September 16, 2010 • 28 mins
If a person helps someone else without receiving an award, then that person has committed an act of altruism. Or have they? In this episode, Robert and Allison explore the science behind altruism in humans and other animals.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff from the Science Lab from how stuff
works dot com. Hey guys, welcome to the podcast. This
is also Madam look At the science editor at how
stuff works dot com. And this is Robert Lamb, science
writer at how stuff works dot com. And today I
(00:23):
think we have a pretty fascinating subject for you. Of course,
we always have fascinating subjects. But altruism and altruism in
the animal Kingdom. Yeah, Now what is altruism? Right? This?
Altruism is quote behavior that benefits others at the cost
of the individual unquote all right, So in this it's
(00:44):
like like an example of this would be like the
ultimate example of this is martyrdom, you know, and at
least in human culture where somebody like Sat lays down
their life to save others, yes, or you know, or
most examples of martyom. But like like a situational like
the g I jumping on a hand Garnaide. Yeah he
saves his buddy. Yeah he dies, but he saves his buddy. Altruism. Um.
(01:09):
I tend to think of Fireman a lot when it
comes to altruism. I do have that classic image of hero.
You know, they're racing into a brain building. But then
could you argue that, since um a fireman, you know,
that's part of his job, is that really altruistic behavior?
Perhaps not? Yeah, that's the thing when you start when
you can really nitpick altruism and say like, are you
(01:29):
because it basically comes down to you're doing something good
just for just to do something good, you know. Um.
But then people will say, well, did you really do
that just to do something good or to feel good
about doing something good, you know, or so that other
people would see you and say, oh, look how good
he is for you know, laying his raincoat, laying his
coat over the rain puddle so the lady could walk
(01:49):
over it. Yeah. Josh Clark reade a really good article
about this, um and it's on the website if you
guys want to look it up. Is there such thing
as a truly selfless act? And he brings up the
classic of Friends episode in which Phoebe says, yes, of
course there is. And so she's thwarted at every turn.
And you're frowning at me because you're like, why are
we bring up Friends? I'm surprised that Josh used a
(02:10):
friend's reference. I mean, not that I'm not that I'm
judging that Josh always tried saw some articles, but I
did not. I didn't expect with my friends reference from Josh. Yeah, yeah,
well sometimes friends can bring you a little science and
altruism apparently, so if they take home is that Phoebe
goes through like all these different trials. She gets stung
by a bee and she thinks she lets a be stinger,
(02:31):
which seems kind of silly. Uh, And she argues that
this is an active altruism because she has let the
be a stinger. Bit of in in the friends episode,
should we argue that the bee will lose its stinger,
so it's not actually benefiting the bee, it's hurting the
b and the bee will die. So it goes in Friends. Yeah,
this Phoebe person was completely wrong and yeah, and so
(02:52):
she goes through a couple of other examples. And then
when we were thinking about this podcast, I was trying
to think of altruism in my own life. What about
you have you? Did you have anything about it? Um? Well,
maybe like for like I'm thinking again in terms of
like my wife and his relationship with our cat, Like
if our cat gets sick and we spend hundreds of
dollars to cure the cat, then that's off altruism? Is
(03:15):
that does that count? We gave up this money just
to heal the cat or you know, but I guess
we we enjoy the cat's company, so maybe, I mean,
that's what we're getting out of it. Likewise, if the
cat brings us the like half of a chipmunk, you
know that she could have probably eaten herself. Is that
an altruistic cat? You know? Yeah, it gets interesting. I
(03:36):
had the same thought because, as as you guys probably know,
I am a parent, So I thought about that with
regard to my kids. You know, when you perform, when
you think about things that you might do for a
family member. Oh, I would totally take a bullet. You know,
this is just like so common that's made it into
our vernacular. I take a bullet for somebody, now the kids, wouldn't.
The kids are selfish little things, right they are. They
(03:57):
are a pretty egocentric kids tend to me for a while. Um,
you know, but is this, since it's family, is this
an act of altruism? If you were to actually take
a bullet or um, you know, execute one of these
quote unquote selfless behaviors, and like you were saying before
it might make me feel good. So say I were
to take that bullet, but you know what, I feel
pretty good knowing that I saved my kids, So maybe
(04:19):
I am getting something out of it. And then again,
my kid is my family, and I'm still getting to
pass on my jeans. And this gets out a part
of altruism that people are thinking, well, I don't know, um,
And in this it's kind of like, maybe you're feeling
good because that's like the biological like reward for doing
something that is part of your core programming as an
(04:39):
organism to propagate the species, to continue that genetic line. Right, yeah, yeah,
certainly my genetic line. So I mean we tend to
think of survival of the fittest. This is yeah, which
brings to mind like just organisms like you know, killing
each other, beating each other in the head with bones whatever,
just to get sure. Yeah. Yeah, So biology just have
(05:00):
really figured out a way around that, the survival of
the fitness when it comes to altruism, and specifically, there's
a biologist named W. G. Hamilton's and he came up
with the idea in the nineteen sixties and it's called
kin selection theory. You're saying, Okay, you know what, maybe
there are examples of altruism in the natural world, and
you know you're gonna select for your kin. You might
be more willing to perform this behavior if that's your
(05:23):
daughter out there or that's your baby bird out there
or whatever, because deep down it's it's all about like
I mean, you're you're you're living and you're dying. In
between you're reproducing and getting that genetic line to continue, right,
And so people have gotten really interested in this whole
um avenue of research altruism in the animal kingdom. So
(05:44):
there's some social scientists that you see Berkeley, who have
even gone so far as to call it survival of
the Kindest. That's kind of nice, Ferks getting all touchies.
Would it wouldn't make for a very good reality series though,
Like nobody survive all the kind of probably not um.
And they're suggesting that taking care of each other and
cooperating insures the survival of humans or other organisms. And
(06:07):
they've even established a Greater Good Science Center, which sounds
kind of creepy. I mean, this is the title because
it kind of brings in like weird connotations of like
the Greater Good science It sounds like the villainous organization
from a science fiction novel. Yeah, I agree. So let's
talk about some examples of altruism in the animal kingdom.
Let's let's talk about humans first a little. A great
(06:29):
example of this is when someone donates a kidney to someone,
and if it's an anonymous stranger, I mean not all
the more, right, because that that's not even like a
kind thing, you know, because you see plenty of examples
of like, you know, um offering up a kidney, etcetera
to you know, a loved one, remember the family, but
to someone. But plenty of people just you know, offer
kidneys up to anonymous strangers. You see it all the time.
(06:51):
Well I don't know about all the time, but more frequently,
and it certainly makes the news when it happens, like it, right.
So there's a really great article in the New Yorker
by Lurism Farkwar that dealt with this and um, these
anonymous donors who are giving their organs um And there
there's even been a websitegund and called matching donors dot
com and it's this nonprofit organ that matches quote living
(07:13):
altruistic organ donors for patients needing transplants. So as you
can imagine there there can be terrific family opposition to say, hey, Dad,
do you really need to give up that kidney? What
if I need it later? Yeah, So it's it was,
it's really fascinating. And you know, I was also reading
as long as we're talking about organ donation that, um,
(07:34):
if a family opposes somebody being a deceased family member
being an organ donor, they can override their wishes, like
like they have it, they clicked off on their organization
card when they die, their organs will be available to transplant. Right.
But if you haven't checked this out with your family,
then it can be the organ processing people, the organ
(07:54):
transplant centers, which might be a much better name for them.
They a lot of times they will defer to family's
wishes if they dissent. Yeah, I'm a little bit tangential,
but I thought I just thought it was interesting. I'm
I'm all in favor of, you know, use them, Yeah,
put them to good use. They're not going to do
a lot of good in the ground, right, So I'm
going off on a little bit on a tangent there,
(08:14):
But let's get back on check. Um. You know, there's
a more common example, and that's you know, the giving
of money. So recently there there is a big project
announcement's called the Giving Pledge, and this is spearheaded um
by forty U S billionaires Bill Gates and Warren Buffet
among them, and they're publicly saying that they're going to
donate at least half of their money to philanthrop to
(08:37):
philanthropic causes. Well, that's great at work. What do you think, Well,
on one hand, they have all this money, and you
could argue to it's kind of like if you've got
once once, you've got so much money, it's like, does
it hurt to give a certain portion of away, even half?
Especially we're gonna get that nice fat tax break right right,
you know, not to mention your you know, these are
these are guys that are tied with major you know,
(09:00):
corporations and organizations. So it's like, you look pretty good
if you go out there and you just give half
your wealth away, right. True. Yeah, So that's one side
of But on the other it's like, I mean, I'm
not going to be completely cynical about it either, because
I mean I followed like some of the stuff to
like the Gates Foundation, doesn't they do some very good work.
So I mean, indeed, it seems hard to quibble yeah
over that. I don't know if it's altruism, but still
(09:21):
they are giving half their wealth away that was a
sizeable chunk behind. Yeah, I tend to fall like I
tend to fall in the category of thinking. It's kind
of like a little column a little column B. You know,
it's like that you can it allows you to do
something like tax breaks, et cetera. Like it allows you
to do something great but also feel good about it.
You know. It's like when I if I make like
a measily like you know, ten dollar donation to you know,
(09:43):
a different organization or you know, then on one level,
it's like, hey, I feel like I did something good
no matter how you know, small small my part in
it for this you know, a little you know, charity organization.
But then also I do plant it out and put
it in a folder because I'm like, hey, I can
write that off in the taxes. So it's you know,
I feel like it's probably that kind of a relationship
(10:05):
between the two columns with most people, um, though some
people were probably definitely in one category or the other. Right,
So cases are instances of of you know, pure altruism
could be hard to find, but that doesn't mean that
it doesn't exist in some form or another out there
in the human kingdom. Okay, Well that's why I think, like,
like martyrdom in UH is often like the ultimate in
(10:27):
human culture, Like it's held up to this ultimate example
of altruism because it's the idea of giving everything that
you are, you know, or I guess like some I
tend to think of martyrdom more though, as sacrificing yourself
for a cause, like a belief in idea, and that
maybe not what's in the dictionary, but you know, I
think it's well, but a lot of times like that
idea though, like Carrie, at least, the belief is that
(10:49):
that idea saves lives or that idea like makes the
world a better better place, um, even if in reality
it doesn't, you know, I don't know, that's just that's
just my thought on the matter. So biologically speaking, we've
had some thoughts on this, and um, a gentleman named
fran Dwall who's an emery prematologist and a biologist, is saying,
(11:11):
among others that altruism could come from a sense of
empathy we feel when other humans aren't distress. Okay, this
is more I think of like the fire you know,
somebody's caught in a burning building type of or what
is the example? And blade Runner? What is the example? Well,
the whole thing and blade Runner is they have to
do the test to see if the if the replicant
can feel empathy. Oh yeah, that's like a turtle on
(11:34):
a It's not like a turtle on a fence. Put
I can't rease some been a while since I've seen
it or or read the book. I just read to
Android's Dream of elector is that part in the book book?
Because they're very different, and I can't remember what lines
up in what doesn't. Yeah, there is a crazy empathy test.
I can't remember what some of the exact questions are though,
And then like they all centered on animals, whether you
(11:55):
know your response to animals and distress. Yeah, and there's
something to like the little kids like up to a
certain age, they can't feel empathy. Really yeah again, selfish
little guys. So um. Some of the scientists are saying
that altruism could be instilled when female mammals are nursing,
they're young. It sounds a little wacky, but Dual I
(12:16):
was reading this when he was talking about a different
book on altruism that he reviewed in the New York Times.
So anyway, Dual is saying that there's a study in
which men and women had more empathetic responses in a
lab experiment after they were dosed with oxytocin oxytocin, and
this is known as the so called cuddle hormone. Oh yes,
(12:36):
you've heard of the kettle hormone. Um, well it came up.
There was there's a documentary series called This Emotional Life,
and there's a whole section that goes into like studying
Um some it doesn't occur in every case, but in
some cases of children have grown up and like I
could leave sort of like guys Eastern Russian orphanages where
(12:58):
some of them have like it's very like the children
there get a very small amount of attention and they've
not not all the children, but some of them end
up having this, uh, the certain pattern of of sort
of emotional dysfunction, and they've traced it to to this
particular substance. So, um, you know, somebody who might have
(13:19):
a lot of oxytocin would be you know, a breastfeeding
woman or you get it when you're going through childbirth.
And it's also associated with love and stuff like that,
so it is kind of a cuddly hormone. So that's humans.
That's that's a little bit of altruism humans. But what
about other animals? Okay, well, when this instantly comes to
mind is from of course surfing cute animal pictures online
(13:40):
like we all do, uh, where you have instances where like, oh,
the cat just adopted some puppies or the dog just
adopted some kittens. Yeah, the maternal instinct just overrides everything.
And it's so that's true. It seems like sometimes animals
will care for offspring that's not their own. But what's
going on there could still be an example of that
kin selection theory where talking about a little earlier. So
(14:02):
here's an interesting squirrel study. Red squirrel study like that
comes to you from complements of some Canadian researchers at
the University of Alberta, and they reported that there are
some female red squirrels there that were adopting abandoned baby squirrels.
Sounds sounds reasonable, except the squirrels were related. Oh so
(14:25):
like unlike with the cat adopting the puppies, like they're
actually maybe picking up on some sort of genetic similarity
between themselves and the Yeah, and that was really what
the researcher we're trying to figure out. They thought, well,
maybe they can tell by how those squirrels are chattering.
You know, there's some sort of family identifier in that
chatting that they're that they're picking up and able to recognize.
(14:48):
So yeah, they were trying to chease out this connection
and how the adoptive mom was able to recognize the
genetic Lincoln act on it. It's particularly notable too because
we think of there's so many squirrels out there, but
they're actually solitary animals, are they? Because it seems like
they're always chasing each other in my yard? I know,
I know, Um, well, according to the Canadian book. And
(15:09):
the other thing is that they're only going to adopt
once there they would only perform this behavior once otherwise
it's too much of a cost on the existing family.
So anyway, they published this research and Nature Communications. I
thought it was kind of interesting. So it was altruism
by means of kin selection, and I just have to
throw this into um, you know, talking about like the net,
(15:29):
like our natural Like we see a baby and we
we want on some level we want to care for it, right,
some of us do, well, yeah, I look at a
lot of us do. But like you see that tied
into like how they determine which, like which animals we
find cute and which ones we don't. The cuter animals
resemble human infants basically in terms of their eyes, structure
and and all that. That's why I like a kitten,
(15:50):
Like small head, enormous eyes. People go crazy for it.
You could rob a bank with a kitten. You know,
I've never tried to do that. You don't try that,
but I'm just saying you probably could. Yeah, it is interesting.
I mean you you definitely think about, well, they've got
to be cute because you know, a kitten, a puppy,
a baby to some extent can be an awful lot
of work to care for. So you know it does
(16:12):
a cuteness makeup for it, boost their case help them survive.
Cuteness as a survival factor we're thinking about. But the
next animal we're going to talk about isn't really traditionally
thought of, is that cute, right plants? I mean some
point I get flowers or I don't know. I would
never classify a plant is cute neither I UM and
(16:32):
there there hasn't been a whole lot of research done here.
But but some plants are seemingly able to recognize their kin.
How they act on that knowledge is unclear. So examples
of altruism action, we don't really have them. But a
step before that would be being able to recognize or kin. Okay,
although I suppose if it were a truly selfless plant,
it wouldn't matter. And they've also found it in um fish,
(16:56):
really sick lids. So how you say that the I
guess you find these freshwater fish and aquariums. Oh yeah, yeah,
I've seen so. I was reading about a study in
which subordinate females will raise unrelated offspring, and unlike the squirrels,
the instances of the squirrels there is no genetic link. Um.
But these these sicklids are getting some benefits when it
(17:16):
comes time to reproduce. So again, is this altruism not
if it's necessarily boosting their chances at reproductive success and
put personel on like a large level, it's kind of
like the survival of the species, you know, is a
steak with a lot of this. You know, It's like
if I I'm a fish and I adopt a bunch
of extra fish, that's more fish out there that are
going to potentially be successful, right right, I mean they
(17:38):
don't make sitcoms about you know, family ties among sicklids,
right right, So good point, Robert orly And maybe it's
been pitched, but it's never They might have produced a
pilot but it didn't get to get picked up. And
now I have the theme song to Silver Silver Spoon together,
but that's a totally different um sitcom. Yeah. So anyway,
(17:59):
so what about back to area. This is very interesting.
These guys are really not cute. So and this is
what really prompted my interest in getting Robert to go
along with a podcast on altruism. There's a really big
finding on it that comes from a study on resistant
pathogens that's published in September two thousand ten edition of Nature,
I think September two. And we recently talked in that
(18:20):
podcast about quorum sensing about how it's a mistake to
write off bacteria. They're not simple organisms by no means
I think the analogy that I really was proud of
in that one is that they're not like, it's not
like a kid that only advanced as far as the
second grade, but like a kid who like became like
the best second grader in the world. You know, Like
that's the way I like to think of it. You know,
(18:40):
it's like it's a it's in a way, it's a
lower level um as far as organisms go, but they're
really good at that level. Yeah. Yeah, you would be
scared of that second grader. You bow down, you would
give them your twinkie. So here's what a couple of
Boston researchers found out about the latest wonders of bacteria. Specifically,
they're from Harvard and Sustin University, and they may have
(19:02):
stumbled on some altruistic bacteria. Really, so what were they doing.
They were looking at how antibiotic resistance strains of bacteria developed. Right,
they got some strands going on in a bioreactor, they're
monitoring their controlling, they're doing all this stuff, and they're
not necessarily thinking of altruism. And so the typical scenario
we think of when we think of resistant strands, if
(19:25):
if we do in fact think of resistant strands I
imagine some of you guys do, is that you know,
bacterium has a mutation protects it against a certain antibiotic,
and then that one bacterium survives and it replicates like crazy,
and while all of a sudden you have this population
of antibiotic resistant bacteria some strain, right. That's really only
part of the story is what these researchers found out.
(19:46):
There's some pretty interesting things that are happening at a
population level. Okay, so stay with me here. The Massachusetts
researchers were working with E. Coli populations and a bioreactor,
and they found that resistant bacterium wind up producing approach gene. Okay,
so the resistant guys, the ones who are thriving, they
wind up producing this protein and it's called indole I
believe that's how you say it. And the indole helps
(20:08):
out weaker members of the population. So they're pumping this
stuff out. They're pumping this protein, and the mechanism of
the indole kind of acts a little bit like steroid.
It's helping the waxed, weaker bacteria to bulk up and
and fight off the incoming antibiotics. And it also helps
these weaker bacteria to pump the antibiotic out of the cell. Okay,
(20:29):
so where's the altruism part. Well, the production of indole
by those resistant bacteria comes at a cost. It's really, really,
really energy intensive. Okay, so in human terms, we might
say they're sacrificing themselves for the greater good. It's really interesting. Now, Yeah,
it's kind of like I'm kind of like picturing like
the bacteria are like all on like a big camping
(20:51):
trip to it with it, with it, with each other,
and the like the one that's become resistant, it's like
he's the one that has like all You've brought plenty
of rations for self, and then everybody else doesn't have
enough to eat that night, so he ends up sharing
his rations with the other. It's kind of like that
that level. I was like, he could survive on his own, great,
but he's diminishing his own advantage by helping out less
(21:13):
privileged bacteria surrounds. Right, I guess I take the point
of view of m that you know that master camper
is really advancing the skills of the lesser camp campers.
Maybe he's like really good at archery and he's showing
them how to, you know, better hit bulls eyes. You know,
he's guiding him, he's showing them how he's really upping
(21:33):
their skills. Kind of like when the cat brings in half,
like a half of the chipmunk. For me, she's because
I've heard that. Like the whole thing is that they're
they're possibly like trying to teach their humans how to hunt,
or like when they bring in alive animal, they're kind
of like, here you go, this is how you can
do it, you know, here, chase this chipmunk down. You know.
(21:53):
So another podcast in which the cat gets mentioned. Is
this going to be like Seinfeld and which super Roman
comes up in every episode and a cat comes up
in every podcast? Probably? I don't know. It's just I
was never a cat person until recently. So it's like
it brings up to so many questions about the universe.
You know, It's like, what is this creature that lives
in my house and like climbs through a hole in
(22:15):
the wall and like sleeps in the corner of the bed.
What's It's kind of weird. I don't know. So, getting
back to bacteria, the ramifications of this are pretty interesting. Obviously,
we want to know what's going on in resistant bacteria,
and so indele could be something that we investigate further.
This particular protein that the resistant bacteria are pumping out,
(22:36):
maybe we want to target it when we're trying to
figure out the next move. Um, when we're battling these
antabatic resistance strains of bacteria. Maybe it's maybe it's a
target in the war, the ever waging war between humans
and bacteria. Well cool, do we have some We have
some listener mail to to read. Don't you keep getting
(22:58):
lefties writing in or varieties that like lefties, but mostly
lefties and lefty guitarists. So here's an amusic like lefties
are really just left he's writing it pretend they like
open extra email accounts to do it. I see right
through it. Um, So here comes one from Heather and
Heather Rights. Hey, guys, I just finished listening to the
(23:18):
Lefty Podcast, and I have an entertaining story about growing
up left handed in a right handed family. I can relate, Heather.
You see, my parents tried to teach me how to
tie my shoes for years. This was all kepped years.
But sadly, if I didn't tie my fingers into the knot.
I usually made some sort of squiggly mess and it
would fall apart after a few seconds. So I wore
(23:40):
vel crow shoes until a nice old lady that babies
that me taught me how to tie my shoes the
lefty bay I was twelve. Wow, you know, I have
to interject real quick. Are you gonna talk about cround?
How wondrous it is? No, well, this is thing. When
I was a kid, there was so there was one
point where I had the del crow shoes and then
my parents tell we know, you can't wear velcro shoes anymore.
(24:01):
You need to learn to tie your actual shoes because
when you get older, they're not going to have vel
crow shoes anymore. For adults, that was a big fact.
It was a big lie because now I like, I'll
go to this store, I'll be get some new shoes,
and I'll see the velcrow shoes. Gonna be like I
could be wearing those. Now I've learned to tie my
shoes for nothing, you know. Anyway, But to continue, I
had some blue bell crow shoes. They were kind of
(24:21):
like Satine, I want to say, and they were great.
Got a from stride right, just so easy they don't like.
I still have kind of hate shoe because we always
come undone. You're dragging them, stepping on them, tripping over
the shoelaces can be a fashion statement, Robert. Okay, but
getting on to the Hana. Other listener, Milt, we had
a wonderful leech story sent in by Skyler Adam, Missouri,
(24:45):
and I really we just gotta share this one. Okay.
So we did that podcast on leeches a while back,
and we're talking a little bit about you know, somebody
leeches as pets. So Skyler writes, several years ago, I
directed a summer camp waterfront with leech infested waters. Kids
would react with terror whenever one of the wiggly creatures
(25:06):
got anywhere near them. I decided to keep some in
a fish bowl as pets or mascots, if you will. Overnight,
the camper sphere disappeared, and kids would catch little buggers
to add to the collection. Because amaze the strategy work.
Sometimes the simplest solutions are the best. That's the question mark.
But I agree, Yes, send your kids to Can't Blood Leech.
That's a great place, so he continues. By the time
(25:28):
this season ended, I had grown attach the squirmy little guys.
So I brought them back to my college storm with me.
That is interesting. They required very little care, just a
water change every month or so and a feeding every
couple of months. My friends thought I was a little
strange for keeping leeches as pets until I told them
about the feeding. Then they thought it was downright disgusting.
(25:49):
Are you ready for this? I would pop a movie
in the VCR. You're right, you got to set the
mode really yeah? Yeah, so he's popping the movie in
the VCRE. I like to thank you as maybe you
know dirty dancing fast times the Reachmond High, after all,
was the PCR. Or he could actually, there's a movie
called I Suck Your Blood. Maybe it's a vampire movie, yeah,
(26:11):
or blood sucking Freights. There's there's no shortage of blood
sucking movie titles. Well, so he has his movie in
the VCR. He is ready. He'd kicked back with a
soda in one hand and the other hand dangling in
the leach bowl. All twenty eight of the slimy little
creatures would attach to various parts of my hand and
feast away for about an hour. Then they would drop
(26:32):
off and swim away. Alison mentioned feeding them on your finger,
but they showed a market preference for the webbing between.
Oh I love this. First person reaches that's probably I'm
looking at that area now in my hand. Maybe that's
you know, like softer now he well, Skyler's philosophy was
that he reckons that the skin is thinness there and
(26:52):
maybe that was wh only downside to the process was
a subsequent itching and nonclotting. So anyways, all things go well,
and he turns to the camp the next summer and
all leeches were still in good health and he released
them into the swimming area again. Watch the delayed campers
who were looking forward to catching them all over again.
So I just thought that was and thanks to his breathing,
(27:13):
they're like each one's the size of like a small doll.
Now they're enormous. I kid, but that's that's awesome. I mean,
it's like I love it when somebody has like a
like scientific curiosity in something and it goes against the grain.
You know, it's like other people may you know, I
think it's weird to keep leeches in your room and
feed them with your own blood, But those people don't
know a lot about leeches. This guy has information because
(27:35):
he was brave, splash crazy enough to actually get out
there and keep in his pets. Yeah. Very interesting. So,
as always, we love hearing from you guys. These stories
are great, So if you have one you want to
share with us, whether it's on the leeches or bacteria
or altruism, please write us. We're at science Stuff at
hosts dot com. Yeah, and check us out on the
social media. We're on Facebook as stuff from the Science
(27:56):
Lab and on Twitter you can find us as lab
stuff and we will, you know, constantly keep you updated
on what we're researching, what we're podcasting and blogging about,
and you know, just what kind of weird science the
stories we're really into at the moment. That's all. Yeah,
thanks for listening, guys. For more on this and thousands
(28:21):
of other topics, is it how stuff works dot com.
Want more how stuff works, check out our blogs on
the house stuff works dot com home page
Welcome to Stuff from the Science Lab from how stuff
works dot com. Hey guys, welcome to the podcast. This
is also Madam look At the science editor at how
stuff works dot com. And this is Robert Lamb, science
writer at how stuff works dot com. And today I
(00:23):
think we have a pretty fascinating subject for you. Of course,
we always have fascinating subjects. But altruism and altruism in
the animal Kingdom. Yeah, Now what is altruism? Right? This?
Altruism is quote behavior that benefits others at the cost
of the individual unquote all right, So in this it's
(00:44):
like like an example of this would be like the
ultimate example of this is martyrdom, you know, and at
least in human culture where somebody like Sat lays down
their life to save others, yes, or you know, or
most examples of martyom. But like like a situational like
the g I jumping on a hand Garnaide. Yeah he
saves his buddy. Yeah he dies, but he saves his buddy. Altruism. Um.
(01:09):
I tend to think of Fireman a lot when it
comes to altruism. I do have that classic image of hero.
You know, they're racing into a brain building. But then
could you argue that, since um a fireman, you know,
that's part of his job, is that really altruistic behavior?
Perhaps not? Yeah, that's the thing when you start when
you can really nitpick altruism and say like, are you
(01:29):
because it basically comes down to you're doing something good
just for just to do something good, you know. Um.
But then people will say, well, did you really do
that just to do something good or to feel good
about doing something good, you know, or so that other
people would see you and say, oh, look how good
he is for you know, laying his raincoat, laying his
coat over the rain puddle so the lady could walk
(01:49):
over it. Yeah. Josh Clark reade a really good article
about this, um and it's on the website if you
guys want to look it up. Is there such thing
as a truly selfless act? And he brings up the
classic of Friends episode in which Phoebe says, yes, of
course there is. And so she's thwarted at every turn.
And you're frowning at me because you're like, why are
we bring up Friends? I'm surprised that Josh used a
(02:10):
friend's reference. I mean, not that I'm not that I'm
judging that Josh always tried saw some articles, but I
did not. I didn't expect with my friends reference from Josh. Yeah, yeah,
well sometimes friends can bring you a little science and
altruism apparently, so if they take home is that Phoebe
goes through like all these different trials. She gets stung
by a bee and she thinks she lets a be stinger,
(02:31):
which seems kind of silly. Uh, And she argues that
this is an active altruism because she has let the
be a stinger. Bit of in in the friends episode,
should we argue that the bee will lose its stinger,
so it's not actually benefiting the bee, it's hurting the
b and the bee will die. So it goes in Friends. Yeah,
this Phoebe person was completely wrong and yeah, and so
(02:52):
she goes through a couple of other examples. And then
when we were thinking about this podcast, I was trying
to think of altruism in my own life. What about
you have you? Did you have anything about it? Um? Well,
maybe like for like I'm thinking again in terms of
like my wife and his relationship with our cat, Like
if our cat gets sick and we spend hundreds of
dollars to cure the cat, then that's off altruism? Is
(03:15):
that does that count? We gave up this money just
to heal the cat or you know, but I guess
we we enjoy the cat's company, so maybe, I mean,
that's what we're getting out of it. Likewise, if the
cat brings us the like half of a chipmunk, you
know that she could have probably eaten herself. Is that
an altruistic cat? You know? Yeah, it gets interesting. I
(03:36):
had the same thought because, as as you guys probably know,
I am a parent, So I thought about that with
regard to my kids. You know, when you perform, when
you think about things that you might do for a
family member. Oh, I would totally take a bullet. You know,
this is just like so common that's made it into
our vernacular. I take a bullet for somebody, now the kids, wouldn't.
The kids are selfish little things, right they are. They
(03:57):
are a pretty egocentric kids tend to me for a while. Um,
you know, but is this, since it's family, is this
an act of altruism? If you were to actually take
a bullet or um, you know, execute one of these
quote unquote selfless behaviors, and like you were saying before
it might make me feel good. So say I were
to take that bullet, but you know what, I feel
pretty good knowing that I saved my kids, So maybe
(04:19):
I am getting something out of it. And then again,
my kid is my family, and I'm still getting to
pass on my jeans. And this gets out a part
of altruism that people are thinking, well, I don't know, um,
And in this it's kind of like, maybe you're feeling
good because that's like the biological like reward for doing
something that is part of your core programming as an
(04:39):
organism to propagate the species, to continue that genetic line. Right, yeah, yeah,
certainly my genetic line. So I mean we tend to
think of survival of the fittest. This is yeah, which
brings to mind like just organisms like you know, killing
each other, beating each other in the head with bones whatever,
just to get sure. Yeah. Yeah, So biology just have
(05:00):
really figured out a way around that, the survival of
the fitness when it comes to altruism, and specifically, there's
a biologist named W. G. Hamilton's and he came up
with the idea in the nineteen sixties and it's called
kin selection theory. You're saying, Okay, you know what, maybe
there are examples of altruism in the natural world, and
you know you're gonna select for your kin. You might
be more willing to perform this behavior if that's your
(05:23):
daughter out there or that's your baby bird out there
or whatever, because deep down it's it's all about like
I mean, you're you're you're living and you're dying. In
between you're reproducing and getting that genetic line to continue, right,
And so people have gotten really interested in this whole
um avenue of research altruism in the animal kingdom. So
(05:44):
there's some social scientists that you see Berkeley, who have
even gone so far as to call it survival of
the Kindest. That's kind of nice, Ferks getting all touchies.
Would it wouldn't make for a very good reality series though,
Like nobody survive all the kind of probably not um.
And they're suggesting that taking care of each other and
cooperating insures the survival of humans or other organisms. And
(06:07):
they've even established a Greater Good Science Center, which sounds
kind of creepy. I mean, this is the title because
it kind of brings in like weird connotations of like
the Greater Good science It sounds like the villainous organization
from a science fiction novel. Yeah, I agree. So let's
talk about some examples of altruism in the animal kingdom.
Let's let's talk about humans first a little. A great
(06:29):
example of this is when someone donates a kidney to someone,
and if it's an anonymous stranger, I mean not all
the more, right, because that that's not even like a
kind thing, you know, because you see plenty of examples
of like, you know, um offering up a kidney, etcetera
to you know, a loved one, remember the family, but
to someone. But plenty of people just you know, offer
kidneys up to anonymous strangers. You see it all the time.
(06:51):
Well I don't know about all the time, but more frequently,
and it certainly makes the news when it happens, like it, right.
So there's a really great article in the New Yorker
by Lurism Farkwar that dealt with this and um, these
anonymous donors who are giving their organs um And there
there's even been a websitegund and called matching donors dot
com and it's this nonprofit organ that matches quote living
(07:13):
altruistic organ donors for patients needing transplants. So as you
can imagine there there can be terrific family opposition to say, hey, Dad,
do you really need to give up that kidney? What
if I need it later? Yeah, So it's it was,
it's really fascinating. And you know, I was also reading
as long as we're talking about organ donation that, um,
(07:34):
if a family opposes somebody being a deceased family member
being an organ donor, they can override their wishes, like
like they have it, they clicked off on their organization
card when they die, their organs will be available to transplant. Right.
But if you haven't checked this out with your family,
then it can be the organ processing people, the organ
(07:54):
transplant centers, which might be a much better name for them.
They a lot of times they will defer to family's
wishes if they dissent. Yeah, I'm a little bit tangential,
but I thought I just thought it was interesting. I'm
I'm all in favor of, you know, use them, Yeah,
put them to good use. They're not going to do
a lot of good in the ground, right, So I'm
going off on a little bit on a tangent there,
(08:14):
But let's get back on check. Um. You know, there's
a more common example, and that's you know, the giving
of money. So recently there there is a big project
announcement's called the Giving Pledge, and this is spearheaded um
by forty U S billionaires Bill Gates and Warren Buffet
among them, and they're publicly saying that they're going to
donate at least half of their money to philanthrop to
(08:37):
philanthropic causes. Well, that's great at work. What do you think, Well,
on one hand, they have all this money, and you
could argue to it's kind of like if you've got
once once, you've got so much money, it's like, does
it hurt to give a certain portion of away, even half?
Especially we're gonna get that nice fat tax break right right,
you know, not to mention your you know, these are
these are guys that are tied with major you know,
(09:00):
corporations and organizations. So it's like, you look pretty good
if you go out there and you just give half
your wealth away, right. True. Yeah, So that's one side
of But on the other it's like, I mean, I'm
not going to be completely cynical about it either, because
I mean I followed like some of the stuff to
like the Gates Foundation, doesn't they do some very good work.
So I mean, indeed, it seems hard to quibble yeah
over that. I don't know if it's altruism, but still
(09:21):
they are giving half their wealth away that was a
sizeable chunk behind. Yeah, I tend to fall like I
tend to fall in the category of thinking. It's kind
of like a little column a little column B. You know,
it's like that you can it allows you to do
something like tax breaks, et cetera. Like it allows you
to do something great but also feel good about it.
You know. It's like when I if I make like
a measily like you know, ten dollar donation to you know,
(09:43):
a different organization or you know, then on one level,
it's like, hey, I feel like I did something good
no matter how you know, small small my part in
it for this you know, a little you know, charity organization.
But then also I do plant it out and put
it in a folder because I'm like, hey, I can
write that off in the taxes. So it's you know,
I feel like it's probably that kind of a relationship
(10:05):
between the two columns with most people, um, though some
people were probably definitely in one category or the other. Right,
So cases are instances of of you know, pure altruism
could be hard to find, but that doesn't mean that
it doesn't exist in some form or another out there
in the human kingdom. Okay, Well that's why I think, like,
like martyrdom in UH is often like the ultimate in
(10:27):
human culture, Like it's held up to this ultimate example
of altruism because it's the idea of giving everything that
you are, you know, or I guess like some I
tend to think of martyrdom more though, as sacrificing yourself
for a cause, like a belief in idea, and that
maybe not what's in the dictionary, but you know, I
think it's well, but a lot of times like that
idea though, like Carrie, at least, the belief is that
(10:49):
that idea saves lives or that idea like makes the
world a better better place, um, even if in reality
it doesn't, you know, I don't know, that's just that's
just my thought on the matter. So biologically speaking, we've
had some thoughts on this, and um, a gentleman named
fran Dwall who's an emery prematologist and a biologist, is saying,
(11:11):
among others that altruism could come from a sense of
empathy we feel when other humans aren't distress. Okay, this
is more I think of like the fire you know,
somebody's caught in a burning building type of or what
is the example? And blade Runner? What is the example? Well,
the whole thing and blade Runner is they have to
do the test to see if the if the replicant
can feel empathy. Oh yeah, that's like a turtle on
(11:34):
a It's not like a turtle on a fence. Put
I can't rease some been a while since I've seen
it or or read the book. I just read to
Android's Dream of elector is that part in the book book?
Because they're very different, and I can't remember what lines
up in what doesn't. Yeah, there is a crazy empathy test.
I can't remember what some of the exact questions are though,
And then like they all centered on animals, whether you
(11:55):
know your response to animals and distress. Yeah, and there's
something to like the little kids like up to a
certain age, they can't feel empathy. Really yeah again, selfish
little guys. So um. Some of the scientists are saying
that altruism could be instilled when female mammals are nursing,
they're young. It sounds a little wacky, but Dual I
(12:16):
was reading this when he was talking about a different
book on altruism that he reviewed in the New York Times.
So anyway, Dual is saying that there's a study in
which men and women had more empathetic responses in a
lab experiment after they were dosed with oxytocin oxytocin, and
this is known as the so called cuddle hormone. Oh yes,
(12:36):
you've heard of the kettle hormone. Um, well it came up.
There was there's a documentary series called This Emotional Life,
and there's a whole section that goes into like studying
Um some it doesn't occur in every case, but in
some cases of children have grown up and like I
could leave sort of like guys Eastern Russian orphanages where
(12:58):
some of them have like it's very like the children
there get a very small amount of attention and they've
not not all the children, but some of them end
up having this, uh, the certain pattern of of sort
of emotional dysfunction, and they've traced it to to this
particular substance. So, um, you know, somebody who might have
(13:19):
a lot of oxytocin would be you know, a breastfeeding
woman or you get it when you're going through childbirth.
And it's also associated with love and stuff like that,
so it is kind of a cuddly hormone. So that's humans.
That's that's a little bit of altruism humans. But what
about other animals? Okay, well, when this instantly comes to
mind is from of course surfing cute animal pictures online
(13:40):
like we all do, uh, where you have instances where like, oh,
the cat just adopted some puppies or the dog just
adopted some kittens. Yeah, the maternal instinct just overrides everything.
And it's so that's true. It seems like sometimes animals
will care for offspring that's not their own. But what's
going on there could still be an example of that
kin selection theory where talking about a little earlier. So
(14:02):
here's an interesting squirrel study. Red squirrel study like that
comes to you from complements of some Canadian researchers at
the University of Alberta, and they reported that there are
some female red squirrels there that were adopting abandoned baby squirrels.
Sounds sounds reasonable, except the squirrels were related. Oh so
(14:25):
like unlike with the cat adopting the puppies, like they're
actually maybe picking up on some sort of genetic similarity
between themselves and the Yeah, and that was really what
the researcher we're trying to figure out. They thought, well,
maybe they can tell by how those squirrels are chattering.
You know, there's some sort of family identifier in that
chatting that they're that they're picking up and able to recognize.
(14:48):
So yeah, they were trying to chease out this connection
and how the adoptive mom was able to recognize the
genetic Lincoln act on it. It's particularly notable too because
we think of there's so many squirrels out there, but
they're actually solitary animals, are they? Because it seems like
they're always chasing each other in my yard? I know,
I know, Um, well, according to the Canadian book. And
(15:09):
the other thing is that they're only going to adopt
once there they would only perform this behavior once otherwise
it's too much of a cost on the existing family.
So anyway, they published this research and Nature Communications. I
thought it was kind of interesting. So it was altruism
by means of kin selection, and I just have to
throw this into um, you know, talking about like the net,
(15:29):
like our natural Like we see a baby and we
we want on some level we want to care for it, right,
some of us do, well, yeah, I look at a
lot of us do. But like you see that tied
into like how they determine which, like which animals we
find cute and which ones we don't. The cuter animals
resemble human infants basically in terms of their eyes, structure
and and all that. That's why I like a kitten,
(15:50):
Like small head, enormous eyes. People go crazy for it.
You could rob a bank with a kitten. You know,
I've never tried to do that. You don't try that,
but I'm just saying you probably could. Yeah, it is interesting.
I mean you you definitely think about, well, they've got
to be cute because you know, a kitten, a puppy,
a baby to some extent can be an awful lot
of work to care for. So you know it does
(16:12):
a cuteness makeup for it, boost their case help them survive.
Cuteness as a survival factor we're thinking about. But the
next animal we're going to talk about isn't really traditionally
thought of, is that cute, right plants? I mean some
point I get flowers or I don't know. I would
never classify a plant is cute neither I UM and
(16:32):
there there hasn't been a whole lot of research done here.
But but some plants are seemingly able to recognize their kin.
How they act on that knowledge is unclear. So examples
of altruism action, we don't really have them. But a
step before that would be being able to recognize or kin. Okay,
although I suppose if it were a truly selfless plant,
it wouldn't matter. And they've also found it in um fish,
(16:56):
really sick lids. So how you say that the I
guess you find these freshwater fish and aquariums. Oh yeah, yeah,
I've seen so. I was reading about a study in
which subordinate females will raise unrelated offspring, and unlike the squirrels,
the instances of the squirrels there is no genetic link. Um.
But these these sicklids are getting some benefits when it
(17:16):
comes time to reproduce. So again, is this altruism not
if it's necessarily boosting their chances at reproductive success and
put personel on like a large level, it's kind of
like the survival of the species, you know, is a
steak with a lot of this. You know, It's like
if I I'm a fish and I adopt a bunch
of extra fish, that's more fish out there that are
going to potentially be successful, right right, I mean they
(17:38):
don't make sitcoms about you know, family ties among sicklids,
right right, So good point, Robert orly And maybe it's
been pitched, but it's never They might have produced a
pilot but it didn't get to get picked up. And
now I have the theme song to Silver Silver Spoon together,
but that's a totally different um sitcom. Yeah. So anyway,
(17:59):
so what about back to area. This is very interesting.
These guys are really not cute. So and this is
what really prompted my interest in getting Robert to go
along with a podcast on altruism. There's a really big
finding on it that comes from a study on resistant
pathogens that's published in September two thousand ten edition of Nature,
I think September two. And we recently talked in that
(18:20):
podcast about quorum sensing about how it's a mistake to
write off bacteria. They're not simple organisms by no means
I think the analogy that I really was proud of
in that one is that they're not like, it's not
like a kid that only advanced as far as the
second grade, but like a kid who like became like
the best second grader in the world. You know, Like
that's the way I like to think of it. You know,
(18:40):
it's like it's a it's in a way, it's a
lower level um as far as organisms go, but they're
really good at that level. Yeah. Yeah, you would be
scared of that second grader. You bow down, you would
give them your twinkie. So here's what a couple of
Boston researchers found out about the latest wonders of bacteria. Specifically,
they're from Harvard and Sustin University, and they may have
(19:02):
stumbled on some altruistic bacteria. Really, so what were they doing.
They were looking at how antibiotic resistance strains of bacteria developed. Right,
they got some strands going on in a bioreactor, they're
monitoring their controlling, they're doing all this stuff, and they're
not necessarily thinking of altruism. And so the typical scenario
we think of when we think of resistant strands, if
(19:25):
if we do in fact think of resistant strands I
imagine some of you guys do, is that you know,
bacterium has a mutation protects it against a certain antibiotic,
and then that one bacterium survives and it replicates like crazy,
and while all of a sudden you have this population
of antibiotic resistant bacteria some strain, right. That's really only
part of the story is what these researchers found out.
(19:46):
There's some pretty interesting things that are happening at a
population level. Okay, so stay with me here. The Massachusetts
researchers were working with E. Coli populations and a bioreactor,
and they found that resistant bacterium wind up producing approach gene. Okay,
so the resistant guys, the ones who are thriving, they
wind up producing this protein and it's called indole I
believe that's how you say it. And the indole helps
(20:08):
out weaker members of the population. So they're pumping this
stuff out. They're pumping this protein, and the mechanism of
the indole kind of acts a little bit like steroid.
It's helping the waxed, weaker bacteria to bulk up and
and fight off the incoming antibiotics. And it also helps
these weaker bacteria to pump the antibiotic out of the cell. Okay,
(20:29):
so where's the altruism part. Well, the production of indole
by those resistant bacteria comes at a cost. It's really, really,
really energy intensive. Okay, so in human terms, we might
say they're sacrificing themselves for the greater good. It's really interesting. Now, Yeah,
it's kind of like I'm kind of like picturing like
the bacteria are like all on like a big camping
(20:51):
trip to it with it, with it, with each other,
and the like the one that's become resistant, it's like
he's the one that has like all You've brought plenty
of rations for self, and then everybody else doesn't have
enough to eat that night, so he ends up sharing
his rations with the other. It's kind of like that
that level. I was like, he could survive on his own, great,
but he's diminishing his own advantage by helping out less
(21:13):
privileged bacteria surrounds. Right, I guess I take the point
of view of m that you know that master camper
is really advancing the skills of the lesser camp campers.
Maybe he's like really good at archery and he's showing
them how to, you know, better hit bulls eyes. You know,
he's guiding him, he's showing them how he's really upping
(21:33):
their skills. Kind of like when the cat brings in half,
like a half of the chipmunk. For me, she's because
I've heard that. Like the whole thing is that they're
they're possibly like trying to teach their humans how to hunt,
or like when they bring in alive animal, they're kind
of like, here you go, this is how you can
do it, you know, here, chase this chipmunk down. You know.
(21:53):
So another podcast in which the cat gets mentioned. Is
this going to be like Seinfeld and which super Roman
comes up in every episode and a cat comes up
in every podcast? Probably? I don't know. It's just I
was never a cat person until recently. So it's like
it brings up to so many questions about the universe.
You know, It's like, what is this creature that lives
in my house and like climbs through a hole in
(22:15):
the wall and like sleeps in the corner of the bed.
What's It's kind of weird. I don't know. So, getting
back to bacteria, the ramifications of this are pretty interesting. Obviously,
we want to know what's going on in resistant bacteria,
and so indele could be something that we investigate further.
This particular protein that the resistant bacteria are pumping out,
(22:36):
maybe we want to target it when we're trying to
figure out the next move. Um, when we're battling these
antabatic resistance strains of bacteria. Maybe it's maybe it's a
target in the war, the ever waging war between humans
and bacteria. Well cool, do we have some We have
some listener mail to to read. Don't you keep getting
(22:58):
lefties writing in or varieties that like lefties, but mostly
lefties and lefty guitarists. So here's an amusic like lefties
are really just left he's writing it pretend they like
open extra email accounts to do it. I see right
through it. Um, So here comes one from Heather and
Heather Rights. Hey, guys, I just finished listening to the
(23:18):
Lefty Podcast, and I have an entertaining story about growing
up left handed in a right handed family. I can relate, Heather.
You see, my parents tried to teach me how to
tie my shoes for years. This was all kepped years.
But sadly, if I didn't tie my fingers into the knot.
I usually made some sort of squiggly mess and it
would fall apart after a few seconds. So I wore
(23:40):
vel crow shoes until a nice old lady that babies
that me taught me how to tie my shoes the
lefty bay I was twelve. Wow, you know, I have
to interject real quick. Are you gonna talk about cround?
How wondrous it is? No, well, this is thing. When
I was a kid, there was so there was one
point where I had the del crow shoes and then
my parents tell we know, you can't wear velcro shoes anymore.
(24:01):
You need to learn to tie your actual shoes because
when you get older, they're not going to have vel
crow shoes anymore. For adults, that was a big fact.
It was a big lie because now I like, I'll
go to this store, I'll be get some new shoes,
and I'll see the velcrow shoes. Gonna be like I
could be wearing those. Now I've learned to tie my
shoes for nothing, you know. Anyway, But to continue, I
had some blue bell crow shoes. They were kind of
(24:21):
like Satine, I want to say, and they were great.
Got a from stride right, just so easy they don't like.
I still have kind of hate shoe because we always
come undone. You're dragging them, stepping on them, tripping over
the shoelaces can be a fashion statement, Robert. Okay, but
getting on to the Hana. Other listener, Milt, we had
a wonderful leech story sent in by Skyler Adam, Missouri,
(24:45):
and I really we just gotta share this one. Okay.
So we did that podcast on leeches a while back,
and we're talking a little bit about you know, somebody
leeches as pets. So Skyler writes, several years ago, I
directed a summer camp waterfront with leech infested waters. Kids
would react with terror whenever one of the wiggly creatures
(25:06):
got anywhere near them. I decided to keep some in
a fish bowl as pets or mascots, if you will. Overnight,
the camper sphere disappeared, and kids would catch little buggers
to add to the collection. Because amaze the strategy work.
Sometimes the simplest solutions are the best. That's the question mark.
But I agree, Yes, send your kids to Can't Blood Leech.
That's a great place, so he continues. By the time
(25:28):
this season ended, I had grown attach the squirmy little guys.
So I brought them back to my college storm with me.
That is interesting. They required very little care, just a
water change every month or so and a feeding every
couple of months. My friends thought I was a little
strange for keeping leeches as pets until I told them
about the feeding. Then they thought it was downright disgusting.
(25:49):
Are you ready for this? I would pop a movie
in the VCR. You're right, you got to set the
mode really yeah? Yeah, so he's popping the movie in
the VCRE. I like to thank you as maybe you
know dirty dancing fast times the Reachmond High, after all,
was the PCR. Or he could actually, there's a movie
called I Suck Your Blood. Maybe it's a vampire movie, yeah,
(26:11):
or blood sucking Freights. There's there's no shortage of blood
sucking movie titles. Well, so he has his movie in
the VCR. He is ready. He'd kicked back with a
soda in one hand and the other hand dangling in
the leach bowl. All twenty eight of the slimy little
creatures would attach to various parts of my hand and
feast away for about an hour. Then they would drop
(26:32):
off and swim away. Alison mentioned feeding them on your finger,
but they showed a market preference for the webbing between.
Oh I love this. First person reaches that's probably I'm
looking at that area now in my hand. Maybe that's
you know, like softer now he well, Skyler's philosophy was
that he reckons that the skin is thinness there and
(26:52):
maybe that was wh only downside to the process was
a subsequent itching and nonclotting. So anyways, all things go well,
and he turns to the camp the next summer and
all leeches were still in good health and he released
them into the swimming area again. Watch the delayed campers
who were looking forward to catching them all over again.
So I just thought that was and thanks to his breathing,
(27:13):
they're like each one's the size of like a small doll.
Now they're enormous. I kid, but that's that's awesome. I mean,
it's like I love it when somebody has like a
like scientific curiosity in something and it goes against the grain.
You know, it's like other people may you know, I
think it's weird to keep leeches in your room and
feed them with your own blood, But those people don't
know a lot about leeches. This guy has information because
(27:35):
he was brave, splash crazy enough to actually get out
there and keep in his pets. Yeah. Very interesting. So,
as always, we love hearing from you guys. These stories
are great, So if you have one you want to
share with us, whether it's on the leeches or bacteria
or altruism, please write us. We're at science Stuff at
hosts dot com. Yeah, and check us out on the
social media. We're on Facebook as stuff from the Science
(27:56):
Lab and on Twitter you can find us as lab
stuff and we will, you know, constantly keep you updated
on what we're researching, what we're podcasting and blogging about,
and you know, just what kind of weird science the
stories we're really into at the moment. That's all. Yeah,
thanks for listening, guys. For more on this and thousands
(28:21):
of other topics, is it how stuff works dot com.
Want more how stuff works, check out our blogs on
the house stuff works dot com home page
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