The nests needed to be
close to the water, but not so close that they'd
fled within the penguins three months period. The idea of
building nests, Borzma said, is that if conditions are good,
you want everybody that wants to breed to be able

(12:07):
to breed. On the third day of the expedition, Burizma
and her team arrived at Punta Espinoza on Ferdini Ferdinina Island,
the first place Burzma had ever tried to build the
artificial nests. They disembarked from the zodiac and walked carefully
across the sharp lava slathered with iguana poop. Two members

(12:27):
located and checked the nest sites. Capello thirty five, who
is currently doing postdoctoral research at Cornell University, and Aura
Banda Cruz forty two, a third generation resident of the
Galopicus and a naturalist working aboard the Silver Sea cruise
ship that hosted Gourzma's survey. While ferrying tourists around the glopitus,

(12:50):
peering into a small space between a pile of rocks,
Capello shouted that she found an artificial nest that appeared
to have been used recently. There were shards of broken
eggshells and downy feathers scattered around the area. Maybe it hatched,
or maybe it was predated, Capello said, as she slipped
the eggshells into a coin envelope for closer inspection later. Regardless,

(13:11):
any sign of nessing activity was good news. In her
work as a cruise ship naturalist, Bonda Cruz has spent
nearly a decade photographing Galobicus penguins. This has led her
to develop a non invasive method to identify individuals using
the distinctive patterns of spots on their chests. I realized
that the spots were different on each one of them,

(13:33):
she said, Each one is unique like a fingerprint. Similarly,
researchers have learned to identify jaguars, zebras, dolphins, and even
koalas by their distinguishing patterns. Bonda Cruz is hopeful that
going forward in the periods between annual surveys like this one,
she could partner with other expedition naturalists who will send

(13:53):
more photographs, helping create a visual archive that can be
used to discern penguins when they're sighted. The images can
also provide records of the birds overall health and the
ratio of adults to juveniles. You can tell the adults
because they have a white line around their cheek and
their feet are black, bond Acruz said. Juveniles have paler

(14:13):
feet and white cheeks. What's more, the photos help document
periods in which the penguins are working harder for their food,
often correlating with an El Nino. They start spending more
time in the water, bond Acruz said, they don't have
time to dry completely and they start growing algae. So
when you see a green penguin, it's a symbol that

(14:34):
things are not going well for them. For her part,
Gorzma is thrilled to still be learning new things about
the lives of Galopicus penguins, especially from this next generation
of scientists. For a long time, she worried that she
wouldn't have anyone to take over her Galopicus research when
she retired. You realize when you're jumping and crawling around
on the lava that your days are numbered. You can't

(14:55):
do this forever, she said, sitting on the edge of
the zodiac while her colleagues check another area for penguins
and signs of nesting. That's why I was so happy
to find first Caroline and now Aura. I think they
can make a dynamic pear and carry it on for
another ten twenty thirty years if they want. She went quiet,
watching a male penguin standing alone along the shore, basking

(15:17):
in the late afternoon's golden light. Ah. The penguin braid,
trying to attract a male a mate. Ah Ah, Boorsmois
called back. He's saying, come see my etchings. I've got
a good nest. Come take a look, she said, grinning.
If the conditions stayed as favorable as they've been in
recent weeks, cold water and lots of fish, she felt

(15:38):
confident he'll be breeding soon. The next article is from
the June twenty twenty five National Geographic. This pig could
Save Your life by Matthew Cher. For decades, scientists and
surgeons around the world have been trying to solve the
organ donor crisis. Could the answer be rolling in the mud.

(15:59):
The entry require fires should have come with an instruction booklet,
sign in at the security hut, choose off at the door,
over to the locker room for a hot shower, into
a long protective surgical smock and knee high rubber waiters,
and finally a pair of safety goggles, which, in the
clammy heat of the laboratory complex, quickly began to fog.
Sorry for the trouble, smiled my tour guide, Bjorn Petersen,

(16:22):
waving me forward. We just have to be exceptionally careful
about pathogen's You'll get used to it, I promise. A
couple of hours earlier, i'd woken in a hotel in
a Midwestern city I've been asked not to name. Now,
with the sun curdling above the surrounding pasture and a
gauze of mist in the air, I found myself following Peterson,
a German born scientist, through the corridors of a highly

(16:45):
secret research facility and across a muddy courtyard cross hatched
with boot prints. When we bought the place, he said
the owners were using it as a livestock research facility.
Indicated an adjacent barn. The cattle were here and the
horses in the field up there. We've kept the same
basic layout, though obviously our purpose is very different. He

(17:06):
said something else as we entered the barn, but I
didn't catch it. His voice had been drowned out by
racus chorus of expectant grunts and the clatter of trotter's
on cement. A dozen odd pigs surged forward to the
edges of the individual enclosures, clanging their snouts against the
metal gates. I want you to meet someone, Peterson said,

(17:26):
blinking into the harsh overhead light. He stopped near the
pen of an animal whose name card identified her as Margherita.
She curled her body against Peterson's hand in the manner
of an oversize housecat. Margherita was one of our first,
Peterson said, proudly, leaning down to stroke the protuberant black
hairs between the pig's ears. Most of these animals you're

(17:48):
looking at were created from the same cells, but there's
something special about the first, don't you think. Peterson, who
serves as the Sight, had at the farm as a
specialist in livestock cloning and zeno transplantation, and exceedingly advanced
to scientific technique in which animal matter is transferred into
human patients. The name derives from a Greek for strange

(18:11):
or foreign. In twenty twenty three, after nearly a quarter
century working at government research institutions in Europe, Peterson uprooted
his family and moved to the Midwest to take a
job with e Genesis, a biotech firm backed by a
group of venture capital firm investors. Then in the early
phases of a remarkable plan to develop genetically modified pig

(18:33):
kidneys for transplantation into humans. Powered by advances in gene
editing and immunosuppressive medicine, e Genesis had quickly demonstrated that
its organs could survive for long periods in the bodies
of primate test subjects, filtering blood and producing urine as
ably as an alo transplanted or same species kidney. Now

(18:56):
two years later, Peterson and e Genesis stand at the
four front of a major revolution in the science of
organ transplantation, a revolution that will have implications for the
global human donors shortage and the thousands of sick patients
who wait every year for a new kidney. Already, the
results have been astonishing. A progression from trial transplants on

(19:19):
primates to transplant surgery on brain dead human recipients, and, finally,
last March, in a development that made global headlines, to
transplant into a living human recipient. Food and Drug Administration
officials have since given e Genesis the green light to
conduct a three patient clinical trial, a move that added
to the surging interest the company had generated since last

(19:42):
year's historic xeno transplant. Provided it stays on track and
its trials proved successful, egenesis is CEO Mike Curtis says
the company is making plans to grow its production capacity
and he thinks the science could become widely available to
the public before where the decade is out. In the
long term, he added, I'd argue we are looking at

(20:05):
a scenario where cross species transplants fully supplant yellow transplants,
where we don't need human donors anymore. Researching that point
will require further refinement of the technology and will demand
more pigs like Margarita and scientists like Petersen. But more
than anything, it will require trust on the part of

(20:26):
those who go under the knife, who put their lives
in the hands of this cutting edge science, and the
doctors and hospitals championing it, and last year's successful Zeno transplant,
a four hour procedure completed at Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital
that demanded untested faith, a heavy dose of desperation, and

(20:47):
an immeasurable amount of luck, was perhaps the most scientific
step forward into this new future. And it all started
on a farm in the Midwest, where, on a cold
March morning, a van idled in the dawn air, Its
door slid open, a one year old pig was trundled inside,
and the vehicle rolled down the drive, carrying what amounted

(21:07):
to years of medical research, hope, and investment. Snorting in
the back. For the next eighteen hours, as the van
traveled eastward along I ninety, a million scenarios raced through
Curtis's mind. You're sitting there thinking what if the van
gets hit by a car, or what if Rick Slayman
changes his mind. The room was silent, all other options

(21:28):
had been depleted, and time was slipping away. Sitting at
his desk in his office at Massachusetts General Hospital, looking
across the room at a man who had become his
friend as much as his patient. Nephrologist Winfried Williams asked
his long shot question and waited for the response, are
you familiar with the term zeno transplantation? Rick Slayman, who

(21:49):
was running out of vasque culture vascular vasculature access for dialysis,
shook his head. Williams wasn't. At this point. In twenty
twenty three, zeno transplantation was still a subject relegated to
scientific journals and the occasional short news item on skin

(22:09):
grafts or corneal transplants, So he did his best to
explain that rapid advances in gene editing were offering hope
that doctors might soon be able to place a pig
kidney inside a human without the risk of acute and
immediate rejection. Williams had been taking a lot, talking a
lot with the folks at a biotech company across the

(22:30):
Charles River called e Genesis. He'd learned that it had
recently been granted approval from the FDA for an expanded
access trial, a special allowance to treat patients who have
no alternative treatments available to them. Williams did not need
to tell Slayman that he qualified a supervisor with the
Massachusetts Department of Transportation and a cheery man with the

(22:53):
habit of charming nearly everyone he met. Slayman had struggled
all his life with hypertension and dibert, frequently twinned conditions
that had given way to end stage renal failure, significant
destruction to his kidneys, and declining function in both. Slayman
had been prescribed a course of dialysis, but as Williams
later recalled, the treatment had quickly become intensely time consuming

(23:18):
for his medical team and excruciatingly painful for Slayman. For
dialysis to work properly, Williams told me, you need to
have reliable vascular access. Traditionally, that axis is secured via
an arterio venous fistula, a surgical connection between an artery
and a vein and perforated by a pair of needles.

(23:38):
One needle removes the patient's blood, the other channels back
a cleaned version. The problem in mister Slaban's case, Williams said,
is that he was experiencing significant blood clotting and it
made it difficult to get a continuous flow during going
during dialysis. In a given year, he was undergoing multiple
declotting sessions at a hospital, back and forth, back and forth.

(24:03):
It was a hard way for anyone to live, let
alone someone as naturally energetic as Slayman, and the long
term prognosis was grim. Williams knew effective dialysis does not
reverse damage to the kidneys. It simply makes it possible
for a patient to continue living. In the end, a
transplant is required, provided an organ can be located. In

(24:23):
twenty eighteen, of the roughly ninety five thousand Americans waiting
for a new kidney, only twenty five percent managed to
obtain one. That December, Slaimant had become one of the
lucky twenty five percent. His surgery, performed by a veteran
Massachusetts general surgeon, Tatsuo Kawaii, was frictionless. The post surgery
complications apparently minimal. Slaiman was able to go back to

(24:47):
work full time, but within three years, familiar symptoms started
to reappear. The swelling, the fatigue, tests revealed scarring on
the donor kidney, and early evidence of recurrent diabetes. It
was there to me, Williams told me that the organ
wasn't going to survive for many more years. Once again,
Slayman found himself thrust into a punishing cycle of dialysis

(25:09):
and declouding. Later, doctors started him on a course of
anti coagulants and installed a new fistula on his upper thigh.
Nothing seemed to help. Instead, more worrying signs emerged, like
hypercalemia or abnormally high potassium levels, which left slam Un
breathless and sent him racing to the local emergency room

(25:29):
for treatment. He had to undergo a lot of interventions
that required anesthesia and long hospital stays, and I remember
him saying, doctor, I'm not sure I can go on
like this. Williams told me he was considering withdrawing completely
from dialysis, and we knew that would have been a
death sentence, which brought Williams to the idea of Zeno

(25:51):
transplantation and his conversations with the Genesis. Williams trusted the
scientists at the company. He visited their labs himself and
marveled at what he saw there. Still, he knew his
patient would likely have reservations like Slayman Williams as black,
and his mind went instantly to the infamous Tuskegee experiments,
in which the U. S Government conducted a forty year

(26:12):
study of hundreds of black men with syphilis. But intentionally
hid their diagnoses and withheld treatment be a penicillin when
it became available. You have to understand that what happened
at Tuskegee is hard wired in African Americans in the US.
Williams said it has created deep fear about being used
as a guinea pig. Over the course of several informed

(26:34):
consent meetings, Williams was as clear with Slayman about the
hazards of undergoing a cutting edge procedure as he had
been about the hazards of doing nothing at all. It
would not be easy. He would have to be brave,
but Slayman said he understood in conversations with his family.
His daughter p S. Slayman later recalled her father was

(26:54):
confident of how much of a success the surgery would be,
so I couldn't do anything but support him. The last
informed consent session occurred in ear late twenty twenty four,
shortly before the transplant surgery was scheduled to take place.
Williams told me that halfway through, Slamon burst into tears.
He said, I want to do this, but I want

(27:15):
you to be there for me, to take care of me,
and I promised I would. It was such a poignant
moment because mister Slaman was about to embark on a
trip through truly uncharted waters. I could navigate, but he
was going to have to be the pioneer. Although it
feels cutting edge to day, the science of kidney zeno
transplantation stretches back decades and originated in part with the

(27:37):
work of a gifted Tulane University doctor and professor named
Keith reamed as Sama. In the early nineteen sixties, Remit Sama,
a cardio thoracic surgeon by training, began planning a series
of animal to human surgeries involving kidneys taken from laboratory chimpanzees.
This concludes readings from National Geographic Magazine for today. Your

(27:59):
reader has been RuSHA thank you for listening, Keep on listening,
and have a great day.