The Science Pawdcast

Season 6 Episode 26: Microwave Bacteria, Farm Classroom Wonders, and Dinosaur Adventures with Jay Balamurugan

• Jason Zackowski • Season 6 • Episode 26

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Ever wondered what bacteria might be lurking in your microwave?

You're about to find out! This episode kicks off with an emotional update on Bunsen's miraculous recovery from his near-death surgery, immersing you in the highs and lows of this heartwarming journey. We then shift gears to discuss a recent foodborne illness outbreak in Calgary, sharing our personal experiences and the hidden dangers in our kitchens, including the startling discovery of over 100 bacterial strains in microwave ovens. It's an eye-opener that will have you reconsidering the cleanliness of your own microwave.

Imagine a classroom where farm animals are your teachers! We explore the transformative power of animal-assisted education, recounting personal anecdotes and examining a fascinating study from Czechoslovakia. Fourth graders learned on a farm, showing significant improvements in long-term memory retention and cognitive performance. These hands-on, multi-sensory learning experiences foster emotional connections and enhance overall well-being—proving that sometimes, a goat can be the best teacher.

Dinosaurs have always sparked our imagination, and in this episode, we bring that fascination to life with an exclusive interview with Jay Balamurugan, assistant producer at BBC Studios. Jay shares her journey from joining the BBC to working on the highly-anticipated "Walking with Dinosaurs" series. We dive into the awe-inspiring world of paleontology, discuss the peculiarities of the Spinosaurus, and reflect on the ethical responsibilities of factual TV programming. Jay even shares personal pet stories and intriguing dinosaur facts that highlight the extensive history of these magnificent creatures. Join us for an unforgettable episode that blends heartfelt moments, scientific curiosity, and a touch of prehistoric wonder.

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Speaker 2:

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.

Speaker 2:

This is episode 26 of season 6. The sun has come out a bit with our family from the emotional roller coaster of Bunsen's like near death surgery. Chris and I are both exhausted I'm not going to lie and school is starting, but we're happy because we see that Bunsen is healing. He's only got a couple days of crate rest left and his eyes are bright and happy and cheerful. There's a touching story that I'm going to go over in the family section at the end. But for everybody who has been commenting on our social medias about Bunsen, thank you and he is doing great.

Speaker 2:

Okay, well, let's get on with the show. What's happening this week in science news? Chris and I are going to break down about some bacteria that might be living in your microwave and in pet science. We take a look at farm animals and how they can assist educators. Our guest in Ask an Expert is the assistant producer of a really cool show coming out on the BBC, jay Balmarugan. It's a great interview. We get to talk about dinosaurs. Okay, the bad joke, it's a microbe joke. Okay, um, why was the young amoeba so sad? Well, his parents had just split. Wouldn't that make him his own parent? It's confusing with uh, it's confusing with vision, or is that division? Or is that mitosis? Or is that multiplication, microbiology? 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 talk a little bit about food safety, and we don't have food safety Donna Craig to back us up.

Speaker 4:

She'll be so proud that we are talking about foodborne illness and food safety.

Speaker 2:

There's a really big outbreak of foodborne illness in a city south of us that made international news. So it's not just something that if you don't cook your chicken well enough you could get sick by. It can have dire consequences for people who are elderly, young or even somebody who's middle-aged, like myself Are you talking about Calgary and the daycare outbreak of foodborne illness? Yeah, there was a bunch of kids that were hospitalized. Thankfully none died, but some did wind up on dialysis.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, it was terrible. And also I got super sick last summer I went to the eastern provinces here in canada with adam and the royals trip and I was watching or tracking jason on find my friends and his phone did not move for an entire day and it was like what is going on and you weren't texting me back and I had to have someone come in and check on you and then the dot moved a little bit but really you made yourself incredibly sick.

Speaker 4:

You bought a food fryer, the air fryer, and you think maybe that did it.

Speaker 2:

I don't think I cooked chicken in the air fryer enough and I got so sick. Oops, yeah, I was sick for five days from that.

Speaker 4:

You were thinking, oh man, chris is gone, I'm going to get so much done.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I did. I was like woohoo, that's when I wrote the experiment book After I recovered from that. Yeah, that was bad. But our study is about microwave oven bacteria. So, like microwaves, I know maybe our microwave could do with the cleaning every now and again, and this study makes me want to maybe redouble our efforts.

Speaker 4:

I was thinking the same thing, but then I was also thinking about how I don't like to use the microwave. It's not my go-to appliance, but we have one at work and I was thinking there are times when I do reheat my meal prep meals. And who else has touched that microwave and how many germs are in there?

Speaker 2:

are in there. I do have to give a shout out to a snack that my mom used to make for us, like when I think she was busy, but it was Triscuits with cheese and you cook them in the microwave to make the cheese melty. Oh my goodness, still to this day. It's one of my. I rarely get it, but it brings back memories of around the TV having Triscuits and cheese. So what's going on with this study, chris?

Speaker 4:

This study was conducted by a microbiologist named Manuel Porcar and colleagues, and what they did is they collected samples by swabbing the insides of 30 actively used microwave ovens, and they included microwaves from three different places 10 from kitchens, 10 from labs and 10 from shared spaces like cafeterias. This study was posted in Frontiers in Microbiology.

Speaker 2:

Ooh, I like the name of that journal Frontiers in Microbiology. It sounds like I like the name of that journal.

Speaker 1:

Frontiers in.

Speaker 2:

Microbiology. It sounds like the Oregon Trail and since we're talking about microbes, you can die from dysentery. But can you get that from the microwave? The swabs from the microwaves led to significant bacteria growth when they were transferred to lab dishes. That's something I do with my students sometimes. They love that. They love swabbing stuff and then putting it on agar and seeing what grows. It's a pretty engaging activity with kids.

Speaker 2:

But anyways, the scientists looked at the swabs that grew all the little germy germs that grew, and DNA analysis revealed over 100 different strains. So they've got like any kind of all the kinds of bacteria groups, like protobacteria, anectinobacteria and bacteriodites. These bacteria are commonly found on human skin and when you transfer them from touching people shake somebody's hand, you bump into somebody, you go in for a hug, whatever. Probably you might get it from the surface too. That's why you and I get sick as we touch grody kid work and then we touch what gets into our body yeah, yeah, and that just makes me think of how many people are using the staffroom microwave now the good news is none of those bacteria, all of the strains I mentioned, the protobacteria they're not pathogenic, meaning they're not going to make you sick.

Speaker 2:

But they did find two pathogenic bacteria in the microwaves that are related to foodborne illness. One is Klebsiella and that's known for causing pneumonia and urinary tract infections and then a bunch of other things that may occur when you're in the hospital if you're immunocompromised. Another pathogenic bacteria they found in the microwave was Brevonamonus. It was less common in the strain, it was less common on the plate, but it can cause infections in immunocompromised people. Now it's pretty wild that the bacteria survives in a microwave because it gets really hot. There's electromagnetic radiation everywhere and any water that's present in the microwave is subjected to that electromagnetic radiation, which is what cooks our food. So it's pretty interesting that they didn't get cooked themselves.

Speaker 4:

So further research is definitely required to understand their adaptive mechanisms. So the experts say you know what you need to clean your microwave. Oh yeah, the presence of these bacteria means microwave ovens should be cleaned as thoroughly as any other kitchen surface, and despite the presence of bacteria, they suggest that there's no elevated risk. Microwave ovens do not pose more of a health concern than other kitchen surfaces, so regular cleaning should be sufficient to maintain hygiene.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's good. Just give it a little wipe down. It's the same as your counter. That's right. One of the things that's interesting about the study is we haven't done a food safety one in a while, so that's fun talking about it. You have microbes that are living in a place in most people's homes that you wouldn't think that they could live in, and the solution is really simple it's just cleaning it.

Speaker 4:

But, chris, the solution is really simple, it's just cleaning it. But, chris, this does tie to outer space, because of the electromagnetic creation that is in outer space and bacteria, and how did our whole planet, uh, start?

Speaker 2:

extremophiles are thought to live, potentially on some of the moons of jupiter, some a moon of titan, and they're looking for bacteria or microbes that could live on the dry, dusty surface of Mars. Mars doesn't have a magnetic shield like we do, so it would be subjected to a lot of the rays from the sun, so if a bacteria can live in your microwave oven and survive, maybe it could live on a hot planet that doesn't have the same kind of structure that our earth does.

Speaker 4:

That's so true.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I guess in the same kind of structure that our Earth does. That's so true. Yeah, I guess in the end we got to go clean our microwave.

Speaker 4:

That's right.

Speaker 2:

One, two, three, not it. Oh wow, that's science news for this week. This week, in Pet Science, we're going to be talking about animal-assisted education, however, not the kind of animals that you'd probably think of, and when I think of animal-assisted education I'm thinking about dogs and we brought our dogs into the school. We have and do the kids love seeing the dogs, Chris.

Speaker 4:

A hundred percent. They're like oh my goodness, we love your dogs.

Speaker 2:

Kenny, this is the best day ever. Yeah, I brought bunsen and beaker in at christmas time because there's some rules that can be bent both chris and I have. Our schools don't allow animals unless they're sort of service animals. Bunsen and beaker aren't, but at christmas time they let us bring the dogs in and the the one class in the morning got the, got to see the dogs for the whole class and they the kids were beside themselves with how much fun it was having bunsen and beaker there. And bunsen and beaker weren't doing anything crazy, they were just going from kid to kid as it was a seat work day, so they were working on a project and the kids were so focused working on their project and the dogs would pad from kid to kid. It was really sweet.

Speaker 4:

I love that. That's such a great story and we've done the research and we actually present on the benefits of pets in the classroom. But this study is a little bit different. It talks about evaluating of learning in the presence of farm animals during animal-oriented lessons influence knowledge performance and memory retention in elementary school students and animal-assisted education. Like you said, it incorporates the presence of animals into the educational setting and it's an innovative alternative to conventional teaching methods. What they've found previous studies have actually found and focused on the positive effects of live animals on students' emotions and regulations, such as reducing stress and anxiety and also improving social interactions.

Speaker 4:

But, there is a gap between the impact of farm-based outdoor teaching on academic knowledge, memory retention and cognitive performance, because that has been underexplored.

Speaker 2:

All right. So this study took 149 fourth grade pupils aged 9 to 11 from four public elementary schools in the Bergen region, that's in Czechoslovakia, and they divided them into two groups. When you're doing good science, it's always great to have a control group and an experimental group. The experimental group attended a class at an eco-center farm. They interacted directly with farm animals and the controlled group received identical content in a conventional classroom using standard teaching aids. Again, that would suck to be part of the control group here.

Speaker 4:

I think so, but perhaps the control group didn't know what the experimental group was doing.

Speaker 2:

And that would be smart. That would be a more a blind study where you don't know what the experimental group was doing. And that would be smart. That would be a more a blind study where you don't know what the other you don't know what you're being subjected to.

Speaker 4:

Now, the informed consent was obtained from the school head teachers or the administration, and verbal consent was provided from the participants, and the lessons covered topics like taking care of animals, welfare, animal biology and animal products. Now, identical knowledge content was delivered by the same instructor, so in both settings, to ensure consistency, and the groups took a series of pen and paper tests. They did a pre-test before the lesson, they did a post-test immediately after the lesson and they did a follow-up test 28 days later.

Speaker 2:

Ooh, good pedagogy. Do you do pre-tests for kids in school, Chris?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, sometimes, yeah, the entrance slash, exit slip, yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so that's. It's actually good pedagogy for teaching. All right, I'm sure everybody's dying to know did the kids who went to the farm do better than the kids that stayed home? Isn't that what sounds like a piggy? This little piggy went to the market. This little piggy stayed home. This little piggy got to go learn about animal husbandry. This little piggy was in the control group. Anyways, Okay, no, there's no significant difference in knowledge between the experimental and control group.

Speaker 2:

Immediately after the lesson both groups did better. So they learned the lesson. Immediately after the. Immediately after, so the kid both groups did better. 28 days later there was a significant difference, though. In the follow-up test the experimental group maintained a broader knowledge than the control group. Short-term memory didn't seem to be affected. The study seems to show that the AAE learning may enhance long-term memory retention more effectively than conventional classroom settings. Very interesting because that is the goal for teachers is that you teach the kids and they're like do you get it? And they're like, huh, and they can tell you what you just said. And then, literally the next day, you're like trying to teach the next lesson. The kids are like we don't know how to do this and we went over this. Yesterday you told me you knew this. So long-term retention is great, so that's cool.

Speaker 4:

Additionally, no significant impact on knowledge retention based on gender, urban or rural residents or pet ownership was noted.

Speaker 2:

Oh, cool. Okay, I like that, so it's even across the board.

Speaker 4:

So what are we going to do with this? Where do we go with this? They're looking at memory retention, educational benefits and emotional and cognitive effects, as well as a broader application. So although AAE might not immediately improve knowledge performance, it does appear to have a positive impact on long-term memory retention, like you said. And the lessons involve farm animals and those can support memory retention by engaging multiple senses and creating an emotional connection to the material.

Speaker 4:

So that's important, that's good educational pedagogy like creating that connection, creating that bridge, and for emotional and cognitive effects. The presence of living animals in educational settings can create excitement and provide hands-on learning experiences, which may enhance both cognitive performance as well as emotional well-being.

Speaker 2:

That is so true. Was the school buzzing when you brought Bunsen and Beaker in? Did the word of mouth get to the kids far and wide?

Speaker 4:

They were excited. Yeah, that's what happened. They were a little shocked first. They're like what is happening, but they were excited.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I had to line up outside my room to come see the dogs.

Speaker 4:

Because it's just so cool.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 4:

And then interesting, like we're talking about dogs, but this study delved into farm-based learning, and farm-based learning may offer opportunities for multisensory experiences and a more practical understanding of biological and environmental science topics.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's really important. I worked at I've mentioned this before I worked a couple summers as a camp counselor for a farm museum of all things Sunnybrook Farm Museum shout out to Sunnybrook and we took kids to farms, like city slicker kids who had no experience on farms, and farmers and farm families graciously allowed us to come to their farm and it was really cool to see those kids learn about all the different aspects of farming, from big grain farming, which maybe wasn't the most exciting because it's hard to connect with the stock of wheat. But donkeys, chris, donkeys are crazy charismatic. There's a reason why donkey is more popular than shrek in those movies. Kids just love donkeys and they're really the donkeys we saw. They were friendly and they were goofy. So, yeah, I love that.

Speaker 4:

So, although the findings of this study highlight the need for innovative teaching strategies that go beyond the traditional classroom environment, and using farm animals could be a valuable addition to those educational methods, by supporting not only the immediate learning outcomes but also, you know, fostering better long-term memory retention, which is what we want our kids to do, to be able to not only learn it but know it. And many teachers have said I taught you this and you might have gone over the content, but did they really learn it and is it really stored into their long-term memory for retrieval later at the next lesson?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'd love to take my high school kids to a dairy farm and go milk some cows by hand. Talk about fluid dynamics.

Speaker 4:

There you go.

Speaker 2:

There you go. Educators, if you're listening, there's science behind taking your kids on a field trip to a farm. That's Pet Science for this week. Hello everybody.

Speaker 2:

Here's some ways you can keep the Science Podcast free. Number one in our show notes sign up to be a member of our Paw Pack Plus community. It's an amazing community of folks who love pets and folks who love science. We have tons 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. 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. It's time for Ask an Expert on the Science Podcast, and I have assistant producer and science communicator Jay Balamarugan with me today. Jay, how are you doing today?

Speaker 3:

I'm great. I'm great. Thank you so much for having me on the show.

Speaker 2:

Oh man, I am so excited to talk to you. We'll get to that a little bit later, because what you do is really exciting. But, jay, where are you in the world? Where are you calling into the show from?

Speaker 3:

So I am based in London in the United Kingdom. It is a fairly chaotic day today. It's been both extreme downpours and just beautiful sunshine, so it's a huge mix of things at the moment.

Speaker 2:

Fairly chaotic. I love that to explain because that could mean the weather or like just the average goings on in a massive city like London.

Speaker 3:

Honestly both. Yeah, it's most of the time, it's both.

Speaker 2:

Do you like? Have you lived in London for a while? Like I've never been, but my son has been with a marching band and he said it was a really cool town.

Speaker 3:

Have you lived there for a while? Yeah, so I've actually been in London now for about four years. I came here actually in the middle of the pandemic and it was really interesting being in one of the most bustling cities in the world and arriving when it was actually quite possibly at the quietest it's been in a few hundred years. It was really amazing. But now the city's kind of come back to life. It's really amazing. It's one of my favorite places in the world. I can't really imagine myself living anywhere else.

Speaker 3:

It's just incredibly diverse and fantastic. I would highly recommend a visit if you ever get the chance.

Speaker 2:

Nice. Yeah, I think it's on our bucket list. I've heard other people say the same thing about New York right, Like it's a hustly, bustly type of place like London it's just always moving. Yeah, always moving, yeah, always moving. Jay, I was going to ask you if you have any training in science before we get to the meat and potatoes of our discussion. What's your education in science, if you have some?

Speaker 3:

So, yes, I do have a little bit of a background in science no-transcript specific, just wanted to study all of it. So, yeah, I actually ended up spending some quite a bit of time in academia there doing things ranging from evolution to genetics, all the way to parasitology and neuroscience. But that is also around the time when I realized as much as it is really cool doing science in an academic setting. I personally find it so much more enjoyable for me at least talking about science. Sharing my love for science and that sort of set me on a path to actually end up doing another master's degree, this time specifically in science communication, and that's what sort of took me back into London those years ago.

Speaker 2:

Wow, congratulations. That's a lot of work there, thank you.

Speaker 3:

Sometimes I do wonder if I did spend a little bit too long in academia, but I had a good time and it's led me to where. I am now which is the main thing,

Speaker 2:

Were you a science kid growing up? Were you enamored with science?

Speaker 3:

Oh, absolutely. I was obsessed with science for growing up. I feel like it's a that isn't even an exaggeration growing up I just I was watching. So I actually grew up in Malaysia and at the time there wasn't the hugest amount of science programming. But one thing we did have on TV, surprisingly enough, was Bill Nye the science guy. Oh, bill Nye obsessed, and I couldn't get enough of it. Obviously, I did have a phase when I became a teenager where I lost touch with science. I wanted to be in with the cool kids and I lost touch with it a bit. But toward the end of my teens I rediscovered that love and that sort of passion for science and it sent me back back onto that path.

Speaker 2:

Let's get to the thing that you're all in on, and that's dinosaurs. Why are you so enamored with dinosaurs? I would love to know this One of my favorite questions to ask people who are in on a type of science what is the reason why they're all in on it?

Speaker 3:

dinosaurs, the first things. I think everyone sort of loves dinosaurs, right, it's one of the first things you ever see as a kid. That kind of gets you into science and gets you into a frame of thinking where you're starting to question things. I think a kid looks at a dinosaur and sometimes that's the first time they're questioning oh why is it so big? Why aren't they around anymore? And that's the sort of thing that kind of got me into it in the first place. But what kind of made it stick with me, I think, is not so much the dinosaurs themselves or prehistory in and of itself, but the idea that you look at the beauty and the complexity and the just incredible yeah, just complexity is the word for it the intricacies that you see in the natural world around us today. But that's only a small part of the picture. There's been an unknowable amount of previous iterations of this world, spanning back an amount of time that is almost impossible to comprehend. Life has been on this planet for hundreds of millions of years, which especially with talking about little life, microscopic life that's ranging into the billions, and it's changed and evolved and grown into so many different forms and it's taken so many different paths and ended in so many different ways and come back to life in so many different ways. It's like seeing, like looking at the world around us is almost like looking through a peephole and you can't quite see the rest of it, and paleontology and learning about prehistories, unraveling that mystery, but you're starting to figure out what else there has been and it's amazing, it's realizing that the world we're a part of is only a little part of something much, much grander, much bigger, and I think that's a sort of I think anyone who does science can relate to that unraveling idea and that sort of wanting to find out more and seeing that what we have right now is only a small part of the puzzle. It's just pretty amazing, and dinosaurs, I think, is emblematic of that. They're just incredible.

Speaker 3:

Animals 're so cool and they're very much the poster child for prehistory. Right, they were here, they ruled the world for a good long while becoming all sorts of shapes and sizes, some of the weirdest animals we've ever seen on the planet, and then most of them are gone and we'll never know every single detail about them. But we can try our best and the more time goes on, the more we know about them and the weirder they get, and that's just fantastic. I think I can't get enough of learning about the ancient world. I have two dinosaur tattoos at the moment. I can't wait to get more. I just they're just the coolest. Basically, I love.

Speaker 2:

Is it too personal to ask what dinosaurs they are?

Speaker 3:

no, absolutely not. Okay, I am a cheating a little bit, so I do have a spinosaurus skull on my arm, but the other spinosaurus yeah yeah, just the coolest dinosaur also the weirdest, um, but my other tattoo is actually of a shoebill stork, so that's my other little factoid. That I always like telling kids especially is that birds are dinosaurs, that dinosaurs didn't all go extinct. There are plenty of them around today, and I've got one on my arm I love that spinosaurus is some kind of cool dinosaur hey yeah yeah, that's very cool.

Speaker 2:

I was very lucky to talk to the paleontologist that discovered the spinosaurus um amazing. Yeah, yeah, nazar yeah yeah, he's very nice, very nice guy so he's cool.

Speaker 3:

Yes, I've worked with him um on this project as well and he is, yeah, really cool. I was recently at the lime reg Regis Fossil Festival and he was there. He had a little stall and he has this massive cast of a replica, I should say, of a Spinosaurus skull. It's two meters long or something. It's massive of sitting on his table and he was just like showing off to everyone. It was very cool.

Speaker 2:

I think if you discovered or rediscovered some kind of like wild creature like Spinosaurus, you get the show off for the rest of your life.

Speaker 3:

Oh absolutely, I love it.

Speaker 2:

What a very cool explanation for why dinosaurs are amazing. And for folks that listen to the show, they know that I have two huge passions that I can talk to people about or listen to people talk about, and that's dinosaurs in outer space.

Speaker 3:

Those are two very good choices.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I've got a big, very mysterious yeah, I've got a big spot in my heart for dinosaurs. A paleontologist like, I think, the fourth guest I ever interviewed on our show. One of the things he said why he thinks that kids like especially kids. I don't know if you remember when you were a kid if you were into dinosaurs, but a lot of kids go through a dinosaur phase and he's. They're monsters that are safe for kids too, yes, yes, because they're gone right, and they are.

Speaker 2:

some of them are monsters like you. Look at a I don't know a rhinoceros right, or a hippopotamus or a moose, because we have moose and they're so huge and you're like, wow, that is a big creature. But then dinosaurs take that to another level entirely.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, and it's just it is.

Speaker 2:

it fills you full awe, it gives you goosebumps that these creatures were on the earth, Like where you're sitting right now in London. I'm sure there were dinosaurs that lived there, just like where I'm sitting in Alberta, Canada. There's dinosaurs that lived here.

Speaker 3:

Oh, yeah, absolutely, it's quite. It's one of those incredible things, and I think the size of some of them is actually one of the things that captivates people the most, because one of the things I realized recently, having been to the zoo not that long ago, is that camels, for example, are way bigger than you think. I was next to a camel habitat and this thing was like good, two and a half feet taller than I am. But then you have to extrapolate that up several orders of magnitude to even get to the average dinosaur, which is quite something, especially when some of the biggest ones would have gosh. They would have weighed upwards of what? 80 tons maybe.

Speaker 2:

It's so hard, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3:

It's hard to fathom that and to imagine standing next to one as it walks along, that is. If we could ever experience that, I think it would be just an undefinable experience.

Speaker 2:

It would have been quite incredible, though, if it is ever done for real. We do have a good blueprint of what not to do with the Jurassic Park movies.

Speaker 3:

Yep exactly, yeah, that's the coolest thing is just how big they are and just to think about what they would look like when they moved Indeed, and we'll never experience it.

Speaker 3:

So it's always going to be something that you dream about, right, exactly, and one of the things I do just in my spare time is I'm also a paleo artist, so I illustrate dinosaurs and one of those. The big challenges doing something like that is figuring out how the soft bits look right, because we have the bones of a lot of these animals but we don't necessarily always have. What did the, what did the, the fat deposits look like? Or where are the cheeks on this thing? Or what did the tongue look like? That sort of thing? Or did they have any fancy frills or crests? Or sometimes we have the answer to these things and some and, but most of the time we don't. And illustrating these animals means you get to really have fun and explore all the possibilities while looking at like modern animals for inspiration, because modern animals get pretty bonkers too, but then you have to imagine how weird they must've gotten back in the day.

Speaker 2:

If you found a peacock skeleton, there's no way you would know that a male peacock looked like had the ability to do that feather fanning thing that they do exactly, yeah and there's no way you would know they sound like psychopaths.

Speaker 2:

Have you ever heard a peacock call? They sound like they're. It's the scene from psycho in the shower. There's this. It's pretty. They're pretty horrifying. If you've never been around a peacock for a while I know I don't want to scare listeners if you've never been around peacocks there, I don't think they would really hurt you. They're not like canada geese, which are murderous, by the way. Stay away from canada geese. But peacocks have a shrill cry. That is eerie if you've never heard it before yeah, it is.

Speaker 3:

It's one of those things that, if you had no contact for it, it's just terrifying.

Speaker 2:

Now, before we move to the next question, which is the really exciting one with what you've been working on do you have a favorite dinosaur? Can you pin it down to one or two?

Speaker 3:

That's a good question. It is the one on my arm. It is Spinosaurus.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Speaker 3:

Okay, specifically because it is the biggest of all the weirdos in the Mesozoic. This is the absolute biggest one, not just because of the sheer weirdness of it, but it's also the biggest one. It's the biggest, maybe not necessarily the heaviest, but as far as we know, the longest predatory dinosaur. It's a big thing, but it's not big and like. Okay, I love T-Rex, but T-Rex is, as far as we know, it's got the sort of standard dinosaur body plan that everyone thinks of. It's definitely an interesting animal in its own right. It's got its own cool adaptations.

Speaker 3:

But when you think of like a predator dinosaur, you think of something like T-Rex, but then you look at something like Spinosaurus and everything about it is just bizarre. It's got a super long, super narrow, thin snout. It's got a crest on the top of its head, just between its eyes. But, most striking of all, it's got this massive sail on its back, like huge sail. That gives it its name Spinosaurus and to this day we have no real idea what it's used for. We think it's probably a display structure of some kind.

Speaker 3:

It's showing off to other Spinosauruses, but as far as we know, it could well be something else. Maybe it's using it to radiate heat to keep itself cool or warm itself up. But beyond just that, it's also got this massive tail that looks like a tadpole and it just keeps getting weirder and weir and weird. It's got big, bulky arms with big claws. It's got these weird short, stumpy legs. So what is going on with this animal? We don't know. Every part of it just screams something different. Our best interpretation right now is it probably enjoyed the water a lot. It was using its long, thin snout to grab fish from the water, but it's perpetually debated as to how much time it spent in the water, what its various body parts were used for At this point, who knows. But I'm very excited to see what else people discover about this animal, because it is absolutely the weirdest and that's why it's my favorite.

Speaker 2:

That is a great answer and that is a great pick, jay, well done. Yeah, the Spinosaurus is one of my nephew's favorite dinosaurs. Um, so he before I actually talked to Nazir uh, he was like peppering me with all of these Spinosaurus facts because kids read the books and they're like did you know? Did you know? Um, so it's I love dinosaurs, so I could. I was like, was like I don't know, tell me more, please tell me more. Small child. Yeah, spinosaurus is great. One of the things I always think about is like how dangerous if you were to go back in time and, just as a human like you and me, jay, like we decided to go for a stroll.

Speaker 3:

We would be so screwed like these animals immediately like everything.

Speaker 3:

Everything is bigger and faster and stronger, and and wants and has the tools to murder you in seconds oh, yeah yeah, and people usually think of that's only the carnivores, but even the herbivores had like spikes and plates and tail clubs and all sorts of things. You just there's nowhere it's. Every single creature back then is so well adapted to keep itself alive that really no, there's not the friendliest place for a soft small human, I don't think no, maybe that's why the mammals survived, as the early ones just were hiding all the time they saved the asteroid strike.

Speaker 2:

They're like ooh, it's too spooky. Everything out there is spooky. We must hide always. That's not factual. I just made that up.

Speaker 3:

There's a very cool fossil that emerged a couple years ago which might have shown that some mammals were fighting back, because it shows a dinosaur and a mammal actually locked in battle and it looks like the mammal might be winning.

Speaker 2:

What kind of crazy mammal was that? That's a psycho mammal. What?

Speaker 3:

Not a particularly big one, maybe about I think it was about three feet to a meter. It's called a Reptomanus, I think. But yeah, it's locked in battle with this other dinosaur and they're midway biting each other. But it does look like the mammal mammals got the upper hand, so perhaps some of them were, yeah, holding their own a little bit.

Speaker 2:

Good job, ancient mammals. Well done, that's great. So, Jay, we have to talk about what you're working on. I introduced you as an associate producer or assistant producer I apologize, assistant producer and you are working with the BBC on a little show called Walking with Dinosaurs. Can you talk to us a little bit about that? How did you come to work on that show and do you have any stories that you can share with us that won't cause the British version of the Men in Black to come out after you?

Speaker 3:

Yes, indeed, I am an assistant producer currently at bbc studios and we are indeed working on walking with dinosaurs. I actually have been at bbc studios for some time now. I first um started working there back in 2021, ish, started working there a little bit and then came on a longer term position and the first documentary I ended up working on there was a series called earth, which was released in in the states, I believe, and in canada under the title ancient earth, and I think it was, yeah, released like mid last year ish, and that was all about the kind of planet's deep history, right right from the moment it was formed all up until the modern day, and it's not a small topic by any means, not really the easiest thing to fit into five episodes when it's about four billion years of history, but we made it work and it was a fantastic series. It gave me a lot of insight into sort of deep time and what it means to tell a story over such a long course of history and kind of whittle it down to a nice digestible packet. But it was a really fantastic series and I think my experience there working on a show about deep time, but also a show that involved a lot of vfx and like creatures and having to digest a lot of really complex research and distill it into a story kind of really hopefully at least made a good impact.

Speaker 3:

And the people who are working on the newer series of Walking With Dinosaurs realized I've got this very specific skill set and also realized that I was obsessed I can't think of a more flattering word obsessed with dinosaurs and thought that I'd be a good fit for the team.

Speaker 3:

So I did initially come on to Dinesource as a researcher and my role then was more so to keep an eye on just the science and make sure that everything was scientifically accurate. But very quickly I progressed into becoming an assistant producer, which meant I had more of a responsibility, not just over the science but over the actual production process, things like filming, choosing etc. But I'd say my biggest responsibility in the series is and I always say this is looking after the animals, so keeping an eye on all the vfx dinosaurs, making sure they're as close to their actual counterparts as possible and you're providing the research, providing the kind of like guidance on that front and liaising with scientists etc. And that's been quite an amazing experience is working with scientists on this program who I read the books off when I was a kid, which was just the most incredible thing. I'd work with paleontologists who, when I was just a little girl, had their names on some of the books in my bedroom, and that's just been the wildest thing, that's amazing.

Speaker 3:

It is really cool and I've really enjoyed my time on the series. It's been quite fantastic and while I can't say the most about it, I'm very excited for it to come out, because my favorite thing about the series is that it's not just a celebration of dinosaurs, but it's a celebration of paleontology and the people who are behind the science and bringing these animals out of the ground oh, I just got goosebumps listening to you talk about that.

Speaker 2:

I can hear the care and passion in your voice which is really inspirational. Now this is there was already a walking with dinosaurs like documentary type thing, like around 1990, 2000, 2001, 1999, like 1999 yes, yeah, so this is like a is. Is it a retread, is it an update, is it all new stories?

Speaker 3:

or, like you said, the lens has shifted to other things like I like said, I can't say a huge amount, but the way I would describe it as this is a slightly different iteration. It's we're looking at this through, like you said, different lens and there there are entirely new stories. You will have seen some in the press release. Obviously can't mention the ones you haven't seen, but yeah, it is. I think the best way to describe it is a fresh take it. It'll be something quite new and quite exciting, I think. So, yeah, I'm very much excited to see how people react to it once it's on the screen, but I do think that it's going to be very cool.

Speaker 2:

Awesome and just refreshing our memories. When about is this coming out?

Speaker 3:

So this is going to come out in mid 2025. An official release date will obviously come in the months to come, whenever that's finalized, but, yeah, mid 2025, which will make it about 26 years following the original. And this is not me necessarily plugging it, but if any of you listening want to re-watch the original, please do, because I think it still holds up to this day. It's a fantastic series and it's again. One of my first ever introductions to science and science communication was watching walking with dinosaurs as a kid that original one from 99 and it's just.

Speaker 2:

It's still so good and I highly recommend it yeah, it came out five, six years years after the Jurassic Park movie. Because that Jurassic Park movie, just like everybody, fell in love with dinosaurs and I've shown clips from Walking with Dinosaurs in my class and like everything in it holds up. Like any of the special effects they use, it holds up pretty good.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it's quite interesting because obviously the science has moved on quite a lot. But I think the way they treated the animals in the VFX and how they presented them is what makes it hold up. They treated them like animals rather than movie monsters or anything like that. They were like let's pretend we've gone out there and we're just filming a bunch of animals and I think that just that approach makes it quite timeless. In a sense it feels like you can just re-watch it and again it just feels like you're watching a bunch of animals. Obviously, scientific knowledge has moved on quite a bit. We know that quite a lot of these animals probably had feathers. We know that they might have walked differently. We know that certain species might be different sizes, but that first walking dinosaurs is something special and you can really tell for the time they put in the effort they really tried to put on screen the most up-to-date version of those animals at the time.

Speaker 2:

I love it and the new one is it like a series as well? I apologize if you said that and I missed it.

Speaker 3:

Oh, yes, so it is indeed a series. It will be, I believe. Yes, so this was in the press release. It will be six episodes.

Speaker 2:

Okay, perfect. The other one was like a series as well.

Speaker 3:

Yes, so that one was also a series of also six episodes.

Speaker 2:

Oh, there you go, okay, perfect. Oh, I'm so looking forward to that. It's going to be a long wait, but hey, we're giving everybody a heads up here on the science podcast about it.

Speaker 3:

Yes, exactly.

Speaker 2:

Before we move on to some of our standard questions, one of the things that you actually have that like in your bio and your LinkedIn that I really respected and I wanted to ask you about it was, like one of the things you have about you is you're very for factual TV, and that's what I wanted to just kick your brain about, like how important is factual TV over sensational TV? Because there's edutainment TV but they don't necessarily get their facts right or at all correct. I'm thinking of, like ancient aliens or things like that which are very entertaining and sensational, but maybe not super factual.

Speaker 3:

It is. That's a super interesting thing that I've been thinking about a lot and I think having TV programs that are quite rigorous in the fact process and making sure that they're getting everything across to the viewer as accurately as possible and making it clear when something is speculative and what is not entirely certain, that's super important. I am a big believer that if you're going to make something that's educational, you've got to put in the effort to make sure that you're really fact checking it, making sure it's entirely correct. My role as an assistant producer and, before this, as a researcher, actually involved a ton of fact checking on the projects I've worked on and that's a super rigorous process because you go through and you highlight all the facts that you're putting to screen and you've then got to go and make sure that you've got peer-reviewed sources for all if not as many as you can find and that process is tedious, it is difficult, but it is a process that I value and appreciate so much because it means that when audiences view our programming they know they're seeing something that has been researched, that has been rigorously checked and that they can trust With programming like you mentioned, ancient aliens, etc.

Speaker 3:

Or I sometimes think about. The Discovery Channel back in the day had a spate of sort of pseudo-documentaries about things like mermaids and things like that, and they are fun sometimes, they're entertaining, they're. They're just great to kind of put on tv and turn your brain off for a bit. But that's the thing you've got to turn your brain off. But the part that kind of gets me is when it's not super clear whether a program is taking inspiration from fictional events or is is playing fast and loose with facts, and that's when you get into programs like ancient aliens or I think there was an archaeology one on netflix that attracted a lot of controversy not that long ago, but I can't quite remember what it's called is that the the one about the like, the sub primitive humans and their burial thing?

Speaker 3:

yeah, I think that's the idea that there was a civilization before the ones we know of, or something like that.

Speaker 3:

But, it ended up? I believe there was this and take this with a grain of salt because I'm not super familiar with archaeology as much, but the people I know who are in the field have been fairly upset at this. But a lot of things are presented out of context or sensationalized to fuel the narrative that they're trying to build, which is not necessarily baked in hard science or even in reasonable speculation. It's gone into the realms of pseudoscience. And that's where I think the line needs to be drawn is that if you're going to be presenting something that is very clearly in the realm of pseudoscience, you've then got to be very clear that this is a work of fiction, or at least say that this has not the hugest amount of backing behind it, but it's.

Speaker 3:

Obviously it gets quite tricky because sometimes the people making these or the people presenting these are very much, quite sure that their view is the correct one. It's very it's a very tricky line to to navigate, but I do think there is. There's a huge importance for there to be that distinction, because people need to know what they're watching. At the end of the day, if you're watching something that is presenting itself as factual but in reality is not, that's just not not the most ethical, I think, and it leads to some really dangerous paths because and I'm sure you know this more than like being a teacher and having interviewed loads of people in your podcast but misinformation these days is just so quick to spread, it catches like wildfire yeah and you really want to make sure that if you're going to put information out there, it's correct, or else it's going to spread, and yeah, then it's that you get into the whole tricky situation of having information that is blatantly incorrect being all over the place yeah, that's the big.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'm just stumbling. I. I feel like some of those shows that they do a thing where they're like we talked to five experts and the experts all said we were wrong. But what if they were wrong?

Speaker 3:

And then they go into like they're big, because there's only so much you can do when you're a scientist called on to interview for a program and if they've not told you the full story. So, as part of my role at work, whenever I do work on a documentary, whenever we speak to scientists, we try our best to give them the full picture. This is what the program is going to look like, this is the story we're telling, these are our scientific references and we're going to speak to you about your thoughts, your viewpoints, but here's all the context I'm trying not to mislead anyone or get anyone to say things that they don't believe.

Speaker 2:

Basically, yeah, and you're so correct about how fast misinformation spreads and generally, as you said, it can be unethical by people presenting themselves as experts, because the average person doesn't know, isn't an expert in everything and can be easily fooled or tricked or misled I always bring up.

Speaker 2:

I have a pretty good pulse on my students and generally they're pretty good at sniffing out BS but all of them got tricked a year ago, two years ago. All of them, many of them, got tricked because a whole bunch of them were coming up to me and showing me this video from TikTok of this like 22 year old girl who was distraught and crying because she's being sent to Mars and it's a one-way trip. She's on the Mars trip and the kids are like this is terrible.

Speaker 2:

This is awful. Why would they do that to this person? And the whole thing was like absolutely fabricated. But they got. They all got bamboozled because it's not something we study in school. Do we have the technology to send humans to mars? Is that even a thing? And I was shocked. I was like, guys, this is like complete nonsense. We're not sending people to mars. And then I had to take a step back and I'm like how would they know that?

Speaker 3:

so, unless you do your own research, and not everybody's great at that anyway, that's my soapbox no, but absolutely it's a thing on tiktok, especially, I think, because it's such a it's. When you're on tiktok it's a massively quick medium. You're just scrolling from one video to the next with like within seconds, right, and sometimes people are just swiping by getting a little tidbit of information that goes into their heads and they've already moved on to the next video without you know further context.

Speaker 2:

So anyone can just say something without the slightest backing and it's just immediately in someone's head and it's incredible how quick it spreads yeah, and back in the day, if you had crazy ideas and you were saying weird stuff, generally only the people around you heard your nonsense and they rejected you, whereas now, now you can find huge audiences on the internet. Yep, yeah, very good. Okay, thanks for your opinion on that, jay. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 2:

We have a couple of standard questions that we ask all our guests about, and one is the pet story. I was wondering if you could share a pet story from your life with us.

Speaker 3:

Of course, yeah, so I actually. We have two pets in the house. We have a small fluffy white dog. His name is Dante, he's a bit of a gremlin but we love him to bits. And our other pet is a ball python snake named Ike. Oh, okay.

Speaker 2:

Oh, what's the snake's name? Sorry.

Speaker 3:

Ike.

Speaker 2:

Ike.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, a little short, single syllable name Big fan of single syllable names. He is the loveliestiest, sweetest little boy. I I know snakes aren't for everyone. A lot of people have phobias or are just not super familiar with them. I personally have always really loved reptiles, uh, and ike happens to be the first reptile I've personally had as a pet. But he is just the sweetest, sweetest thing. But I do wonder sometimes if he has more than one brain cell, because he gets into all sorts of shenanigans. I don't necessarily know what he's thinking when he does them.

Speaker 3:

But recently we've upgraded his vivarium so he's got a big tank, quite a hefty one, with loads of little spaces for him to explore lots of live plants. He's got this full backdrop which is made to look like stone tunnels and stuff so he can explore it. But when we put him in there, one of the first things he decides to do is wedge himself between the backdrop and the wall of the tank, which I fully didn't think he could do, because there's not actually any space back there. The backdrop and the tank are like against each other, like flat, like they're flush against each other. There shouldn't be any space back there. The backdrop and the tank are like against each other, like flat, like they're flush against each other. There shouldn't be any space there. And yet somehow he manages to wedge his body in there and I had to like pry the backdrop away slowly just to get him out.

Speaker 3:

And I got him out eventually. He looks a little bit disheveled, but he's fine, okay. And I put him back down, you know, and I was like, okay, don't do that again. I don't know why you did that, don't do that again. And I leave and I come back and he's immediately done the exact same thing for some reason. Um, so I had to rescue him once more and then had to then put him in a separate tank for a bit, while I went in with expanding foam and covered any gaps so he couldn't get back there anymore.

Speaker 3:

And then I eventually put him back in and he just looked so mad at me. He was just like why did you remove my, my little gap? Um, it's actually, it's so. What I eventually realized is this is a thing called thigmotaxis. Snakes and a lot of other reptiles love being pressed up in tight spaces. It just makes them feel safe, makes them feel secure. The only problem was he chose the worst tight space imaginable and if he got stuck there, he would have got stuck there. I've given him plenty more spaces where he can safely get all snuggled up in and not have to worry about getting trapped forever.

Speaker 2:

Oh man, I think all pets do things like that and you have to wonder, like why did you just do the thing that you just did? That? Is a common, that's a common thing with our dogs every day. I'm like why did you just do that thing? And with our puppy bernoulli, he does stuff every day where I'm like why that is. I can't believe you just did that.

Speaker 3:

But we love them anyways, because sometimes what they do are so silly and so wholesome yeah, no, we joke a lot that our dog dante, that he just specifically loves the foods that are going to be the worst for him. We'll be cutting up onions in the kitchen and he's just immediately I want some of that. And I'm like, no, this is literally poison for you. And he's just sat there like wagging his tail expecting onions to be hand-fed to him.

Speaker 2:

No, not for you, buddy dogs are always wondering what we're eating, and we're always wondering what they're eating, so we just follow each other all the time, wondering what each other yeah yeah, that's a pretty good. That's a great pet story, jay. Thanks for sharing.

Speaker 3:

No worries.

Speaker 2:

And my last question for you before we wrap up is the super fact. Do you know something or do you have a fact that you tell people and it blows their minds? I was wondering if you could share one of those with us.

Speaker 3:

So I've obviously got a couple dinosaur ones, because obviously my favorite dinosaur fact is actually, interestingly, that, because they've been, they were around for such a long time that when t-rex was around there would have been fossils of other dinosaurs already in the ground not just the, the bones, but the fossils.

Speaker 2:

That's crazy.

Speaker 3:

That is crazy. Yeah, it's quite remarkable. They were around for such a long time. We were talking about 140 million years or so. That is a massively long period of time. Considering the gap between T rex and us is only about 66 million years. Dinosaurs were around for more than double that amount of time, meaning that when the first dinosaurs were around, it would still take a long time to get to the ones that we're familiar with.

Speaker 2:

It is, it's really something just too bad they didn't have a paleontology department to study those dinosaurs back then but then they also didn't have a space program to let them know that asteroid was coming.

Speaker 3:

So that would have probably helped. But that actually is the next sort of fun fact, which is that dinosaurs, in the most technical way, aren't extinct not all of them anyways. We still have the birds today, and birds, phylogenetically speaking, are not just the descendants of dinosaurs, but they are dinosaurs themselves. And anytime someone doubts that, I say go look at the feet of an emu and tell me that it's not a dinosaur.

Speaker 2:

Emu and ostriches are, they're something else.

Speaker 2:

Eh, they really are good grief, those are great super facts. That first one, that one is gonna be. I'm gonna have to go sit on a hill and think about that, because that is a head scratcher. Yeah, we're at the end of our chat. Jay, thank you so much for being a guest on the science podcast. I am super excited about walking with dinosaurs next year. Thanks for talking to us about that and for our listeners who maybe want to connect or follow you on social media, do you have an account or places people can go?

Speaker 3:

On most platforms. I am Kakapo J. Kakapo is a small, flightless green parrot from New Zealand and one of my favorite birds. I am KakapoJ on most things. I'm most active on Twitter and Instagram, so feel free to follow me there for more dinosaurs and the occasional peek into my life and the lives of my two little pets.

Speaker 2:

Awesome Thanks, Jay. We'll make sure there's a hyperlink in our show notes.

Speaker 3:

Amazing. Thank you.

Speaker 2:

Okay, you know what this has been a treat talking to you. Thank you for what you do with science communication and keeping things factual for everybody out there. In a time of misinformation, that is critical that all of us science communicators come together to really promote that. So for me.

Speaker 3:

Do you think?

Speaker 2:

you're doing that work.

Speaker 3:

No, and same goes to you. I think it's something we've all got to keep, keep an eye on, be vigilant about, especially nowadays, with how fast it all takes out, takes over and spreads awesome what's your story?

Speaker 1:

I found this. I dug in the ground today and I found a stick. Certainly, what's your story? I just want to bite you. 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. I actually have a bit of a story. It's not a super crazy story, but it's a bit of a story.

Speaker 1:

The dogs get so jealous. Beaker gets jealous whenever I spend time with Bernoulli or Bunsen. Bunsen gets jealous when I spend time with anybody right when I get home, and Bernoulli just gets jealous, no matter what. It's hard to have your. You only have two arms, so it's hard to give your attention to three dogs at the same time, so one of them always gets the short end of the stick and they lose their minds and then they get angry at each other because they get jealous with each other. I don't know what the fix is, but beaker nice when I bet bunsen and bernoulli bigger. No, she can't get angry at bunsen because he's still recovering, so she just barks at bernoulli and like walks square, bernoulli gets the brunt of it.

Speaker 2:

And then when I'm spending time with bernoulli and bunsen wants me to spend time with him.

Speaker 1:

He just walks on, bernoulli gets the brunt of it. And then, when I'm spending time with Bernoulli and Bunsen wants me to spend time with him, he just walks on Bernoulli, he just steps over him because he's so big and Bernoulli is still kind of small. I think, though I think Bernoulli is going to get bigger than Bunsen, so I don't know what's. I know what's going to happen with that. And then Beaker Beaker is very good. Beaker's a good girl. She's standing right next to me. I'm petting her. Beaker's good. She doesn't usually get angry unless she's riled up, and then usually she directs her anger towards Bernoulli because, nine times out of ten, he's kind of deserving of it. He's a bit of a butt face. Sometimes. I figured out you can stop him when he's biting you by rubbing his ears or rubbing his stomach, because he's like oh, this is pretty good, and then he stops being bitey. Mom, do you have a story?

Speaker 4:

I sure do, bernoulli. I think I'm going to talk about Bernoulli. He has been going to doggy daycare and I've been dropping him off. Well, jason, I know you've been dropping them off too, but when I drop him off, he's just so excited to go and he gets there and he is so impressive because before we go in, I ask him to sit and he does, and then he waits. I open the door and I'm just thinking back to, like Beaker and Bunsen, at this stage of the game.

Speaker 4:

When I go in, there's like a stage of the game. When I go in, um, there's like a uh, the desk, and there's a little gate and you ask Bernoulli to sit before and he's so excited to go. Like he is so excited to go, so he's like you ask for a sit and you know what he does. He gives you a sit. Oh my goodness, he is the best behaved little boy at doggy daycare.

Speaker 4:

And Jason gets to pick him up or has picked him up two times and each time they've said oh my goodness, bernoulli just loves to learn and he's doing so well, and he's been doing some training and he's he's just he's just doing so great, which is amazing and awesome. It makes it just so much easier to have a tired puppy for when we get home from work and just kind of have like our evening, whatever we're doing in the evening, and not have a piranha shark bugging Bunsen, because Bunsen is still very much needing to rest and recuperate so he continues to get healthy and get better. So, like even on Sunday, like Saturday, we had puppy play and you took Bernoulli to puppy play, jason and it was great and he was tired out.

Speaker 4:

Sunday, no puppy play, he was a going concern. So it's just good to have him um into an outlet that he can experience and enjoy and that allows bunsen to heal and beaker well, whoops. Beaker is just our little girl and she's doing her best to be um beakerific and that's my story mom left a gap.

Speaker 1:

Mom has uh blocked bunsen off with a bench and she left a gap between the wall and the bench, and so bunsen came in the room that we're recording in. Dad, do you have a story?

Speaker 2:

I do. It's about beaker, so a lot of attention has been put on bunsen because of his surgery, um, and he's doing great, he's recovering from that. And of course a lot of attention is on bernoulli because he's so stinking cute, uh. But I do have to give a. I do have to tell a story about beaker.

Speaker 2:

Beaker is the middle child and I'm sure she's felt a little push to the side this summer, even though we've tried to make her feel special with the new puppy around. But she's really stepped up to do a couple really cool things with Bunsen. I mentioned this last week, I believe, when Bunsen came home from surgery. He was very, very dopey and not himself, and Beaker stayed by his side the whole first night and day. And the other thing that she does is if Bunsen is in his crate, like we we, chris, bought this big sectioned wire crate thing to give Bunsen a little bit more room, cause he hates a crate. It's just too too small for him.

Speaker 2:

Bernoulli occasionally goes over and messes with the crate and Beaker will tell him no, she'll go and shoo him away. Now Bernoulli is as big as Beaker is now, so it's kind of funny. Bernoulli talks back to Beaker so they get in a little bit of barking match, but eventually Beaker shoes him away and he goes off and sulks and I don't know choose a chair or something instead. And today on yesterday on the furbo, I was watching the highlights and bunsen would cry and beaker would come into the room with him and like say hello to him, look around a bit and then leave. So it's just kind of cool to see beaker step up and be a sister to to bunsen, who's still recovering from the surgery. And that's my story.

Speaker 1:

Beaker's been very, very lovey. She'll bring you toys and stuff a lot more, Like she always brought toys when you, when she was excited, but now she just brings toys to bring toys, which is pretty cool. But yeah, I think that's it for for story time. Thank you so much for listening to my section of the podcast and I hope to see you all on the next podcast episode. Bye bye.

Speaker 2:

That's it for this week's show. Thanks for coming back week after week to listen to the science podcast. Special thanks to our guest Definitely going to check out that new dinosaur show. And Chris has a shout out to all of our top tier, top dogs on our community called the Pod Pack Join up, check out the show notes. It's a lot of fun.

Speaker 4:

Chris, take it away. Jennifer Smathers, Laura Stephenson, holly Burge, brenda Clark, ann Uchida, peggy McKeel, terry Adam, debbie Anderson, sandy Brimer, tracy Leinbaugh, marianne McNally, fun Lisa, shelley Smith, julie Smith, diane Allen, brianne Haas, linda Sherry, carol McDonald, catherine Jordan, courtney Proven, donna Craig, wendy, diane Mason and cuteness this.