Episode 12: This Might Sound Kind of Evil

This week, Graycen and Alison talk about cannibalism, bones, mosquitos, and more bones. Then they experiment a little with the Buffs Talk Science format and play a game with Max Levy and Michael Pilosov. Listen here or subscribe on iTunes!

Story notes:

Alison read about how mosquitos are being infected with a special bacteria so that they stop spreading dengue virus. It’s fascinating. Mosquitos are so cool.

Graycen read about some bone bacteria, and why it’s messing with our ability to replicate Jurassic Park.

Alison also read extensively about the Ig Nobel prizes, but she focused on this cannibalism story for the podcast. Here’s the actual paper—you’ll learn more than you ever thought you wanted to know about which body parts have how many calories.

Finally, Graycen read about spooky skeletons—it’s not our usual straight science fare but BOY is it an interesting story.

 

Game Show notes:

Notes provided by the showrunner, Max Levy. For each question, the “fact” that is italicized is false.

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Round: The human condition

1. ---

   Death

   1. Of the 20 longest lived people on record, 19 are women
      • Study published in Cell Stem Cell points points to estrogen increasing the number of blood stem cells https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-06/cp-yao060415.php
   2. Human murders are the deadliest threat (to humans) in the animal kingdom
      • https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/mosquitoes-kill-more-humans-human-murderers-do-180951272/
      • Mosquitos: 725,000….. humans 475,000 
   3. In 2017, more than 100 people (on average) died in vehicle accidents per day
      • Nearly 1.3 million people die in road crashes each year, on average 3,287 deaths a day
      • Each year nearly 400,000 people under 25 die on the world’s roads, on average over 1,000 a day
      • http://asirt.org/Initiatives/Informing-Road-Users/Road-Safety-Facts/Road-Crash-Statistics

2. ---

   Brain stuff

   1. Alex Honnold, of free solo climbing fame, has an amydala similar to those of addicts
      • http://nautil.us/issue/39/sport/the-strange-brain-of-the-worlds-greatest-solo-climber .
      • The concerned scientist leaned in close, shot a glance toward Honnold, and said, “That kid’s amygdala isn’t firing.” 
   2. Memories are stored inside neurons
      • Memories stored in groups of neurons firing together, connected by synapses
      • http://www.human-memory.net/processes_storage.html 
   3. There are millions of neurons in the gut
      • https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gut-second-brain/
      • Referred to as the “enteric nervous system”, can influence mood and well-being
      • 500 million, 2/3 the amount in entire cat’s nervous system 

3. ---

   Mortal coil

   1. Once we reach adulthood, we stop generating new neurons
      • Sapolsky book 
   2. Skin cells live for 2 to 3 weeks
      • https://www.livescience.com/33179-does-human-body-replace-cells-seven-years.html 
   3. Brain cells can last a lifetime
      • https://www.livescience.com/27423-brain-cells-outlive-bodies.html
      • Neurons don’t have fixed lifespan 

4. ---

   20

   1. If you stare at your phone for 20 hours straight, you can get a blood clot in your brain
      • https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5827614/woman-china-blood-clots-20-hour-train-staring-phone/
   2. The brain uses 20% of the body’s energy
      • 3% of body weight but 20% of energy
      • https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-people-only-use-10-percent-of-their-brains/
   3. Humans use less than 20% of their brains
      • https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-people-only-use-10-percent-of-their-brains/
      • Total myth, source unclear but very wrong 

5. ---

   Brain-behavior correlations

   1. Brave hero-like action increases with increasing emotional capacity for empathy
      • Sapolsky book
      • Too much empathy, and you’ll be too overwhelmed to act 
   2. Increased oxytocin is attributed to heightened xenophobia
      • Sapolsky book
      • Oxytocin (the love hormone) makes us warm and cuddly to “Us” and skeptical of “Them” 
   3. Higher testosterone is linked to smaller vocabulary
      • Sapolsky book
      • Testosterone amplifies instincts that a person/animal associates with social dominance

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Round: General science and health

1. ---

   Doctors (this has no false answer. whoops)

   1. Dr. Phil is a doctor
      • Actually he does have a PhD 
   2. Dr. Ben Carson is a doctor
      • very accomplished neurosurgeon… they made a movie about him
      • The gifted hands, cuba gooding jr 
   3. Dr. Seuss is a doctor
      • Honorary doctorate from Dartmouth 

2. ---

   Burning stuff

   1. When we “burn fat”, it is mostly broken down and released in urine or feces
      • We breathe it out!
      • https://theconversation.com/when-we-lose-weight-where-does-it-go-91594 
   2. Consumer products like shampoo contribute approximately as much to urban air pollution as cars burning fuel
      • https://sciencebuffs.org/2018/02/28/clean-hair-dirty-air-how-personal-care-products-may-be-a-cause-of-air-pollution/
      • React efficiently in the air to produce ground level ozone and pm2.5 
   3. Of wildfires burning in California, Trump said that strict environmental laws are to blame
      • Twitter. Obviously. 

3. ---

   The alphabet

   1. You can get vitamin B injected into your butt on Pearl Street
      • B12 injections for energy 
   2. Vitamin C was named for its presence in citrus fruits
      • Nope, just the order of discovery
      • https://gizmodo.com/why-are-vitamins-named-using-the-alphabet-1555934736 
   3. Vitamin A deficiencies can be treated with rice
      • Caused by and treated with rice!
      • http://www.goldenrice.org/

4. ---

   This is an element

   1. Darmstadtium
      • Discovered by Jorge Rigol 
   2. Neptunium
      • used to detect high energy neutrons 
   3. Imodium
      • Stops diarrhea 

5. ---

   Progeny
   

   1. Pregnancy can cause diabetes      
      • https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/gestational-diabetes/symptoms-causes/syc-20355339
      • Fetus releases a hormone that makes mother’s cells insulin resistant, and releases an enzyme that degrades insulin…… leaves more glucose in the bloodstream for the fetus 
   2. Einstein’s last living grandchild died 10 years ago
      • Bernhard Caesar Einstein. He lived from July 10, 1930 – September 30, 2008
      • Also a physicist 
   3. The world’s first computer programmer fathered 3 children, one of whom is known for raising horses
      • Nope, Ada Lovelace. Take that. 

6. ---

   Cancer

   1. Cancer affects twice as many people in world as kidney disease
      • Kidney disease affects 20 times more people
      • https://consumer.healthday.com/diseases-and-conditions-information-37/misc-kidney-problem-news-432/850-million-people-worldwide-have-kidney-disease-735411.html 
   2. Breast cancer is  the most common cancer, and approximately 100 times more common in women than men
      • https://www.wcrf.org/int/cancer-facts-figures/worldwide-data 
   3. The word cancer comes from greek for crab
      • Yep, also known as “creeping ulcer”… hence “canker” sore

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Round: Friends

1. ---

   Family friends

   1. Chicken is the closest living relative to T-rex
      • Yep 
   2. Hippo is closest living relative of elephant
      • Sirenians
      • https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2008/04/elephant-ancestor-evolution-water/ 
   3. Horses are rhinos closest living relative
      • Yep 

2. ---

   Hairy friends

   1. Controlled for body size, chimps have 2 times smaller testes than humans
      • http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/10/why-humans-are-less-well-endowed-chimps
      • 3 times lighter brains…. 3 times heavier testes
      • “tournament” species…. A lot of sex going on and competition to reproduce 
   2. All land mammals (besides humans and apes) can instinctively swim
      • http://www.patheos.com/blogs/geneveith/2017/03/all-mammals-can-swim-except-for-two/
      • Giraffes cant swim. They can wade
      • Model shows that it is theoretically possible: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/burning-question-for-world-giraffe-day-can-they-swim/
        • we conclude that giraffes would be very poor swimmers, and that it might be assumed that they would avoid this activity if at all possible 
   3. Bonobo society is “governed” by matriarchy
      • https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/science/bonobos-apes-matriarchy.html
      • In googling “bonobo mat..” wanted to autocomplete to  “bonobo mating with humans”….. wut 

3. ---

   Feathered friends

   1. The world’s oldest parrot was born in 1933
      • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cookie_(cockatoo)
      • Lived to 83 
   2. Owls are considered to be the most intelligent birds
      • Lol no. https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/03/year-of-the-bird-brains-intelligence-smarts/
      • Ravens, crows, magpies…. 
   3. Ravens can talk
      • Yes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfsnHVaScjg

4. ---

   Ungulate friends

   1. Millions of buffalo used to live East of the Mississippi
      • https://www.nps.gov/articles/bison-bellows-9-16-16.htm 
   2. The bison is state animal of Colorado
      • Big horn sheep
      • Kansas and Wyoming 
   3. Bison is North America’s largest land mammal
      • https://www.nps.gov/bica/learn/nature/bison.htm 

5. ---

   Friends in numbers

   1. The darwin bark spider can shoot a silk web up to 25 meters
      • Spiders were the best part of The Hunt 
   2. Female grizzly bears need more than 50 square miles of habitat 
   3. ~1000 times smaller than the mother, newborn giant pandas have the biggest size difference between mother and newborn
      • Babies are smaller than a cherry (100,000x !!)
      • https://www.thisisinsider.com/baby-animal-sizes-birth-kangaroo-2016-2