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The Science Pawdcast
The Science Pawdcast breaks down the latest science happening in the human world AND the pet world.
Each episode will also bring you a guest to enthral you with their area of knowledge.
You'll learn, be captivated, and laugh along with host Jason Zackowski.
Pets and Science, it's the pawfect mix.
You'll also get episodes of SciChat and PetChat which are the live shows from social audio.
SciChat has an interview and Q+A with a scientist, while PetChat is a live community gathering for games and stories about pets!
For Science, Empathy, and Cuteness!
The Science Pawdcast
Season 6 Episode 24: Martian Life, Rabies Rules, and Remarkable Octopuses with Meg Mindlin
Could ancient microbial life have once thrived on Mars? Join us as we explore this tantalizing possibility, revealed by the Perseverance rover's groundbreaking discovery of organic molecules in Jezero crater. Learn about the mission's history, the significance of these findings, and how they compare to previous discoveries by the Curiosity rover in Gale crater. We also dive into the fascinating details of the rock sample named Cheava Falls, uncovering its unique characteristics and the challenges scientists face in identifying Martian organic compounds.
Our next topic takes us back to Earth, where we discuss the CDC's new rabies regulations for dogs entering the United States. With stricter verification requirements for dogs from high-risk countries, we emphasize the importance of mandatory vaccinations and microchipping. Through an engaging personal anecdote about travel preparations in rabies-prone areas like Costa Rica, we highlight the critical need for timely post-exposure treatment and the dangers posed by fraudulent paperwork.
In our expert segment, we are joined by cephalopod scientist Meg Mindlin for an intriguing exploration of octopus intelligence and behavior. Discover the remarkable RNA editing capabilities of octopuses, their ability to change color, and their complex behaviors such as puzzle-solving and long-term memory. We also critique the popular documentary "My Octopus Teacher" and celebrate the broader impact of octopuses in pop culture. To wrap things up, we share heartwarming pet stories and astonishing super facts about these incredible marine creatures, making for an episode filled with curiosity and wonder.
Meg on Twitter/X
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Hello science enthusiasts. My name is Jason Zukoski. I'm a high school chemistry teacher and a science communicator, but I'm also the dog dad of Bunsen and Beaker, the science dogs on social media. If you love science and you love pets, you've come to the right place. Put on your lab coat, put on your safety glasses and hold on to your tail. This is the Science Podcast. Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Science Podcast. We hope you're happy and healthy out there. This is episode 24 of season 6.
Speaker 1:Apologies on not having an episode last week of the science podcast. Adam was really under the weather so there would be no family section. Chris and I were working super hard on text from Bunsen and there was a couple deadlines we had to get done. So no, no podcast last week, but we're here this week and we're glad you're listening. All right, what's on the show?
Speaker 1:In science news, chris and I break down the news that was released about potential life on Mars, or at least organic compounds. In Pet Science, we look at the different rules and regulations in bringing pets to the United States in respect to rabies, and our guest in Ask an Expert is cephalopod scientist Meg Minlin. So we're going to be talking about octopus. All right, I've been waiting for octopus puns for a while. We get to use them today too. How do you make an octopus laugh? Well, with 10 tickles, okay. And how do octopus solve problems? They use their ink stinks. All right, on with the show, because there's no time like Science Time. This week, in Science News, chris and I are going to be talking about life on another planet.
Speaker 2:Well, not necessarily life, but the potential evidence of life it's very exciting and you made it sound like some sort of weird science, science fiction movie crossed with a horror I do like science fiction movies crossed with a little bit of horror.
Speaker 1:Um, that's what the alien franchise is yes, in space nobody can hear you scream, but I think people are screaming about this discovery for another reason.
Speaker 2:It's actually pretty exciting and it was adam who brought it up to us and that was like super exciting because you're like, yeah, I was aware of this and you two had a really interesting conversation. He brought in his professor from college, not into our home, but just brought him up in conversation. So it was a nice moment that you guys shared.
Speaker 1:I forget that Adam now has a year of university level science under his belt, so he's getting some pretty serious science chops to discuss things, which is kind of cool, but the overview or the big ticket in the billboards, the neon light that's going, is the Perseverance rover on Mars has obtained its first potential evidence of ancient microbes on Mars, and it was organic molecules within a rock sample.
Speaker 2:And so I just want to go back and talk about the Perseverance rover. It was launched in July 2020 and it landed on Mars in February 2021. So its primary mission was to search for signs of ancient life and to collect rock and soil samples for a possible return to Earth.
Speaker 1:And if you've seen a picture of it, they do make these rovers look like they're personified as little rovers with the face. They're not little, though. Perseverance is enormous. It's like it's huge. It's bigger than a car.
Speaker 2:So they do look like WALL-E.
Speaker 1:They have, well, the little camera on the, the arm or whatever it is, like the, the tripod. It does look like a face and spirit and opportunity. Curiosity. All three of them have it. Perseverance is no different.
Speaker 2:I love WALL-E.
Speaker 1:It's such a good movie.
Speaker 2:He is very he's easy to root for A hundred percent. Now, going back to talking about Perseverance and its mission, organic molecules, which are the fundamental building blocks of life, have been found in a Martian rock named Cheava Falls. Yeah, they name rocks that are really important on Mars Katie Stack Morgan from NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab and the project scientist Ken Farley of Caltech at the 10th annual conference on Mars in Pasadena, california.
Speaker 1:Now this blew up after they announced this. All of the science communicators who specialize in space we've had some of them on the show before, some of them are. They've got really big TikTok accounts they were all jumping out of their pants excited about this announcement. The sample was only drilled last month. It's August. It was drilled on July 21st and it was. They found it in a rock in Jezero crater, which they're pretty sure is an ancient dried up lake bed, and this is the first time Perseverance has encountered organic molecules on Mars. So it's really exciting for this rover. It's the first time the rover has encountered something that could have been from something that was once alive. But, chris, I do believe the other rover still in operation on Mars detected something as well.
Speaker 2:Right on Mars detected something as well. Right, the Curiosity rover previously detected organic molecules in a crater called the Gale Crater in 2014. But the scientists couldn't definitively prove that there was life at the Gale Crater.
Speaker 1:And where Perseverance is right now, scientists are having a lot of trouble identifying anything organic. So when we take a look at the sample, the rock contains these white spots with black rims, described as tricolored leopard spots. The photo of it went viral, if you count space photos going viral and they're little, teeny, tiny spots, so it's like within the grain of the rock, and these spots contain iron phosphate. Iron phosphate is associated with ancient microbial life on earth, so geologists and microbiologists on earth who studied earth's ancient past, they found that the seas were full of little, tiny, single-celled organisms called well. Their most similar analog today is called cyanobacteria and as they lived and died, they'd made these giant columns of rock called stromatolites, and those stromatolites are rock that has different things inside it. This rock on Mars features white veins of calcium sulfate and tiny crystals of olivine, which is a volcanic mineral.
Speaker 2:While the features in the rock are not definitive proof of life, they are reminiscent of textures and chemistries associated with ancient microbial life here on Earth, and it suggests a complex geological process having that presence of iron, phosphate and olivine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, mars. Scientists are certain that millions of years ago, maybe billions of years ago, mars had water. There were lakes and rivers. There was potentially rain. It was a lot wetter place, kind of like a desert, with oases put throughout it. So this rock and the special characteristics of it could be from water rock chemistry rather than microbes making the specialized stuff in this rock sample.
Speaker 2:So, to confirm that these findings are biosignatures, the rock sample needs to be returned to Earth for advanced lab analysis.
Speaker 1:It's called the MSR mission, the Mars sample return. So they nasa did know that in sending perseverance it would gather stuff that would have to be collected and brought back to earth.
Speaker 2:Maybe that will be a human many years from now, or another robot unfortunately, some budget uncertainties have put the msr program hold, but these recent discoveries strengthens the case for continuing the mission.
Speaker 1:I mentioned the science communicators about space. They're really excited about this. If we ever do find life on Mars, that's going to be huge deal because that means within even our own solar system, two of our planets developed life, even if it's very simple life like microbes I'm not talking about little green men living somewhere on Mars but it would be very exciting and it would probably put to rest a lot of the worry that folks like me have, thinking that maybe we're just the only thing in the entire galaxy. Maybe there isn't life out there Until we find life, not on our planet. We are the only thing in the entire galaxy. Maybe there isn't life out there until we find life, not on our planet.
Speaker 2:We are the only sample that there is life there's a movie based on extraterrestrial life that I like. Do you know what it is? I don't, I don't know what et et jason, et that came out during my childhood.
Speaker 1:Yeah, You're just a little bit older than me and I think when I watched it I was too young. I think I have feelings of being scared by that movie.
Speaker 2:To be honest, looking back on it and sharing it with our children, there's parts that are terrifying.
Speaker 1:But I don't think we're going to be looking for any ET, uh extraterrestrials on Mars. Was it Reese's pieces that he was obsessed with?
Speaker 2:Reese's pieces.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, Something about a glowing finger, I think I. I'm just remembering bits from my childhood. I don't think I've rewatched it.
Speaker 2:There is a glowing finger, but we don't want to spoil it for people who haven't seen it. Oh my God.
Speaker 1:There was Chris, there was Deadpool, wolverine spoilers the next day everywhere on social media, so I think we're good with them. A film that's like 35 years old. Anyways, if they ever get the sample back and they find out that it's got you know, like it is conclusively made from biological, like it's conclusive that it's made from microbes. It's going to be something that's going to be society altering.
Speaker 2:And that's science news for this week.
Speaker 1:This week in pet science, Chris and I are going to be looking at the changing rules and the new recommendations for travel from Canada to the United States based on rabies in dogs.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So recently we took Bernoulli in for his last set of shots and at that time I also asked for him to be microchipped. And our vet said, oh, are you traveling to the United States? And we said, well, no, and he said interesting, because I would have suggested it for sure if you were planning to go to the United States, because they've changed and updated the regulations with their vaccination and microchipping and this is part of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, so the CDC they tightened their rabies regulations for dogs entering the country as of August 1st. Now we had Bernoulli, His appointment was prior to August 1st. Now we had Bernoulli, his appointment was prior to August 1st. So our vet wasn't quite sure of what the regulations were going to be. So he suggested hey, let's be more preventative, let's do more rather than less, rather than to have you have to come back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and at the time he wasn't sure exactly what was going to be, because this was prior to August 1st. The new rules came out like literally a couple of days ago. Yeah, so here are some of the changes. Additional rabies verification is now required for dogs from over 100 high risk countries. So that includes, like Afghanistan, china, india, russia, zimbabwe. So do check the CDC or just if you Google it, it will come up to see if your country's on that list.
Speaker 1:And historical context rabies is a zoonotic disease transmitted from animals to humans, which is potentially problematic. Right, there's some dog to dog diseases that humans can't get. This is one that we can give dogs and dogs can give us. That humans can't get, this is one that we can give dogs and dogs can give us. And the United States sees around 4,000 animal cases of rabies annually. This is primarily from wildlife things like bats, raccoons and skunks, compared to animals that you might have as pets, not squirrels. So I remember this quite clearly because I made a post about how dogs hate squirrels and it's probably because they have rabies, and I was corrected by some squirrel scientist who said actually there's not a lot of rabies in squirrels.
Speaker 2:So that's interesting. I almost want to become a squirrel scientist to find out why.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's my next goal?
Speaker 2:What about our beaver?
Speaker 1:I don't think so. It's probably like a squirrel, they're both rodents. My a beaver. I don't think so. It's probably like a squirrel, they're both rodents. My guess very low chance of rabies in Norbert. Would he just go crazy and stop eating the tree and eat other things that aren't trees? That would be spooky. That sounds like a horror movie right there.
Speaker 2:You're bringing in the sci-fi horror again in our next story. That is amazing. I was just going to say, after I become a squirrel scientist, I'm going to become a beaver scientist to find out if beavers carry rabies.
Speaker 1:But rabies isn't common in the United States, right In dogs.
Speaker 2:No, they had eliminated dog rabies in 2007. They only had five rabid dogs that were imported from high-risk countries, and that was mostly due to fraudulent paperwork that were imported from high-risk countries and that was mostly due to fraudulent paperwork. And so now the new regulations definitely crosses the T's and dots the I's to reduce and address those issues. So the United States maintains low rabies levels due to mandatory vaccinations for their dogs, and that makes it crucial to ensure imported dogs from high-risk countries have adequate vaccinations as well.
Speaker 1:So, because Canada is a high-risk country, you must have a form filled out by a veterinarian, your dog must be microchipped and must look healthy and it has to be at least six months old. So that rules Bernoulli out. We were looking like, oh, maybe we could take him to the States, and we weren't really thinking about that seriously. But we had no chance because he's not six months old by the time the summer's over.
Speaker 2:But what we can do is just hang out here in our yard and pretend that we're going to the United States. Pretend that we're going somewhere fun.
Speaker 1:So you'd have to check the list to see if you're on a high risk or low risk country. Looks like the low risk countries they only need one entry form and they don't need rabies vaccination confirmation. So I guess if you're coming from one of the low risk countries you kind of just need to fill out a form and you're good to go. But for us it's a little bit more intense.
Speaker 2:Because rabies, once it gets into the nervous system, is always fatal. It targets the nervous system and is transmitted through saliva from bites, and what the virus does is it replicates in muscles and then seeks nerve cells. So it's like got kind of a homing in device, I guess, on nerve cells and then eventually the virus will reach the brain. Once in the brain, the virus is shielded by the blood-brain barrier, which will lead to neurological issues, coma and death. Post-exposure treatment involves administering antibodies to bridge the gap between the bite and the vaccination, and it's effective only before the virus reaches the brain. So if you are a human that has had your rabies vaccine, you will still be required to go through additional vaccinations, but you won't need to get the antibody right away. But you do need to go right away for medical attention, for sure.
Speaker 1:When we took kids to Costa Rica, chris, a travel nurse came and talked to everybody and while it wasn't recommended for everybody to get a rabies vaccine because we're going to places where there's monkeys and things that may carry rabies they did say if anybody gets bit by a monkey or a dog and you don't have the rabies vaccine, you're going to be sent home. So I think all the parents had to sign a letter or something some kind of like form that basically, if you get bit by a monkey or a dog, that's a one-way trip home if you don't have the rabies vaccine. And luckily nobody got bit by a monkey.
Speaker 2:It is dangerous taking kids because they like to see the little monkeys. And monkeys are unpredictable, especially rabid ones, and especially if you don't get treatment before it reaches the brain. Old Yeller got rabies Jason why did you bring up Old Yeller? Oh my goodness, that's a movie from my childhood that wrecks me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's why we vaccinate dogs, that's why there are strict country requirements if you're coming from a high-risk country like canada, with all of our dangerous wildlife which is true, I guess. Like bunsen fought a coyote a couple years ago, he could have got rabies from that. So I get it.
Speaker 2:I don't think there was any biting happening.
Speaker 1:No, we checked Bunsen for bites. I don't know if Bunsen bit the coyote, though. He didn't have rabies to give the coyote though, so we're good.
Speaker 2:He didn't.
Speaker 1:Countries need to protect themselves from the risks of reintroduction. The United States is doing a good job, and I can't fault them for really bringing down strict requirements for people bringing pets in. If it's loosey-goosey, that's how things get out of control.
Speaker 2:Rabies can only be diagnosed by a direct examination of the brain post-mortem.
Speaker 1:Better safe than sorry.
Speaker 2:Yes, and if the dogs if they have been vaccinated against rabies and then they are exposed, they have to go into quarantine for months. One of my favorite scientists his name was Louis Pasteur. He was the first to show that it is possible to interrupt the progression from an infected bite to the onset of signs by the early post-bite by using a anti-rabies serum. So it's anti-serum. It's like I don't know venom, like anti-venom.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:And so that anti-serum contains specific immune antibodies to the virus.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was terrifying for people back in the day. There was no cure, like if you got bit by anything rabid, you just died. You were unable to drink water and you dehydrated and died, which is awful. So, like we said before, better safe than sorry. Check your dogs if they're vaccinated and if you're not American, heading to the States. Check to see if you're a high-risk country, like we live in Canada.
Speaker 1:That's Pet Science for this week. Hello everybody, here's some ways you can keep the Science Podcast free. That's Pet Science for this week of bonus Bunsen and Beaker content there, and we have live streams every Sunday with our community. It's tons of fun. Also, think about checking out our merch store. We've got the Bunsen stuffy, the Beaker stuffy and now the Ginger stuffy. That's right, ginger, the science cat, has a little replica. It's adorable. It's so soft, with the giant fluffy tail, safety glasses and a lab coat. And number three, if you're listening to the podcast on any place that rates podcasts, give us a great rating and tell your family and friends to listen too. Okay, on with the show Back to the interviews.
Speaker 3:It's time for.
Speaker 1:Ask an Expert on the Science Podcast, and I have grad student and cephalopod expert Meg Minlin with me today. Meg, how are you doing? Expert Meg Minlin with me today? Meg, how are you doing? I'm great, how are you? I'm so excited to talk to you because cephalopods are octopus and we've never had an octopus discussion on my show ever, so this is the first time.
Speaker 3:Oh my God, I'm so happy to be your first.
Speaker 1:Yay, where are you calling into the show from? Where are you in the world?
Speaker 3:Right now I am in the Salish Sea, so Western Washington, right off of the coast, near Mount Vernon, on an island called Padago Island.
Speaker 1:You're out on an. Are you there doing work? Do you live there? What the heck?
Speaker 3:So during the summer we come out to this island because our marine lab's here so our actual university is situated in Eastern Washington, in Walla Walla, Washington, and because we do marine biology, it's very nice to have a marine lab that we can come to during the summer to actually do marine biology.
Speaker 1:I know where Walla Walla is. You have to go through that, do you? Yeah, you have to go through that in the Oregon Trail.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's right.
Speaker 1:You do. Canadians know a lot about some parts of the United States from playing that game.
Speaker 3:You know what? That's understandable. I wish I remembered more of that game than I do. I remember playing it, but I didn't retain any of the knowledge. I was just like, ooh, fun game.
Speaker 1:That's pretty slick to be on an Island during the summer.
Speaker 3:Oh, it's really nice I have. It's a little annoying because I have no cell service whatsoever.
Speaker 3:I only get cell service next to this little statue and so if I have to do anything like call anybody, I have to go over there and the wifi Wi Fi works, but it's a little, it's a little spotty, it doesn't work everywhere. So sometimes I'll be somewhere where I have gotten Wi Fi before and all of a sudden I just can't connect at all. So it's nice, it's nice, but it also can be a little frustrating. But we are right next to a state park and so it's very summer camp vibes, very like we're away on vacation but we're also doing research.
Speaker 1:I love it. So you are a grad student. What's your training in science up to this point?
Speaker 3:So I got my undergrad degree Bachelor of Science in Biology from UC Santa Cruz, and that was my first step into science. Everywhere up until that point in my life I thought I was going to become a full time artist. For a while I wanted to do like animation, and then it was like graphic design and then, more so, illustration stuff. But I got really burnt out by my senior year of high school just from doing my whole life revolving around art 24, seven that I just no longer found it enjoyable and it became like my job instead of something that I did as a creative outlet. And so when I was deciding to go to college because I always wanted to go to college I just took a leap of faith and pursued a marine biology degree, even though I had never excelled in science.
Speaker 3:I was never the science kid, I absolutely no, I absolutely did not understand. I like science in the sense that I had, like middle school science teachers who made it really fun and we did lots of fun experiments. But I don't ever felt like I had a real understanding of like science. Besides, like an ecological perspective, like right now I'm doing, you know, molecular biology, and like even a little bit of like developmental biology, like neuroscience, like all that felt very outside my scope up until college, like I for the life of me did not understand the mitochondria or anything about that.
Speaker 3:And then I decided to pursue a marine biology degree and I was going more for getting a degree so I could make documentaries. I wanted to make ocean documentaries, and so I wanted to be educated in order to make very accurate documentaries. And then I was doing a research paper about octopuses for a first year writing class and I stumbled onto this thing called RNA editing and it was just like the most unbelievably fascinating thing to me in my mind and, like ever, like I had never read something so cool. That, like from that perspective of looking at molecular biology through an animal, that I thought was really cool and exciting, allowed me to break down the really hard and complicated stuff and understand it better, because I was just so interested in what they were doing.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I you have a unique origin story.
Speaker 3:Yeah, a little bit. I really did not like I took. Once I read that paper I literally was like I have to change my whole life now. I can't stop thinking about RNA editing.
Speaker 3:I was a marine biology major and I somehow convinced a professor to let me into his RNA lab because I was like, okay, this is it, I have to study. I have to do something to be prepared for studying this for the rest of my life. And so UC Santa Cruz has a really great RNA researching department and so me, as a marine biology major and not having taken like literally any of the required classes, a professor just trusted me and took a leap of faith and I just dove in headfirst and it was honestly great. It was really nice seeing science from a lab perspective of like actually doing the work and like seeing science happen and teaching it to myself. As I went along, I really felt like I gained a deeper appreciation, like during my time there, for lab work and what molecular biology is. It felt more tangible than when I had learned about it in high school or any time before then.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is a really good point. I didn't get a taste of that until like real lab work till the end of my science degree. It was actually the. My origin story was that was the end of my pursuit of a master's was like oh god, I can't do this what did you get your science degree in? Uh, biochemistry so I'm chemistry yeah, and I have an after degree in education, so I I teach high school science oh, I love that I was the talky presenter guy, right like I.
Speaker 1:I let the other people crunch the numbers and they're like get jason to do the presentation. He's so good at it, so I was the figurehead. I was the.
Speaker 4:I understand that was the mascot yeah, it's definitely.
Speaker 3:Um, it's a little crazy like going from being an artist to doing something so complex as like molecular biology Like I still like and also facing a lot of like imposter syndrome, because I also is a little bit of the figurehead doing science communication and I have the art background. My presentations are always really nice and pretty and I present things really well and everybody's oh my God, it's intimidating watching you present and I'm like guys.
Speaker 4:I don't think I know as much as you think I do.
Speaker 3:I love that. I just put it all in a nice package and I've been faking it till I make it until this point.
Speaker 1:You're the one everybody wants to go last because nobody wants to follow you. That was what happened to me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm like like don't let him go first, he needs to go last.
Speaker 1:No, he's gonna have jokes, he's gonna have he's gonna have some cartoon yeah, yeah meg, I can hear the passion in your voice and that's why you're so driven and I'm sure that's why the professor took a leap of faith to let you come into the lab. Could you talk to us a little bit about octopus?
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I could listen to you talk all day Literally it's. The most fun part of the show is listening to people who are passionate about stuff. What are some things that you find interesting about them? I know that's broad, but I'd imagine there's some things that stand out.
Speaker 3:The thing that stands out a lot to me and what really got me interested in cephalopods throughout my life, because I've always been a big fan of octopuses and, regrettably, was not the biggest fan of squid until I met Sarah McAnulty and then she changed my mind forever.
Speaker 3:Yes, I was like. You have convinced me that octopuses are not the superior cephalopod, your cephalopod, but what always drew me to them was the fact that they are just so different from all other invertebrates, and that's a lot of what is like driving my research. Interest nowadays is like, how did cephalopod become this? Because you think of their closest relatives as like limpets and clams and like other mollusks, and they're just so vastly different from all other mollusks that what drove my passion and my curiosity was trying to understand how an animal could come about and be so miraculously different from all of its ancestors and then, at the same time, be so similar to us and like other intelligent animals. And so that was what really drove me, was just trying to like understand this animal. And so, for me, like one of the coolest things that I found when I was going deeper and deeper into octopus knowledge was RNA editing and, like I said earlier, that really just drove me crazy, because it's this molecular mechanism that all other animals do. We do it. It's like more of a housekeeping thing in other animals, like fixing up the RNA when mistakes happen, and it's almost like a caretaker role, but in octopuses and other cephalopods squid and cuttlefish, not nautilus. It was like a groundbreaking thing where they're actually editing their proteins and changing the functionality of their proteins in order to acclimate to their environment. And that was just like I was like what the heck do you mean? Like I have been taught the central dogma my whole life. Like this just seems so entirely different. I need to understand everything that is going on with that.
Speaker 3:And yeah, that that's one of my favorite octopus facts is that they edit their RNA. We have about 1000 known RNA editing sites and non protein coding regions of our RNA, so places that don't get translated into protein. But cephalopods actively edit the protein coding regions of their RNA and actively are editing their proteins. So the fact that they have upwards of 600,000 known editing sites and actually 5,000 of those have been conserved since the divergence of octopus, squid and cuttlefish from Nautilus so not only are they editing their RNA, but they are passing down some of these edits as well Nowhere near as many, but the fact that it's just happening. I just I want to know how. I want to know what's up with this. I just need to know.
Speaker 1:That's wild.
Speaker 3:It's so wild.
Speaker 1:So okay, Correct my very bad microbiology, If you can you know, you know me. I'm learning it as I go too. So the reason why I think this is you have to correct me but I think the reason why this is so wild is like in us, our nucleus has like the center, the nucleolus, I think, and that makes rna stuff so all of this is happening in your nucleus, where the dna is, uh, transcribed into protein, which been transcribed into protein, which transcribed in the RNA, which is translated into protein.
Speaker 3:So that's all happening in your nucleus.
Speaker 1:Right, and then I am I correct in saying octopus has a? They have another mechanism to screw with that after the RNA has already been made by the brain of the cell.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it's a post-translational or post-transcription modification, which humans have as well. Like that tends to be like epigenetic mechanisms, like adding a methyl group and things like that that your environment changes your DNA. It's just that this is a different method of post-transcriptional modification that not as many animals use.
Speaker 3:I can see why that would be fascinating yeah, because it just invokes this sense of like, awe and wonder, and for me, I like sometimes I try not to talk about it because you get the thing of like octopuses are aliens and this is like a.
Speaker 3:I never know when people are joking about it or if they're genuinely serious.
Speaker 3:So I try to like, yeah, because there is genuine people who think that octopus are aliens, like they came from a meteor on outer space, and I'm like, no, guys, no, but what is like so fascinating to it, for me at least, is that when I think of what other life could be of outside of earth, life has evolved over hundreds and millions of hundreds, millions of thousands of years, like so many years to get life to actually work and create.
Speaker 3:And so for me, when you're thinking about that, I'm like okay, so we're all going to have the same building blocks, but how are we going to then use those things differently? And like the life, that happens because we're using things differently than we understand it. And so for me, that's what RNA editing is like. They had the same materials as us, the same blueprint, the same like things at their disposal, and they just grabbed hold of a way that we hadn't previously thought of being beneficial and for them there was like no, this is very beneficial. Like to the point that they're favoring RNA editing sites over random mutation Because in order to edit your RNA.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're driving their own evolution.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like it's just like a completely different way of looking at how things could happen and I just like that idea. I like that we really do not know the number of possibilities of the way that life can span out. Like there's like the central, like proteins and building blocks, but there's so many different combinations that could happen, and that just like evokes curiosity for me and that's why I love what I do so much, because I'm just like cephalopods really just did it weird, they did it weird, but it works.
Speaker 1:They're. Octopus are really cool. That's a very dumb, dumb statement for me to make. I wanted to make it more profound. I'm sorry, no it's okay.
Speaker 3:It's true though.
Speaker 1:See, I live in a landlocked province in Canada, like your flyover states, right, the states that are in the middle of the United States, like we're really far away from an ocean and the oceans that we're close to, they're not going to have probably a bunch of octopus swimming around in them.
Speaker 3:So you have cold water species of octopus. You probably have a lot of deep sea octopuses.
Speaker 1:They're way down there yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they're way down there. Yeah, I'm just thinking like when I'm out at Tofino surfing the chances of me seeing an octopus is low, yeah, but I've been in California and I don't think I would ever see an octopus surfing. It's rare to even see an octopus unless you're somebody that goes out like even like scuba diving, a lot Like even when people at tide pools. Seeing an octopus in a tide pool is a rarity.
Speaker 1:And where I'm going with this is that oh, it's been many years now. How old is Adam? Adam is 19. So when he was nine years ago, we were in Hawaii.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And snorkeling and I saw an octopus and I freaked out. I'm a very good swimmer. I can hold my breath for a long time. So I was. I just swam down to see it and I just looked at it. I just, and it was looking I swear it was looking at me like creeping along looking at me, and then it got bored or it got spooked and it was gone.
Speaker 3:Like it moved so quickly, it just went shoom and it was gone and I was like trying to explain to people that I saw it and everybody thought I was crazy, like I had, you know, like I was out in the in the bush, and I saw bigfoot and I was telling yeah, no, but I think that's why octopuses have gained the reputation that they have is because when you do look at them, which I feel like is lacking in squid and cuttle is because when you do look at them, which I feel like is lacking in squid and cuttlefish that when you do look at them like you, you can tell that they're looking back Like they see you, you see them like. There's some like weird universal connection that has been like very amplified throughout octopuses on the internet, because everybody who sees an octopus like gets it. They get, like. They're like yeah, there's something more going on inside this little head than any other like invertebrate that I've ever looked at and like I love squid so much like I have a similar story when I saw a squid the first time scuba diving and I'm generally like a very good dive partner.
Speaker 3:But that was the one instance where I completely lost my partner because I was just fixated on watching this market squid like care, like zoom around the little eggs and I just could not. I could spend all day down there until my dive partner shown his flashlight at me and I was like oh wait, yes, I'm diving back to reality, I need to move on. But even then, you have those experiences with squid in the wild and you're like this squid isn't looking at me as like an octopus looks at me, which may be us like personifying and humanizing. We are humans, we do tend to do that, and as scientists we try not to do that, but there still is that feeling that you just can't not talk about when it comes to autism.
Speaker 1:We get it with mammals. Yeah, sorry, I'm stammering a bit. Dogs are a good example. Dogs maintain eye contact. Cats will look at you. Wild animals will look at you. That are mammals. Birds will straight up look at you. So you have this experience with other animals on Earth.
Speaker 3:Just this one's a very different type of creature yeah, the last common ancestor that we shared with an octopus was like over 500 million years ago and it was a little worm that lived on the bottom of the ocean and so, like with mammals, it's okay, we're like pretty close. I get it like you're like you're a mammal, I'm a mammal, but it's just the fact that they're an invertebrate and they've gotten to this level of we have a connection with them and I just think that's so crazy cool. It's just so cool.
Speaker 1:Are there some things that you would like to know more about octopus, like beyond the whole connection things? Do you have some questions that perplex you Always? Do you have some questions that perplex you?
Speaker 3:Always, I feel like every interaction with octopuses, you always come out of that interaction with new questions.
Speaker 3:Really, right now in my scientific journey, when I go off to do because I'm in my master's now and I'll go off to do my PhD again in cephalopods now I'm very much focused on more developmental aspects of cephalopods and I really want to understand, like the, what genes are contributing to certain aspects of their development and how those genes have differed over time and between species that, like you get an octopus or get a squid, like what is actually the like cellular developmental pathways that lead to becoming an octopus or becoming a squid and how has that evolved over time? I think that's where my brain is focused at the moment. Rna editing is definitely a part of that, because I do think, like RNA editing has played some sort of role in their development, since it's so prominent, especially in their neural tissues, that, like that's maybe a molecular mechanism of like how cephalopods became cephalopods. But overall it's just focused on figuring out what, like how we got there, how we got an octopus, how did this actually happen? How did we get from a limpet to an octopus?
Speaker 1:How are clams and octopus even related? Clams are dumb.
Speaker 3:No, I mean it is really interesting Like you can go all the way back in like fossil record, because up to the point where we got coelioids, which internalize their shells, we had ammonites and all these other shelled cephalopods. So you can really see them like just prolific throughout the fossil record and it's okay. You guys had this crazy cool shell at one point and somehow you internalize that Like I. It's just bonkers to me, it's. I know this took hundreds of millions of years. Like I get that over time these things happen, but like really understanding how they happen, that's what drives my interest at this point.
Speaker 1:That's cool we have in Alberta on the Rocky mountains. There's amolite mines like that. Gems are found. Oh my God. You can be very lucky just walking along and you might find like a amolite gem that's worth crazy money.
Speaker 3:I love that there's a certain type of squid which is one of the very early squids, and I'm now blanking on the name, but frequently their fossils will opalize, so you can get an opalized squid like prehistoric not prehistoric, but like ancient squid, fossil. That's just like shiny and glimmery and I'm like this is beautiful, like truly they were beautiful throughout every like million of years, like they have. They're just wacky and I just love them speaking of, that's a good lead.
Speaker 1:Speaking of a wacky and silly, are there octopus myths that you are having to debunk? Sometimes do we, as lay people, have some misconceptions about?
Speaker 3:octopus there's a lot of octopus misinformation out there.
Speaker 1:I will say that. Okay, I'd be so curious if you could tell us a little bit about it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, a lot. Ooh, there's some kind of general things, because there's Octonation, which is the world's largest octopus fan club, and I know Warren. I've gotten to know Warren really well who runs it, and so I've now been like a group expert on the Facebook page and at one point he had asked the group you know what is your favorite fun fact about octopuses? And they have.
Speaker 3:There's some truly wild facts out there that people like genuinely think are true, and I'm not sure where what source has gotten, like how they've learned this information. I think it's just maybe hearing it once and then your brain misremembering it, and then humans have terrible memory and then we just go on forever parroting it. But one of them is that, like, octopuses have an entirely different DNA structure from like any other animal, or they have like triple helix DNA and I genuinely don't even know how to debunk it Because I just cannot find the source that they've got this from or like any sort of like train of thought. They're just like, yeah, I just learned this one day and I'm like I don't know how to tell you that it's just not true, that they just have normal DNA. Like I don't even know what to do. I think one of the other myths is that their suckers will leave bruises and hickeys on your arms.
Speaker 3:I think it's definitely possible with a big enough giant Pacific octopus, because giant Pacific octopuses are the largest octopus. They're very powerful, they have a lot of strength, but I have just never experienced an octopus leaving marks on me, and people also get confused between octopus and squid, and so people will think that octopuses have teeth around their suckers, but that's a squid trait, and so there's just a general confusion between the lines. What is octopus, what is squid? What is like ancient aliens territory is squid. What is like ancient aliens territory and what is like actually cool octopus?
Speaker 1:I've heard that before. I've heard that before that they leave bruises. Yeah, I think they're big enough, yeah but aren't there, aren't they squishy, like how would that happen?
Speaker 3:like they're sticking they can get a lot of suction, like I can see why people would think that because, like, have you ever been a kid and had a toy that had a suction to it and then, like you stuck? It to your forehead and then you had like giant picky bruise on your forehead for like days I think that's the common assessment and I think with a big enough, giant pacific octopus, that maybe could happen.
Speaker 3:And of course I don't have as much experience with gpos as somebody who like tends to gpos, but I've also just never seen that or experienced it. So I'm just like, like they're strong, but I don't think you'll get like seriously harmed by their suckers and like the other thing is all like they'll pull you under the water and then you'll like just disappear, like that's also a very common fear with people with octopuses is that they'll just pull you under. And I'm like, no, they're just like. I think it's this. You know the movie monster thing, cause there was a lot, there's a lot of. I remember watching old movies back in the day that was like shark versus octopus or like giant croc versus octopus, and you had these kind of like movie monster villains that the octopus would stack up against. But no, I, I'm really not worried about an octopus dragging me under. They're just like they're curious about you, but not in a sense of okay, I'm gonna take you with me or like even be, they're strong, but it's just not a concern that I have.
Speaker 1:Has that ever happened? Has there ever been an octopus attack? I feel like I would not have news.
Speaker 3:I have not found record of it in the news. I have had people comment on my stuff that has happened to them before. But I'm skeptical of that because I feel like if it had happened before, there would have been news about it yeah, that would be massive news if somebody got attacked by an octopus.
Speaker 1:That'd be huge, yeah, I don't think you can get.
Speaker 3:There is news about louvering octopuses killing people, but even then, we haven't had a lot of deaths because there's so much education about them, but yeah, I don't really know any stories of like octopuses harming or killing people we have a lot of listeners.
Speaker 1:Hey, this is a great point. Let us a comment. If you're listening and you got attacked by an octopus, I'm sure meg would want to know you so all octopuses are venomous, so they all have venom.
Speaker 3:So if you do get bit by an octopus, you are at risk for the bite being infected, or like having there's like kind of a wide, vast range of experiences with octopus bites, and it does depend on species. So, like you can get bit by an octopus and it could get infected and not do if you don't take care of it. And the most time that you're going to get bit by an octopus, though, is if you're mishandling it when you shouldn't be, because they don't have a lot of defenses, so if you're picking up and messing with an octopus, the only other defense that they have out of the water is their beak to bite you. That could have happened, but in terms of an octopus dragging someone into the water, I've not heard of an actual scenario of that, but I'd love to.
Speaker 1:I have an octopus question for you before we move to my next one. Like, their intelligence is debated, meaning that they're more intelligent than we thought, and their arms have this hive mind intelligence like all together, all of their arms make them smarter. Is that true? Is that a myth?
Speaker 3:So the thing about the intelligence is there's a really great book. Actually all about this topic is that kind of as humans, I don't think we're really like capable of determining how intelligent an animal is, because intelligence is going to be really based on the own animals perception of their environment, so like what we call their umwelt environment, so like what we call their umwelt. And so in order to like study intelligence, a lot of times we're comparing their intelligence back to us because that's what we see as most intelligent, but that isn't always necessarily like a good measure of their intelligence, because we are best fit for our environment and they are best fit for their environment. So something that we see as a sign of intelligence we see from our human perspective, but we're not necessarily always seeing it from their perspective. So in order to measure how intelligent an animal is, it becomes very difficult because we have our own human perception of intelligence and getting outside of that can be difficult. They're certainly very smart. They are much smarter than there's like a bunch of different tests that we've done.
Speaker 3:They've been given the marshmallow test, which is can they, if they're given a tasty treat, can they wait and not eat it if they know that they're going to get an even tastier treat later on.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so that's like the marshmallow test, and I think that kind of comes out as, oh, they have the intelligence of a toddler, but again, that's then comparing it back to us, which I like, just don't think is a fair comparison in order to really understand how intelligent they are. But that's also just going to be the way that we do it because we're human. But in terms of their suckers and their arms and the intelligence of their arms, they do got a little something crazy going on here, which I think is one of the like myth busting facts that I get a little annoyed about it. But I understand where it's coming from, which is where we have told people that octopuses have nine brains, so they have a brain in each of their arms. But the reason I don't like that fact is because I think it undermines how complex their central nervous system really is, and also I'll get people who sort of misinterpret that fact as like they're picturing a little human brain in each of their arms.
Speaker 3:And that's not quite the way it works. So basically they have a decentralized nervous system, so two thirds of their neurons are distributed throughout their eight arms. They still have a main brain that's located behind their eyes, but their arms can act independently, so without having to relay a signal back to their central, their main brain. And so the way that kind of works is they have these things I think they're called hydrostats and very bad with words and basically it's like a ganglion. It's a ganglion in their arm, so they'll have one ganglion per arm, which is what we have simplified to as being like their own brain, and so basically, all their arms can act independently of each other, so they don't have to relay signals back to their main brain in order to function, which is also why when an octopus loses an arm, that arm can still function and move until, like, it loses blood supply. But that's because they have their own little.
Speaker 3:What we have now said is a brain I know Octonation has now said it as like micro satellites, so, like your brain will have other little satellites that can work on its own, but also like relay back to the brain when needed. And so I like that one more than the nine brain facts, and so they can send a signal just to their little ganglion, and so they can all work on their own and each sucker can move independently of each other. Their sucker is also covered in taste receptors, and so their arms can function independently, but also they can exert top-down control when necessary. So it is a little bit weirder of a way of having a nervous system, which is why I don't like the nine brain thing, because really they're like the definition that we have of a brain doesn't really fit what they've got going on in terms of a brain I like the, the satellite analogy.
Speaker 1:I like that I like the satellite analogy yeah, you've got a central hub on earth and you've got all these satellites orbiting, each satellite like into its own channel and then they can also come back and relay if they want.
Speaker 3:I like that one a lot more, I think the nine brain one. I think we get such a misunderstanding of what other brains look like because we're so long in our lives shown what a human brain looks like that we don't think of what other brains could look like. And so then for me, when I've been doing science communication, the sort of questions that I've gotten are like are coming from a place where they think there's like literally a brain in their arm and they're like how many lobes does it have? And I'm like no, no, no, you need to think of a brain a little bit differently here.
Speaker 1:That's great. I had something cleared up. I obviously didn't think there were little brains in their arms, but you made the picture a lot more clear for me, so I appreciate that.
Speaker 3:I'm glad. Yeah, no, it is very cool because it's just. It's again a different way of looking at how an animal can organize its body and gain similar intelligence to us in a completely different way. Like, their brain is completely different from ours, yet they have long-term memory, they have short-term memory, they can like, remember people, they can do puzzles, like all these other things that we associate with intelligence they're capable of doing, but they've evolved it entirely on their own since they're invertebrates. The last common ancestor we have is 500 million years ago, so they've gone about it completely differently than all other intelligent animals that we know.
Speaker 5:So you know, convergent evolution.
Speaker 3:It's a great example of convergent evolution yeah, yeah, that's, that is it.
Speaker 1:That is a very cool. Yeah, that's, I'll have to use that when I'm teaching yeah, that's a really good example of convergent evolution.
Speaker 3:Also, if you know, teaching, dna stuff, molecular biology the octopus is a great little molecular biology.
Speaker 1:To talk about rna yeah, I don't know if that's gonna come. I'm more chemistry guy, so oh, chemistry. Okay, that's fair, that's fair I'll relay that to the biology teachers.
Speaker 3:I'm sure you could find a way to do chemistry with octopuses.
Speaker 1:Some of them can change color, and that is bananas to me.
Speaker 3:I think all of them, except for deep sea ones, can change color, and the nautilus that is so perplexing to me that you can look at the thing and say I'm going to be that color, like what.
Speaker 3:I know. And the crazy thing, which I think it frustrates members of the public when I tell them, because they're like how does this work? And we don't really know. We don't really know how it works, Like we have some ideas of how it could work but're still like when it comes to their camouflage and like how it all happens, like the big answer is just like a big old shrug yeah, we don't really know yet there's got to be somebody working on it, though oh, there is, it's just it's difficult research to do to study cephalopods.
Speaker 3:There's been a lot of recent developments of keeping cephalopods in labs that enable us to do more research, because for a really long time cephalopods were very difficult lab subjects and they still are to this day. They're not the best lab organism. We have people like the MBL, the Marine Biological Laboratory, doing a lot of work to solidify them as a lab organism and make it easier for labs to study them and do more research. But that has been what has been contributing to not knowing as much about them as we do monkeys or any other mammals is that they're just difficult to keep in a lab.
Speaker 1:Is that because they are finicky, they die easy or they escape they're finicky.
Speaker 3:They die easily. We really struggle with raising multiple generations of them. There are some species now that we do have. We are able to raise multiple generations of them. It's a lot more difficult. They are very finicky in a lab. You really have to deal with constantly changing their water, keeping the water quality high. We have other octopus species that have paralarva stages, where they're really tiny when they're first born and those are very difficult to grow in a lab and keep alive.
Speaker 3:We've been making progress with that with octopus vulgaris, but there's still like a lot of other paralarva cephalopod species that we haven't been able to do and really it's also can be difficult to study octopuses out in the wild.
Speaker 3:There's also been more progress being made of that, but it's just we're in like this cephalopod golden age right now where everything has come together and we've made a lot of progress both in keeping them in labs, also like genetic techniques and lots of other things that we can do to study more intricacies of them. Just the other month a paper came out that was the very first time we had been able to put a tracker on a squid. So it's just we're right now coming up with all these really cool ways that we can learn more questions that we haven't been able to answer before. And eucalyptus camouflage has always been the big question of how it is that they're able to do this, and for a while we could only behaviorally do it, and now it's like we go on and gain more progress. I think we will be able to answer more of those questions.
Speaker 1:I love it. Everything's coming, everything's turning up.
Speaker 3:Yes, it really is. It really is. I will say, though I'll give a little bit more info about camouflage, because we do have two hypotheses right now of what we think could be contributing to how they do that, one of which is their pupil shape, so the dumbbell or the W. There's this thing called chromatic abbreviation, where the shape of the pupil bends the light prism and our eyes correct for that, where we don't want to see the reflection of light, and so our lens corrects for it. But they think that cephalopods may not, and so that therefore they can actually see color that way. But it is just a hypothesis at this point.
Speaker 3:It hasn't really been further studied other than the first paper that suggested that this was maybe a thing. And then the other thing is that they have proteins that are commonly found in our eyes, called opsins, that are directly attached to their chromatophores. But the opsins only see brightness, so how bright something is, they don't see contrast, they don't see color. So that kind of still leaves a lot of things unanswered, and it could just be like a combination of all of these things is how they do it, but for the most part it's probably mostly vision based, because they do have a camera like I. They are visual hunters, so they're probably getting a lot of information from their eyes that is affecting their camouflage, because I mean they have a near 360 degree view, like they have no blind spots. That's definitely playing a role in their ability to camouflage, even if they can't see color.
Speaker 1:What a wild experience.
Speaker 3:It is Imagine being a cephalopod.
Speaker 1:I, I love it.
Speaker 3:Imagine something you can't even imagine and then no, it's like asking you to see colors that we literally can't see, because you know how there's. Like those the mantis shrimp can see, like all these colors that we can't see, and we literally can't even imagine what those colors would be.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. So before we move to our standard questions, I've got one that you might have an opinion on, and if I'm talking to octopus person, I have to ask the pop culture octopus question. There was this little old documentary that blew up called my octopus teacher. I was wondering what's your, what was your opinion of that thing? I'm assuming you've watched it.
Speaker 3:I have watched it. I've been asked about it. Every single time somebody asks me or finds out I study octopuses. My main takeaway from that movie is why was this man not spending time with his children? The whole setup of this whole documentary is that he was having family problems, he was having marital problems, and so he decided to go out and swim more to figure out these problems, and that's when he came upon this octopus that he became completely fascinated with and overtook his life or however long he and this octopus interacted. And so my main takeaway was like what about your kid? Where was your kid in all of this Perspective that people expect me to have? Because, other than that, it's just a mediocre documentary. It doesn't.
Speaker 3:The question I get a lot when people find out is was that documentary groundbreaking for cephalopod scientists? And it's like no, no, it didn't. It's nothinghalopod scientists. And it's no, no, it didn't. It's nothing new for scientists. It was all about getting the public interested in cephalopods, which worked. Everybody loved octopuses. At that point, I think we really need to make a charismatic video about squid, because squid need their time in the spotlight. But it worked. Everybody loved it. It got like an award or something. I just don't think that. Maybe it's because I studied them for a living and I knew so much about them already, so from my perspective it wasn't like they were telling us anything that we didn't already know. But it definitely, you know, got people interested in a obviously a very charismatic organism and I'm very happy for that. But it's not my favorite documentary. I would not rewatch it.
Speaker 1:There you go. That's a great, that's a great summation. So you're saying like next, next August, you've seen my octopus teacher, the sequel is my Squid Scientist, or something like that.
Speaker 3:I would love that. I would love that. I know Sarah McAnulty would adore that.
Speaker 1:We have Hollywood type to listen to this show.
Speaker 3:Come on, they could just make another octopus documentary, like one just came out, and I do love it. I do love octopuses. I have, however, been brought over to the weird, creepy, dark side of squid and I do think that they deserve more recognition. They've got some weird and wacky creatures going on and I think that on a, I just think that they're more interesting than octopuses, which maybe is not what's supposed to come out of an octopus scientist's mouth. But we've got more cool stuff going on where octopuses have one thing. They have one thing, they have one blueprint, where squid are just so diverse. But yeah, I would like a sequel to my octopus teacher or Secrets of the Octopus, that is, secrets of the Squid, or my squid scientist. I would love that. Just hit my line, actually hit Sarah McAnulty's line, because she is way better at talking about squid than me.
Speaker 1:There you go Hollywood. I know you're listening.
Speaker 3:I know you're listening.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Somebody out there's like. I was screwed for meeting Monday, but now I have an idea to pitch.
Speaker 3:It would be fun fun too. You could do it, as you could get like both, though you could get like a multi-faceted look at it. You could do like the cute and adorable squid you show anybody a bobtail squid they'll fall in love. But then you can also do the creepy, horror, unusual, ocean, animal side of it and show like the magna pinna and the humble squid, and it would just be great. It would be great. Octopuses have so many documentaries about them.
Speaker 1:I just think it's time I think there's somebody who studies clams and they're just pouting right now. They're like you know what?
Speaker 3:oh, definitely. I think mollusk people are probably a little bit salty at a cephalopod people they're like you guys get all the time in the spotlight. What about all the other mollusks? And so that, yeah, all this deserve more attention I love it.
Speaker 1:We have two standard questions we ask all of our guests on the show about. One is to share a pet story from your life. I was wondering if you could do that for us, Meg.
Speaker 3:Yeah, what pet story do I have? So I have a dog myself. His name is Zach. He is a greyhound pit mix, and the first thing that comes to my mind is that for a really long time he would struggle with eating his food, and so he would go. It was most frequently when we were traveling. He wouldn't eat his food while traveling and then it came back where we were back home and he wouldn't eat his food again until I sat like I poured him his food, sat down and ate my breakfast, that he would then start eating his breakfast. So now, if my dog isn't eating, it's because I'm not eating with him, and so he'll eat his food if I am also eating with him. That's the first story that came to my mind.
Speaker 1:I think it's very cute Bunsen, our Bernice Mountain dog. He's particular and he can be a bit of a diva. I think it's very cute, bunsen, our Bernice Mountain dog. He's particular and he can be a bit of a diva. I get it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think I really love my dog and he's really great for me. Like, I get very caught up in things and so it's nice to have a dog to keep me on routine and be like okay, I have to wake up in the morning and I have to take him out, and now I have to also eat breakfast or else he won't eat breakfast, which is fantastic for me as a very busy ADHD scientist person who is always zipping around. He forces me to take care of myself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, dogs do keep you present, and they definitely keep you on a schedule. They'll let you know when you're off the schedule.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they will. Indeed, my dog gives mad side side eye. I don't think there's any better animal that I've met that gives a more like, guilty and sassy side eye than my dog. He will invoke a great sense of guilt and shame in you there you go.
Speaker 1:Uh, the dog's name is zach right yes, the name is zach zach, that's cute, I love it what's your best pet story?
Speaker 1:sorry to bring it back to you I don't know there's so many because our dogs are on social media, right, when somebody asks that question, if I'm on a podcast, I tell them about the. It was a very scary situation, but I tell the story about how, when our golden beaker was like a teenager, I was out walking on our property down in the creek and she got attacked by a coyote and Bunsen, our Bernice Mountain Dog. He came out of. He was he's always like they're off leash yeah, anyways he. I forgot that he was with us. I was just so worried that Beaker was going to get eaten by this like coyote that came out of the bushes. Yeah, it happened so fast. And then Bunsen just came in like a wrecking ball and, I think, messed it up and then came back like nothing happened.
Speaker 3:Oh my. God Right so that's kind of that's a good story. I don't have anything like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that that became like this big thing, like Bunsen's, this brave guy, and then he's always shown us that when push comes to shove, he stands up, he's a, he's a hero dog, actually, he's pretty good.
Speaker 3:So of, yeah, he stands up, he's a, he's a hero dog. Actually he's pretty good. So yeah, I feel like when you have multiple dogs you get a little bit better stories, like my dog just sleeps on the couch all day bunsen does that too.
Speaker 1:Occasionally. He puts on his cape, and he saves other dogs.
Speaker 3:So I love that for him our little guy bernoulli.
Speaker 1:He's our new uh, bernice Mountain Dog, um puppy that we got at the start of June. He is he. His nickname on social media is Bernoulli the brave, because nothing, nothing phases this little guy. He is unperturbed by anything. I love that it's a good and bad thing, because he's not scared of anything. I think he's gonna, like he's bunsen's, doing a good job of training him up and I think he's gonna be awesome as bunsen gets older um he'll step into the mantle of protecting the farm, which is very oh yeah, oh yeah, I can see that for him.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's well, thanks for asking that.
Speaker 1:That's normally I'm the one asking questions when I'm interviewing, so that was cool. No, I have so many questions for you, I want to know. Well, thanks for asking that. Normally I'm the one asking questions when I'm interviewing, so that was cool no, I have so many questions for you.
Speaker 3:I want to know more about you as well, but maybe that's just my personality uno reverso card there.
Speaker 1:I love it oh yeah definitely. We always ask our guests as we close up for a super fact. It's something that will blow our minds and I loved all of your squid and your octopus facts today.
Speaker 3:Oh, what is my octopus super fact? Oh there, this is kind of a recent fact, which, which I think is really crazy. So there's a species of deep sea octopus called the Granulodon pacifica, boropacifica, which I'm definitely saying Granulodon wrong and I can never remember the correct way to say it, but they had actually documented over a period I think it was 43 months, so about four years that this, this 43 months, is not four years. No, okay, whatever. So over a period of 40 plus months, that this octopus brewed its eggs for four years.
Speaker 3:And then, yeah, and so they actually went down and with an ROV and monitored this octopus and they had a way of determining that it was the same octopus because of some of its physical characteristics it had, and it was always in the same spot. And for four years this octopus mom brewed her eggs. And so then, after finding that out, a little bit later we were studying hydrothermal vents and the octopus gardens that exist on the hydrothermal vents, where, you know, hundreds of octopuses all come together to brood their eggs and we're like why are they doing this? Only to find out that brooding their eggs on the hydrothermal vents speeds up the egg development. So it goes from four years to about a year that they can hatch their eggs just from the heat of the hydrothermal vents.
Speaker 1:That's insane. I didn't know that that is a super cool thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Isn't that cool. Like they literally were. Like somehow they all got together and were like ah yes, this underwater volcano is the best place to brood my eggs. And how did they all come to this consensus? They only live. Deep sea. Octopuses live a little bit longer, but they don't raise their young, they don't teach. How did they all come together to realize that this was a more beneficial way to brood their eggs, so that they develop faster and they would probably have a higher chance of survival, because the mom wasn't at risk of dying over those four years? It's just crazy to me. It's crazy Truly taking advantage of nature.
Speaker 1:I honestly feel that, if I don't think we would have had two kids if the whole pregnancy thing was four, years three, four years for my wife. Yeah, I don't think, I don't think we would have had two.
Speaker 3:I don't know if we could have one. I don't think I would have one Childbirth. Being pregnant is already terrifying. Have you seen the girl with the list? She has like a notes app list of like 400 reasons not to get pregnant because of all the scary things that can happen to women when they get pregnant. Not to get pregnant because of all the scary things that can happen to women when they get pregnant. Oh my God, If you had to do that for four years. No, thank you. And even on top of that, octopuses have an end-of-life cycle called senescence, where their body starts to mentally and physically degrade once they lay their eggs. And you have to go through that process for four years.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 3:That's crazy to me.
Speaker 1:What a unique and amazing animal.
Speaker 4:I know.
Speaker 1:Very cool. They're hardcore, Like. I just have to say that they're a very hardcore species.
Speaker 3:They survive five mass extinctions. You got to be hardcore to survive five mass extinctions.
Speaker 1:That's wild, Meg. We're at the end of our chat. This has been an absolute treat having you on the show to talk cephalopods. I'm so happy to be here yay, that's all. Can people follow you anywhere on the social medias?
Speaker 3:yeah, I'm on all social medias as invertebabe like invertebrate, but with babe at the end. Uh, instagram there's a period between in and invertebrate like invertebrate, but with babe at the end. Instagram there's a period between in and invertebrate because somebody stole my username before I could switch it over, but everywhere else, invertebrate yeah.
Speaker 1:I love it. Okay, we'll make sure there's a link to your site and then a couple of your social media sites as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you can do. I have, like, my own art website where I sell stuff that I've screen printed and made and I sell lots of stickers and you could just. That's just megmanlincom, so you can do that as well.
Speaker 1:Nice, okay, yeah, we'll have some of those in our show notes.
Speaker 4:Sweet.
Speaker 1:All right, this is again like I said. Thank you so much for being on the show.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I'm so happy.
Speaker 1:Sarah recommended me Meet us too. Yeah, and best wishes. Working on your research on that little island, I hope the cell phone service improves while you're there, but who knows?
Speaker 5:Okay, it is time for story time with me, adam. If you don't know what story time is, story time is when we talk about stories that have happened within the past one or two weeks. Uh, dad, do you have a story?
Speaker 1:sure I'll share the story. Uh, yesterday yeah, it was yesterday we went on a hike, uh, all the way up a mountain with three dogs and adam and annalise and, of course, chris came as well, and it was a hike that we've done before. It's called ptarmigan cirque. Uh, the start of it is pretty steep, like it's a, it's a, it's a workout, and then it opens into this. I guess you, I the easiest way to explain it is valley, but the valley is like near the top of the mountain, lots of. There's a huge waterfall that well, not huge, but there's a waterfall at the top of it, with that's fed from the snow that's melting. High up on top of the mountain you could see the clouds were very, very low. It's almost like you could touch them.
Speaker 1:Anyways, the whole point of the story is that all three of the dogs did really well. Bernoulli did well as a puppy that's a lot of work for the little guy and Bunsen did great for the old guy. But the most impressive dog was Beaker, because Beaker went ahead with Adam and she had tons of fun scampering about all the way up. She's actually a very good hiker. So we got some really cute. We got some really cute pictures of all the dogs up at the top. Um, I think Annalise had her sandwich up at the top and we rested and then we came down. It was a really fun hike about two hours total um to go up and back.
Speaker 5:And that's my story for the week. Beaker was my friend on the hike. She went up all the secret ways with me. I showed her all the secret ways up the hill and then she would run up with me and she would look at me. What's fun with Beaker? This is a mini story. What's fun with Beaker on hikes is she matches your pace because she can go as fast as she wants. She can go as fast or as slow as she wants. It's up to her how fast she wants to go. But she looks back at you with a big smile on her face because she's matching how fast you go, which is super nice. She's a very nice doggie.
Speaker 5:Um, my story is like a bit of a hearsay story. I have a story um, supposedly bunsen is more chill when bernoulli is there and he loses his mind a lot easier when Bernoulli is not, like when we're recording the podcast or when we're talking on pet chat and stuff like that. Bunsen doesn't like not having attention and if you take Bernoulli away, he he gets very barky a lot quicker. I don't know it. It's nothing about Beaker. Beaker's in the room right now and Bunsen's fine, but when you take Bernoulli away, bunsen thinks something's up.
Speaker 5:Ginger has been sleeping with me more recently. She's been a very good cat. She's been very sleepy and she's just been very cuddly with me, which is really nice. So too many stories there. What else, oh, I can talk about?
Speaker 5:On the way up and the way back, on the way down to the mountains and on the way back up, beaker was my little friend. She would put her head on my knee and she would be very cute and be very wanting attention. Um, because she's a good girl. And she, uh, I don't know if she was still a little scared of being in the car because we would hit bumps and she would. She would perk up a little bit because she was like she was in the in the car with you, dad, when you got hit. Yeah, but she was very good, she wasn't super stressed. I think Bunsen gets the most stressed when he's in the car because he gets very snippy, because he's all done being in the car. Like Brunelli got on his nerves because he was walking all over Bunsen and Bunsen was like I'm all done with you walking all over me and he was very, very vocal about his displeasure and Bernoulli walking over him. But yeah, that's my story or my stories? Mom, do you have a story?
Speaker 2:I sure do so. Today I took Bernoulli to doggy daycare just so he can get used to it, because I think we're going to go there once he um, once we are back to school, so he's not alone in the crate all day, and I'm not sure what my situation will be if I'm able to drive home at lunch, um, the same way that I did before. So this way he gets some attention and gets to have fun for half a day or for a full day. So that's awesome. So that's what, um, anyway, I'm trying to tell my story here.
Speaker 2:Uh, today he went and he got a great report card. He played really nice with four kids and or four kids, four dogs, um, one of them being Betty, a new fee, uh, which is super cute. And he also was a good listener. So, coming up, when I came to pick him up, it's like you get the little report, the little report card of how your, your puppy, did, and Bernoulli did very, very well, and so we're so proud of him and actually we, we received a compliment, um, about how, uh, what a good listener he is, but then also like how quickly he's learning and how receptive he is to learning.
Speaker 1:So he's very smart, Chris.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she said that's a reflection on all the work that we've done with him. So it was super cute, super good. Yeah, it was a good story, it was a good feel good. But leaving him there I was very sad again. You know, when you leave him it's like oh. But I knew it would be good for him to socialize with other dogs and I went back to school shopping with Melissa and the kids and had a lot of fun doing that. So it was great that we all got a little bit of fun time today, and that's my story okay, like many times on the podcast, we have a special guest.
Speaker 5:Uh, she's on the podcast a lot. It doesn't make her any less special. Uh, we have annalise. Annalise, what is your story? Why'd you hit me?
Speaker 4:hello. So my story is pretty short, but basically today I had the goal of doing absolutely nothing and I very much succeeded, as I had a pretty long nap and luckily I had a little friend to keep me company and that was Ginger. And I just wanted to say she was so cute and literally like until 3pm today she stayed in bed with me and it was great. And I just wanted to say she was so cute and literally like until 3pm today she stayed in bed with me and it was great, and I just every once in a while checked up on her and she was fine, you know, gave her pets and she was just so cute and so fluffy, and that's all I wanted to say. Wait, no, also the mountains yesterday that we went on with all the pets was awesome. It's beautiful in the mountains and it's one of my favorite places. So I just kind of wanted to thank everybody for letting me come.
Speaker 1:That's my story it was a good hike.
Speaker 5:Okay, so that was my section of the podcast. Thank you so much for listening, um, and thank you so much for sticking around to my section. I hope to see y'all on the next podcast episode.
Speaker 1:Bye-bye. That's it for this week on the Science Podcast. Thanks for coming back week after week to listen to the show. I want to give a shout out again to our guest this week, meg Minlin, and the top dogs, who are the top tier of our support community called the Paw Pack. If you want to hear your name in the science podcast, check out the link to become part of the paw pack. All right, chris, take it away. Who are the dup dogs?
Speaker 2:bianca hyde, mary writer, tracy domingu, susan wagner, andrew lynn, helen chin, tracy halberg. Thank you, shelley Smith, julie Smith, diane Allen, brianne Haas, linda Sherry, carol McDonald, catherine Jordan, courtney Brovin, donna Craig, wendy, diane Mason and Luke Liz Button, kathy Zerker and Ben Rathart.
Speaker 1:For science, empathy and cuteness.