This week’s line-up is a perfect reminder that science is not a neat little march of progress. It’s more like a grab bag where you pull out “chicken-powered nuclear landmines”, “mini brains that can sense time”, “one woman quietly preventing a medical catastrophe” and a misinformation spiral about circumcision and autism, all in the same episode.
None of these stories should sit comfortably together. But they do, because humans are capable of astonishing brilliance, and truly unhinged ideas, often at the exact same time.
Chicken-powered nukes
Let’s start with the one that sounds like a prank. During the Cold War, the British came up with a plan called ‘Operation Blue Peacock’, which involved burying atomic landmines in West Germany as a deterrent against a Soviet invasion.
The problem was winter. Electronics and trigger mechanisms don’t love freezing temperatures and someone needed a way to keep the bomb warm enough to function.
So the proposed solution was… chickens. As in, live poultry being placed inside the casing as biological heaters, because a few warm bodies could keep the internal temperature up for long enough to do the job.
It’s hard to know what’s more unsettling: the fact this was seriously discussed, or the fact it’s not even the weirdest Cold War idea on record. Humans will innovate under pressure and sometimes that innovation looks like a farmyard bolted onto nuclear strategy.
Lab Living Mini-brains
Then we jump to the present, where in a ‘Matrix-like’ manoeuvre, scientists are growing “mini brain organoids” that model some aspects of human brain development. They’re not full brains. But they’re still biological tissue doing brain-like things.
Recent work suggests these organoids can “record” the passage of time, in the sense that their activity changes in ways that reflect time-based patterns.
Circumcision, autism, and how a bad idea gets a microphone
Then we hit one of those headlines that makes you blink twice: “Male circumcision doesn’t raise autism risk.” Which immediately raises the more important question, who decided that was a thing we needed to debunk in the first place?
The short version is: this idea didn’t come from solid evidence. It came from the modern misinformation pipeline, where RFK Jr. helped push this one into the spotlight by pointing to studies that floated a possible link between circumcision and autism, not because of circumcision itself, but because of pain relief afterwards, like Tylenol (paracetamol). The logic was basically “circumcision rates equal painkiller exposure”, which is a pretty heroic leap when you’re talking about something as complex as autism.
The thalidomide-blocking badass
And then we end with a story that isn’t funny at all, but matters more than the chickens and the mini brains combined. Thalidomide was a drug that caused devastating birth defects and it became one of the most infamous medical disasters of the 20th century.
In the middle of that era, Frances Kelsey, working at the FDA, refused to approve thalidomide in the United States without stronger evidence of safety. She held the line while the drug was being used elsewhere, and her insistence on proper data prevented enormous harm. It’s a story of someone doing their job with a level of rigour that the system desperately needed.
So that’s the week: nuclear deterrence warmed by chickens, mini brains that make us argue about ethics and language, a reminder that real heroism can look like paperwork, and a misinformation case study where a speculative idea got treated like a fact.
CHAPTERS:
00:00 Creative Bomb “Technology”
00:36 Biowarfare
04:32 Operation Blue Peacock
06:49 Chickens Inside Nukes
09:06 Why The Plan Died
10:10 Brain Organoids Explained
12:55 Can Mini Brains Sense Time?
16:44 Circumcision Autism Shock
21:37 Thalidomide FDA Standoff
27:30 Kelsey’s Legacy
29:52 Rambling Sign-Off
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[00:00:02] Rod: So the General Assembly of the United Nations defines biological warfare thusly: "The use in war of pathogenic or disease-producing bacteria, fungi, protozoa,
[00:00:12] protozoa,
[00:00:13] rickettsiae," viruses, and other agents of infectious disease, or their toxic products and of certain other organic chemical poisons intended to kill or incapacitate human beings or economically useful animals,
[00:00:26] or
[00:00:26] to destroy or damage food crops or other useful plants."
[00:00:29] It's sinister, it's gruesome, it's effective, it's gross. It's either what.
[00:00:32] But
[00:00:33] it lacks scope, it lacks scale, and I reckon most of all, it lacks imagination. But luckily, there are a bunch of plucky military researchers and engineers who thought about scales that were more ambitious than the microscopic.
[00:00:44] Like,
[00:00:45] why don't we use whole animals as the weapons?
[00:00:46] and history's full of examples. So you got bat bombs, Dolphin bombs, All these require the creature to deliver the payload. But this one I just found this week offers a more novel take and has an accidental hat tip to "The Matrix" decades before it was ever filmed
[00:01:01] I like the bongo solo in this tune
[00:01:14] Will: Definitely Bon Iver Yep, definitely
[00:01:16] It's time for a little bit of science. I'm Will Grant, an associate professor in science communication at the Australian National University
[00:01:24] Rod: You definitely are. I'm Rod Lamberts, a, a 30-year veteran of science communication stuff with a mind of a 15-ish-year-old boy
[00:01:31] Will: And today, as well as, uh, bio warfare policy- Yeah
[00:01:36] Rod: Ooh.
[00:01:36] Will: we've also got, um, maybe work on the comms
[00:01:40] Rod: I'm gonna tell you about something I never knew needed to be debunked
[00:01:42] Will: and I've also got a hero of science sincere edition
[00:01:46] Rod: We have to stand up and salute for that one, don't we? Uh,
[00:01:47] Will: I, yes. Yes, we should.
[00:01:49] We should
[00:01:50] Rod: And it has to be a non-white male
[00:01:53] Will: Uh, it doesn't necessarily Otherwise can't- Oi, what
[00:01:55] Rod: are y- no,
[00:01:55] you can't do the story
[00:01:55] Will: Well, what are you... No, it's not being so- Can't do the story Look at you. Look at... Whatever. No, we, we can do both Why
[00:01:56] stop being so- Can't do the salute
[00:01:56] Rod: Look
[00:01:57] Will: at you. Look at, whatever. No, there's, we, we can do both So what are we learning, biowarfare here?
[00:02:02] Rod: Well, yeah, but on a scale that I really quite admire
[00:02:05] Will: Oh.
[00:02:06] really?
[00:02:06] Rod: It's, it's, well, it's inventive
[00:02:07] Will: Tell us, tell us what is the scale?
[00:02:09] Rod: right.
[00:02:09] I'll tell you
[00:02:10] Will: All right
[00:02:10] Rod: Okay. All right.
[00:02:11] Will: I'll tell you Okay.
[00:02:11] All right
[00:02:12] Rod: It's, it's bigger than microscopic. Let's go
[00:02:13] going to Cold War. A lot of tensions, you probably didn't know this, a lot around the world, but particularly in Europe,
[00:02:18] People were worried about stuff
[00:02:19] Will: Yeah
[00:02:20] Rod: and-
[00:02:20] Will: Iron Curtain has descended across Europe
[00:02:22] Rod: I know, and it's very hard to drive through an Iron Curtain.
[00:02:24] Do I
[00:02:24] anyway, yeah, NATO folks,
[00:02:25] know where she's from. So anyway, NATO folks, they, they were constantly looking for ways to
[00:02:27] preempt
[00:02:28] and protect the glorious free West-
[00:02:30] Will: Yes
[00:02:30] Rod: from the evils of the hideous monsters of the Euro East.
[00:02:34] Will: Euro East.
[00:02:35] Rod: You know, the
[00:02:36] Europeans.
[00:02:37] Will: I
[00:02:37] Rod: know. Terrible monsters.
[00:02:38] Will: it's the Soviet Union. It's not the, it's not the fact that they were in Eastern Europe, it was, it was the fact that they were
[00:02:43] Rod: So they were pretty big fans of
[00:02:44] sussing
[00:02:44] sussing out, nuclear solutions-
[00:02:46] Will: To-
[00:02:47] Rod: to the problem of invading-
[00:02:49] Will: Yeah, okay ...
[00:02:49] Rod: the nasty Red Army.
[00:02:50] Will: Yeah, okay. So the in- army invades, we can throw a nuke at their army.
[00:02:53] Rod: One way or another, yeah. Yeah. And so for a long time you only really-
[00:02:55] Will: Do they, do they really model it? So an army is sitting here- Yeah ... and we put a nuke in the middle of the army.
[00:03:00] Rod: A lot of them-
[00:03:00] Will: How many army is left?
[00:03:02] Rod: Less than before. And what kind of remains do we have?
[00:03:06] Ash and
[00:03:07] Ash and goo.
[00:03:08] So, you're staring at options for a long time for delivering a nuke. Dropped from a plane.
[00:03:12] Will: Yep.
[00:03:12] Rod: Strapped to a missile.
[00:03:13] Will: Yep.
[00:03:14] Rod: Maybe lob it from a cannon, but fuck, it would have to be a big-
[00:03:17] Will: Yeah
[00:03:18] Rod: diameter of a cannon.
[00:03:18] Will: Yeah, but you, you know, not impossible.
[00:03:20] Rod: We wanna get it a long way from you.
[00:03:22] Will: Yeah. Well, it depends on the size of the nuke as well.
[00:03:24] Rod: Well, it does. And I don't think they would've been going like your briefcase nukes in the early days.
[00:03:28] Will: Yeah, but they, they did say that there would be, you know, your megaton, your kiloton.
[00:03:31] You can have low kiloton device. Your
[00:03:33] Rod: microton.
[00:03:34] Will: Yeah. Or j- yeah. It's-
[00:03:36] Rod: Like go to a deli and-
[00:03:37] Will: Your centiton ... 500 units ... centiton or your, or
[00:03:40] Rod: your deciton. Or the deciton of-
[00:03:41] of nuclear bomb, please.
[00:03:42] So one alternative the POMs came up with was, uh, underground nuclear mines
[00:03:47] Will: Oh. and like,
[00:03:48] tunneling under
[00:03:49] Rod: Bury-
[00:03:50] Will: uh, uh, under the Soviet Union from England No,
[00:03:52] Rod: no, no Uh They wanted to put them in,
[00:03:53] West
[00:03:54] Germany
[00:03:54] Will: And so you set them off when the army is coming close
[00:03:56] Rod: Yeah, that's the thing. They didn't- Okay ... they didn't wanna leave it
[00:03:58] them. You--
[00:03:59] like so that you step on it and it go pff
[00:04:00] Will: I do like the idea that the trigger could have just been a soldier stands on it Oh, shit.
[00:04:06] Rod: And
[00:04:06] then you're thinking that was just the scout.
[00:04:08] We
[00:04:08] Used a whole nuke and we got one soldier
[00:04:09] Will: Yeah, one, one person. Like, yeah. Those
[00:04:11] Rod: headphones
[00:04:11] Will: Yeah
[00:04:12] Rod: So no, they were saying, "Okay, what we're gonna do is we wanna place these nuclear landmines in, in West Germany to stop this hypothetical Soviet invasion" Th-
[00:04:19] Will: uh, this does sound like a policy that someone outside that country would come up with
[00:04:22] Rod: 100%
[00:04:23] So
[00:04:24] Will: Like- They're like, "
[00:04:25] Rod: Wh- where shall we put it?
[00:04:26] Check. West Germany.
[00:04:28] Seems
[00:04:28] far enough"
[00:04:30] Will: Only Jerry there Yeah,
[00:04:31] Rod: exactly. Fabulous. so welcome to Operation Blue Peacock
[00:04:34] Which is a name that kind of
[00:04:35] of
[00:04:36] weirdly hints at what it is, and I'll get to that
[00:04:38] So it was a classified 1955 paper, and it, and it
[00:04:40] it
[00:04:41] said, "A skillfully sited atomic mine would not only destroy facilities and installations over a large area"
[00:04:47] Will: Yeah
[00:04:47] Rod: to argue,
[00:04:48] "Hard to argue, but would deny occupation of the area to an enemy for an appreciable time due to contamination"
[00:04:53] Will: Oh, great
[00:04:54] Rod: Yes, we've all heard of nukes
[00:04:55] Will: Yeah
[00:04:55] Rod: We agree.
[00:04:56] So the plan is as, as we flagged, it wasn't for some poor bastard to be the scout, tread on it and it goes boom. Detonate it remotely or put a timer on it that could be set for up to eight days delay. So if you're pretty confident they were coming, you could set a timer and go, "Okay"
[00:05:10] Will: I still feel like you could probably put a wire or something like that would be a bit better than-
[00:05:13] Rod: No.
[00:05:14] No
[00:05:14] Will: I, I'm gonna go with remote. I, I don't wanna put a timer. Like what if- No ... what if it's raining that day and the Soviets say, "All right, let's-"
[00:05:20] Rod: Invasion's
[00:05:21] Will: like a full day."
[00:05:22] paused "... wait a few days." Like I think-
[00:05:23] Rod: We have, we have
[00:05:24] have
[00:05:24] maybe short, uh, postponement Uh, a-
[00:05:26] minion.
[00:05:27] Will: and then the nuke goes. I like, I don't, I don't like ti- random timers like that
[00:05:30] Rod: But see, the thing was you weren't on this-
[00:05:32] Will: Well, okay.
[00:05:32] That's, that's- ... you weren't on this All right. Fair enough So
[00:05:34] Rod: they didn't take-
[00:05:34] Will: All right. So they had timers and that, but they did have remote facilities
[00:05:38] Rod: They had remote facilities, or at least that was the theory, but the timers were the things that seemed to win the day, up to
[00:05:42] days.
[00:05:43] So
[00:05:43] "What do you mean up to eight days? My God." So they, they only had one kind of nuke available to them, which is called the Blue Danube, and I don't know why. It's a very peaceful and beautiful name for a nuclear- Well,
[00:05:51] Will: it's a song
[00:05:52] Rod: The Bl-
[00:05:52] It is, but, uh, just interesting. "What
[00:05:54] we call this nuke?" "I think the Blue Danube." " So it's a 10 kiloton explosion, or it would be.
[00:06:00] Will: Which is half of your Hiroshima
[00:06:02] Rod: Is it? Is it a 20?
[00:06:03] Will: Yeah, roughly.
[00:06:04] Rod: Whoa.
[00:06:04] Whoa. Okay, so half a Japanese first boom boom bomb,
[00:06:09] but
[00:06:09] in mine form. The crater they reckon be about 100 meters-ish in diameter, which is-
[00:06:14] Will: Yep
[00:06:15] Rod: not nothing.
[00:06:15] Will: So if the Soviets put all of 10,000 men into that 100 meter radius-
[00:06:20] Rod: would
[00:06:21] Will: would be fucked ... it would take more. Typically not the way that armies necessarily travel.
[00:06:25] Rod: Tend to not
[00:06:25] Will: as a rule. They don't tend to clump. Like if, if, I mean, are, are you really thinking, "Okay, we're gonna "okay, camp on top of this, Did, did the British leave like a little sign above it saying, you know, "Great, great camping spot."
[00:06:35] Free bird food. "Set up your headquarters." Free bird food. Like- 100% mobile
[00:06:41] Rod: So, um, yeah, that's what it would do, and of course it would leave radiation fallout, et cetera. But these, these devices are also a were also a little bit sensitive. So tests found that in the cold conditions of European winter, it could cool them so much they wouldn't work, which is a problem. So they insulated them and that wasn't enough, so they needed something to keep the mines warm.
[00:06:59] Will: Oh my God.
[00:07:00] Rod: Warm enough. And the solution was chickens.
[00:07:03] Will: What? What? What?
[00:07:07] Rod: What? Duh. Duh. Chickens.
[00:07:08] Will: You know, if you had said- ... if you had said, "Let's play a guessing game here." Yeah. You have to guess the solution and how they kept it wa- I think it would've been, well, a very long podcast episode before I got to chickens. Even if you're giving clues, like- these are live chickens?
[00:07:23] Rod: Oh, yeah.
[00:07:23] Will: And they're buried in with the bomb? Or- Oh, yeah.
[00:07:25] Rod: So there's- uh,
[00:07:26] Will: And they struggle for eight days warmly.
[00:07:29] Rod: No, they don't struggle. There are many sources talking about this BBC one. The birds will be put inside the casing of the bomb, obviously.
[00:07:35] Will: Live?
[00:07:36] Rod: Yeah, alive. Uh, not, not like Um, then they were given some bird seed to keep them alive and stop them from pecking at the wiring, which is probably good. We're not
[00:07:45] Will: which is probably good. We're not monsters.
[00:07:46] Rod: No, I know. No, I
[00:07:47] Will: know.
[00:07:47] Rod: Let 'em eat until they suffocate or whatever. And the theory was the chicken's body heat would heat would be enough to maintain the triggering mechanism's working temperature.
[00:07:55] Will: And they could cope in the dark and the insula-
[00:07:57] Rod: They're chickens. I mean, you see, you see how we treat chickens, and they somehow work it out so they reckon the chickens would last, uh, about a week, and after after that time- Wow ... the bomb would cool too much to do it.
[00:08:06] Will: Wow.
[00:08:08] Rod: I know. So this is where I think Blue Peacock wasn't actually a bad-- it's not so romantic way of describing it because, you know.
[00:08:14] Will: Why didn't we get peacocks?
[00:08:15] Rod: Well, peacocks-
[00:08:16] Will: I mean, that would've been-
[00:08:17] Rod: have feathers and blue, they're cold
[00:08:19] Will: Peacock's more expensive, I guess.
[00:08:21] Rod: They are, and bigger.
[00:08:22] Will: But the feathers are the point here. Feathers are your insulation. So this is like a, this is like a living down blanket.
[00:08:27] Rod: Uh, yeah. Well, more like a living... it's like Iron Man's heart, but you do it with chicken. Yeah. They needed the, the natural body heats. And, mean, this is why I think this is Matrix-like too, you know? You Using this life form as a, as a battery and plugging it in and keeping it alive. Gross. So by 1958, they had two prototypes.
[00:08:44] Will: Oh, really?
[00:08:45] Rod: They did one test and they said, "Nah."
[00:08:47] Will: That, so did the test with the chickens?
[00:08:49] Rod: Apparently they did one test. All, all I could find was the project was canceled after one test.
[00:08:52] Will: I feel like, I know that this is the military, so they n- don't necessarily have the same ethics as, as the
[00:08:58] Rod: they do r-
[00:08:58] Will: They do not But did, did, did "we wanna get some chickens for this. I like- Saving
[00:09:05] Rod: lives, man ...
[00:09:05] Will: wow.
[00:09:06] Rod: So it seems they abandoned it not because, you know, poultry fetishists said this is cruel. It was lamer reasons. It was like they were aware, the British went, "Oh, there might be an unacceptable amount of nuclear fallout from the blast." And like, yeah, you blow up the nukes in Germany, others made, well, East Germany- Yeah ... or the beginning of West Germany, and that matter that you might wanna bury a bunch of, or detonate a bunch of nuclear weapons in an allied territory's-
[00:09:31] Will: Yeah, indeed ...
[00:09:32] Rod: space. And also, just a weird side to wrap it up, apparently the records of all this were released to the public in England in 2004 on April the on April the 1st. Officials were strident in denying that this was not an April Fool-
[00:09:43] Will: So why did they go out on that day?
[00:09:44] Rod: I don't know. And the BBC- Why? ... again, they quoted the head of education and interpretation at the National Archives, who said, " It does seem like an April fool, but it most certainly is not. The civil service does not do jokes."
[00:09:56] Will: Well, good.
[00:09:57] Rod: So there you go. That's, uh, that's macro biological warfare as far as i'm concerned. So so hat tip to the boffins in the British labs- in the
[00:10:04] Will: beautiful ... in
[00:10:04] Rod: 1954.
[00:10:05] Will: I am so glad you've told me that. That is, that is, that is absolutely wonderful
[00:10:10] So, I don't know if you've, paid much attention to the organoid developments. Organoids.
[00:10:16] Rod: and pieces.
[00:10:16] Will: Okay. So- That's true ... over the last little while, there's been, uh, growing bits of research where people are like, "Okay, we want to understand the human brain." Mm. and various ways we can look at it. We can look at the way humans behave.
[00:10:29] Yes. You know, that's, that's great. We can look at things humans say to us. That's also great. Yes. We can look inside the brain in different ways with your, your magnetic resonance imaging. Drill a hole in a little-
[00:10:40] Rod: a
[00:10:40] Will: Or you drill a hole ...
[00:10:41] Rod: a little tube ...
[00:10:42] Will: or, you know, historically, bits of brains get accidentally removed and we go, "Oh, well that bit obviously did something important." Like-
[00:10:48] Rod: Whoops.
[00:10:49] Will: Yeah. So, so there have been lots of ways we've tried to understand the brain and, and I get this is, this is one of the big quests of humanity is to understand the human brain. How does it produce the beauty that is us? But the new movement in the last little while is the organoid movement.
[00:11:03] Rod: It
[00:11:04] Will: Is it? So what you do is you, you- This is gonna
[00:11:07] Rod: delight me, isn't it? Isn't
[00:11:08] Will: No, you've heard this bit before. Yeah. So this is where you get bits of human brain tissue. You've grown these from stem cells, so they're not from a person. Well, originally they are from humans, but-
[00:11:19] Rod: pulled out of a brain
[00:11:21] Will: They were pulled out of a brain not pulled out of a brain. Yeah. And then you grow them and you put them in collections. So for example, in our own brains, we have like, 86 billion neurons. But, these are in small, vastly smaller scale.
[00:11:32] Rod: I was gonna say, I think, sorry,
[00:11:33] Will: yes, much smaller scale. Yeah, like 200,000 or something like that, depending on, you know. So, so a lot less, but it's, it's... There's a number of them and they are human, um-
[00:11:41] Rod: it's a but
[00:11:43] Will: It's, it's a tiny percentage. It's a tiny percentage. Yeah. But um, you know, there's been some really fascinating work that's been done. Mm. So there's an Australian company that have got a, an organoid on a chip, like human brain basically smeared onto a computer chip first it was playing Pong, not quickly, but it could learn to play Pong and now they... then they got it playing- Yeah ... uh, Doom, like the 3D, well, semi-3D computer game. So yeah, that's, that's-
[00:12:06] Rod: Well, it's pretty keen, because what else it's gonna do? It's got do? It's got no sense
[00:12:08] Will: of
[00:12:10] Rod: humor. Well Arms and legs.
[00:12:10] Will: I'll come to that in a second.
[00:12:12] Rod: Oh,
[00:12:12] Will: as well as doing this sort of experiment, so the, the point of these experiments- Mm ... is, yes, to see what we might be able to build with it. Mm. the other one is this great one where, they wanted to put the brain organoids in the body of a crab. well, a, a robot crab. A robot crab. Oh. A robot crab.
[00:12:27] Rod: Yes.
[00:12:28] Will: Yes. And so- Yes ... this is like human brain cells then moving a robot- Crab crab robot, around the-
[00:12:34] Rod: Why does that make it better than a
[00:12:36] Will: life crab? I don't know, but it's so awesome.
[00:12:38] Rod: And if you're gonna put it in a if why not put it in you're gonna put no, no, no, no, no. No, no, it no. B- listen to me. We- in a robot, why not put it in a human-shaped robot? No, no, no, no, no. No, no. No. Listen to me. We'll, we'll make it a crab.
[00:12:45] Will: So I just wanna stress, this is a vast...
[00:12:48] Like, it's, it's like a, a drop of blood, a speck of blood equivalent compared with your brain. it is not the same thing at all. And so- That's not what I want you to think ... but I do want, people to perhaps work on their messaging around the brain organoids because I was reading this study and I'm like- Right
[00:13:03] "Oh my God. this new one suggests that, and this, this comes in the journal Nature. creating these miniature brains, these organoids can sense the passage of time. Nope
[00:13:17] Rod: No, see, see now, to me, that would to me that would be one of the big no-no's
[00:13:20] Will: I'm just like, oh
[00:13:22] Rod: How long are you trapped in this eternal darkness with no idea what's going on
[00:13:26] Will: How
[00:13:26] Rod: exist? Uh, tell
[00:13:28] Will: long are you trapped in this eternal darkness with no idea what's going on or why you exist? Uh, I can tell you exactly- It's been six years ... seven hours, two seconds So,
[00:13:35] Rod: What a
[00:13:35] Will: know- What a horrible, horrible, horrible bad-
[00:13:37] Rod: bad, horrible
[00:13:38] Will: I, I, this is actually interesting research Mm-hmm and it does suggest things about brain cell develop. But there's the bit of me that's like, we've got to be careful where, you know, we're using human brain cells. It's like, are we creating little baby human souls and they can sense-
[00:13:51] Rod: not looking forward to see that it might be doing that you didn't realize, one of being aware of its the things you're not looking forward to seeing them might be doing that you didn't realize, like being aware of your
[00:13:55] Will: own existence So, they're stem cell derived collections of brain cells, and these ones in this study are the longest lived organoids, that have been observed living for over six years. Oh. So, so they've been observing them and seeing how they... This, this is unprecedented.
[00:14:09] Rod: So they've started school
[00:14:10] Will: They
[00:14:12] Rod: can can wash and feed themselves. This is fine.
[00:14:15] Will: Normally they're only around for like a few weeks or a few months. But- Right ... what they have done here is look at how organoids develop a little bit and how they might have baby cells.
[00:14:26] and, uh, what they're showing is that they are capable of both recording and recalling their developmental age. Oh, boy. Now, this is not, You don't ask them how old are you, and they say, "I'm only four,
[00:14:37] Rod: Six.
[00:14:37] Will: but I have nothing." Yet. No, they're not, they're not toddlers trapped in the dark. Are
[00:14:41] Rod: we sure?
[00:14:42] Will: we sure? No. what it suggests is that, Ugh newly formed cells have certain ways of dividing, and it do- doesn't really matter here- Sure ... that produce, offspring cells that is different from an older cell and so they're building them and they show over time this pattern where they are retaining this cellular memory of how old they are, so when they're dividing, they're behaving like these older cells.
[00:15:06] Rod: So-
[00:15:07] Will: it's not quite a sense of time in the sense of- No ... our sense of time.
[00:15:11] Rod: well, to be fair, at all.
[00:15:14] Will: Yes, indeed. Yes, indeed. it's more like our bodies wear down, and so these brain cells wear down over time as well.
[00:15:21] Rod: Maybe they're things like, you know, programmed senescence- ... which is like at a, at a very deeply molecular level, not in molecular level, not at some part of your, at the subconscious brain.
[00:15:29] Will: The researchers detected a progressive decline in the essential yet fragile neurons that power brains. They c- they, they sh- can see these sorts of declines over time, and how they behave does change over time. But, you know, to jump through to the passage of time and their sensing, you've just got to be careful.
[00:15:45] Rod: And this is in Nature.
[00:15:47] Will: This is in Nature, and literally- It's our fault ... literally- It's our fault if,
[00:15:50] Rod: fault
[00:15:50] Will: if I flip to the title- yeah. "Human brain organoids record the passage of time over multiple years." Yeah.
[00:15:55] Rod: Yeah. See? No. Now, what they've what they've done is they've taken ... It's our fault. It's our fault. Science communication fuckwits like like us-
[00:16:02] Will: Indeed ...
[00:16:02] Rod: who've been banging away at this for decades, they went and listened-
[00:16:06] Will: Mm-hmm
[00:16:07] Rod: and got it wrong.
[00:16:08] Will: Made it clear, made it engaging, made it pop, made it cut through. Yeah.
[00:16:11] Rod: Yeah.
[00:16:11] Will: it connect with your podcast audience.
[00:16:13] Rod: And now horrified. You've traumatized a whole new generation and now horrified. You've who are no longer gonna become scientists-
[00:16:19] Will: So-
[00:16:19] Rod: traumatized a whole new generation of p- people who are no longer going to become scientists. So Educating, what do you call it? Toddlers in the dark- who are who are counting the seconds in which sit they sit alone doing nothing.
[00:16:27] Will: So bloody fascinating research and, this is just great that you are trying to look at how brain cells function, how they connect, how they work- Yeah with each other. Yeah. This is awesome and I, I absolutely support this, but man, work on your messaging.
[00:16:40] Rod: But thanks for listening to us.
[00:16:44] So
[00:16:44] I saw this headline this week, not from the science paper itself, but from a very good source that talks about science all the time. Here's the headline, " Male circumcision stuff all the time. Here's the headline: doesn't raise after birth doesn't raise autism risk.
[00:16:56] Will: Wow.
[00:16:57] Rod: Yeah.
[00:16:57] Will: Wow.
[00:16:58] Rod: My first reaction was literally, "who the fuck thought this and why? What, what are you talking about? Why does this need to be-
[00:17:04] Will: I, I, I like this, the, the idea having a foreskin or not, and when it gets removed or not.
[00:17:09] Rod: And autism. And like, "What the fuck are you talking about? Thank you for debunking a thing you're like, "What the fuck are you talking about?" Thank you for debunking a thing that I did not realize there was was any reason to talk any reason to talk about
[00:17:15] Will: at all.
[00:17:16] Rod: The ever-curious RFK Jr. was a part of inspiring this recent study that this guy's referring to. Is he... headline's
[00:17:21] Will: Just, just to get on the record before we dive in- Yes, yes ... I just wanna, is he pro or anti-circumcision?
[00:17:26] Rod: That is unclear.
[00:17:27] Will: Oh, okay.
[00:17:29] Rod: I'm gonna go with-
[00:17:29] Will: I thought he would have strong opinions on it.
[00:17:31] Rod: I'm sure he does,
[00:17:32] Will: I just need to know which direction they're strong
[00:17:35] Rod: It-- Ooh, it's a good question. Like, I imagine he's against because, u-unless you do it with your teeth. Like it's gotta like, it's gotta be caveman stuff.
[00:17:43] Will: Self, self? Like-
[00:17:44] Rod: Oh, the kid has to do it themselves. " Son, you got teeth now. You
[00:17:47] Will: gotta
[00:17:48] Rod: So apparently he's on record recently as saying, and there's links to this in the show notes, A, a, two studies show that children who are circumcised have double the rate of autism.
[00:17:58] Will: Oh.
[00:17:58] Rod: But- This
[00:17:59] Will: is, this is Ro- Robert F. Kennedy type studies?
[00:18:01] Rod: no, no. These are real. They're not- Okay ... fake. B, it's highly likely it's 'cause they were given Tylenol after the procedure.
[00:18:07] Will: Oh my Go- oh
[00:18:09] Rod: So-
[00:18:09] Will: For Australian listeners, Tyno- Tylenol is basically your Panadol. Panadol,
[00:18:12] Rod: yeah. It's, it's, they've both got basically paracetamol-
[00:18:15] Will: I feel like, I feel like giving, uh, um, also got you just got your foreskin cut off. I feel like legitimate to give a little bit of painkiller. "Can I have
[00:18:22] Rod: some opium please?"
[00:18:24] Will: Opium.
[00:18:24] Rod: this is fucked
[00:18:25] "This is fucked up."
[00:18:26] Will: You got the- Give me Panadol
[00:18:26] Rod: Panadol?"
[00:18:27] Will: toddlers on opium "
[00:18:28] Rod: You my cut the end of my dick off and I don't even get an opioid? This is bullshit."
[00:18:31] So he's he's not saying the cut causes the condition as such, but of course- oh,
[00:18:36] Will: Uh, it's the surrounding conditions. It's the context.
[00:18:38] Rod: So here's a little background. So and his buddies he and his buddies were probably referring to two studies that happened in the early 2010s. First 20, So there's an exploratory paper, it's titled " Prenatal and Perinatal analgesic Exposure and Autism" Just the abstract? Yeah. So it used country level circumcision rates as a rough proxy-
[00:18:56] Will: Wow ...
[00:18:57] Rod: to estimate early childhood exposure to paracetamol, or as Americans call it-
[00:19:01] Will: Oh, okay
[00:19:03] Rod: acetaminophen.
[00:19:03] Will: Oh, okay. So we're saying count-
[00:19:05] Rod: If they've been circumcised-
[00:19:06] Will: They get-
[00:19:07] Rod: they've they've been probably given Tylenol.
[00:19:08] Will: Y- okay, yes, but there might be other things that babies might get, uh, pain relief for.
[00:19:14] Rod: Or they might not have been given that.
[00:19:16] Will: Indeed, but, but that's a wild jump to go. At the country level, if you have more circumcision, you have more pain relief.
[00:19:24] Oh, maybe. Ma- okay, just pause. Y- I'm just, I'm just walking through their logic. You could say all random things happen to babies randomly across the world. maybe there are some potentially, you know, hospital related things that are more likely to happen in, in, um, developing world hospitals versus others.
[00:19:41] But, but- Yep ... but generally, genetic issues or accidents or something like that happen randomly, and circumcision is one of the few choice things where we will- Yes ... ca- cause harm.
[00:19:51] Rod: So to be clear, in this study, circumcision was not the focus.
[00:19:53] Will: Yes. It- It got some-
[00:19:54] Rod: measure.
[00:19:55] Will: Circumcision as the proxy. Wow.
[00:19:57] Rod: Like- I know, it's like, it's obvious when think about it. You hear it and you go like, you think about it. You're going do." S- so data about the procedures were analyzed as if they were proxies described by the authors. Uh, th- this is the thing to be clear on. The, the authors themselves say this is just a hypothesis generating exploratory analysis not intended to reach a conclusion about any links and it it requires-
[00:20:18] Will: I do love, I do love a study ...
[00:20:20] Rod: large-scale follow-up
[00:20:20] Will: I, I love a study that says, we stress here no conclusions can come from whatever we're doing now. We're not concluding anything. This, this is not a concluding based thing. This
[00:20:28] Rod: just doing is- We're just doing this. You're like, "Well, why then?" We're go- We- Not, not to conclude anything ...
[00:20:31] Will: this is scientific spitballing.
[00:20:32] Rod: Yep. We're gonna have a little rummage around. And, and at least in, in their defense, they, they're only using data that exists. Okay. Yeah, they're not going out and circumcising. Are they? Uh, well, I don't think so. Are they using data that exists. Okay.
[00:20:38] Will: Yeah, they're not going
[00:20:38] Rod: for the circumcision. Yeah. Are they? I, well, I don't think so. Are they using well? Eh. Anyway, and we've also got to, like, again, let's not forget the big assumption. If a baby was circumcised, they were given the painkiller. Yeah, yeah. That's a huge assumption. The authors of the study had no data on whether or not the circumcised boys actually did get nothing.
[00:20:55] Will: Yeah.
[00:20:56] Rod: Straight up assumption.
[00:20:58] They looked at nine countries, and for each country they got two pieces of data: percentage of the population that was circumcised, and prevalence of autism in men. Mm-hmm. Okay? Mm-hmm. In some cases, the circumcision rate was estimated based on the number of Jewish and Muslim men in the country.
[00:21:13] Will: Wow. Wow. So we've just gone there. That's... know some, um, men that are not Jewish or Muslim that are circumcised. For the
[00:21:20] Rod: whole FDA.
[00:21:20] Will: For the whole FDA.
[00:21:21] Rod: Cool. It's it's only for one company. I
[00:21:25] Will: Well, yeah. Only a few hundred. And, and, and I feel like, you know, that's, it, it's pretty much a boom time in chemistry, where it's like, "Well, what can we do? What can we do?"
[00:21:33] Rod: It's a boom time in everything.
[00:21:34] Will: Well, that's true.
[00:21:35] Rod: That, fewer than I expected.
[00:21:37]
[00:21:38] Will: One of her first assignments, and I do wanna point to the fact that this is one of her first assignments, and yes, she has been working as an academic for 15 years at this point, so, you know, she, she's not inexperienced.
[00:21:50] But one of her first assignments at the FDA was to review an application by Richardson-Merrell, that's a company-
[00:21:56] Rod: Mm-hmm ...
[00:21:57] Will: for the drug thalidomide, which was under the, under the trade name Kevadon, um-
[00:22:03] Rod: Yeah,
[00:22:04] Will: which was used as a tranquilizer and painkiller.
[00:22:07] Rod: Was it,
[00:22:08] w- This is pre-antiemesics.
[00:22:09] Will: Well, yes. the particular thing that, um, Richardson-Merrell wanted, doctors to prescribe this for was for pregnant women with morning sickness.
[00:22:19] Rod: Ah. They wanted to prescribe it for
[00:22:22] Will: that. Well, in other parts of the world, Australia- Yeah
[00:22:25] Rod: Yeah ...
[00:22:25] Will: uh,
[00:22:26] Japan, Canada, more than 20 European and African countries, it had already been approved.
[00:22:31] Right. Now, I'll, we will detail in a second- Details to be revealed ... we'll detail in a second some of the, the horrors of thalidomide. And it's weird how short of a timeframe this is. it's two years from go to whoa in this whole thing. Right. And, uh, yeah. Mm. So, Frances Kelsey withheld approval for the drug.
[00:22:54] At the time, the FDA could only withhold approval for 60 days at a time. So she's like-
[00:22:59] Rod: Right ... "
[00:23:00] Will: No,
[00:23:01] uh, I'm not gonna approve this because Richardson-Merrell, when they submitted this, contained no scientific methodology in what's going on." They're just saying- Such
[00:23:08] Rod: a stickler.
[00:23:10] Will: They just say, they, they just say, "Okay, this drug helps with this," and she's like, "Uh-"
[00:23:14] Rod: I'm gonna need any information. "A, I need some information there.
[00:23:16] Will: I'm gonna need any information.
[00:23:16] A, A, I need some information there," and B, she looked at the authors and they're like, "Okay, all those authors have published a bunch of dodgy stuff in the past."
[00:23:24] Rod: You
[00:23:24] gotta love that though. "No, no, no. If y- y- we're just saying if people drink this, they'll get better from that. But we wrote it down."
[00:23:31] Will: We
[00:23:32] got to learn that though. No, no, no. If y- y- we're just saying if people drink this, they'll get better from that. But we wrote it down. We wrote it down in a letter to you. It's on the paper. In a let- And, it's fascinating to me, a whole bunch of other countries had approved this.
[00:23:39] Rod: Yeah.
[00:23:39] Will: Had approved this.
[00:23:40] Rod: Which they
[00:23:40] they
[00:23:41] would assume and help them nudge their case just get on.
[00:23:42] Will: Well, they would have done, absolutely. Absolutely. So she had this 60-day period where they can just say, "No, we're, we're, we can ask for more information, but we can't, you know, we've got to give a, a, a judgment every 60 days."
[00:23:53] Right. So
[00:23:53] So
[00:23:54] Kelsey at this point is like, "Okay, give me more information. Mm. now, by December 1960, there is a letter in the British Me- Medical
[00:24:01] Journal by Leslie Florence, showing thalidomide connects to neurological symptoms. So not, not the birth defects story this yet- Yeah
[00:24:07] but she's like, "Oh, what's going on here?" Yeah.
[00:24:10] Rod: Was this neurological symptoms in
[00:24:12] babies
[00:24:13] or
[00:24:13] Will: just-
[00:24:13] Uh, yeah. Okay.
[00:24:14] yeah. Now, so this letter recalled to Kelsey the work that she had done on early work on birth defects when she saw the drugs going through the, um,
[00:24:24] Rod: placenta
[00:24:25] Will: through the placenta. She said, okay, Richardson-Merrell, can you give us some animal studies to demonstrate the drug would not be harmful to the fetus?"
[00:24:32] Rod: No
[00:24:33] Will: Richardson-Merrell are like, Well, here's the thing. They had already done some, tests on drugs, uh, that had sh- that, that had shown birth defects.
[00:24:43] Rod: So, so their answer is
[00:24:43] is, "Yeah, but we, we don't want to."
[00:24:46] Will: But,
[00:24:46] w- th- th- no, they had done them.
[00:24:48] Uh,
[00:24:48] had done literal tests on rats and had shown thalidomide led to birth defects in rats, and they didn't report it, and instead-
[00:24:56] Rod: Counterpoint, counterpoint. Rats are not people, so so it's fine.
[00:24:59] Will: That is true. That is true. and so they sent, um, misleading partial data suggesting their product was safe to the FDA.
[00:25:06] Rod: Sweet.
[00:25:07] Will: So, so there at the time, and this is the thing, you know, we hear so much of the thalidomide story. And just to ju- jump not to
[00:25:12] ju- jump not
[00:25:13] the end, but to- Yeah, yeah ... um, for those out there, during the 1960s, this early period in the '60s,
[00:25:19] Mm
[00:25:20] women were prescribed for morning sickness, in pregnancy, thalidomide in Australia, Europe, Canada, a whole bunch of places.
[00:25:27] Yeah. And it led to severe birth defects in children. Uh- Horrifying. Like, uh-
[00:25:31] Rod: And super visible ...
[00:25:33] Will: yeah, like missing limbs is the main thing. Yeah. So,
[00:25:35] So,
[00:25:35] often you would have, uh, one limb missing, and there are certainly, certainly people around who, whose-
[00:25:40] Rod: Disrupted growth, like hands coming straight out of shoulders and shit.
[00:25:42] Like it was really crazy.
[00:25:44] Will: Yeah. It was crazy. A- absolutely, absolutely. And, and very quickly afterwards w- was
[00:25:48] w-
[00:25:48] shown that thalidomide was the point here. Like it's like-
[00:25:51] Rod: And it was in Australia at least, 'cause I was a kid in the '70s, it was very well known. We in primary school knew what it was.
[00:25:58] Will: Yeah. '
[00:25:58] Rod: Cause we used it as a slur.
[00:26:00] Will: Oh, yeah. No, no doubt.
[00:26:01] Rod: We were dreadful. We were monsters. For uncoordinated kids, you'd say, "Well, are you some kind of
[00:26:05] baby?" Like, we were
[00:26:06] thalidomide
[00:26:07] Will: baby?" Like we were fucking monsters. Mo- primary school are monsters, kids. But no,
[00:26:08] Rod: but- My point is it was in the zeitgeist-
[00:26:09] zeitgeist
[00:26:10] No ... for primary school students in the '70s.
[00:26:12] Will: No, I totally appreciate it.
[00:26:13] And I think, I think this is the thing to recognise. It's, it's, utterly a tragedy, but this was not an accident. Like it's not, it's not like Richardson Merrill went out to do this, but they, they saw some indication their drug worked on some things. Yeah, probably stopped the morning sickness for a second, but then And, and that's what they were selling
[00:26:32] lit- literally pretended that their studies had not found any of these birth defects. When- It
[00:26:35] Rod: just sounds like a, like a, a C-grade like a true, I'm moving on
[00:26:39] Will: It really-- But it, but it really, but the fact that they- It's unbelievable ... they had done studies that showed animal defects and then just said, "No, well, why would we show them to the FDA?"
[00:26:48] Right. And we've got Kelsey here. the only significant country, and this is, I've always been baffled by this fact, that, you see this history of thalidomide in Australia, Japan, Canada, and, and a significant thing, one person stood up to this. One person. She stood up in the FDA- Oh, bloody hell
[00:27:05] and, and she was like, "No, we need some more data, and your data that you have provided is so far dodgy." Importantly, I mean, Kelsey, Kelsey herself acknowledges, her assistants, Jiro Oyama and Lee Gesima, but also her superiors at the FDA. Kelsey has long said- Right ... "You know, they, they supported me," that I was saying, "You haven't provided data," and her superiors are like, " No, this is good. You, you, you you do the, do the full thing." Okay. Kelsey's insistence the drug should be fully tested to approval was vindicated in November 1961, in such a short period when you think, this is over- Yeah ... a two-year cycle from 1960 when they started trying to get it, to November 1961- Yeah when the births of deformed infants in Europe were linked to thalidomide ingestion by their mothers during pregnancy. So there's like a, a two-year window.
[00:27:52] Rod: Which is, in this world, very quick.
[00:27:54] Will: Oh, it's, it's, it's wild. In March 1962, oh, you know, three months later- Mm
[00:27:59] Rod: Mm
[00:28:00] Will: distributing experimental tablets to tens of thousands of patients without approval.
[00:28:03] Rod: Uh
[00:28:04] Will: So I think they were doing that in the US, like they're, they're saying, "You can do..." Like, "This do- isn't approved, so just try it."
[00:28:11] Rod: We'll just call it an we'll just call it an experiment then.
[00:28:12] then
[00:28:12] Will: Which
[00:28:12] linked to 17, malformed births and dozens more suspected. Richardson Merrill eventually withdrew their FDA application.
[00:28:20] Rod: Application Oh, oh, so they did the decent thing.
[00:28:25] Will: Freaking monsters. I just love- 100%. Like these, these monsters. Just love- 100% um-
[00:28:30] Rod: Yeah, "yeah, but we're not prescribing it for those animals.
[00:28:33] Will: So Kelsey was hailed as a he- a heroine on the front page of The Washington Post for avert- for averting in the US, and this is, it really is a large scale tragedy, and I think the thing is here in the US they don't quite get it in the sense...
[00:28:45] I mean, they did, like absolutely. Yeah. She was, recognized, she got the presidential Medal of something good. Where is it? Kennedy gave her, gave her a big award. Congress passed reg- uh, regulations on the basis of that. But- Yeah
[00:28:58] in a sense, they dodged the bullet and, and you never see the bullet. Like, like, it's like the- Yeah ... the other countries saw the impact of thalidomide, and the US, thanks to her, dodged that. so- But
[00:29:09] Rod: that's changed, so good. That's good.
[00:29:11] Will: Kelsey retired from the FDA in 2005 age- at the age- Did what? At the age of nine- 90. I think it was at 109.
[00:29:16] Rod: I think it was 193. I
[00:29:18] Will: 90, after 45 years of service. She died in London, On- Ontario in 2015 at the age of 101,
[00:29:24] Rod: Damn.
[00:29:25] Will: than 24 hours after Ontario's, lieutenant governor, gave her the Member of the Order of Canada.
[00:29:30] Rod: So
[00:29:31] Will: So-
[00:29:31] Rod: kill- that's what, that's what killed her. The Member of
[00:29:32] Will: the Order. You're now a member. Of the Order.
[00:29:34] Rod: a member. Ah.
[00:29:35] Will: But also 45 years of service until you are 90
[00:29:36] 45 years of service until you are 90 for the FDA, it, it really shows. I mean- It was
[00:29:42] Rod: man
[00:29:42] Will: clearly, clearly from beginning she was like, "No, pharmacology matters," and also- Yeah ... doing proper scientific testing matters. And she, you know, in some sense you know, she was doing her job and got awarded for it, but it's that recognition that actually doing your job really properly, really properly, where you go, "No, I'm not just here to allow some company that wants to sell something where they've literally got data that proves it's poison."
[00:30:09] Rod: Look, the, the beauty of this is it's great that she was acknowledged for doing this, and the horror of this is it should never have to be that way.
[00:30:16] Will: Mm-hmm.
[00:30:17] Rod: If all the people in that organization had been just doing the job- beyond were just doing the
[00:30:20] Will: Yep ...
[00:30:21] Rod: be scientists. Just just be scientists without bureaucratic influence or political influence. That's it.
[00:30:26] Will: Well, I just wanted to leave on that point, that, Kelsey acknowledged she was supported by her superiors, and, uh, I don't know if the Food and Drug Administration under your friend Robert Kennedy Jr
[00:30:37] Rod: my close friend
[00:30:38] Will: Is
[00:30:39] Rod: And friend of the podcast, to be fair. He, he loves, he loves our work he
[00:30:43] Will: Is the same as it was before.
[00:30:44] So look
[00:30:46] Rod: I, I
[00:30:46] think it's a little different. They use Slack now.
[00:30:49] Will: There, there is
[00:30:50] think it's a little different. They use Slack now There, there is something, something in doing the science, doing the bureaucracy properly is just so... You know, we should valorize that. We should hold onto it
[00:30:58] Rod: it's not...
[00:30:58] You know,
[00:30:58] You know what? I'd, I'd add the word just do what you're supposed to do
[00:31:00] Will: Just do it. Just- Just
[00:31:01] Rod: do that Especially in organizations that are science-based, not fucking-
[00:31:05] Will: Hey, if you've got a hero of science that you need us to, tell you a story about, send them in.
[00:31:09] Where do they send it?
[00:31:11] Rod: To us. They'll probably think it's us, though. Oh, cheersalittlebitofscience.com.au. You can be faster. Cheers at a little cheers, A Little Bit of
[00:31:15] Will: Science What if you say it faster? No, I'm teasing
[00:31:20] Rod: Give us a 9,000 star rating on, on apps that don't even rate
[00:31:23] Will: But send us an email. We wanna talk to you 'cause you're, you're beautiful and, um-
[00:31:27] Rod: And you never, you never talk to us anymore. Where's our emails?
[00:31:29] Will: And, uh, you're there on, we're there on Twitch in the afternoons on Fridays, usually.
[00:31:34] Rod: At some point.
[00:31:36] Will: Usually. Often. Regularly.
[00:31:38] Rod: Is this where we stop 'cause the music's getting louder?
[00:31:40] Will: I'm turning it up.
[00:31:41] Rod: How
[00:31:41] you doing that?
[00:31:42] that?
[00:31:42] Will: Through the magic of the fingers.
[00:31:45] RodAudio: the fingers.
