High school students have launched vials of blood into near space, a couple’s love story somehow involves a faecal transplant, and sharks off The Bahamas may be swimming around with cocaine in their system. This week, we bounce between space medicine, gut microbes, brain cooling yawns, and ocean pollution, which is a fairly chaotic itinerary, but science rarely checks in with us first.
Blood Vials, Teenagers, and a Rocket Off Florida
We start with a group of high school students doing something that makes most adult hobbies look embarrassingly small. They launched vials of blood on a rocket about 70 miles off the Florida coast to see what near space conditions might do to blood, and what that could mean for future medical work in space. Not “we made a volcano for the science fair”. Actual blood. Actual rocket. Actual research question.
It is a great reminder that curiosity is not age-gated. Give teenagers a big enough problem and a bit of support and they will absolutely send your bodily fluids into the upper atmosphere for the good of humanity. Which is both inspiring and slightly unsettling, depending on how you feel about rockets.
Love, Bipolar Disorder, and the Least Romantic Medical Procedure
Then we move into the gut, which is where science goes when it wants to be both fascinating and deeply unsexy. The story here follows Alex and Jane, where Jane has severe bipolar disorder and a history of heavy antibiotic use, and ends up trying faecal microbiota transplants using Alex as the donor. If you are looking for a candlelit dinner vibe, this is not it.
But it is genuinely interesting. The idea that the gut microbiome could play a role in mental health is still being explored, and stories like this sit right on that line between hopeful and complicated. It is not a neat miracle cure narrative. It is a reminder that the body is one big interconnected system, and sometimes the thing affecting your brain might be living in your intestines. Romance is dead. Long live the microbes.
Sharks on Cocaine
After that, we head to the ocean, where researchers have detected high levels of cocaine in sharks off The Bahamas. Which sounds like a joke headline, until you remember it is actually about pollution and how human waste ends up everywhere. Even in places we like to imagine are untouched and pristine.
The sharks are not the punchline. They are the warning sign. If cocaine is showing up in marine predators, it means our chemical footprint is spreading through ecosystems in ways we barely understand. It is funny for about three seconds, then it becomes a bit grim.
Yawning as Brain Air Conditioning
To finish, we look at yawning, which most of us treat as a social problem rather than a biological one. Research suggests yawning may help regulate brain temperature, basically acting like a cooling system. There is also evidence it might function like a kind of physiological fingerprint, with patterns that vary between individuals.
So next time you yawn in a meeting, you are not bored. You are performing essential brain maintenance. That is not an excuse that will work on your boss, but it is nice to know your body has a reason for doing it.
CHAPTERS:
00:00 Introduction
01:08 Chivalry Frog Meet Cute
03:37 Bipolar Confession Backstory
05:21 Gut Brain Link Evidence
06:50 DIY FMT Love Story
08:27 FMT Risks And Hype
11:10 Defensive Rewilding Idea
16:40 Cocaine Sharks Explained
17:52 Bahamas Study Findings
22:40 Pollution Everywhere
23:30 Why We Yawn
26:00 Contagious Yawns
27:22 Yawns in the MRI
28:37 Yawning Fingerprints
30:21 Brain Goo Hypothesis
32:06 Student Science Journal
38:12 Blood to Space
39:39 Four Dimensional Minds
SOURCES:
https://futurism.com/science-energy/sharks-high-levels-of-cocaine
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969724049477
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0269749126001880
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03071847.2026.2646067#d1e362
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1569904826000340?via=ihub
-
[00:00:00]
[00:00:01] Will: So the high school students were gathered around their rocket, uh, preparing to launch it, uh, 70 miles off the Florida coast, up in towards space. Um. The last thing they had to do before they could press the launch button is strap down the cargo, the cargo of a couple of precious, precious vials of blood. It's time for a little bit of science already. Yeah. Yeah. I'm will Grant an associate professor of science communication at the Australian National University,
[00:00:52] Rod: and I'm Roderick Gryphon Lambert's, uh, 30 year science communication veteran. Close with a mind of a 14 to 17-year-old boy[00:01:00]
[00:01:00] Will: and today as well as, uh.
[00:01:03] Some high school kids sending blood into space. I
[00:01:05] Rod: sure you were gonna say live animals. Uh, I'm going to do a little bit about, uh, chivalry and how it is still alive.
[00:01:12] Will: I've got some stories about hippies with benefits.
[00:01:14] Rod: Fuck yeah. Uh, we've got fun for animals.
[00:01:17] Will: I wanna say thanks yet again to MRI machines.
[00:01:22] Rod: you are always thanking them though.
[00:01:24] Will: Chivalry. Not dead. Not dead.
[00:01:26] In
[00:01:26] what way is it not dead?
[00:01:28] Rod: I'm gonna tell you a story. So Jane and Alex first connected because a frog popped out of her raincoat.
[00:01:33] You know how it is.
[00:01:34] Will: Frog popped out of her
[00:01:35] Rod: raincoat.
[00:01:36] Sounds like a euphemism, doesn't it?
[00:01:37] Will: dog. It did. It got close to that, just the way that you were saying it. But also it does sound like a fairytale, like a sort of 19th century fairytale, like a French, uh, little Prince type thing.
[00:01:47] Rod: definitely is.
[00:01:48] There's no question. This is exactly what this is.
[00:01:50] The frog popped out of aranco and she went, what a beautiful frog. So she sent a picture of this frog to Alex, who's a zoologist with a lifelong interest in ecology. [00:02:00] And so she asked him, is this a special rare endangered frog? Um, you know, is it hallucinogenic if I
[00:02:05] Will: Why would you necessarily think that?
[00:02:06] Rod: Because it looks so weird. I think, I think it was kind of green with little bits. Like it was kind of spany, green frog. I know it's the only one in history, but like a vibrant green with kind of patterns on it.
[00:02:17] Will: Okay.
[00:02:17] Rod: There was more, but I didn't write that down so I forgot, but it sounded, you
[00:02:20] Will: know, it is possible to show pictures to people.
[00:02:22] Rod: Oh, not if you don't have them.
[00:02:24] Will: I know, I know it's not.
[00:02:26] Rod: But there is no frog. Don't focus on the frog.
[00:02:28] Don't focus on
[00:02:29] the, the frog is a
[00:02:29] Will: catalyst. You asked me to focus on the
[00:02:31] Rod: frog.
[00:02:31] It's a catalyst. Okay. It's a catalyst for a beautiful relationship. Get off the frog, drop the frog and walk away. So, um, she asked him all these questions about the frog, and it turned out nothing special.
[00:02:41] I say a common peons or peons. Peons. Tree frog. Just a tree frog, whatever. Nothing special. Fine. No one cares. This is where the frog leaves the story. Because what was special? What? Frog
[00:02:55] Will: frog. The frog's gone.
[00:02:56] Rod: Now this is, the story's all gonna turn into Frog Story. Believe me. You'll end up [00:03:00] forgetting the frog.
[00:03:00] what was special apparently other than not the Frog, it was their first conversation. It seems like they had an instant connection and from the way I read it, it sounds like the first conversation, which was remote, went for somewhere around 10 hours. They really connected.
[00:03:13] Will: Sure. Okay.
[00:03:13] That's nice. Yeah.
[00:03:15] Rod: And according to Alex, the connection was bafflingly fast. He said, okay. Before I even laid eyes on her physical self, he says, I was confident that Jane was the one we just
[00:03:25] Will: that's nice. That's that's beautiful. It's love. At first type, were they typing this or talking or,
[00:03:29] Rod: I, I assume we're talking, you know, well into this century, so that they was probably Skype.
[00:03:34] I reckon it was 20 teens, early 20 teens. I probably Skyping. So about 20 minutes into the conversation, Jane says to Alex, uh, I have, um, quite severe bipolar disorder.
[00:03:43] Will: Mm-hmm.
[00:03:44] Rod: And over the next number of months, she filled him in on the details. Okay. So she had a normal start to life.
[00:03:48] She was very active, she was engaged, she was quite athletic, apparently doing very well at certain sports. Maybe, you know, heading towards, if not professional, at least. Highly proficient. and then she had a sexual abuse [00:04:00] situation when she was 15, which is, fuck that. It was, uh, not quite immediate family member.
[00:04:04] I think it was a, a non visiting uncle, which like, just a quick pause to say
[00:04:08] Will: non visiting,
[00:04:08] Rod: visiting like he does, didn't hang out with him.
[00:04:10] Will: Oh,
[00:04:11] Rod: Not someone they saw regularly. Anyway, she got really sick as well at similar time, which is not uncommon for people who are suffering really horrible, you know, emotional distress. Especially when you're in your teens. So she got really sick with, uh, tonsillitis, glandular fever. So any, seems like something around two years, off school.
[00:04:27] Off and on. Shit. Tonnes of antibiotics, like all the good stuff. And her mental health shockingly did not benefit.
[00:04:35] Will: Are you shocked? No. I'm not surprised.
[00:04:37] No.
[00:04:37] Rod: Well, but you're an educated man. You know how this works. So she dropped outta school in year 11 and she says in her own words, I lost myself for the next 18 years.
[00:04:45] Will: Wow. Oh.
[00:04:46] Rod: Wow. Oh, she had it. She had it bad. Like she would have the full bipolar swings, like she'd get depressed to the point of suicide. Not quite, but thoughts and manic to the point where, as she would say, I'd be talking to the spirits, I'd feel like I had God-like powers and that I was the [00:05:00] chosen one.
[00:05:00] Will: Frogs. Sorry,
[00:05:01] Rod: I dunno if she talked to frogs.
[00:05:03] Will: no. I, I, I'll forget the frog.
[00:05:04] Rod: forget the, no, you won't. Now all I can think about is I've gotta find a picture. She was hot, hospitalised many, many times, so she just had a shit. Shit, shit, time. But Alex, rather than going, my God, I'm getting the hell outta here. He thought, how can I help her?
[00:05:17] Will: Oh, okay. Thanks Alex.
[00:05:19] Rod: Good man. Good frog guy.
[00:05:21] And his mind turned to the, the fact that she'd had mega amounts of antibiotics early in her teens. them. And he started to think about the effects on things like your gut microbiome.
[00:05:32] Will: Mm-hmm hmm.
[00:05:33] Rod: And as we know in the tumtum, the serotonin and dopamine, your mu mood altering neurotransmitters.
[00:05:40] Get produced down there and play around down there. People that
[00:05:42] Will: for people that, uh, transmitters do, do wish that he would say the actual word.
[00:05:46] Rod: not good at the words. I'm
[00:05:47] the
[00:05:47] Will: the actual word.
[00:05:48] Rod: I'm good at words. They're just not the right ones. So he went diving into the literature and found a study where, um, they'd put human faecal matter into rats.
[00:05:56] The people had depression. They put it in the rats, and the rats started to show all these depression [00:06:00] symptoms.
[00:06:00] Will: Lucky rats. I
[00:06:01] Rod: right? You eat this shit? No, we, it's actually shit.
[00:06:04] Will: Research assistants, we'll need some of your stools.
[00:06:06] Rod: What a day at the
[00:06:07] Will: Could you please Into the rats. You
[00:06:10] Rod: to be depressed people.
[00:06:10] They had to be people
[00:06:11] Will: depressed rats,
[00:06:12] Rod: depressed people given depressed people's poo. And the rats started to show
[00:06:17] Will: made depressed rats with poo,
[00:06:18] Rod: with human depressed poo. Wow. I know.
[00:06:20] Will: Wow. What will they think of next? Frog?
[00:06:24] Rod: depressed
[00:06:25] Will: frogs. What does a depressed frog look like? What does a depressed rat look like? How do we know
[00:06:29] Rod: depressed fog just goes rib
[00:06:31] Will: Yeah.
[00:06:32] Rod: or just it Anyway, uh, Alex went. Suddenly everything just fell into place. This could work.
[00:06:38] Will: now the reason you tell stories is because you like to make me horrified or sad and just sort
[00:06:45] Rod: make you horrified, make you happy.
[00:06:47] No, I like to see a little face change form and it's fun for me.
[00:06:50] Will: me.
[00:06:50] Rod: so flash forward four years. Alex and Jane had been happily married for a while, and at this point Jane says, I was at a point of desperation where I felt I can't continue living with this level of suffering. [00:07:00] So this was when they took some of Alex's faeces.
[00:07:02] Blended it with saline, passed it through a sieve. His own his own, put it into an enema bottle and as she puts it, then it was head down, bum up, squeeze it in. Indeed. I know. Indeed. It's romance. This kicked off what it was to become a whole series of home administered faecal micro microbiota transplants.
[00:07:21] FMTs with the hope that it would quote, take the edge off her mental
[00:07:25] illness. How many,
[00:07:25] Will: many do we need for
[00:07:26] Rod: need? It seems to be quite a few. There
[00:07:28] Will: is this, I mean, if you, if this is your thing and you're doing it daily, that's your thing.
[00:07:31] Rod: daily. Not daily. She's not trying to cure cancer. but it seemed like there was many, and they were regular.
[00:07:39] Will: I thought the point was, it was sort of a one and done sort of
[00:07:42] Rod: This is early days, you know, this is a home brew. You can't be sure how strong a home brew
[00:07:47] is. You
[00:07:48] Will: fair enough. Fair enough.
[00:07:49] Rod: So she says after a few months she began to quote, feel joy for no reason. She started to have self-esteem for no reason, and she started to have motivation. And my [00:08:00] motivation would be, I feel better 'cause I don't want.
[00:08:02] It's a squirt. You shit am my bum anymore. But that was not it. And this was a world first use of fe uh, faecal microbiota transplants to cure bipolar disorder. Wow. So experts apparently were literally stunned. Her psychiatrist described her as her improvement as bordering on miraculous since road.
[00:08:22] It's romance,
[00:08:22] Will: right? No, no. I, I'm, I'm very happy.
[00:08:24] Rod: I told you you wouldn't be upset. It's delightful. So careful studies they say are needed because. Cowboy FMTs aren't great.
[00:08:32] Will: Are you saying don't just find a happy person and, and, and
[00:08:35] Rod: stick
[00:08:36] Will: their poo up your
[00:08:36] Rod: your bum. After putting a blender.
[00:08:38] Don't get the blenders confused too. I, I recommend having your FMT blend. I would.
[00:08:42] Will: pH. How many blenders do you have? Mr. Blender, like you, you, you've got a blender
[00:08:47] Rod: for
[00:08:48] your usual. Yeah. Usual four. One for your poo. Yeah.
[00:08:51] Yeah. One for hot drinks. Yeah, one for cold drinks. And the third is, the fourth is mis
[00:08:56] Will: Mm.
[00:08:57] Rod: So if you do it yourself, like there are big and serious risk to this stuff if [00:09:00] you get it wrong. So you can get autoimmune disorders, you can literally pass on obesity. It would appear of
[00:09:04] Will: yeah.
[00:09:04] Rod: Yeah, uh, you get antibiotic resistance and little things like, you know, you could die.
[00:09:10] Will: so how are, how would they screen for the right donor here? I, I
[00:09:14] Rod: still think, here, I don't know,
[00:09:15] Will: be celebrities selling
[00:09:16] Rod: them Hell yeah. Kind of stuff. Yeah. Brad Pitt's Poo. I mean,
[00:09:19] Will: I mean, I, I feel like,
[00:09:20] Rod: George Cloy, I
[00:09:21] Will: I feel George Queen. I feel like people want my per, I feel like I, I would,
[00:09:23] Rod: you know. you feel
[00:09:24] like people want your
[00:09:24] poo. I,
[00:09:25] Will: I, I, I feel like.
[00:09:26] Rod: like he lies William Q. Grant. I feel like people want my poo. My biggest regret
[00:09:33] Will: this isn't pink, this isn't being, you know, weird. I
[00:09:39] Rod: just,
[00:09:39] Will: you know, I could help.
[00:09:41] Rod: Do you know if you ever have to say that you're on the edge? Yeah. And I'm not being weird. I'm not at a crackpot. But anyway, look, so studies in the early 2020s are showing really positive results about this literally wiping out furious mental dis diseases, disorders like this.
[00:09:59] But big trials need to [00:10:00] be coming and so for Jane, Jane apparently is no longer on medication. Wow. Which is phenomenal. She no longer, um, has a disability pension support. She no longer is being hospitalised every year. So
[00:10:14] Will: got her off the pension,
[00:10:15] Rod: The love and poo got her out into the real world. So 2025, she's had no manic episodes since, uh, late 2017. It's, it's phenomenal. It is phenomenal. And so she says, by resolving my bipolar symptoms, we have saved the government potentially millions of dollars. And I'm just one person, which is true. Which is true, um, but also. Other than, uh, wow. To the medical side of this, I've gotta say what a romcom waiting to be written,
[00:10:40] Will: You know? Wouldn't it be, wouldn't it be Yeah, with the Square Square, like it's,
[00:10:45] Rod: Anne Hathaway and I'm gonna say Ben, not Ryan Gosling. Ben Mendelssohn.
[00:10:50] Will: Ben Ben Mendelson. He's not, he's not a romcom guy. He's not a romcom. Jesus. I mean,
[00:10:56] Rod: but his poo is pristine.
[00:10:58] Will: How do you choose, [00:11:00] how do you choose the donors here?
[00:11:01] I feel like,
[00:11:02] Rod: I think on looks.
[00:11:03] Will: I just think it's
[00:11:04] Rod: on
[00:11:04] Will: gut flora. There's some complexities. That's all Wells
[00:11:07] Rod: they're flatulent, don't.
[00:11:10] Will: I wanted to tell you a story about, uh, hippies. Hippies bringing benefits, hip, not hippies with benefits, but hippies bringing
[00:11:16] Rod: Oh, not wi because I Oh,
[00:11:18] Will: hippies with benefits.
[00:11:18] No, they
[00:11:19] Rod: they have certain benefits,
[00:11:21] Will: but, um, just building on your last story, of course there could be moments where hippies bring things that you don't
[00:11:27] Rod: don't want. Yeah. No, no. They want, they wanna bring something. No, no, man. It's okay. It's natural.
[00:11:31] Will: but we, we are used to the argument, uh, these days that, um.
[00:11:35] There can't be just one reason to do anything anymore. Permaculture. What?
[00:11:40] Rod: What? Permaculture.
[00:11:41] The classic thing is everything you do in the garden should have at least two benefits.
[00:11:44] Will: Yeah. Or what are, what are they looking for? What are your two benefits? Make your soil better and, and
[00:11:48] Rod: eat cabbage.
[00:11:49] Will: Yeah. So
[00:11:50] Rod: Or if you're irrigating, if you are using water in one place, make sure when you get rid of it, it irrigates and also washes your camel or something.
[00:11:57] So each thing should have at least two positive
[00:11:59] Will: Is it [00:12:00] like, or some, some herbs, you plant them, you can eat them, but they also keep the snails
[00:12:03] Rod: they, yeah, they keep badgers away. Exactly. Yeah, exactly.
[00:12:06] Will: badger resistant
[00:12:08] Rod: herbs. Yep,
[00:12:08] yep,
[00:12:08] yep. You know what they're like.
[00:12:09] Will: That's really interesting.
[00:12:10] Rod: big in the Northern
[00:12:11] Will: really interesting because, because I don't know if the researchers here from the University of East London who come from not a permaculture sort of world, but from a strategic and defence studies sort of world. Classic hippie hangout. A classic hippie hangout. No, no. They are making an argument here that I am like, well.
[00:12:31] Good. Good. This, this sounds great. They're raising the concept here, and I love this word, defensive rewilding. So they're raising a concept here, and it's a little bit like the permaculture, but on a bigger
[00:12:44] Rod: So what make a jungle full of thorns so the missourians can't get through when they attack
[00:12:48] Will: Yes. Yes, that's it. So
[00:12:51] actually makes sense. It,
[00:12:51] so basically a jungle's full of thorns, but their arguments are that you get two massive but very different directions of benefits here. So, so the [00:13:00] first thing we, we, what we're here talking about here is ecological restoration work in, in various sorts of directions.
[00:13:06] So it could be, uh, wetland enhancement and restoration
[00:13:09] or,
[00:13:10] or replanting or planting forests, uh, peatlands, uh, making rivers. More rivery again, all that kind of stuff.
[00:13:18] Rod: uppy river.
[00:13:18] Will: Yeah. En en enhancing the rivers in. In fact, I think also, coral reefs, making them more coral reefy. That's
[00:13:26] Rod: It's probably a good idea. 'cause you know, if your sailors fall off on a coral reef, they get a little cut
[00:13:30] Will: Indeed. So all of these things, um, have great ecological benefits and there are, there are obviously many scientists, uh, ecologist, hippies that are arguing that we should do these things for, for the climate or for biodiversity or for anything
[00:13:45] Rod: Just for love, man.
[00:13:46] Will: Just for the love. Just for the love. Um, you know, that we should get out there and, and restore the wilderness to what it was like before humans came and ruined
[00:13:54] Rod: everything. Oh.
[00:13:55] Will: Um, and in fact, you know, there are, there are
[00:13:57] Rod: so the glorious past is not any glorious. It was also much safer.[00:14:00]
[00:14:00] Will: Well, here's the thing.
[00:14:01] So these people are like, okay, but we can, we can get a bonus argument here and not just protect against snails, but protect against the Russians.
[00:14:09] Rod: not hippies, not
[00:14:10] Will: not protect
[00:14:11] Rod: protect myself against hippies.
[00:14:13] Will: wanna, I wanna put a swamp land around my
[00:14:15] Rod: yeah, I'm gonna grow hippies, bullet trees and capitalist bushes and they'll just leave me alone. But
[00:14:20] Will: what they're, what they're trying to do
[00:14:21] Rod: against the Russians in particular, 'cause they have a loathing for the wild.
[00:14:24] Will: well.
[00:14:25] A lot of their examples actually come from that boundary between let's say Germany and Russia, which is actually whole countries as a boundary. But we know that,
[00:14:34] Rod: um, some
[00:14:35] of them consider themselves more than just a fence. Yeah. More than
[00:14:38] Will: Poland. More than a fence.
[00:14:39] Rod: Exactly. Not just a boundary,
[00:14:42] Will: but we know historically, so for example, um, I think the German soldiers in World War II got bogged down in the.
[00:14:50] Prate marshes as they're trying to get into the Soviet Union. Uh, and similarly, there's actually, Ukraine has done that as just recently in their fight with Russia, like they flooded a [00:15:00] wetland to make it hard to get your tanks through. Yeah. But what the, what this argument is, is basically a nice moment where ecologists are saying, okay, there's benefits here.
[00:15:09] Yeah. And the defence people are going, Hmm. Actually that's a hell of a lot cheaper than building walls or putting up barbed wire. And a hell of a lot more effective if we just grow forests or flood, flood, uh, wetlands and
[00:15:21] Rod: how do they explain that to the new enlistee though? You will.
[00:15:25] Will: build
[00:15:25] Rod: your rifle clean, dig holes, put trees in it, floodplains
[00:15:29] Will: it, it, it, it obviously can only happen in certain sorts of places. Like, like I'm not, I mean Okay. The
[00:15:36] Rod: and the Swiss military
[00:15:37] Will: Right there up against Russia. I mean, here in Australia, I don't know if we, I don't know how easy it is to rebuild coral reefs, but if we are getting.
[00:15:46] Invaded by year, you know, 1941, Japanese military or something
[00:15:50] Rod: like,
[00:15:50] that.
[00:15:50] Oh yeah,
[00:15:51] Will: it's possible. That's not the fastest growing thing to,
[00:15:54] Rod: No. And and rumour has it, that the environment to keep it growing is not quite [00:16:00] as, uh, conducive as it used to be.
[00:16:01] Will: No, indeed.
[00:16:02] Rod: Although a bleached reef is still gonna have jagged bits, so it's fine.
[00:16:05] Will: that's true. We can get some bleached
[00:16:07] Rod: roof.
[00:16:07] Yeah. They don't have to be pretty,
[00:16:08] Will: but I just loved, I, I just thought this is, this is really nice where the hippies are getting their arguments. Up into government via a defence
[00:16:15] Rod: argument. Yeah. And General Vaughn Watson Stein has said yes.
[00:16:18] Will: there you go. It's, uh, well, like Rod's version of this, it's permaculture for national defence.
[00:16:24] Um, or defensive rewilding. Uh, take that. Think about that. How can we block the snails, all the Russians, from getting to our tomatoes,
[00:16:34] Rod: to our us getting to us?
[00:16:37] Yeah, getting to us. I
[00:16:38] like that. So here's a headline that would make any Australian's blood run cold sharks showing unusually high levels of cocaine. The mere idea of a shark on cocaine.
[00:16:53] Will: I dunno. I, I, look, I don't quite know what cocaine would do to a
[00:16:57] Rod: shark, if
[00:16:58] it's anything like what it does to people. What [00:17:00] bad things, man. Well,
[00:17:01] Will: look, I'm concerned about a shark being near me. I don't care if it's a cocaine shark or a, or a or a straighted
[00:17:06] Rod: shark. But if you had to choose
[00:17:07] Will: I Mm mm I, yeah, I'll take a drunk shark.
[00:17:10] Yeah,
[00:17:11] Rod: Oh, hell
[00:17:11] Will: I think that's the shark
[00:17:12] or
[00:17:12] Rod: suddenly go, I love you, man.
[00:17:14] Will: shark attacking
[00:17:15] Rod: stone sharks get
[00:17:16] Will: hungry, but they're nibbling. They're sort of
[00:17:18] Rod: no, No,
[00:17:18] Stone shark would eat fucking everything, including each
[00:17:21] Will: other,
[00:17:22] Rod: but a Coke top shark might get confused or it'd start pitching you dumb
[00:17:25] ideas. Exactly. It's like I have an idea for a TV show as well, and you're like, BA, and then you can get away. luckily these sharks, these cocaine showing up with high level, oh, sorry, sharks showing up with high levels of cocaine. It's not happening in or around Australia. Or to be fair, more ly, we haven't been looking for
[00:17:40] Will: it.
[00:17:41] Rod: Okay. Happening in or around
[00:17:42] Will: so they're looking for it. What, in Florida?
[00:17:45] In The Bahamas?
[00:17:46] Uh, Bahamas.
[00:17:47] Rod: Bahamas.
[00:17:47] Will: I know it's a sharky sort of place.
[00:17:49] Rod: It's also a kki sort of
[00:17:50] Will: place. Indeed, indeed.
[00:17:52] Rod: So the context is the, there's a whole, the whole issue of this notion of detection of big, big capitals here, contaminants [00:18:00] of emerging concern.
[00:18:01] Your CECs, your Cs in marine environments are an issue.
[00:18:06] Will: So contaminants being stuff that we are polluting out
[00:18:09] into the, into the water of emerging
[00:18:10] Rod: concerns. emerging.
[00:18:11] Will: this isn't stuff we already know we're concerned
[00:18:13] Rod: about.
[00:18:13] Yeah. This is on the horizon.
[00:18:15] Will: the horizon, yeah. Yeah. Oil sludge or your radioactive particles or your plastics.
[00:18:19] Rod: cocaine.
[00:18:19] Will: This is just your others?
[00:18:21] Rod: yeah, your other, all the, all the rests.
[00:18:23] Will: concern.
[00:18:24] Rod: I know. Contaminants of emerging concerns. So these kecks are things that simply shouldn't be in the environments as you'd expect. They're human derived, as you say, and they're unlikely to be doing. A lot of good stuff for the critters who are immersed in them.
[00:18:36] Will: I, can I, I mean, what, what I, I get being able to detect cocaine in a shark Yeah.
[00:18:41] Is very different from, you know, the shark is actually high. Like what volumes are we talking here?
[00:18:47] Rod: Well, there's no measurement yet of whether they're getting coked up. It's not clear, but they're, they're finding them at least since 2024, near and around Brazil.
[00:18:57] And now as you've picked it off the coast, around the coast of [00:19:00] The Bahamas. So there's a journal, environmental pollution, you know, my favourite one, first report of kecks detected in sharks serum from The
[00:19:07] Will: journal. Such a party
[00:19:08] Rod: Environmental pollution. Yeah. What do you talk about? It's dreadful. We go to lovely places and bemoan occasionally publish
[00:19:14] Will: a paper that's like, and let's
[00:19:15] just, it cool.
[00:19:16] It's all good. I don't know. I don't,
[00:19:18] Rod: it's
[00:19:18] all cool. Yeah.
[00:19:18] Will: Yeah. Maybe there's, maybe we cleaned up some pollution.
[00:19:21] Rod: Yeah, but then, then the conclusion would be, but is never enough. We need to do way, way more. But they say this was the first report of Kecks detected in shark blood and other goo in The Bahamas. Which ones?
[00:19:33] So other than the cocaines. Dicen. So it's a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory caffeine. Mm-hmm. Aceto. So it's a common painkiller you'd see in
[00:19:46] Will: I gonna, am I gonna need to know these afterwards?
[00:19:49] Rod: No, I'm just saying these are the things they found.
[00:19:50] Will: that's cool. I was just,
[00:19:51] Rod: Oh, that's cool. I was just, I was just, there'll be a test. I was just,
[00:19:52] Will: I was just filing those, those chemicals
[00:19:54] Rod: Okay. Tell me what they
[00:19:55] Will: the don't remember.
[00:19:56] Oh, I was gonna say no. I filed them very quickly to the don't remember section.
[00:19:59] Rod: people who want you say [00:20:00] non-steroidal anti-inflammatories, caffeine. A common kind of painkiller that Americans find in Tylenol. These were found in three different shark species, Caribbean reef shark, Atlantic nurse shark, and lemon sharks.
[00:20:12] Not in great whites. I dunno why that matters, but apparently
[00:20:14] Will: don't think they have great whites around there.
[00:20:16] Rod: you never know with climate
[00:20:17] Will: whites are you you. It's slightly more colder water generally. They
[00:20:20] Rod: really are. I
[00:20:20] Will: are. I think
[00:20:21] Rod: they really
[00:20:21] Will: think
[00:20:22] Rod: They do like to hang out around the year old Cape Horns.
[00:20:26] Yeah, exactly. That vicinity,
[00:20:27] Will: roaring forties. They love the roaring
[00:20:29] Rod: They did love the past. It's the way they dressed.
[00:20:31] Will: roaring forties is like the, the, the,
[00:20:33] the the
[00:20:34] 40 degree
[00:20:34] Rod: latitudes.
[00:20:35] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That
[00:20:36] Will: there around Cape Cape. Uh, Cape. Good. Hope they love it. And
[00:20:39] Rod: Cape of Good Hope.
[00:20:40] Will: Yeah.
[00:20:41] That one,
[00:20:41] Rod: so the concern is they collected blood samples, 85 sharks. They got 85 sharks rounded up around the,
[00:20:46] Will: they, did they ask for consent and Yes. Yes.
[00:20:49] Rod: Yes. And, and they didn't say no. So around the EEU island, which is apparently quite remote in The Bahamas and so it's environment should be pristine.
[00:20:58] That's why they went there. [00:21:00] Shock horror. It's not. Not pristine. So the substances were turning up in detectable quantities, which of course bothers them. so how did they, the, uh, environmental pollutants your kecks get there? So according to the lead author, it's mostly because people are going there, peeing in the water and then dumping, sew in the water.
[00:21:16] And it's probably, uh, your divers being the main culprits in the prison.
[00:21:19] Will: Yeah. Oh, I thought this was like, whole countries are just sort of gradually flooding the oceans.
[00:21:23] Rod: this No,
[00:21:23] no, it would appear, it's happening at a much lesser level. I assume there's a lot of divers there. Yeah, but I assume there's a lot of divers.
[00:21:29] Divers, however, that's still, if it's mostly coming out of the, the detritus and refuse of diving boats and diving bodies either. That's very, they, they're real up
[00:21:39] Will: coked up. Or,
[00:21:40] Rod: they need anti steroidal inflammatories and it doesn't sound great. But the study says that they found up all these kes, they showed up in the, um, basically the fat cells, triglycerides in the sharks in their wee wee and also in the lactate levels.
[00:21:53] 'cause a lot of the sharks they tested were pregnant. And uh, it showed up in their milks.
[00:21:57] Will: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, [00:22:00] wait.
[00:22:00] Sharks have milk?
[00:22:01] Rod: Mm-hmm.
[00:22:02] You haven't had shark milk?
[00:22:03] Will: No. I'm
[00:22:04] Rod: No. Next time you get a coffee,
[00:22:05] Will: I thought one of them definitions of the mammals is, is, is
[00:22:09] Rod: lactate. Must mean milking or milk.
[00:22:13] Will: Sharks have milk.
[00:22:14] Rod: Sure.
[00:22:15] Will: Sharks have milk. Sharks
[00:22:16] Rod: Sharks have milk. Shark milk. What?
[00:22:18] Will: What?
[00:22:19] Rod: Shark milk. It showed up in their lactate levels. So Well, unless lactate has two meanings, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not sure that it does. And they did link it to pregnancy.
[00:22:30] Will: imagining these baby sharks just nibbling on the nipples. I don't think that
[00:22:34] Rod: yeah, it'd be horrible.
[00:22:34] Will: something else going
[00:22:35] Rod: on.
[00:22:35] maybe. Yeah, that's a good question. Someone listening tell us. Correct me or help us out. So it just basically means these emerging pollutions in these pristine environments are bloody everywhere. So I gotta say one thing. I'm glad they found Coke because otherwise this would not be a headline.
[00:22:51] So this stuff won't actually get out
[00:22:52] Will: there.
[00:22:52] Rod: True. Talked
[00:22:53] Will: That's true. That's true.
[00:22:54] Rod: Because, no, you know, we found some s anti non-inflammatory. What? Anti-inflammatory, non-steroidals [00:23:00] in sharks. People like, I don't
[00:23:01] care. maybe,
[00:23:01] Will: maybe the sharks don't mind the anti-inflammatories and they're feeling a little bit,
[00:23:05] Rod: might be fine, but we don't know.
[00:23:07] And just willy-nilly letting them out there, or via the willy letting them out there is not a good idea. Ah, until we know. And also, I gotta say, it's another example of how nowhere and nothing on earth is safe from us and our accidental mistakes. Nothing, nowhere,
[00:23:21] Will: what? So what? What? You want a pristine world? Oh my God, of
[00:23:25] Rod: I do nowhere and nothing is immune. Well done. Humans.
[00:23:28]
[00:23:30] Will: rod, could you yawn for a second? I, I love a yawn now I'm sleeping. I love a yawn.
[00:23:39] Rod: They're good for you.
[00:23:40] Will: they, they feel so good. Like they, they just, ah,
[00:23:44] Rod: they re oxygenate you.
[00:23:46] Will: So you yawning? Uh, it's pretty common. Bunch across a whole bunch of animals.
[00:23:51] Definitely dogs.
[00:23:52] Uh, definitely dogs.
[00:23:53] You de and spiders. Ah, don't know about that. I'd have to check.
[00:23:58] Rod: I'm gonna, I'm gonna chat or [00:24:00] vigilante to ask me anything about spiders.
[00:24:03] Will: Oh, but mammal mammals, amphibians. So not
[00:24:06] Rod: spiders, frogs
[00:24:07] really Yawning. Lizards.
[00:24:08] Will: amphibia lizards, that's a reptile, but reptiles are next on my list. So you just jumped ahead.
[00:24:13] Rod: though. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
[00:24:14] Will: Reptiles yarn. other vertebras, the even, underwater animals, you're underwater. An
[00:24:20] Rod: mammals. You, you sea an enemies. No. Your coral,
[00:24:23] Will: I dunno if coral's your
[00:24:25] Rod: like, like
[00:24:25] sea cucumber,
[00:24:27] Will: but aquatic mammals, like beluga whales, uh, bottle noses, dolphins, ju gongs. They all,
[00:24:32] Rod: they yawn,
[00:24:33] Will: yawn like behaviours.
[00:24:34] Rod: yawn through the blow hole?
[00:24:36] Will: I hope so. It's a blowhole
[00:24:38] Rod: yeah, like pr. They couldn't yawn with their mouths 'cause they'd fricking drown or they'd have to lie on their backs.
[00:24:45] Will: But yawning is, is a pretty common behaviour. You know, we all do it. We love it. Yeah. Um, but it remains a mystery. We don't actually know why we yawn
[00:24:55] Rod: tell you one thing talking about it. Boy, I want to.
[00:24:58] Will: I know,
[00:24:58] Rod: right.
[00:24:58] Will: Oof. No, it, [00:25:00] but it feels good. Don't, don't listen, and don't worry if you yawn at the moment, it's fine. Uh, no. There's a bunch of hypothesis as to why we humans or we yawners, if we're
[00:25:09] Rod: gonna
[00:25:09] we yawners.
[00:25:10] Yeah. Yeah.
[00:25:10] Will: the, the beluga whales and the other mammals and whatnot. Um, so there's physiological hypotheses like, uh, might play a role in regulating blood oxygen, CO2 levels.
[00:25:20] it might do something, a brain thermo regulation. So you might, um,
[00:25:24] Rod: your, brain's getting too hot. Yeah. Have a little yawn.
[00:25:26] Cool.
[00:25:26] Will: your brain down a little bit. it might be something about the, a arousal levels like to, you know, you're getting a
[00:25:32] Rod: it's true. I really like it.
[00:25:33] Will: no more, like you're getting a bit tired and a yawn can help you, get a bit less tired.
[00:25:38] Like you're, you're a bit more aroused, not aroused in a sexual sense, but more awake.
[00:25:42] Rod: don't you tell me what arouses me.
[00:25:44] It
[00:25:44] Will: could be something to do with, uh, cerebral metabolic waste
[00:25:47] Rod: clearance
[00:25:47] that I was gonna guess that, yeah. You, you yawn and
[00:25:50] Will: brain goose. Get rid of your brain coming out. Yeah, maybe.
[00:25:53] Rod: So if you yawn 38 times a day No, no. Uh, mental disorders
[00:25:57] Will: or, well, I, I'll, I, there's, there's.[00:26:00]
[00:26:00] Rod: there's,
[00:26:00] Will: there's possibly some social, um, hypotheses as well. Um, well, they're contagious as a communicative. Expect. Yeah. Yeah. They're contagious. Like we pass a yawn onto someone else. Yeah. and you, and you pass a yawn on across species, like
[00:26:13] Rod: definitely with dogs. Like
[00:26:15] Will: dogs will yawn. Uh, I don dunno if dogs catch it from us, but we catch
[00:26:18] Rod: it. No, haven't you dog yawned.
[00:26:19] They, they suggested if you try to calm your dog down, they say don't quite make eye contact just near it and then go and do a big yawn and it helps calm them.
[00:26:27] Will: Oh, that's so good. I I
[00:26:28] Rod: give it a try. Not your dogs. She can't get calm ever. She's either unconscious
[00:26:32] Will: you only see her when she's excited to see you. Like the rest of the time. She is a sleeping dog. Like she, she is a, she is a rug. Like the
[00:26:40] Rod: abuse you, she she needs, she needs me to move.
[00:26:43] Will: Did you know, but on the communicative, um, aspect, and I love this study. It's one of my favourite studies ever that, um, cool.
[00:26:50] It is, uh, well, it's highly communicative. Amongst nearly all humans, but just not psychopaths.
[00:26:56] Rod: Oh yeah. Yeah. I heard this. I heard
[00:26:57] Will: you. It's
[00:26:58] Rod: if you wanna test, if someone's [00:27:00] fully trying to size you up to murder you and take everything
[00:27:02] you own. Yeah,
[00:27:02] Yeah. You are near them. And if they don't, you are on, you're like, monster,
[00:27:06] Will: don't take that one to the bank.
[00:27:07] But it is,
[00:27:08] Rod: it
[00:27:08] No, take it to the bank. I've heard this before. I think we may have talked about this years ago.
[00:27:11] Will: if. If that is your last defence, like, like you're about to be tricked into signing over your house and, and your virginity to everyone,
[00:27:20] Rod: they're not yawning, mom, come away.
[00:27:22] Will: But some researchers, uh, here in Australia at the University of New South Wales have done
[00:27:28] Rod: the
[00:27:28] that's like the fourth best university,
[00:27:29] Will: done the thing that you need to do to understand anything in the human body.
[00:27:33] Drug
[00:27:34] Rod: us
[00:27:34] Will: and put us in an MRI. these researchers took a bunch of, uh, people, and, uh, got 'em in an MRI scanning their heads and necks. I, I assume it might've actually been a functional MRI.
[00:27:44] So it's, which is
[00:27:45] Rod: WPP looking at your blood flows in real time.
[00:27:48] Will: real time and got a bunch of healthy participants, to yawn or take deep breaths or stifle a yawn or
[00:27:56] Rod: so fake yawn. Pretend to yawn.
[00:27:58] Will: Uh, no, no [00:28:00] yawn. Like none of them, none of them would pretend to
[00:28:02] Rod: ya.
[00:28:02] But I like you said, tell me to yawn. Right. And I made yawning noises, but, but I wasn't yawning.
[00:28:06] It's not true.
[00:28:07] I can't actually yawn on, on demand.
[00:28:09] Will: No. Well, they had someone else con they, they were actually contagious yawns. That's the point. They, they got someone to yawn and then, and then the others yawned.
[00:28:16] Rod: But you could tell I was faking.
[00:28:17] That's
[00:28:17] Will: I could tell you were faking. Like that's 'cause I'm not a psychopath. I know, I know. When fake yarns happen.
[00:28:22] they were wondering, you know, yawning and deep breathing may be pretty similar sorts of things. Mm-hmm. But they're wondering can we tell the difference of what's going on in the whole head and neck scan, uh, when it's happening?
[00:28:33] They found actually some really interesting
[00:28:36] Rod: things. Yeah.
[00:28:37] Will: The first one. Is that, uh, each person, and they didn't have the biggest study in the universe, but, uh,
[00:28:44] Rod: really
[00:28:44] Will: no, everyone in their study yawned in a unique way.
[00:28:49] Rod: so, well, that's gotta be pretty subtle if we're talking unique, like the difference is your eyebrow was on eight degrees, slightly
[00:28:55] different
[00:28:55] Will: that's, it might depend on the resolution of the, of the MRI. but the [00:29:00] tongue motion, the jaw motion, what's going on? It was, it was different for each person, but very consistent for each person. So they said it's almost like a fingerprint. So you could possibly identify someone just based on how they yawn, which
[00:29:15] Rod: God, it's gonna make the next born movie boring.
[00:29:18] Will: Or
[00:29:19] Rod: Or going to the ATM.
[00:29:20] Will: like, like fi. Like I do love the idea that some forensic scientists one day will identify someone just on a, on a yawn.
[00:29:27] Rod: yeah. There's no way you're the real king of America because you yawn the wrong way.
[00:29:31] Will: Yeah.
[00:29:31] Rod: that's great. That's great.
[00:29:33] Will: I don't know if they discovered this, but um, they did also report here in the study, um, and they confirmed this, I think, is that bigger brains lead to ya longer yawns.
[00:29:43] Rod: do.
[00:29:44] Will: There you go. So
[00:29:45] Rod: can yawn for an hour and a half.
[00:29:47] Will: An hour and a half. Hour and a half.
[00:29:48] Rod: and a half.
[00:29:49] Will: How good would that feel? Holy
[00:29:51] Rod: Horrifying. You'd be
[00:29:52] Will: No, I would be all over
[00:29:54] Rod: that. Your yawning is breathing out.
[00:29:56] Can you breathe out for an hour and a
[00:29:57] Will: half? No, but I do circular yawning.
[00:29:59] Rod: That's more than one [00:30:00] yawn.
[00:30:00] Will: I'd keep the yawn going while I'm sniffing in.
[00:30:03] I just
[00:30:04] Rod: take
[00:30:04] I feel like the moment you breathe in, it's a new yawn. It's a new yawn. No way. I'm demarcating between yawns, constant in breath, new yawn,
[00:30:11] Will: But they did come out with. Hypothesis that does start to break down.
[00:30:16] What the hell is going on? Maybe in yawning.
[00:30:18] Rod: Do they make yawning boring?
[00:30:20] Will: Uh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. It's your cerebral spinal fluid. Oh. So
[00:30:25] Rod: holy shit. I did not expect that.
[00:30:26] So,
[00:30:27] Will: wrapping around the brain.
[00:30:29] Rod: Yeah.
[00:30:29] Will: a whole bunch of cerebral spinal fluid does some stuff.
[00:30:33] Rod: brain, spine goose
[00:30:34] Will: yawns trigger a movement in the CSF.
[00:30:37] In the opposite direction than taking a deep breath. So taking a deep breath, ah, it moves in one direct, but yawns seem to pull it away in a very different direction. So they are giving credence here to the idea that it is some sort of role in cleaning out the brain. Like it's, it's the getting the goo out of your brain.
[00:30:54] Rod: There's
[00:30:54] no way in shit. If you'd said have 4,000 guesses, it's
[00:30:58] Will: out your brain.
[00:30:59] Rod: [00:31:00] Change the transatlantic
[00:31:00] current,
[00:31:01] Will: mean, there, there is a chunk, there is a chunk here where you go, well.
[00:31:04] neurodegenerative diseases. So your dementia and Alzheimer's and things like that Yeah.
[00:31:09] Are associated with an accumulation of waste. Uh, and the older you get, the more waste there can be. Yeah. could we all soup up our yawning yarn harder. Yawn harder.
[00:31:17] Rod: Harder yarn. More yarn harder. But that also probably means sociopaths and psychopaths get dementia more. I
[00:31:22] Will: know. I look, look, I think, I think we're jumping between possible ideas here, but there is an explanation for yawning that finally we're getting closer.
[00:31:30] S
[00:31:30] Rod: Ssp, spinal fluid. Changing the flow. Yeah. Yeah. That is fucking wild.
[00:31:36] Will: So there you go, listener. yawning feels good. It is good for you. Do it more, uh, and make other people do it as well,
[00:31:43] Rod: But time it appropriately depending on your social circumstances. If you're on a date, for example, and you ask the significant or hopefully significant other, tell me, tell me about what you do at work.
[00:31:54] And then you kind of go, oh, I better do some yawning, otherwise I'm gonna get demented. No, but
[00:31:57] Will: No, but tell me what you do at work. I mean, you're allowed to yawn at that. It's [00:32:00] like, tell me what your passionate is. You know
[00:32:02] Rod: that?
[00:32:02] What's the difference?
[00:32:06] Will: So I told you at the start about, uh, the high school students sending blood to space.
[00:32:11] Rod: moment you said strap on the cargo, I'm thinking live animals for sure immediately.
[00:32:16] And it was killing me not to say anything. 'cause I'm imagining like get the cat, zip, lock it to the rocket,
[00:32:21] but no
[00:32:21] Will: sadly, uh, I, I suspect that the students we have here are more of your, nerd type than your, than your
[00:32:30] Rod: in the rocketry club,
[00:32:30] Will: than than your bullying type.
[00:32:33] Rod: Nerds can be very savage with animals.
[00:32:35] Will: I just wanted to give a huge shout out for something that made me really happy when I ran across it just this week. the kids sending the blood to space is part of it, and I'll, I'll, I'll describe that in a
[00:32:44] Rod: second.
[00:32:44] That made you happy.
[00:32:45] Will: it's called the Journal of Emerging Investigators.
[00:32:48] in my occasional series of, wow, that's a journal and I love it. Uh, the Journal of Emerging Investigators is an open access journal that publishes original research in biological and physical sciences that's written [00:33:00] by middle and high school students.
[00:33:01] Rod: So there's like lots of picky
[00:33:04] Will: Uh, there's pictures. No, no. I, I like, I'll give you the history, But this stuff is, this stuff is like, I'll, I'll read you some of the papers
[00:33:12] Rod: truly emerging.
[00:33:13] Will: No, they are, they are great. Like they,
[00:33:15] Rod: they are, yeah. Yeah.
[00:33:16] Will: are awesome studies. They are so,
[00:33:18] Rod: And so, wait, you can't publish in it?
[00:33:20] Will: no, no. I
[00:33:21] Rod: So it's
[00:33:21] Will: can't, uh, it, no.
[00:33:23] It's, uh, stages.
[00:33:24] Rod: It's
[00:33:24] divisive. That's,
[00:33:26] Will: It's divisive.
[00:33:27] Rod: it. I don't like it. No, it, I feel shut out.
[00:33:29] Will: It is for particular people who are high school and middle middle school students, I assume
[00:33:34] the definition
[00:33:34] I assume they would take a primary school student as well,
[00:33:36] Rod: as well. It's racist.
[00:33:39] Will: I don't think that's race. I, I, I don't think you know what words mean. I don't. So anyway, there, there's, um, the story of the journal,
[00:33:47] started about, uh, or in 2011, there was some Harvard, uh, grad students, um, who were in the Harvard Medical School. They, they went along to the, you know, the science fans.
[00:33:58] Uh, that
[00:33:59] Rod: I've heard of
[00:33:59] Will: at [00:34:00] local high schools. Yeah. and all of these, all of these students doing all this hard work, at the end of the day, it all just ends up in the trash. Like, like they get, they get their mark. Teacher says, yay. Teacher says, that's not science. Teacher says
[00:34:13] Rod: your macaroni volcano is terrible. That
[00:34:15] Will: is terrible.
[00:34:15] That that is unethical. You know, whatever. Um. And it all, oh, regardless, gets dumped in
[00:34:21] Rod: trash. Yeah. It's over. Yeah.
[00:34:21] Will: And so, um, Sarah Frankhouser, who was at the Harvard Med School and, and a couple of colleagues, Lincoln Pasquina and Chris Wells said, uh, well, maybe something more should happen here. We
[00:34:33] Rod: should keep the blood. At least
[00:34:34] Will: we should keep the blood. Jesus.
[00:34:36] Rod: Jesus.
[00:34:38] Will: No. And they established the Journal of Emerging Investigators and I was just, I was just like, this is, this is amazing. They've, um, they've had submissions over the last decade and a bit. Um,
[00:34:47] Rod: clarify, the peer review is other emerging
[00:34:50] Will: No. The peer review is actually, they, they work with, um, they often work with graduate students, that it is definitely peer reviewed.
[00:34:57] Um, so
[00:34:58] Rod: aware that the grad students are always the [00:35:00] meanest reviewers
[00:35:02] Will: That they, they work with grad students as helping them to publish as well. Oh. So, so they will shepherd them through publishing. But it is peer reviewed. So it is, it is getting reviewed by people who
[00:35:11] Rod: pretty fucking impressive, to be honest. That is
[00:35:13] very
[00:35:13] Will: I'll tell you one other story that, that was not published in this in a bit, but, but it's, it's a mind blowing story. Wow. but anyway, I, I just thought I'd take a deep dive into some of the research that they're publishing. And, and it's just, you know, some of it is like, uh, the interests of, of high school kids.
[00:35:31] I saw a bunch of, you know, like, how to improve at chess, uncovering insights, using regression analysis. You know, that, so someone, someone had done a bunch of things in, in how, how different people will improve at chess or how to, you know. A, a bunch of NFL studies like, which, you know, which sorts of plays lead to different sorts of things.
[00:35:50] And so
[00:35:50] Rod: Ah, adults do that too,
[00:35:51] Will: But, but then I'm like, okay, de novo design of dual target inhibitor against t phospho, correlation and [00:36:00] acylation for Alzheimer's therapy. And I'm like, high.
[00:36:03] Rod: school.
[00:36:04] Will: High school. High school. High school.
[00:36:08] Rod: It's fair to say I only understand 99% of those words. I know, right. And I'm, I'm ba I'm past high
[00:36:13] Will: Exactly. Here's another one. CDK seven inhibit inhibition, disrupts androgen signalling and induces metabolic rewiring and prostate cancer cells. Vista inhibitor ca one 70 combined with crass vaccine enhances immune response in lung cancer. So they're doing
[00:36:29] Rod: what in the actual,
[00:36:30] I mean,
[00:36:30] Will: there's, there's some other, there's some other,
[00:36:32] Rod: these are 15 year olds. These,
[00:36:34] Will: These are these, yeah. Well, I dunno the, the age of those particular ones, but they, they're definitely of 15. Younger, older, um, you know, some of them are student work preferences, typing or
[00:36:43] Rod: handwriting. Where
[00:36:44] Will: they, um.
[00:36:44] Rod: where do they get access to the materials and, and the machinery required to do that?
[00:36:50] Will: gonna, it's gonna vary enormously. Yeah. Like some, like some, I've seen some school science programmes where they're like, not just teaching science, but they're like, okay, let's come up with a problem. Let's [00:37:00] investigate it and, and let's. Go out and get it. Some of them are using, um, data that's already there.
[00:37:04] So here's one that is very much you can understand. You can understand high school students, particularly in the US caring about this. Yeah. An evaluation of trends in US maternal deaths based on abortion policies from 2018 to 2021. You, you wanna know the result? I do.
[00:37:19] Rod: I do
[00:37:20] Will: 72% increase in maternal death in restrictive states.
[00:37:23] Rod: No.
[00:37:24] Will: no. So that was based on data from the CDC. So they're using other people's data that's been published and then doing an analysis
[00:37:30] Rod: of, and that the actual grown are two freaking coward leader. Yeah. Anyway, that's something that's.
[00:37:35] Necessary
[00:37:36] Some
[00:37:36] Will: some is very, you know, you can imagine the high school science project.
[00:37:39] This one is, uh, the growth of bacteria on everyday objects and the anti,
[00:37:44] Rod: if you're a high school boy,
[00:37:47] Will: and the antimicrobial effects of household spices.
[00:37:51] Rod: Let's start with, I'm a 15-year-old boy. Everything's covered in fungus, like it's, everything you've even looked at is covered in fungus
[00:37:57] Will: And then let's add, let's add, let's put [00:38:00] either chilli powder, turmeric, uh, honey or sumac on it and see if they
[00:38:04] Rod: I'm gonna say particularly to the boys, you shouldn't put chilli powder and stuff on random objects in your room because there's gonna be some cross contamination that you're not gonna find desirable.
[00:38:12] Will: And so that's where, you know, the effects of rocket travel and near space environment on dried blood, uh, dried blood and blood plasma.
[00:38:18] So it wasn't just a desire to send a rocket full of blood to space. Sure. It was the, the, the
[00:38:23] Rod: well send it and I assume they're gonna retrieve it then.
[00:38:26] Will: Yeah. They wanted to know what happened to the blood. Uh, basically their argument was that, um, time and space. We'll have injuries and in, and in fact there are injuries going on in the International Space Station and so on now.
[00:38:37] Sure. And so there, there may be or are requirements for blood transfusions.
[00:38:41] Rod: so what if you keep a bucket of blood up there, will it be okay? Basically?
[00:38:44] Will: and if you launch a bucket of blood, what
[00:38:45] Rod: happens? Well, you know, the first thing you put a lid on it.
[00:38:49] Should definitely put a lid
[00:38:50] Will: blood plasma was fine with the launch, but the red blood cells experienced significant loss of viable cells.
[00:38:55] So they got, they got
[00:38:56] Rod: they got a bit crunchy,
[00:38:57] Will: they got crunchy, they got squished. I mean, they were launching at far faster [00:39:00] speeds than a human would go. So they were at at like 20
[00:39:04] Rod: GI
[00:39:06] Will: humans typically go
[00:39:07] Rod: less than that. Less than that.
[00:39:08] Will: than that, less than that. So I think, I think the argument was. Assume blood is like human.
[00:39:12] Rod: but that's important for if you were trying to shoot up a, like a care package. Yeah. Like we, we really need to get them blood to transfuse as quickly as possible, but not too
[00:39:20] Will: quickly.
[00:39:20] Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So go at eight G and that'll probably be fine. Or, or send some dried plasma and that'll work. Uh,
[00:39:26] Rod: Well, you just mix it with coconut place, uh, coconut water
[00:39:29] Will: and,
[00:39:29] Rod: you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Obviously.
[00:39:30] Will: I did, I, this is, this is the one that that, um, that made me laugh the most. This is,
[00:39:34] Rod: sorry,
[00:39:35] Will: I don't know if it's stoner high school or, or they are thinking on another
[00:39:38] Rod: level. It can be both.
[00:39:39] Will: was human comprehension of four dimensional rotation. So they did a bunch of, bunch of studies and I'm like, my, my brain hurts of, can you imagine a four dimensional shape?
[00:39:51] At that point I go,
[00:39:52] Rod: no,
[00:39:52] My answer is no. Yeah. Same. Same. No.
[00:39:54] Will: And they say no. Keep imagining it. And now I move that four dimensional shape through a four [00:40:00] dimensional maze.
[00:40:00] Rod: wait, wait, wait.
[00:40:01] Keep imagining the thing you can't imagine and now do something with
[00:40:03] Will: it.
[00:40:04] So I don't think this is the stoners. I think this
[00:40:06] Rod: four dimensional maze.
[00:40:07] I think
[00:40:08] Will: I think
[00:40:08] Rod: isn't that just a maze moving through time? I,
[00:40:11] Will: it hurts my, but I assume this is the full on maths kids that are like, no, you just imagine it. And I'm like. I
[00:40:18] Rod: I don't even know what you, what do you attach that to?
[00:40:20] Will: There is a story of, um, uh, a woman in the 1930s or who became really proficient at imagining four dimensional shapes.
[00:40:28] Rod: do you prove that?
[00:40:33] Alex: Can I, can I jump in there quickly?
[00:40:35] like a two dimensional shape casts a one dimensional shadow, a three dimensional shape casts a two dimensional shadow, a four dimensional shape casts a three dimensional
[00:40:45] Rod: No, that's where it breaks down.
[00:40:48] Alex: That's, yeah. Well, I
[00:40:49] Rod: It has to. I
[00:40:50] Alex: one way.
[00:40:51] Will: from there, from this thing, it the thing
[00:40:54] Alex: Yeah, and then you just,
[00:40:55] Rod: because you just subtract
[00:40:56] Alex: you know. Just think what the three dimensional shadow is, and now you know what four dimensional [00:41:00] shape
[00:41:00] Will: Just do it. So just go through the shadow maze. Thanks, man. The, the shadow maze in, in three dimensions if
[00:41:06] Rod: you wanna know, like I realise now I can see it.
[00:41:10] Alex: There you go.
[00:41:14] Will: Well, that was your little bit of science for this week,
[00:41:16] Rod: be fair. That was quite a bit of science.
[00:41:17] Will: Well, it was, it was.
[00:41:19] Rod: that last one.
[00:41:20] Will: I would like you, you as a high school student or a non-high school student to rotate some four dimensional shapes in your mind right now and report back.
[00:41:27] Now
[00:41:28] Rod: and give us a four dimensional review.
[00:41:29] Will: Nice 19
[00:41:31] Rod: but in at least three dimensions. You
[00:41:33] Will: send your four dimensional review to our four dimensional email address,
[00:41:36] Rod: which is cheers at a little bit of science.com
[00:41:39] Will: au. Is mumbling a fourth dimension slash
[00:41:41] Rod: Jesus?
[00:41:43] Will: It's not slash Jesus. Ah,
[00:41:46] Rod: respect for the modern religions.
[00:41:48] Will: I'm gonna say this precisely.
[00:41:50] Rod: We'd love,
[00:41:51] Will: we'd love if you rated us on iTunes or your other podcast platform of choice with the highest possible rating that they can give, which is just five stars.
[00:41:59] Rod: if you [00:42:00] wanna make a comment that's positive as well, will would accept that. I would. He would wear it on a t-shirt.
[00:42:04] Clear and
[00:42:04] positive. There's your challenge.
[00:42:06] Write a clear and positive review in the reviews and Will will put it on a t-shirt or I'll put it on t-shirt and he'll wear it.
[00:42:11] Will: what was the T-shirt? I'm gonna wear that t-shirt,
[00:42:13] Rod: Ick responsibility.
