A robot exosuit now costs more than most people’s houses, scientists are seriously pitching a telescope built from the solar system itself, and Pokémon Go has somehow ended up feeding the war tech pipeline. This week, we bounce between expensive robotics, slow burn space ambition, biosecurity chaos, and a 5,000 year old gut microbe that can still create great beer, which is a lot of whiplash for one episode, but here we are.
The Robot Suit That Looks Like It Wants a Job and a Fight
We start with a little shoutout. Unitree’s GD01 exosuit, a titanium priced reminder that “the future” is no longer a concept, it is a product page. It has an onboard AI system, it can control bipedal and quadrupedal movement, and it is being pitched as something that can do real industrial work. It also looks like the kind of machine that would smash through a wall just to prove it can.
The price tag is around 650K USD, which means it is not exactly a casual purchase unless your hobby is “defence contractor”. But it is a clear sign of where robotics is heading. Less cute household helper, more heavy duty machine that can move like an animal and carry like a forklift. Useful. Impressive. Slightly alarming.
Astronomy’s largest group project
Then we zoom out, literally, into gravitational lensing and the idea of using the sun as part of a giant telescope. The concept is that you can use the sun’s gravity to bend light and magnify distant objects, potentially letting us see exoplanets in far more detail than current telescopes allow.
The catch is the timeline. To make it work, you are talking about sending a spacecraft to a very specific region of space and building a mission that could take decades, around 60 years, depending on how it is done. Which is a good reminder that some science is instant and flashy, and some science is a long term bet placed by people who will not be alive to see the payoff. That is either inspiring or mildly depressing, depending on your mood.
The Illegal Australian Cockroach Trade
After that, we come back to Earth for a biosecurity story that is both hilarious and deadly serious. Australia has a thriving black market for exotic insects, including large cockroaches, and authorities are not exactly thrilled about it. Because introducing new species into a fragile ecosystem is how you end up with a problem that costs millions and never fully goes away.
It is also classic Australia. A country where you can get fined for bringing an apple through customs, but people are apparently still trying to smuggle in bugs like they are trading cards. The debate is about enforcement, penalties, and how seriously we treat the risk of invasive species. Because one person’s “cool pet” is another person’s ecological disaster.
Pokémon Go becomes a part of the military
Then we hit the story that makes you want to check your app permissions. Pokémon Go encouraged millions of people to scan real world locations for gameplay, and those scans have helped build detailed visual maps that can be used for visual positioning systems. The same kind of tech that can help drones navigate without relying only on GPS.
It is not that players signed up to support military applications. It is that data is data, and once it exists, it can be repurposed. Innocent fun becomes infrastructure. And suddenly your weekend PokéStop walk feels a bit less wholesome.
The world's oldest Sourdough Starter
Finally, we go back 5,000 years to Ötzi the Iceman, whose preserved gut microbiome has become a strange little time capsule. Scientists have reportedly coaxed living yeast from his gut and used it to bake bread. Which is both impressive and a sentence that should not be true, but science loves making you say things like that.
It is a reminder that history is not just bones and artefacts. Sometimes it is biology that can still wake up, still function, still interact with the present. Whether that is beautiful or unsettling depends on how you feel about eating bread made with prehistoric gut yeast.
So that is the week. A robot suit built for heavy work, a solar system sized telescope that demands patience, cockroaches causing border security headaches, Pokémon Go quietly feeding mapping tech, and an ancient mummy microbiome refusing to die quietly. The future is here, the past is still alive, and the present is doing its best to keep up.
CHAPTERS:
00:00 Killer Exosuit Reveal
01:00 Meet the Hosts
01:45 Robot Reactions and Jaegers
02:55 Better Future Space Lens
04:24 Solar Telescope Challenge
07:08 Electric Sail Breakthrough
07:58 Seeing Alien Continents
09:13 Illegal Cockroach Bust
13:39 Why People Buy Roaches
15:19 Biosecurity Debate and Cleanup
17:27 Pokemon Go Tangent
18:15 Pokemon Go Scans
19:37 Drones Without GPS
21:25 Niantic Weapons Pipeline
22:50 Scientists Eat Headlines
25:26 Otzi Microbiome Bread
29:19 T Rex Leather Bag
32:48 Wrap Up And Sign Out
SOURCES:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWOyUMJWptc
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/jun/05/live-cockroaches-seized-nsw-breeder-australia
https://futurism.com/science-energy/scientists-lab-grown-trex-leather
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0273117726007660?ref=404media.co
-
Rod: [00:00:00] So I want to start with a little shout out to
Unitree, the
Chinese robotics firm,
and they've
just unveiled the
GD01.
It's a titanium
exosuit that you climb into.
I
know, I know. It can walk on either two or four legs,
has an onboard AI brain that controls its fine emotions and orientation.
and
during its grand unveiling, and
we're
putting a, a link to the YouTube video in the show notes.
You got to watch it.
So during this unveiling, it literally smashes a wall down,
and they, say it has, um,
industrial
uses, search and rescue uses, military deployment potential.
Uh, duh.
and you can
order a base model for a mere 650 grand US.
And
I don't want to be as delighted as I am about it. If you watch the video, it'll make your blood run cold, and after the music, I'll show just a couple of pictures for fun
Will: [00:01:00] it is. time for a little bit of science. I'm will grant an associate professor in science communication at the Australian National University,
Rod: And I'm someone else. I'm Rod Lamberts. I'm a 30-year SciComm veteran with a mind of a f- I'm gonna say 14-and-a-half-year-old boy.
Will: and today as well as the ED 2 0 9 bot. Uh, we've also got notes from the good Future.
Rod: We have, uh, fun for animals.
Will: I've
got some, some, uh, thanks. Surveillance.
Rod: it's good.
Will: I've got scientist food
Rod: I'm gonna talk about a little fashion
faux pas.
pass. A F pass. Faux pas? A faux pas. I love Your faux pas.
Will: pe I think it's fo fo pe.
Oh yeah.
Rod: Faux pas. I think it's Faux
Will: folks. That's a nice one. That's horrible.
Rod: f- Check out-
the
fox
Will: That's the
Rod: that's the robot.
Oh
Will: my God. that is literally,
Rod: It's alien. Like it's the humongous monster you climb into ... I, I, I
Will: Yeah, there's a big space in the cage there. You're not, you're not sort of snuggly hugs by the
Rod: No, not quite
like
Ava-
uh, you know, the Avatar beasts with the evil Marines use.
Will: a little bit closer [00:02:00] to the Jagers from
Pacific Rim.
Rod: to the Jaegers from Pacific Rim.
Um- Except you don't need two people for something to do with their brain needing-
That, that was
Will: the best plot line ever. You know, suddenly
Rod: not-
Oh no, you need two people
Will: people ... '
Rod: 'cause it's big
Will: Two people
I was talking to someone of the... Well,
actually I
know who
Rod: talking to. But look at the video. Definitely look at the video. It's insane.
Will: Will do. and,
you know, they were talking
about
two twins on a soccer team that were, that, that were doing well. that had
the-
Rod: The
teams that win have three
Will: Well, no doubt. No doubt. And I was saying, yeah, they've got the Yeager lock."
And
they
were like
"You mean,
you mean-"
twin "...twin brain." And I was like, "
no, it's Yeager lock." Yager
Rod: lock. Come on.
It's one. Have you never fought a titan before with a giant machine that needs two humans to run its one brain? Have you never?
I know I have.
Will: Check out the video. That is your robot
Rod: Oh, check out the video. Seriously, and when it goes from four legs to two,
and
it kind of bends, you know, horror movie style down, and then starts walking on four legs, you kinda go, "Yay."
I
can't wait"
Will: Alright.
I got for you, notes from a better future
Because, '
Rod: cause this [00:03:00] future's terrible.
Will: Well,
yes, yes. there is so much that's terrible in this world right now.
And
I was like, when I saw this paper, I was like, "Oh,
that is, that's a
within my lifetime, and B, so fricking cool."
And, and it's got, and it's
all
Rod: mapped Within your lifetime, that means it's in mine too 'cause I'm gonna live longer than you. We determined that 18 and 5,000 episodes ago.
Will: Yeah,
that's
true.
I
dunno if we actually released that one.
So
I don't know if you, have heard of the term of gravitational lensing.
Rod: Yes, I have.
Will: for those who didn't, aside from Rod,
Rod: It's for people with really large eyes, and they need different kinds of glasses because
the the mass of their eyes distorts light around their head.
Ah.
Not
Will: quite. No. it's
a, an effect
out
there in the
Rod: Ooh
Will: big objects, stars, holes, galaxies
Rod: Yeah
Will: will curve the light that's behind them. So imagine you've
got, you've got
a whole galaxy
sitting
behind another galaxy behind.
And
the light [00:04:00] from the back galaxy
curves around
the existing galaxy-
Rod: Yeah ...
Yeah. And so it sort
Will: of curves around. But
what
it means is it's a way of sort of zooming in to the distant universe.
Now, you do need
a big
object in
the way to be able to
Rod: You
do.
Well, this is weird, isn't it? You
know, like,
how do I see that better? I need something fucking huge between me and it.
Will: It's,
Rod: That should help.
It's, kind of, kind
Will: a wild
principle, but it- ...actually can make a huge difference in how far you can see.
Now,
been known for a little while that you could do this with the sun.
Rod: Oh. But isn't it too glary?
Will: Isn't
it
too
glaring?
So you're not doing it with the sun. So
Rod: basically- ...
Will: you get a telescope in the right
spot-
Rod: Yeah
Will: and you can get to a place, and it curves the light, from distant distant planets, distant stars-
Rod: distant
galaxies-
Yeah ...
but Yeah
Will: things
that are small and you can see them much better.
And
it, can magnify something like a hundred billion times.
So it's-
Rod: objects in the telescope are larger than they appear. Yeah. It's smaller than,
Will: it's
Rod: it's
Will: using the whole solar system as
Rod: a lens- [00:05:00] Oh
as a
Will: lens for your telescope.
You've, you've gone from telescope that has like a one metre lens or something like that, to suddenly you've got the
Rod: Solar system lens.
Will: Yeah,
solar
system
Rod: I
accept.
Will: Now, I'll tell you what that means in a second.
Rod: Yeah.
That's cool ...to
get to that place-
Will: it's a fricking long, long, long way away.
Uh,
Rod: To put the telescope there? To
put Oh,
so this is theoretical
Will: So,
so
Rod: Stupid major problem, to get to the place where you would have to put the telescope-
Yeah ...
Will: is a hard ask. So-
Rod: Right ...
Will: the effects come in at about 550 astronomical units.
So Now, now,
that
doesn't mean anything in Sydney harbours or
anything like that. An astro
Rod: anything
like that.
Well, there's no point. Uh, a bajillion, gajillion Sydney Harbors-
Will: yes.
It's,
Rod: It's
Will: like that. But an astronomical unit, that's the distance between the sun and the Earth, so it's
like 550
times that. And, and I know you listening, you're like,
well, is
that Pluto or is
Rod: Or is that
Will: it
Rod: Thrin's Tory?
Will: it's a long way. So Voyager one, which is the furthest away- ...human thing we've ever sent, [00:06:00] and it's been going for 50
plus
Rod: Something like that,
Will: like a
long
Rod: Yeah.
Will: is only 172
astronomical
Rod: Shit, is that right?
Will: So at the speed of Voyager one, we'd be saying, "Okay, send out a telescope," and you've got it there in 300
Rod: hope they've sent one.
Will: So
because,
Rod: you know what happens with all this stuff? if sci-fi's told me anything, the thing we send today that will get there in 300 years, then in 50 years someone will go, "We can get it there in 100 years." Well- And then, and it will be overtaking ourselves all over the place.
Will: know,
you
know, that's the optimistic take, but
Rod: it's-
Very ...not actually true.
No. '
Will: 'Cause, 'cause what's sci-fi, it's Not,
bad sci-fi, like, but sci-fi that tells us the easy story of yes, we'll just invent
faster than
Rod: faster than light- There's
Will: travel.
Rod: such thing as- ... travel ... no such thing as bad sci-fi.
Will: we are not going to invent faster than light travel.
Rod: Not today. You don't know that. They said nerves couldn't regrow and then someone did.
Therefore.
I
Will: think that faster than that
Rod: Same ...
regrowing Same thing.
But
Will: anyway, this paper goes through and it says, "Look, chemical propulsion will take centuries to
Rod: get there."
Mm.
Even [00:07:00]
Will: doing the loop around the sun-
speed
Rod: speed yourself
up sort of
Will: sort of slingshot thing
Rod: The danger of that is you go back in time.
Will: Yeah.
Superman
proved that
Rod: Ev- everyone knows
that. Centuries Yeah.
Will: but these guys have come out with a nice little satellite. it's a, a metre telescope
Rod: Your micro satellite
with... Oh, a bit bigger ...
it's,
Will: it's 660 kilos. I dunno why they're aiming for that number, but they said, "Yep, we got it into..." They
haven't made this. This is, this
Rod: Oh, I know. Of course not. Yeah ...a
Will: But the paper actually goes into a fair bit.
Rod: Yeah.
And it's
Will: using an eal So it's not like an
Rod: Ah,
Will: that catches the solar... It catch, well, it does catch the solar wind,
but it
uses
giant long
tethers. So they,
send out these little charge particles
on an,
on a net that's like 26 kilometres around the whole thing.
Rod: Right.
Yeah.
Sets
Will: like,
an electrical field all the way
Rod: So it's a virtual sail?
Will: Yeah. It's, it's sort of like an electrical sail that catches the solar wind, can get up to speeds so that we would get to
the 550- astronomical units in about 60 years. So this
Rod: is why I said- There you go.
There we go
Will: in imp plausible time.
so here's what I, I wanted to bring it [00:08:00] all back to.
Rod: Yeah.
Will: What
this
would allow is you would be able to resolve-
on
distant
planets-
Rod: Yeah ...
Will: planets that we know exist, and by at 60 years we'll know a, a fair bit more.
Yeah.
Rod: Yeah.
Will: Things
at
the 10 kilometre scale,
which
Rod: Oh
damn. Which,
Will: means we would be able to see-
Rod: Space stations
Will: continents. we would be able to see
continents. We would be able to
see
seas. We'd be able to see mountain ranges,
forests,
and probably cities. And I'm like I'm young. Wait,
Rod: gotta wait 60 years
Will: Yeah. we've gotta wait 60 years.
Rod: Oh.
But, but-
I'm going to the gym ...
I Oh, that's exciting
I,
of-
Oh ...
Will: being able to see another planet, not just know
that it's
passing in front of the sun, that's awesome. Like, that's great.
Rod: Make out the detail.
But
Will: to make out detail enough
Rod: see potential-
You're gonna be like,
Will: city.
Rod: is that a bush?
We found a bush"
So
Will: I've just gotta say, that's the, that
Rod: just made me
exciting
to
Will: plausibly- within, yes, it is a long time, but not, there is a design to be able to
see
continents and
[00:09:00] cities
maybe.
If,
if they're there, obviously I'm
Rod: be there. I'm gonna be there. I,
I,
I was reading about super-agers today, and it said, " Ah, do what you want, and you'll be fine." I'm like, "Okay, cool.
I can do that."
Will: So
there you go. There you go. That is notes from a better future.
Rod: Well, it seems to be every episode we have something to do with animals, so to speak. This one is fun for animals.
you may have seen the headline of this. it turns out people breed and import and trade all kinds of unusual creatures.
We know this in Australia, we, people are a bit strange. this is particularly frowned upon because we're very protective about our natural environment, our native floras and your faunas. Mm-hmm. Or is it fauni? Faunae.
Faunae. It's an A. Fauni oaks.
And
we've been hurt before, like rabbits, cane toads-
Just to pause et cetera. Yeah.
Just to pause.
Yeah.
So
Will: many Australians tell the rabbit and the cane toad story. But one day
I'll
tell you
the
dung beetle story- which
is
is a very,
very
lauded
story of successful breaking the
biosecurity.
Rod: So far.
So far.
mean, the other one I'd bring up is, uh, weeping willow [00:10:00] trees.
They are a weed.
Will: Are
they really?
Rod: Are they really? They are an absolute fucking weed, and they trash river systems like- They're sad about it. And they're pretty. Exactly. They feel bad, but God, they're pretty. I love a willow. I do. I only learned a few years ago that they were a weed, and I'm like, "But
it's a big, pretty tree."
Will: You
Rod: know It's a-
plant out of place.
exactly. It's a non-deliberate. It's a
human definition, not a- It's an
it's a weed. Doesn't
Will: It doesn't know it's a weed.
Rod: it?
Haven't you heard of the wood wide web?
Will: even when they're talking to each other, they don't say, "Oh, that's fucking weed. Like,
Rod: No, but even when they're talking to each other, they don't say, "Oh, that's a weed." Like- Look at you you immigrant. That's what they say. You immigrant.
all
Will: plants
are racist.
Rod: are racist. Yeah. Well- There's not
Will: nation They're voting for on
Rod: invaded. Only the orange plants Local humor for you folks who aren't from Australia. Uh, anyway, so we've had this-- we've had problems before when people have imported stuff, so we're particularly sensitive. So this very month of 2026, a breeder in Bathurst, which is a small town in central New South Wales, again, for those of you out of town.
Will: find it as a small
city.
Rod: city
A small city in New Sou- Oh, does it have a cathedral?
So it's a city
Will: Yeah, because a lot of bad
Rod: the Lord got [00:11:00] struck down
Yes
Someone misread the Bible. They got the Latin wrong.
hate a Latin typo I assume
I think, wasn't, isn't that the, the definition? It's gotta have a cathedral
digress.
We do, often. anyway, this, place it was raided by biosecurity officers, and they hauled in was more than 100,000 live exotic cockroaches
Will: Oh,
yes
Rod: The street value alleged- Sorry to
Will: so these
are non-native
Rod: So these
are non-native- Non-native cockroaches
Will: which is sad because Australia has the biggest cockroaches in the world
Do they?
Rod: Do we?
Will: Yeah. They're from near my hometown, the
di bula cockroach
Rod: Really?
Yeah, it's
Will: the biggest cockroach in the world
I
Rod: how long? How long-ish? Uh,
Will: Uh, I think they're like a gets to five inches if
Rod: Five inches? Yeah, about five inches
Will: five
Rod: You've been lied to Or you've been lying
Will: no, I think, I think it's more like a, a 10 centimetre cockroach
Rod: Okay.
That's, bigger than these and, and some of these are very big Okay
Will: Okay,
Rod: So, um-
Don't
Will: that one
then I'm
ruining your story
with the
Rod: no, this, this works.
So yeah, more than 100,000 of them, which is like fucking
exotic cockroaches That's a lot
Street value,
$200,000
Will: $2 a pop,
eh?
Rod: Well,
me this [00:12:00] is like back in the day when they, you know, they'd, grab a haul of your marijuanas and say, "We've got five ounces, street value $48 billion" And you're like, " it's 1,000 bucks, mate.
Calm down" I, I wonder if that's true And you say you know the
market-
I do know it quite well
Will: of, uh, what you could
sell 'em for?
Rod: what's your, uh- I do, I do You could sell them for? I reckon I could get maybe 120,000, they always exaggerate to make- They're vicious, hey? No, they big themselves up. It's
like, "
We got a billion dollars worth of cockroaches"
Will: I reckon each
one's $2
Rod: Well, this is what they're saying, so about two bucks. so regardless of whether they're right or wrong, it's a record breaker for this kind of seizure. Largest illegal exotic invertebrate seizure in Australia, and it includes two cockroaches. The Dubia, or
I pronounce it Dubya, so not- nothing to do with George W.,
but it's pronoun- it looks like Dubya,
and the Madagascar hissing cockroach
Will: Oh,
Rod: Which
look like, "Ah, ah" which is one of the world's largest, but it only gets to seven and a half centimeters. Not as good as the William Grant roach
Dimbulah
Will: The buer cockroach
Rod: Is that real or is that like a yowie?
Will: it's real,
Rod: I think- I think it's a yowie
Will: I think [00:13:00] it, maybe it was
a myth told to us kids in far north
Rod: Careful
or Dimbula will get you. The cockroach will get you,
or at least 100 of them will. So this one's about, yeah, it gets up to seven and a half centimeters. The hissing sound is apparently they push air out through their bodies-
Oh ... to make it go, hiss.
Yeah, not a, not like a gob hiss. it's a defense mechanism to frighten predators because they can't fly and they're easy to capture. Hence 100,000 of them being in a house in Bathurst.
They can live for up to five years, and this is the bit that's quite creepy. They're really good climbers. Got that. They can go up smooth glass, so they can run up- Wow ... run up your bloody window.
Smooth
glass
Will: smooth
Rod: Seven and a half centimeters of cockroach going
up your window, which is great. My question, of course, is who the fuck
buys them?
Will: exotic cockroach
Rod: Exactly. But, you know, how many do you need? I'll take
48,000.
I'll kill a lot of them.
It turns out,
well,
the W, the other cockroach, they are, for example, highly nutritious, non-flying, low odor. Nutritious to us? No.
This is the thing. They're buying them for your reptiles and your [00:14:00] amphibians.
They're buying them as feed for their lizard-type creatures.
Will: That's sad.
Rod: It is. It is ... I
Will: for the cockroach, they get to be an exotic that people
want ever?
Rod: an exotic that people want ever? Not And because the, uh, hissas are huge, I assume they buy them because then if they can't get the
Dimbula cockroach- Sure they get the
hissa for,
you know, lizard
Christmas
Will: feed your lizard for a month
Rod: a
month or something. On one cockroach. One cockroach. I
work. You
know the metric But apparently also these cockroaches, You can't legally import a cockroach, you can't legally keep them, breed them, or sell them, no matter how you get them.
So even if you're like, "Oh, I just found it here and I've bred them," you're not allowed. None of it's allowed. None of it's allowed because they haven't done proper tests on possible effects. So they're like, "Well, we've been burnt before.
No." Because if they get out, God knows what they might do, harm, disease, et cetera. So, the policy director of the Invasive Species Council, she says, "Look, there's a massive biosecurity risk, not just because they could establish themselves in the wild and threaten the natives, but because they could introduce [00:15:00] diseases." And she also says, "Look, we've got a rich native cockroach fauna with many beautiful and interesting species anyway."
We have our own- Yeah ... as you brought up.
lizards.
Exactly. This is a beautiful local. cop that. 500 or more individual species. So they're very worried about all this. and they're a bit-- Yeah, they don't wanna basically suck it and see and see what happens, so they shut it down. so she wants the punishments to be harder because apparently the punishments are a bit soft-
Oh But then you get the chief of the Pet Industry Association of Australia, or
PIA, and he said, "Oh no, it's too heavy-handed. The way they raided these people and
and messed with them, too heavy-handed, disproportionate, 'cause there's heaps of other exotic species that don't get punished as hard."
Will: No,
Rod: Yeah, No,
exactly. You've, you've been too harsh on the person with 100,000 cockroaches. They don't breed fast, so if they got out, no big deal, right? and he says he wants a, uh, coherent national framework that treats with
like
or like cases like other cases. I don't know what the comparison is, giraffes versus cockroaches.
Will: hundred thousand illegal giraffes. Exactly.
I I think, I think at some point
you should, you should
be
Rod: at some point you should be punished. Then you would, you would need [00:16:00] Bathurst to be a city to So he's like, "Oh, you're picking on particular sectors
Will: Oh,
Rod: of illegal tra-" You're saying this is like a, a bias against insects. This is what it
Will: this is like a, a bias against insects or something?
Rod: something like.
Well, like why do you hate people who feed lizards?
Will: feel like when it comes down to it, like biosecurity is a thing that is taken fairly seriously by the government for
Rod: I feel like when it comes down to it, like biosecurity
Just a little.
Fairly legitimately. I have no beef with biosecurity. I beef about a lot of authority stuff, but not that.
Will: Mm.
Rod: Um, also you can buy local. You don't have to go exotic. and the officials are encouraging breeders and feeders of reptiles and amphibians, to seek legal alternatives such as crickets and wood roaches.
Thank
you
Obviously.
And you don't have to worry about infestation of this lot though, because, this is my favorite bit potentially, the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development, or
DPIRD... They're managing the, uh, euthanasia and disposal of them.
Will: individually.
each
one
one by
Rod: one by one. Here's,
my image is they've said, they've put out an all-staff bulletin and said, "On Friday, bring shoes you don't mind throwing away, and after lunch come down to the basement
Will: my
Rod: 'cause we're gonna euthanize
[00:17:00] 100,000 cockroaches for the local flora and fauna."
It
Will: like a,
a
like
you get the, the work experience
Rod: kids in. That's it.
and
Irene,
Yeah. Can you put on these gumboots?" "They don't fit." "You won't care."
Make sure they go up to your knees
Will: Oh my God
Waiters.
Rod: So
there,
you go. There's your, uh, cockroach issue Well,
Will: I'll tell you,
I'll tell you the flip side about the dung beetle at some
Rod: point.
Please do.
Will: So did you ever play Pokemon Go?
Rod: I felt like I was a bit old. Not, not because I think it's for young people, it's just like I didn't care about Pokémon. yeah,
yeah, yeah. I,
I missed the Poke- like-
you missed the-
Will: thing?
Rod: I missed giving a shit about Pokémon. Yeah. Okay.
That was all.
Will: So,
it's
actually huge business.
Rod: it's- Yeah,
I bet ...
there was
Will: definitely a moment when a lot of people played it. I think it was one of those,
those
early augmented
Rod: games.
It was ins- I remember people everywhere.
you go out in your garden, I remember you playing it-
I, I-
at work back when we were-
did I? ...
12.
Will: Yeah.
I, think
it was just like you have a go and, and it was like you go to different spots and you'd see it. And so there's sort
of some
Rod: stuff. I, I'd get freaked out. [00:18:00] I'm like, "You're telling me there's a giant dragon with nine elbows right behind me and I can't even see it?"
Look,
Will: it's a bit of fun and it's still, it's still huge, huge business. Like I think
Rod: the-
It's still going. It
Will: still going. It is still 100% still
Rod: Holy shit.
And
Will: yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and people out there are like, course is bloody still going
on, I love
it. And, uh-
no,
Rod: I'm not a games hater ...
Pokémon
Will: still a multi-billion dollar company.
Rod: Like-
That's crazy ...
it's,
wild.
Um- Yay
for you.
Will: So,
so since 2001,
21,
Pokemon Go has asked players to record short videos of real word locations at the poke stops.
Rod: you catch
Will: the Pokemon and, There's a dynamic where you can record a
short
Rod: video. Sorry, since 2021?
Since So
Will: So
Rod: into COVID? Into COVID.
Will: Into COVID.
Into COVID.
Rod: Okay
Will: but not the beginning of the game ' 'cause, this is a newer feature.
and they earn some extra in-game
items when they do this.
You
Rod: items when they do this. Oh, yeah. You scan
Will: the buildings and trees, around the poke stop
in
a 360 degree sweep. it's
Rod: And what, do you get an extra free crystal full of cream or something in the game that and swap for-
Yes. It's a- ...
a [00:19:00] special glove?
A
Will: crystal full of cream and a special
Rod: Yeah. Like that the rewards?
Yes.
Will: think that is absolutely the
Rod: rewards. I want a cream crystal for my new gloves.
Will: But then the company, Niantic, ask for permission to keep the footage. and,
uh,
Rod: Asks, for it. I like that.
Will: Yeah.
Rod: Yeah.
Will: Now
there's been 30 billion of these scans.
Rod: Oh,
fuck
me. Jesus, we deal with a lot of data now.
Absolutely.
Oh my God.
There,
Will: there is so much data out there.
well,
they've gone somewhere
Rod: Have they?
Can
Will: you guess where?
Rod: I wanna say either p*rn or something to do with butts.
Will: porn,
Rod: P*rn. P*rn or like, yeah, yeah,
Will: gross
Rod: things that bodies do.
Will: So
if you go to Ukraine right now, you note that there is a big war that uses a lot of drones.
Now-
Rod: Right, right, right
in
Will: Right, right. In
their first generation or early generations of the drones that we used in the Ukraine war,
a
lot
were using GPS, to know where they are, to know where to target.
but
this is one of the, the first things that the Russians and the Ukrainians, but also anyone else that's on
either side
of a drone war-
Rod: Yeah
uh,
Will: can [00:20:00] jam. You can jam a
Rod: GPS
Will: Flood, the
zone with a bunch of radio frequencies that are in the same zone.
Rod: Or tell Elon to shut off the satellite.
Or, or
Will: tell Elon to shut off the satellite. And so the drone then is blind, like it doesn't know where
it is. so I think I was reading, there's something like seven different positioning systems
that
have evolved-
throughout
the
Rod: Seven?
Will: evolved throughout
the Ukraine war,
Rod: Wow ... for
Will: to be able to keep and understand their location.
Rod: Mm-hmm.
Will: One in
Rod: Seven ...
Will: is called the visual positioning system.
Rod: So what, you open the window and look around and go, "There it is."
Will: so
GPS
depends
on a satellite signal.
VPS
works out where a camera is. So if it's on a drone,
that's where the camera, you know, yes, on the
Rod: that's where the camera, you know, yes, on the Yeah. Yeah. by
Will: what it sees against a detailed 3D model of the
Rod: Oh, damn.
Will: So it,
Rod: Thanks Google Maps
Will: just two recognisable reference points.
so buildings, mountains, whatever.
Rod: Yeah.
Will: a
few pixels wide can be enough
to find
Rod: to
Will: location
Rod: find a location. Come on.
So-
Will: you know, okay, this is a mountain from this angle. This is,
Rod: lot of- What, this
Will: triangulating a
Rod: this is,
[00:21:00] three pixels of Everest.
Yeah, something like that.
They're in Nepal.
Yeah.
Will: Yeah, something
like... But
because, you know,
and, once you've got, okay, Everest is in that direction,
Eiffel
Tower's in that direction, draw a line
Rod: them. You're definitely in Bhutan.
Will: and
Definitely.
Rod: This street.
Will: you have a very good camera. But aside from
Rod: Holy shit. That's just...
Will: This
is
Rod: is the thing, all this stuff now is like, you
kind of go, "Yay, boo, yay, ugh," like every time.
This is fantastic, terrible.
Will: So Niantic has been selling all of this footage around the world to
Rod: Of course it has ...
equip
Will: these military Jones. and I just thought-
Rod: Uh.
Will: You know, this is, this... Look, it is mind blowing
Rod: actually.
Will: And
Rod: this is,
Will: this is a great
piece
of
computer science coding to get
to be able to go.
Rod: TL
Will: Oh,
Rod: to go.
Sure.
Will: you can know where you are based on a camera, as opposed to getting GPS signal straight. and
for military drones, that's important. but it's also
really
quite useful
Rod: for- But so they
can fu- what they
can fu- pu- you know, communicating this information via then
Wi-Fi, radio, like?
Mm-hmm.
Will: So, uh,
I'm not sure where the communication to the drone is and how much is onboard, how much is off board.
Right. Right,
Rod: right,
right.
Um,
Will: like
if it's, [00:22:00] communicating to a ground station,
that
has a, a database that-
Rod: You gotta figure it would. If it's trying to knock out GPS and s- or not knock out, but like, bypass.
yeah.
Yeah.
Will: uh,
but it
does go. the company that runs
Pokemon Go,
grew out of Keyhole,
a
geographic
data firm- ...that
took funding, in
2003
from Intel, which
was
a
venture,
arm
finance by the CIA.
So, so
Rod: hell yeah. So
Will: it's almost like they knew all along-
that,
Uh
Pokemon
Go.
When it comes down to it, it's all weapons tech.
Rod: Isn't it? isn't it? All the way down to everything. Well, either p*rn or weapons.
P*rn or-
It's p*rn or weapons. It's like, okay,
Will: okay,
Rod: will it make people buy pictures of people fucking,
or can we blow shit up with it?
That's it.
So there
Will: you go.
does that make you happier or not about Pokemon Go?
I don't
Rod: Go?
Bit of both.
Bit of
both.
Will: So
I wanted to tell you about, a great Blue Sky thread,
that I saw just the
Rod: day.
Fantastic.
Well
done Blue Sky and up yours Twitter.
Will: Indeed, indeed.
And
this is, [00:23:00] this is, this is just one of those classic ones where you go, you can see exactly how, you get this thread. it's going through, newspaper archives with a certain phrase.
And
the
phrase that Paul Ferry got was, "Scientists eat."
And so
Rod: it's-
it's
of
headlines- I didn't do... Fairley, yeah. Paul Fairy? Fairy.
I, thought it was Fairley.
I, I always
put an L in there.
Will: Always?
Always.
Rod: Always. Every time I think about... Well, because every time- This is, internet.
I know, but I've, I've seen his name before, and I keep thinking, "Do I know him?" And I don't, but for some reason he seems familiar. Anyway, so he put in, "Scientists eat."
Will: Yeah. And so you've got just a few
headlines, and there's more on his thread. And
I, I won't... You know, so
there's
scientists.
Rod: scientists.
eat
Will: UK
scientists eat death dust to see
Rod: What the fuck is death dust?
Will: I think it was strontium. So this will be early in the
using,
Um,
Rod: radiation bad days?
Well,
Will: or could you use radiation to see,
inside your body?
you
Rod: And you can. You can also use it to cure things like being alive, not having cancer Being able to use your limbs.
Indeed, indeed. It cures a [00:24:00] lot.
Depends
Will: on the amount of death dust. Uh,
Rod: But I do love... I mean, we talked about versions of this where the scientist goes, "Ah, just do it on me."
Will: No, totally.
Rod: that story There is never a chance it ends well. except for, what, you get a Nobel Prize just before you die
Will: I gotta go a couple more. "Scientists
eat giant mushroom.
I'm
just like, I don't even know the story
Rod: there
Are we talking James and the Giant Peach, Si? I mean, that's what I'd like to think of.
Will: this one's great, and I do wish I had the
Rod: here.
Will: Scientists eats
toy
balloon to end riddle.
I
don't
know.
I
don't know
what the scientist-
Rod: I know what the riddle is. If a man eats a balloon, toy balloon, as opposed to, like, a, a, like, a full-on, Montgolfier brothers balloon.
idea.
A full hot- I'm gonna ones Don't eat a balloon.
Uh-
Don't eat any balloons. Yeah, yeah-
Oh, no, unless it's full of heroin and you're smuggling it for
Will: or you're using it for, form of
surgery.
you need
Rod: to expand your guts.
Will: Yeah, didn't we talk about something in the Civil War
that,
there
Rod: Yeah ...
Will: there was
a balloon thing to-
ex
Rod: sounds like something we would've
Will: scientists eat meat frozen 250,000 [00:25:00] years.
Rod: Oh, the mammoth thing.
Yeah.
I remember reading about that when I was considerably younger and going...
I was mesmerized by every, every aspect of
Will: that.
Oh, mammoths are great.
Yeah.
Rod: Oh, and,
Will: an old mammoth, who wouldn't?
Rod: wouldn't? Yeah, you go to the restaurant and you're like, you
can have,
you can have your wild boar sausages, you can have your ostrich flank, or you can have 250,000-year-old mammoth steak, and you're like-
I'll do it
add
Will: uh, because there is news going around at
the moment of
another scientist eats.
And,
uh-
Rod: Oh ...and
Will: this one, this one's fun.
so
o Etsy,
the
Iceman. Not necessarily
his
actual name,
but-
Rod: Not necessarily. I'm gonna go with guaranteed not his actual name
Will: O Etsy
lived somewhere in Europe between Italy and Austria.
Rod: Mm.
About
Will: 5,300 years ago.
Rod: Yeah.
So,
Will: you know, before the pyramids were built, not before agriculture, but, I dunno how agricultural things were at the time.
Rod: He
Will: had clothes, he had been... I think he was murdered by an arrow in the back.
But
he
was, he was all the way up in the
Rod: hills.
Self-inflicted.
Yeah.
Will: that's why his body was [00:26:00] frozen, I dunno if it was on a glacier or in a, in a casse or something like that for,
well,
5,000
Rod: thou- 5,000 years. But super famous. Like, this guy has-
Yeah ...really been th-
Will: mummified.
Rod: thank, you.
Will: when
he was discovered in the late nineties,
no, early nineties, 1991,
so two German hikers stumbled
Rod: Wait a minute.
Wait a minute. Not '91. Is it about the time Nirvana were
Will: Oh
my God.
That's a that's a
Rod: just check, just checking ...
that is a big fucking stretch.
Just, just checking.
That
Will: a big stretch So two German hikers
were going there And they're like, "Oh my God, a body.
We've gotta report this."
And
Rod: Gott. Mein
Will: got, mine got.
And obviously you're thinking, "Okay, someone has died. Indeed, someone has But,
Rod: is
true.
But,
Will: to go the mental, jump to go, "
Oh,
someone died, you know, a year ago,"
to
go, "Oh no, that was
Rod: years ago." What if- "
Will: This is, this is probably not an open murder investigation anymore.
Rod: That's a
hell of a cold case, yes.
Will: so since then, remains have been kept at the same temperature, uh, minus six degrees.
Rod: really? They never defrosted
Will: oh, really? They
Rod: anything. No, Yeah. Okay ...
Will: he's
in an Italian research institute, I think in Bolzano,
where the people have been investigating.
You so
[00:27:00] partly
investigating his life to understand, you know, so what, his tattoos and shoes and things like that, to understand the sort of-
Rod: Oh, okay,
okay
Yeah.
Will: but also
to understand his diet and what might be influencing
Rod: I love the idea that he could just be, like,
just
some dude, you know, like someone around us.
You know, someone who's just gone to the shops, they finish their everyday job, they go home to their everyday house and everyday family, but he stumbles or gets shot in the back with an arrow in a, in a crevasse, and suddenly in 5,000 years-
Yeah ...
this guy's a fucking legend.
Yeah, He's just some dude. Just some dude.
Will: So because everyone is into the microbiome,
Rod: these days- Everyone, yeah ... uh,
Will: this Italian research has said,
well, let's
check if, he's got a microbiome
in his guts."
And, uh-
Rod: microbiome?
Will: His body
hosts living metabolically capable organisms that are
actively
responding to their
Rod: Living?
Will: so there were organisms in his gut. Now, so they'd been frozen, but these are, tiny
little
bacterias
and things like that that can withstand being frozen for 5,000 years.
Rod: this what they extracted and [00:28:00] those guys went, "Oh, thank God"?
Will: the cold adapted yeast are growing.
they're saying the mummy is, in very real sense, a living biological interface. So it's very slow,
but
there
Rod: But alive ...
Will: not, oh, let's see
the human,
but
Rod: Yeah ... bits in
Will: body were still alive and are
Rod: Messed up. That's crazy.
Will: So you know what they did?
Rod: No. They ate him. Ötzi steak.
Will: No, they took out the yeast, and they said, "Oh,
well,
Rod: let's
see" - "Oh, we'll make bread and beer."
Will: they haven't made the beer yet.
Rod: Uh- They made the bread? They made the bread.
They
Will: the bread. They made the bread. They made the bread. Okay,
Rod: He became a sourdough starter?
So,
Will: they
found yeast, and they immediately asked, "Can we use it for bread?"
So
they tried to make a sourdough
Rod: loaf.
Will: Oh
Rod: Oh my God.
Will: it didn't work, the microbiology just emitted.
But after three months of effort,
we
had a
very,
very good sourdough. Now,
Rod: Uh, yep.
Will: This is in Italy.
They have some decent
bread there,
Rod: so.
Oh, no, no beef with that. But I'm, thinking,
didn't
work, didn't work, didn't work, did. I can't help but wonder, does that mean they left it out until-
Oh ...
local-
They
Will: the right conditions to grow the bread. They...
I
[00:29:00] dunno, I
Rod: inside a, I don't know, like
a,
a CERN particle accelerator humidor and somehow that worked.
Will: well, it shows that it's active yeast, and why not
Rod: it?
That
it does.
So they're
Will: thinking about brewing beer,
with
Rod: it.
Please Iceman beer?
Will: Scientists eat the ice, man, bread
Rod: Oof, I'm still thinking about Iceman beer. So many natural substances have been made into handbags
Frog.
Mushrooms.
Will: mushroom. Yeah. Okay.
Rod: Yeah, okay
Fish skin.
Salmon. I had an eel skin wallet. It was given to me-
Yeah, It was fucking awesome. My first job, like when I was 15-
What were you
working for? Like a pimp or something? No, I
Will: are you working for?
Like a pimp?
Rod: know.
know
you'd think so.
Will: think,
man,
you
Rod: Yeah, you have "
a fancy wallet. Hey, hooker, please."
Yeah. And this furry hat, don't ask what it's made out of. Why are you wearing a giant clock? No, no.
Will: Literally,
Rod: I think it was maybe my f- it was my first or second y- army disposal store-
Army.
disposal store ...and camping goods.
Will: What
is this?
When the army
is
like, "You gotta go undercover somewhere.
Rod: this? Where the army is, like you're gonna go undercover somewhere? Exactly. Pimping in fucking [00:30:00] Vilnius.
they handed me this wallet and I was like, "This is a really nice wallet and the
leather's
so soft and ooh, it's just delicious." I was like,
Eel skin."
okay.
Um, also cane toads.
Will: yep.
yep.
Rod: Different kinds of, um, flower waste.
They call that fleather.
Will: Flavour,
Rod: Particularly from, apparently, leftover flowers from Indian funerial
Will: Oh, okay. like flour,
like
Rod: flowers? Flowers, yeah, flowers. No, not your,
Will: bread,
Rod: not your breadflours, yeah.
Will: Oh, okay
Rod: Pangolin
scales, you shitheads. Yeah. But
Will: Okay. Pan.
Rod: pangol- I don't understand the pangolin obsession.
Anyway, so there's heaps of things, and they can be eye-wateringly expensive. April this year, a Polish fashion brand, you can probably name them. No, me neither. Mia?
Yep,
yep. This
industry.
Enfant de Vie, my, my accent is flawless. They stepped it up. they unveiled a new handbag with a starting price of 600,000 UK, uh, American dollars.
600,000 American dollars. Why did it cost so much?
600,000. 600,000 to buy this handbag. ' Cause they justify it by saying it's made out of,
uh, lab-grown Tyrannosaurus rex leather. Oh,
really? Oh,
yeah.
Will: Oh damn.
Rod: I know. You're like, "What the fuck?"
Will: Hmm.[00:31:00]
Rod: Oh, hmm.
You're thinking,
I can find 600 grand." Is
Will: that real?
Rod: Well, the question. So how did they do it? So it seems in 2005, paleontologists found some T. rex bones- Okay ...in Montana, about 68 million years old. I know you knew that, but others may not.
Will: I
knew that it was at least 64.
Rod: did, You
did, so you're close. Nothing unusual about that. But then they reckon they found, with this particular sample, soft tissue connected to the bones. So-
Yeah.
Oh, yeah ... Meat-ish.
Will: ishish.
Rod: Hmm. So until then, experts thought, "There's no way this is possible, this soft tissue. It's not possible for this to survive in any usable form." And so lot of experts kind of went, "This is probably bullshit." And they said things like, "No, look, it's actually a bunch of bacteria that colonized the fossil."
Yeah. Yeah. Can't be that. it's not T. rex. The bag must be made out of other stuff. So the people who made the
they used, uh, I love the quote, "Data from the tissue sample to create it." Okay. Data from the tissue sample.
And they fused it with chicken protein
With the alleged, protein sequence from the T-Rex.
And according to a postdoctoral researcher in Germany, or [00:32:00] sorry, reported in Germany, who's a fossilized protein expert at the University of Turin, and I'm paraphrasing here, " That shit ain't real dinosaur."
no.
In fact, it's more chicken than anything else.
Of
Will: it's
Rod: course it is. So
if you're thinking about buying a T-Rex bag, my advice is cock-a-doodle-don't. You are-- I know, ba-dum-ching. You're gonna get a chicken bag for 600,000 US dollars. Fuck, I wish it was Tyrannosaurus leather though. I mean, come on, how good would that be? How good would that be? But it, it's not.
Uh. It's not.
Will: I
am, uh, happy or
sad about
that.
Rod: You can be both. Hap-sad.
Will: I
get myself a T-Rex
Rod: yeah, go with my eel wallet.
T-Rex
Will: Like T-Rex cowboy boots.
Rod: definitely. They'd have to be cowboy boots, and they'd have to go up beyond the knee. Beyond the knee.
Even for men.
Which is not
a Texan manly thing.
Allow them. Remember
to like us on everything you like things on.
Send us an email at-
Will: Cheers
at a little bit of science.com au
Rod: And 9,000
stars.
[00:33:00] 9,000 s- and tell everyone you know that they should listen to this because their lives will be better if they do. Yeah.
I think that's about right.
We will.
Will: With some little
That beer looks
Rod: It really is
It really... Do you know what's better than the first one.
You've got one
he can't use for an hour. Will's crying, listeners. He's crying
