Latest / Stuff You Should Know / Optogenetics: Controlling Your Genes with Light

Transcript

Optogenetics: Controlling Your Genes with Light · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You should know, a production of I
0:03
Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
0:12
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's
0:16
Speaker 1: guest producer Josh T over there, Josh T Josh Tizzy.
0:21
Speaker 1: That's his new nickname. Okay, Josh nodding, goodhead, Yep, he knows,
0:27
Speaker 1: he knows the score. How you doing, man? Oh, I've
0:31
Speaker 1: had better days and weeks. But you know, if only
0:35
Speaker 1: there was a la ed light, someone could blink in
0:37
Speaker 1: my eyeballs and hits everything. I know. I that's actually
0:41
Speaker 1: that was a question of mine, like earlier about you know,
0:44
Speaker 1: could you just shine a light in somebody's eyeballs and
0:47
Speaker 1: make this work? And I that's probably the future, but
0:50
Speaker 1: who knows. It's not the it's not the present. Should
0:53
Speaker 1: fortunately know? So um soon enough, Chuck though, soon enough.
0:57
Speaker 1: Just hang on another fifty years. Okay. So we're talking
1:00
Speaker 1: today about opti genetics. And if that word doesn't sound
1:04
Speaker 1: at all familiar, don't worry. It's only been around for
1:07
Speaker 1: honestly fifteen years. It's like the cutting edge in um
1:15
Speaker 1: manipulating the function of brain cells to make them do
1:20
Speaker 1: what you want to do or to study brain pathways
1:24
Speaker 1: to see which ones are responsible for what. And it's
1:28
Speaker 1: really really difficult to get across in the details. But
1:33
Speaker 1: it's one of those really interesting science tech things that
1:38
Speaker 1: the broad Strokes are like really understandable, you know. Yeah,
1:42
Speaker 1: I mean you're literally one day, hopefully well I don't
1:46
Speaker 1: know about hopefully, but possibly going to be able to
1:51
Speaker 1: turn on and turn off uh neural cells. Yeah, after
1:56
Speaker 1: we have modified them, right, so we can control them. Yeah,
2:00
Speaker 1: and modify them genetically. That's a big, big key here, yes,
2:05
Speaker 1: So but this is really important. Ed put this together
2:09
Speaker 1: for us, and he makes a really good point like
2:11
Speaker 1: if you read you know, kind of um cutting edge
2:15
Speaker 1: side tech articles about this stuff, it sounds like we're
2:20
Speaker 1: right there, like we're about to start, you know, flipping
2:23
Speaker 1: on and off neural neural circuits and humans any day.
2:26
Speaker 1: We're not. We are way far away from that. We're
2:28
Speaker 1: still figuring out like the ethical and legal implications of
2:32
Speaker 1: even beginning to try that. Yeah. I think the writers
2:35
Speaker 1: like that get they get really excitable about stuff. They're
2:38
Speaker 1: like fruit flies are so boring, and they're like we
2:41
Speaker 1: could do this, and just think we could do this
2:42
Speaker 1: and this, and it's like maybe one day, many many
2:46
Speaker 1: years from now, but maybe not even yeah, because of
2:49
Speaker 1: that whole moral and legal and ethical implications of it.
2:52
Speaker 1: But I think, um, I think there are probably plenty
2:55
Speaker 1: of people out there who are, like, my depression is
2:57
Speaker 1: severe enough that I'm fine with the moral and ethical
3:00
Speaker 1: implications of this. I just want this to to fix
3:03
Speaker 1: things for me, because it could conceivably someday. But we
3:06
Speaker 1: say that just to say, like, what we're talking about
3:09
Speaker 1: is on the front tier of science. Although some of
3:13
Speaker 1: the research that's been conducted has been successful, but it's
3:17
Speaker 1: just been conducted in things like mice and fish and
3:20
Speaker 1: fruit flies. Poor little well, we'll put a pin in
3:24
Speaker 1: that one, not literally, but well maybe yeah, poor little
3:28
Speaker 1: fruit flies done some things to fruit flies. So here's
3:32
Speaker 1: the thing, right, the human brain is pretty complex as
3:38
Speaker 1: far as organs go. You compared to your spleen, your
3:41
Speaker 1: spleen is just gonna slink away and be like, there's
3:43
Speaker 1: no comparison here. I just produced bile, you know. So
3:47
Speaker 1: the brain is far more complicated than the spleen, which everybody,
3:51
Speaker 1: everybody knows. And the reason it's so complicated because there's
3:54
Speaker 1: so many specialized cells inside that brain. Neurons, right, Neurons
3:59
Speaker 1: are just one tie put brains out. Yeah, and you know,
4:01
Speaker 1: we've talked about the brain a lot over the years
4:03
Speaker 1: on this show, and we always kind of come back
4:06
Speaker 1: to the same thing, which is as much as we've learned,
4:08
Speaker 1: which has been a ton, there's still a lot of
4:12
Speaker 1: shrugging in the room. Yeah for sure. Jeez, I don't know.
4:16
Speaker 1: I mean, but when you look at the hundred billion
4:19
Speaker 1: neurons and the quadrillion synapsies, yeah, thousand trillion, that's you know,
4:26
Speaker 1: give it, I'm giving humans a break here that we
4:29
Speaker 1: haven't figured all of this out at this point. We haven't.
4:32
Speaker 1: And then you look at the brain it's just I mean,
4:34
Speaker 1: you look AT's just a big, gross, lumpy, gray mess. Yeah,
4:37
Speaker 1: it's like it's like a spleen on steroids. I know, Like,
4:40
Speaker 1: who even wants to get in that thing to begin with?
4:43
Speaker 1: People who like making squishy sounds at their finger. It
4:46
Speaker 1: should be shiny and sparkly, and god, you gotta stop
4:54
Speaker 1: doing that. It is a little sparkly though, if you
4:56
Speaker 1: think about it, like it's shiny because it's got it's
4:59
Speaker 1: coated and it's bathed in cerebro spinal fluid. Remember, Yeah,
5:02
Speaker 1: I guess I've never seen a picture of the brain
5:04
Speaker 1: when it's really donuts thing. I didn't know it's so
5:07
Speaker 1: exciting looking, so so okay, So the brain is extremely complex,
5:12
Speaker 1: and we figured out some stuff about it. Um. Mainly
5:16
Speaker 1: what we figured out starting back in the nineteenth century
5:19
Speaker 1: that all of these connections, these thousand trillions and napses
5:24
Speaker 1: UM that that allow neurons to communicate with one another
5:28
Speaker 1: and carry like an impulse through the brain. All that
5:31
Speaker 1: is based on electricity chemical electricity right to where there's
5:35
Speaker 1: a difference in the concentration of different types of ion,
5:38
Speaker 1: say like calcium in potassium in the cell, so that
5:43
Speaker 1: when it reaches a certain concentration, it actually generates an
5:47
Speaker 1: electrical impulse, and then that impulse can be translated or
5:50
Speaker 1: transferred to another neuron, and then that neuron may send
5:53
Speaker 1: that electrical impulse on and on and on until it
5:56
Speaker 1: finally reaches its destination where suddenly you're you're flooded in
6:01
Speaker 1: dopamine and you're feeling pretty good because you just try
6:04
Speaker 1: to crispy cream that was fresh and hot right off
6:06
Speaker 1: of the line. Yeah, So like when you hear people say,
6:10
Speaker 1: or us say, like when your neurons are firing, that's
6:13
Speaker 1: literally what's going on. They are tiny little electrical charges. Uh,
6:18
Speaker 1: we can call them action potentials, and they measure them
6:22
Speaker 1: in tiny little Miller volts. It's adorable, it is. They
6:25
Speaker 1: have little bow ties on and short pants. Yeah, but
6:28
Speaker 1: there's little tiny electrical triggers that go off constantly, right, right, so,
6:34
Speaker 1: or they don't go off, which which also has um
6:37
Speaker 1: in effect as well. Right, So, like you can have
6:39
Speaker 1: something firing firing and firing and that stops firing and
6:41
Speaker 1: you're suddenly not feeling pain any longer, which is great.
6:44
Speaker 1: So you want to have them on and off. But
6:46
Speaker 1: it all is based on electricity. And we figured this
6:48
Speaker 1: out thanks to a guy named Chuck. Are you talking
6:52
Speaker 1: about Luis gi Galvani? Ye, yes i am. And you
6:56
Speaker 1: know that famous experiment with frog legs where you can
6:59
Speaker 1: take dismembered frog legs and sprinkled salt on them and
7:02
Speaker 1: they'll start twitching or whatever. Those are always creepy. Well,
7:05
Speaker 1: this same guy figured out that you could introduce electricity
7:08
Speaker 1: into the brains of frogs and you can make the
7:11
Speaker 1: frog legs kind of twitch and hop in the in
7:13
Speaker 1: the brain of a dead frog. So it shows pretty
7:17
Speaker 1: clearly that electricity is what move makes the brain move,
7:21
Speaker 1: and that the brain is what makes the legs move. Right.
7:23
Speaker 1: And then later on there was a guy named m
7:26
Speaker 1: Robert's Bartholow. Boy, this guy, did you look up this experiment?
7:31
Speaker 1: I did pretty pretty pretty bad. Yeah. So there was
7:34
Speaker 1: a woman named Mary Rafferty who had an ulcer on
7:38
Speaker 1: her brain, which ended up resulting in a literal hole
7:43
Speaker 1: in her skull. So her brain was exposed, and Robert's Bartholow,
7:48
Speaker 1: I guess, was like, well, well, perfect, this is just
7:51
Speaker 1: what I've been waiting for, is access to a human brain.
7:55
Speaker 1: So let me see if I can stimulate these neurons
7:58
Speaker 1: by looking at with needles her brain, and see what
8:03
Speaker 1: happens when I stimulate that with electricity. And he kept
8:07
Speaker 1: it super low voltage at first and noticed some things
8:12
Speaker 1: like wow, when I poke here, her arm moves right.
8:14
Speaker 1: He's like, does anyone have a question, But he ramped
8:19
Speaker 1: that electricity up at higher voltage, looking for what he
8:22
Speaker 1: called a more decided reaction, and he well, he argued
8:28
Speaker 1: afterwards that he did not cause her death, but she
8:32
Speaker 1: had a seizure. She went into a coma and she died. Right,
8:35
Speaker 1: So the kind of the sticking point here is and
8:39
Speaker 1: he was censured by the A M A. But nothing
8:41
Speaker 1: really happened was that he was experimenting on a human being,
8:46
Speaker 1: but not with the aim of curing anything that was
8:50
Speaker 1: wrong with her. No. He even said in the study
8:52
Speaker 1: that he produced that anyone who tried to replicate this
8:55
Speaker 1: would be would be UM conducting like a criminal experiment.
9:00
Speaker 1: It may be criminal. Redo it. Yeah, I'm good, right,
9:03
Speaker 1: I'm all good, but just don't do this again. But
9:06
Speaker 1: what's what was interesting to me is like it wasn't
9:08
Speaker 1: until six that we started to um, like the scientific
9:12
Speaker 1: community started to enforce informed consent after the Nazi atrocities
9:17
Speaker 1: of World War two. UM, And this guy was was
9:20
Speaker 1: carrying this experiment and I think in eighteen seventy four.
9:24
Speaker 1: But even at the time, so in his defense, people
9:27
Speaker 1: weren't about informed consent, and there were like the ethics
9:30
Speaker 1: of scientific experiments weren't nearly as pronounced and structured as
9:33
Speaker 1: they are today. And yet his experiment was still denounced,
9:37
Speaker 1: like everybody could see that on some level that hadn't
9:40
Speaker 1: been like elucidated, yet he had violated something which is
9:45
Speaker 1: actually like the life of a person, like something's bothering me,
9:49
Speaker 1: but I can't quite put my finger on it. Oh well,
9:51
Speaker 1: now he's hit me with the electric needles in my fingers,
9:54
Speaker 1: going exactly where he wanted to. Oh boy, the am
9:57
Speaker 1: A actually banned human experimentation if it was not for
10:00
Speaker 1: the purposes of saving a human life after this very
10:04
Speaker 1: good stuff. So what we figured out though from Galvani
10:09
Speaker 1: and um barth Bartho, Yeah, he's got a tough one,
10:12
Speaker 1: a tough last thing, Um and others who showed that
10:16
Speaker 1: electricity is the currency that moves messages around the brain.
10:21
Speaker 1: Um that you can actually stimulate the brain with electricity
10:25
Speaker 1: to go around its internal drives and externally make it
10:29
Speaker 1: do things right. But the problem is is like if
10:31
Speaker 1: you're using the society of the brain, it's really clumsy.
10:34
Speaker 1: It really like an electrical impulse is really tough to
10:37
Speaker 1: keep localized. So if you're trying to just kind of
10:40
Speaker 1: see what one particular type of neuron does, well, t
10:44
Speaker 1: s for you because you're electrically going to stimulate a
10:46
Speaker 1: whole bunch of neurons in the neighborhood and it's not
10:49
Speaker 1: a very um a fine tuned way of studying how
10:54
Speaker 1: the brain works. And again, it's really important that we
10:57
Speaker 1: understand what regions of the brain are responsible for what.
11:00
Speaker 1: So if we're just kind of trying to see what
11:03
Speaker 1: regions are responsible for raising your arm, we might hit
11:06
Speaker 1: those neurons with electric needles, but we might also like
11:08
Speaker 1: kick the leg out too. That just kind of it's
11:11
Speaker 1: not as precise as it needs to be. Do you
11:14
Speaker 1: want to uh use this repeated metaphor? It was a
11:19
Speaker 1: fine metaphor, but it was a mixed metaphor, and the
11:22
Speaker 1: first one really didn't work. Yeah, let's just go ahead
11:25
Speaker 1: and say it, because it does get a little bit
11:28
Speaker 1: more credible as the metaphor develops. But I agree this
11:33
Speaker 1: first one was a little rough. But just just take
11:37
Speaker 1: this metaphor, put in your pocket, everybody, and smoke it
11:40
Speaker 1: with some salt. I don't even know what that means.
11:44
Speaker 1: So imagine a neighborhood or a city, if you will,
11:48
Speaker 1: with all the people, let's say New York City and
11:51
Speaker 1: people everywhere moving around. These are your neural uh, this
11:56
Speaker 1: is your neural network. Everyone's going places. They're taking subways
11:59
Speaker 1: to run busses or driving cards, are walking. Some of
12:02
Speaker 1: them have that have no conscience or in a horse
12:04
Speaker 1: and buggy in Central Park and it's not trade to
12:07
Speaker 1: the giant. He just stole it. And Uh, electrical stimulation,
12:13
Speaker 1: which is something that deep brain stimulation we've talked about
12:15
Speaker 1: on the show, with something we currently are doing and
12:18
Speaker 1: are able to do just very imprecisely. So, Uh, that
12:23
Speaker 1: electrical stimulation is like trying to learn about people only
12:27
Speaker 1: driving Ferraris through New York City by setting a city
12:31
Speaker 1: block on fire. That's where it loses me because it
12:35
Speaker 1: doesn't make any sense. I just said, shocking entire city block. Sure,
12:41
Speaker 1: I guess so, Yeah, that would have made more sense, right. Yeah.
12:43
Speaker 1: I saw another analogy on you know how we always
12:46
Speaker 1: say when you can't understand something, go to like the
12:48
Speaker 1: kids science website. Sure, I found one called Frontiers for
12:53
Speaker 1: Young Minds, and they were explaining up to Janet's and
12:55
Speaker 1: they basically put it similarly saying, if you wanted to
12:58
Speaker 1: study the movement of track Affrick in the city, Um,
13:02
Speaker 1: but you wanted to see like like you were saying,
13:04
Speaker 1: how ferrari Um car drivers drive. Um, you want to
13:09
Speaker 1: be able to tell everybody when to drive. But the
13:11
Speaker 1: problem is if you're using an electrical stimulation that doesn't
13:14
Speaker 1: just tell Ferrari drivers when to drive and tells everybody
13:16
Speaker 1: in the city you want to start to start driving,
13:19
Speaker 1: and everyone starts driving, So it doesn't tell you anything
13:21
Speaker 1: about just the Ferrari drivers. Yeah, that makes sense. And
13:25
Speaker 1: by the way, Ferrari, you chucking me in Ferrari each
13:29
Speaker 1: for all this buzz Ferrari marketing. Ferrari, I would just
13:32
Speaker 1: like to drive one once. That'd be fun. Don't don't
13:35
Speaker 1: set your slights higher than that, chuck. See if we
13:38
Speaker 1: can get a free one Ferrari, just stress me out.
13:40
Speaker 1: We'll sell it on Craigslist. I'm gonna park a Ferrari
13:43
Speaker 1: in my driveway backwards. You back it in? Oh goodness.
13:50
Speaker 1: Uh so should we take a break now that we
13:52
Speaker 1: have a nice little set up in hand. Sure, all right,
13:55
Speaker 1: let's take a break, and we're gonna talk about potassium
13:57
Speaker 1: and calcium and color dye right for this shock. Alright.
14:20
Speaker 1: So people figured out pretty quickly that yes, electrical impulses
14:24
Speaker 1: will make parts of the brain work, but it's not
14:26
Speaker 1: very precise. We need a more precise way to study
14:29
Speaker 1: the different parts of the brain to see what's going
14:31
Speaker 1: on where at any given time. That's right, and enter
14:35
Speaker 1: Lawrence Cohen in the nineteen seventies, Leonard Cohen's brother. No
14:40
Speaker 1: it could be uh no, No, I was so disappointed.
14:45
Speaker 1: I thought, wow, that's amazing. All the genius in one family. Yeah,
14:49
Speaker 1: it's a lot of genius. Uh And in nineteen eighty
14:51
Speaker 1: it was further developed by man named Roger CN, Leonard
14:55
Speaker 1: Cohen's one time stage manager. Okay, it was waiting on
14:59
Speaker 1: that is it c N? Is it c N d N?
15:03
Speaker 1: I don't know? T S I E N anytime your
15:07
Speaker 1: name starts with T S I seen one of those
15:09
Speaker 1: is silent. Yeah, but I think they together make a
15:12
Speaker 1: D sound. Oh really, I think so? In what language? Chinese, Mandarin,
15:18
Speaker 1: maybe Cantonese, one of those two. Okay, oh god, I
15:20
Speaker 1: feel like I'm drowning. It's okay, grab hold of me, thanks.
15:26
Speaker 1: Uh So what they did was they worked on um
15:32
Speaker 1: this synthetic die UM, like I said, coming in the seventies,
15:36
Speaker 1: refined in the eighties by Roger T and Roger you
15:41
Speaker 1: already yeah, you already talked about in the intro about
15:45
Speaker 1: the action potential in a neuron that's created that little
15:49
Speaker 1: electrical charges. It's not like it's plugged into something. It's
15:52
Speaker 1: created by concentrations of potassium and calcium shifting around right right.
15:59
Speaker 1: So what they figured out, what Um, Lawrence and Roger
16:03
Speaker 1: figured out is that you can actually introduce the synthetic
16:06
Speaker 1: die so that the dye is produced or triggered or
16:10
Speaker 1: it becomes a parent once calcium ion concentration reaches a
16:16
Speaker 1: certain point. And if you know that a calcium ion
16:19
Speaker 1: concentration will trigger this action potential, this electrical impulse in
16:23
Speaker 1: the neuron, if the neuron suddenly is glowing or has
16:27
Speaker 1: this dye colored dye that's showing up under a microscope,
16:31
Speaker 1: you know that that neuron is just fired because the
16:34
Speaker 1: calcium concentration changed enough for that die to become a parent. Yeah,
16:38
Speaker 1: it's like the very easy way to say this is
16:40
Speaker 1: scientists basically said, you know when someone uh metaphorically turns
16:46
Speaker 1: on a light and that neuron that'd be great an
16:48
Speaker 1: actual light turned on. Yeah, this is very similar to
16:51
Speaker 1: that for sure, And it's still was a little it's
16:54
Speaker 1: a little clunky, um because well, I'm not fully under
16:58
Speaker 1: I don't fully understand why it's a little clink. I
17:01
Speaker 1: think it's that maybe you can't control it. It's just
17:04
Speaker 1: you can witness it. I think is the issue with it. Well,
17:09
Speaker 1: if we're going to further that metaphor, it's really giant
17:12
Speaker 1: to escate fast to this point, but go ahead. The
17:15
Speaker 1: next step would be, uh, you want to learn about
17:18
Speaker 1: these Ferrari drivers in New York City, So you just
17:20
Speaker 1: paint and inside and the entire city block instead of
17:23
Speaker 1: shocking it with electricity or setting it on fire. But
17:27
Speaker 1: any car that's driving on that city plot city block
17:30
Speaker 1: is gonna it's gonna glow or it's gonna move through
17:34
Speaker 1: the paint. So you're gonna get car track. Sure, you're
17:37
Speaker 1: gonna get glow paint all over every car. You still
17:40
Speaker 1: are not just targeting the Ferrari. But it's better the metaphor. Sure,
17:46
Speaker 1: that's right, much better, but it's still not precise enough.
17:50
Speaker 1: And I think where it's lacking is that you, yes,
17:53
Speaker 1: you can see now what neuron has just gone off,
17:57
Speaker 1: but you can't make the neuron go off. But but um,
18:01
Speaker 1: Lawrence and Roger gave future researchers an idea. They're like,
18:05
Speaker 1: wait a minute, we're onto something here, like being able
18:08
Speaker 1: to to to see when a neuron has gone off.
18:11
Speaker 1: That is a great idea. Let's figure out how to
18:13
Speaker 1: do that but also make neurons go off. And to
18:17
Speaker 1: do this they turn to our friends in the sea
18:21
Speaker 1: for help. Yeah, this is really interesting, and this is
18:24
Speaker 1: where um genetics come into play, because it is it
18:28
Speaker 1: is important to point out that neurons are basically the same. Uh.
18:33
Speaker 1: They all contain basically the same genetic information even but
18:38
Speaker 1: it's that mystery of the differences switching these genes on
18:43
Speaker 1: and off, and why would one be switched on when
18:45
Speaker 1: another switched off. That's sort of like what makes them
18:48
Speaker 1: unique among each other, right, right, So, like if you
18:52
Speaker 1: have a human cell, especially like say a stem cell
18:55
Speaker 1: or whatever, but any cell has all of the your
18:57
Speaker 1: genetic blueprint, and it's just depending on what genes are
19:01
Speaker 1: on or off that determines what kind of cell it
19:04
Speaker 1: is and what it's responsible for doing. You know. So
19:06
Speaker 1: maybe it's like a retinal cell and it detects light,
19:09
Speaker 1: or maybe it's a cardiac cell and it it makes
19:11
Speaker 1: up heart muscle. All of them have the same DNA,
19:16
Speaker 1: the same genetic blueprint, but some of those genes are
19:18
Speaker 1: gonna be turned off, some are gonna be turned on.
19:20
Speaker 1: And the same is true for neural cells. To right,
19:23
Speaker 1: you have neural cells that are responsible for releasing dopamine.
19:26
Speaker 1: You have neural cells that are responsible for sensing temperature. Um.
19:31
Speaker 1: You have all these different neural cells, and all of
19:33
Speaker 1: them are roughly the same kind of cell, but they
19:36
Speaker 1: have different genes turned on and off. And once you
19:39
Speaker 1: know that, and once you can differentiate between one gene
19:42
Speaker 1: and another, you've just taken your first step towards genetically
19:46
Speaker 1: manipulating these different genes, you know, and understanding Ferrari drivers exactly.
19:51
Speaker 1: So you brought us to the sea, and I jumped
19:53
Speaker 1: it right back out again, and now we are back
19:55
Speaker 1: at the sea like the manatee. That's right. But here
20:01
Speaker 1: this is where it gets super super cool. Uh. And
20:04
Speaker 1: it sounds like it's confusing, but it's really not. It's
20:06
Speaker 1: really pretty simple still. Um. There are genes in mother
20:10
Speaker 1: nature that respond to light, and then there are proteins
20:13
Speaker 1: that emit light when they're triggered by something. Flores Yeah,
20:18
Speaker 1: I like to say glow. In fact, if you'll look here,
20:20
Speaker 1: I scratched out fluoresce every single time as you did glow.
20:24
Speaker 1: That's a lot of work you put into those, just
20:26
Speaker 1: a lot easier to say glow. I think people get
20:28
Speaker 1: it a lot better than Fluoresce. I watched Coming to
20:31
Speaker 1: America the other day of Man Soul. Glow is so hilarious.
20:34
Speaker 1: It still holds up. That movie is even better than
20:37
Speaker 1: I remember. Actually it's great. Yeah, it's when we go
20:40
Speaker 1: back to a lot. Like I knew Eddie Murphy was
20:42
Speaker 1: a charmer, but dude, that guy is one charming human being. Yeah,
20:49
Speaker 1: all the all the barbershop stuff is just so classic.
20:51
Speaker 1: It's great, but all of it like it really, it's
20:53
Speaker 1: just a great, great movie. You know, they're sequeling that thing.
20:57
Speaker 1: They've been shooting it in Atlanta. Sequeling or rebooting sequel
21:01
Speaker 1: Oh good? So uh. I mean, I think the the
21:04
Speaker 1: easiest way to go about a sequel is what they're doing,
21:07
Speaker 1: which is now King of Zamunda. Eddie Murphy has a
21:11
Speaker 1: son who wants to find his love. Yeah, but I
21:13
Speaker 1: think everyone's back, like our Cineo's back. Sure they Oh,
21:18
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna be mean good. They found him in
21:21
Speaker 1: great spirits and he was eager to work. He said, yeah,
21:24
Speaker 1: that's a great idea. I can fit it into my skin.
21:26
Speaker 1: Then he went, whoo, who did you see the Grammy's
21:29
Speaker 1: the other day. I don't usually watch those either, but
21:32
Speaker 1: I happened to see the entire thing, and um, I
21:36
Speaker 1: didn't know that you were kidnapped and it was it
21:39
Speaker 1: was like um mel Gibson and um oh conspiracy theory.
21:45
Speaker 1: I was tied to a wheelchair and my eyes were
21:48
Speaker 1: taped open. So you watched all of it? Huh? Yeah,
21:51
Speaker 1: But I haven't watched all the Grammy since I was
21:52
Speaker 1: like thirteen, Bro, I haven't either. It was really something.
21:55
Speaker 1: It's like a marathon or an ultrathon really, but um,
21:59
Speaker 1: Tyler the Cree eat or did like a live thing
22:01
Speaker 1: and it was amazing. Dude. I've never heard a single
22:04
Speaker 1: second of any of his songs or really him perform
22:07
Speaker 1: or anything, but um, I like that guy. Now, Yeah,
22:09
Speaker 1: he's great. And you know I listened to that early.
22:12
Speaker 1: I can't even remember the acronym, but his sort of
22:16
Speaker 1: hip hop collective band that they all started out of that,
22:20
Speaker 1: like Frank Ocean came out of that. Tyler the Creator
22:22
Speaker 1: and a bunch of other guys whoa what's it called?
22:25
Speaker 1: Oh what was it? Do you know? Odd Future? And
22:29
Speaker 1: then it had another like five or six words after
22:32
Speaker 1: that Odd Future was the shortened version. Good stuff, very
22:37
Speaker 1: good stuff. Thanks to Josh T for swooping in and
22:40
Speaker 1: that uh that the first Frank Ocean album was is amazing.
22:44
Speaker 1: I've not heard that either. Oh man, it's so good
22:46
Speaker 1: Channel Orange. I think I'm always confused by rappers who
22:50
Speaker 1: who just have normal names. Uh Frank Ocean. Yeah, he's
22:55
Speaker 1: kind of a singer, crooner type. I mean he does Okay,
22:57
Speaker 1: all right, now that makes sense. Yeah, he's he's awesome.
23:01
Speaker 1: So cheeze. That's how it happens. We're in the sea.
23:06
Speaker 1: We're in the ocean. The Grammys are over right. We
23:09
Speaker 1: have found genes that respond uh to light and also
23:14
Speaker 1: proteins and other organisms that emit light when triggered. I'll
23:18
Speaker 1: let you walk people through what those two things are.
23:21
Speaker 1: But the point is they said, we've got the two
23:24
Speaker 1: components to make this happen. We can build we can
23:28
Speaker 1: control jenes turning on a light, and we can also
23:32
Speaker 1: see what happens when something responds to the light. We
23:35
Speaker 1: just need to be able to get these two things
23:37
Speaker 1: from two different organisms into one thing that we can
23:40
Speaker 1: control exactly exactly, And that's the entire basis of optogenetics. Um.
23:45
Speaker 1: I think you did a fine job of explaining it. Well,
23:47
Speaker 1: I didn't know if you want to talk literally about
23:49
Speaker 1: the jellyfish, and well sure so if you don't mind, no,
23:53
Speaker 1: it's great. So the algae, like green algae, has something
23:56
Speaker 1: called an eye so it's like a single cell organism, right, yeah,
24:00
Speaker 1: And it has an eyehole which is light sensitive. It's
24:03
Speaker 1: a light sensitive area on the cell. And when sunlight
24:07
Speaker 1: hits that eyehole, it triggers the tail of the algae
24:11
Speaker 1: to start moving towards the sunlight so that that single
24:13
Speaker 1: cell algae can can maximize its exposure to sunlight as
24:17
Speaker 1: much as possible. All right, So that's one half. You
24:19
Speaker 1: got the thing that sees light and reacts to it, right,
24:23
Speaker 1: And again, all this stuff has to do with ion channels.
24:26
Speaker 1: That has to do with the concentration of minerals inside
24:29
Speaker 1: and outside of these the cell in these channels, right,
24:32
Speaker 1: and that's what triggers this movement. That's what triggers the
24:35
Speaker 1: electrical impulse. That's the basis of all life apparently, are
24:39
Speaker 1: the movement of minerals inside and outside of cell membranes
24:43
Speaker 1: triggering electrical impulses. That's life in that bizarre So then
24:48
Speaker 1: with jellyfish they have a similar thing too. We're not
24:51
Speaker 1: exactly sure why they fluoresce, but say like a predator
24:56
Speaker 1: comes up and they sense like a predator's coming, it
24:58
Speaker 1: might trigger a chain inge in their eye on concentration,
25:01
Speaker 1: which triggers a protein that fluoresces to be produced. So
25:05
Speaker 1: the jellyfish starts to glow. And these are two separate things,
25:09
Speaker 1: but like you were saying, at some point, I think
25:11
Speaker 1: in two thousand five, a team led by Carl dis
25:14
Speaker 1: roth Um published a paper that said, hey, man, we
25:18
Speaker 1: could take this algae light sensitive gene, and we can
25:23
Speaker 1: take this jellyfish fluorescent gene and put them together, and
25:29
Speaker 1: then take that so that one triggers the other, and
25:31
Speaker 1: like kind of this rubics QB way, so that if
25:34
Speaker 1: you shine light on this one gene, it will trigger
25:37
Speaker 1: the production of this fluorescence. And we can if we
25:40
Speaker 1: can just figure out how to take that gene combination
25:43
Speaker 1: and put it into another organism that doesn't have either,
25:46
Speaker 1: then we could shine a light on the organism and
25:48
Speaker 1: make the cells in that organism glow. And now finally, finally,
25:54
Speaker 1: just the ferraris would start to move when we signaled
25:57
Speaker 1: for them to move. We don't have to set a
25:59
Speaker 1: city block on fire. We don't have to code everything
26:01
Speaker 1: and glowing paint. We can just signal to the ferraris.
26:05
Speaker 1: Can you believe this? It's it's astounding that that they
26:09
Speaker 1: figured out not only like in theory, how to do this,
26:12
Speaker 1: but they have actually, over the last fifteen years, been
26:15
Speaker 1: successful in doing it. It seems like something that if
26:17
Speaker 1: someone was describing, they would just be laughed out of
26:20
Speaker 1: a room and say, yeah, that's great. Take this jellyfish
26:23
Speaker 1: things alogy thing, put him together, shove it in a
26:27
Speaker 1: fruit fly, up at fruit flies, but and then shine
26:31
Speaker 1: a light on his face and make him rob a bank.
26:33
Speaker 1: I think that's I think that's how that's the ultimate goal. Really,
26:37
Speaker 1: it's unbelievable. It really is chuck, all right. So the
26:40
Speaker 1: fruit fly is a great little candidate because we've been
26:45
Speaker 1: working with fruit flies for a long long time. When
26:47
Speaker 1: it comes to genetics, they also um we share like
26:52
Speaker 1: jeans in gene sequences that are so closely matched that
26:55
Speaker 1: when we find a like a novel gene in a
26:59
Speaker 1: fruit fly, we go look at the human genome and
27:01
Speaker 1: just try to find its match, and it usually matches.
27:04
Speaker 1: That's how closely related we are of human genetic diseases
27:08
Speaker 1: are also found in fruit flies. This all seems made up,
27:11
Speaker 1: am I being? Maybe this is gonna come out April first? Maybe?
27:16
Speaker 1: Oh uh, So the fruit fly is a great little
27:20
Speaker 1: candidate for all those reasons, and for one other reason
27:23
Speaker 1: is we can actually, uh, we don't need to cut
27:27
Speaker 1: a fruit fly's head open to see its brain. We
27:29
Speaker 1: can see that little guy's brain through a microscope. That's
27:32
Speaker 1: pretty great, Which is a pretty good way to analyze
27:34
Speaker 1: something just by letting it do its do its thing,
27:37
Speaker 1: you know, especially as far as the fruit flies concerned.
27:40
Speaker 1: Oh sure, it's like, yeah, just just hold me down,
27:42
Speaker 1: that's fine, Just don't cut my head off. Yeah, but
27:43
Speaker 1: you're setting people up to think it's all of mine
27:45
Speaker 1: and roses. Yeah, it gets pretty bad. That's when you
27:48
Speaker 1: pull a ruck out from under him. Shock. So what's
27:51
Speaker 1: happening though, is they're putting that stuff in the fruit fly.
27:53
Speaker 1: And then what you do is you have to breed
27:56
Speaker 1: like the next generation. I think I don't think it
27:57
Speaker 1: would work on that one, would it? Um? No, But
28:01
Speaker 1: but you can very easily cultivate like a fruit fly
28:05
Speaker 1: colony that is now genetically modified. Just throw some throwing
28:09
Speaker 1: in a cage with some martinis and a little bit
28:12
Speaker 1: of Sinatra classics. So this is what they did, and
28:17
Speaker 1: it was successful. And so this gave them the ability
28:21
Speaker 1: to do two things to map out where all these
28:25
Speaker 1: neurons are, which was the first kind of big part
28:28
Speaker 1: of this problem. And the second thing they could do
28:30
Speaker 1: is actually activate these neurons with light. Right, So, now,
28:36
Speaker 1: like one of the first things they experimented on, are
28:39
Speaker 1: you ready to pull the rug out from people? Sure?
28:42
Speaker 1: One of the first fruit fly experiments that they conducted,
28:45
Speaker 1: and I shouldn't say one of the first, but one
28:47
Speaker 1: of the big ones was that, um, they they genetically
28:52
Speaker 1: modified fruit flies whose neurons responsible for their escape reflex,
28:57
Speaker 1: which is when their legs tense up and their wings
29:00
Speaker 1: tents up and they just fly away when they sense danger.
29:03
Speaker 1: These were now genetically modified with an algae and jellyfish combination,
29:08
Speaker 1: uh gene sequence, that's right. So they shine a light
29:13
Speaker 1: on the fruit flies, and the fruit flies sprung away,
29:17
Speaker 1: and they said, that's pretty great, but makes sense. It's
29:20
Speaker 1: entirely possible that we just scared him with the light.
29:24
Speaker 1: How could we possibly figure out if the actual neurons
29:27
Speaker 1: are being activated optogenetically. Right. And in the movie scene,
29:32
Speaker 1: you just hear a voice on the other side of
29:33
Speaker 1: a desk of some scientists eating Chinese food out of
29:37
Speaker 1: a box. He goes, no, you cut their heads off
29:40
Speaker 1: and they still live for a little while. That's funny.
29:43
Speaker 1: You should do that, I imagine instead um, Robert what's
29:47
Speaker 1: his name like scratching the chalkboards slowly with yeah, with
29:52
Speaker 1: his idea about cutting their heads off. They could probably
29:55
Speaker 1: cheat it both ways because just like Mike the headless chicken,
29:59
Speaker 1: had a lot of brain left when they cut his
30:01
Speaker 1: head off, so too with the fruit fly. There are
30:04
Speaker 1: genes um or neurons i should say, associated with the
30:08
Speaker 1: escape reflects that are not just located in the fruit
30:12
Speaker 1: fly's head. So they cut the fruit flies heads off because,
30:16
Speaker 1: like you said, or like the guy who eating Chinese
30:18
Speaker 1: food said, um, the fruit fly will still be able
30:21
Speaker 1: to fly around and move around for a little while
30:24
Speaker 1: without a head. So they cut the heads off, and
30:27
Speaker 1: then they shine the light into the thorax where some
30:29
Speaker 1: of these neurons are, and sure enough the fruit flies
30:33
Speaker 1: sprung away and flew into the air headless, zombie like.
30:37
Speaker 1: But they did it specifically because those neurons were reacting
30:41
Speaker 1: to light. So they successfully showed that you can control
30:45
Speaker 1: the behavior of a once living organism by shining a
30:49
Speaker 1: light on it, once you genetically modified it's it's neurons
30:53
Speaker 1: with these proteins. Yeah, I wanted to know a little
30:56
Speaker 1: bit more about that second part. I'm sure I did
31:00
Speaker 1: a lot of other controls, but my first instinct was
31:04
Speaker 1: how close was this light? Did it feel like the
31:07
Speaker 1: air move when they put it in front of it,
31:09
Speaker 1: or was it you know, distance. But you know, they're scientists,
31:13
Speaker 1: I'm sure Rodney and his Chinese food, I'm sure a
31:17
Speaker 1: lot of other great suggestions for everybody. Right. The other
31:21
Speaker 1: questions are did they mash the heads with their thumbs
31:23
Speaker 1: to make sure there was no way that they were
31:25
Speaker 1: getting any light info? Al Right, I feel like we
31:28
Speaker 1: should take another break because what we've described as almost
31:33
Speaker 1: a miracle, but like, what good does that do us?
31:36
Speaker 1: Great question, and well we'll talk about what good it
31:38
Speaker 1: could do us write after this. Okay, So the fruit
32:01
Speaker 1: fly experiment that was that was pretty huge, and it
32:04
Speaker 1: wasn't It didn't just end with fruit flies, like we said,
32:06
Speaker 1: They've successfully experimented with mice, with fish, um worms, worms yep,
32:12
Speaker 1: and all of these are they they use these UM
32:15
Speaker 1: these types of of um ion channels or ion pumps
32:20
Speaker 1: called dopsins or opsins, it's specifically rhodopsins. They respond to light,
32:26
Speaker 1: they're stimulated by light. UM. But they've figured out how
32:29
Speaker 1: to insert different ones in the different genes and UM. Eventually,
32:34
Speaker 1: what they're thinking is that if we can figure out
32:37
Speaker 1: how to use these in humans, we will be able
32:40
Speaker 1: to do all manner of things, some of which we've
32:42
Speaker 1: already successfully demonstrated on on things like mice and fruit flies,
32:47
Speaker 1: not just to get a human to jump using our
32:49
Speaker 1: escape reflex, but things like UM. Treating depression is a
32:53
Speaker 1: big one. Well, yeah, that's sort of one of the
32:56
Speaker 1: the huge potential benefits here is what if we could
33:00
Speaker 1: really control the really release of dopamine and someone's brain
33:03
Speaker 1: and when people suffer from depression and they're having a
33:06
Speaker 1: hard time getting their dopamine reactions to occur naturally instead
33:12
Speaker 1: of putting them on pills, which you know, a pill
33:15
Speaker 1: doesn't just affect the cells uh that it needs to.
33:19
Speaker 1: That's why they have a whole list of side effects
33:21
Speaker 1: because they affect everything. UM. They're like, maybe we can
33:24
Speaker 1: get so specific that we can literally turn on those
33:27
Speaker 1: cells with light, give someone a dopamine hit that will
33:31
Speaker 1: take seconds instead of weeks and weeks of being on
33:34
Speaker 1: medication that may or may not work and may or
33:36
Speaker 1: may not have devastating side effects. Yeah, and you just
33:39
Speaker 1: hit the nail on the head that the effect will
33:41
Speaker 1: take seconds. Um. That's one of the really big um
33:45
Speaker 1: advantages of optogenetics is it's light controlled, and we have
33:49
Speaker 1: really great lights that can turn on and off very
33:53
Speaker 1: very quickly, like um lasers connected to fiber optics is
33:57
Speaker 1: one way that they have figured out how to deliver this.
33:59
Speaker 1: I saw it's cute, heartbreaking picture of a mouse with
34:03
Speaker 1: like this kind of plastic helmet on the side of
34:06
Speaker 1: its head, and coming out of it was a single
34:08
Speaker 1: fiber optic cable. Remember those fiber optic kind of brushes
34:12
Speaker 1: that had like a light source of the bottom, and
34:14
Speaker 1: like the brush itself was just this beautiful, colorful thing.
34:18
Speaker 1: I love those. I went and looked through like Google
34:21
Speaker 1: images pictures of those and it's just like, God, these
34:23
Speaker 1: are so pretty. So they had one of those fiber
34:28
Speaker 1: optic little fibers coming out of the mouse's head and
34:31
Speaker 1: the mouse is just this little dirt looking at the
34:33
Speaker 1: camera like what um, But they can they can connect
34:36
Speaker 1: the end of that fiber optic cable to a laser
34:40
Speaker 1: and it will deliver that light source too inside the
34:43
Speaker 1: mouse's brain. The problem is that there's um all sorts
34:47
Speaker 1: of brain damage that you can create by inserting even
34:51
Speaker 1: like a really tiny fiber optic fiber into the brain
34:54
Speaker 1: of something. But it is one way to do it now. UM.
34:57
Speaker 1: What they're working on also is, like I said, those
35:00
Speaker 1: Rhodopson's UM. One of the one of the ones they're
35:03
Speaker 1: looking at is like red shifted towards the red end
35:07
Speaker 1: of the spectrum, which means that you can use something
35:09
Speaker 1: like infrared light, which is absorbed more deeply into the body,
35:13
Speaker 1: as an external light source. So you just shine like
35:15
Speaker 1: an infrared light through the skull and then that will
35:19
Speaker 1: um will activate the neurons in the brain too. So
35:23
Speaker 1: I don't remember exactly how we started on this, but
35:26
Speaker 1: there's there's stuff that we're starting to figure out from
35:29
Speaker 1: these mouse models, UM, including things like treating depression. Oh yeah,
35:33
Speaker 1: how precise it is, How precise the delivery of light is,
35:38
Speaker 1: which is really really important because the timing of neurons
35:42
Speaker 1: um and the the triggering them in the the cascade
35:46
Speaker 1: of events that it sets off is extremely precisely time.
35:49
Speaker 1: So you can't just use like a flashlight and expect
35:52
Speaker 1: to treat depression. You would have to be able to
35:54
Speaker 1: time it in the way that the brain is supposed
35:56
Speaker 1: to be doing it in the first place. Yeah, what
35:58
Speaker 1: I wonder is if in the future, and first of all,
36:02
Speaker 1: you've got to get past all the ethical hurdles of
36:04
Speaker 1: gene therapy to begin with, which are many um and complex.
36:10
Speaker 1: So let's say we do get through all that, and
36:12
Speaker 1: let's say we get FDA approval to start therapies like this.
36:16
Speaker 1: What kind of what does that look like? Because if
36:18
Speaker 1: it happens in seconds, does do you make an appointment
36:22
Speaker 1: and go to a a a specialist who does this
36:25
Speaker 1: light therapy or is this something that you do You
36:29
Speaker 1: have a device that you're in control of, right, so,
36:31
Speaker 1: like it would probably follow a model like deep brain
36:34
Speaker 1: stimulation what you mentioned earlier, where you have electrodes and
36:38
Speaker 1: planted in your brain that are doing basically the same thing,
36:41
Speaker 1: but a lot less precise and a lot more clumsy.
36:45
Speaker 1: But they're electrically stimulating neurons say that released dopamine to
36:49
Speaker 1: treat depression. I don't know if we're doing that yet,
36:51
Speaker 1: but there's definitely deep brain stimulation. But do you go
36:54
Speaker 1: to a place to have that done? You have like
36:56
Speaker 1: a pacemaker like device connected via wire from your sin,
37:00
Speaker 1: and then the devices like under your skin in your chest,
37:03
Speaker 1: but it's being controlled by a computer, Like you have
37:08
Speaker 1: an onboard computer on you on you right, But what
37:11
Speaker 1: I'm saying is you don't like carry around a button, No,
37:15
Speaker 1: it's under your skin. So how would this work? Then?
37:19
Speaker 1: I would guess the same way that we would figure
37:21
Speaker 1: out exactly from studying opto genetically these neurons that glow
37:25
Speaker 1: when when they go off, So we'll figure out the
37:27
Speaker 1: brain pathways in the regions responsible for things like depression
37:30
Speaker 1: and all that. We would figure out what this standard
37:34
Speaker 1: normal pattern is and then to recreate it and then
37:38
Speaker 1: the computer would regulate it when needed in the brain.
37:41
Speaker 1: Well that makes a little more sense, But I mean
37:43
Speaker 1: just that kind of stuff, like just that alone shows
37:47
Speaker 1: you how far we are from actually doing this in humans,
37:50
Speaker 1: Like we have no idea what the normal pattern in
37:54
Speaker 1: the brain is for like um, the like normal serotonin
37:58
Speaker 1: release for you know, a normal mood. But it also
38:01
Speaker 1: raises these other questions to Chuck where it's like, Okay,
38:04
Speaker 1: if we figure that out and we figure out how
38:06
Speaker 1: to um, how to how to replicate that, why stop there?
38:10
Speaker 1: Like why not just make everybody happier than we are normally? Yeah,
38:14
Speaker 1: which brings in the whole free will debate which has
38:18
Speaker 1: been around since the dawn of time, And it also
38:21
Speaker 1: UM and ED does a great job of kind of
38:23
Speaker 1: wrapping it up and pointing out that kind of makes
38:25
Speaker 1: you think about things like if we are we just
38:28
Speaker 1: a bag of cells that can be uh manipulated by
38:32
Speaker 1: a flashing light? Like, uh, is that where you're saying
38:36
Speaker 1: is yes, we are? Like is that what happiness is? Like?
38:40
Speaker 1: You think happiness is seeing your dog when you get
38:43
Speaker 1: home from work and getting those licks. But if those
38:46
Speaker 1: are just synapsies firing, that's a very I mean, that's
38:49
Speaker 1: scientifically what's going on, but it is a very cold
38:51
Speaker 1: and humane way to look at things. I think I
38:54
Speaker 1: disagree with that. I think it's just a that's a
38:56
Speaker 1: better understanding of what's going on, But I don't think
38:59
Speaker 1: it undermines the happiness you're experiencing. I think for a
39:03
Speaker 1: lot of people it might well, yeah, I mean I
39:05
Speaker 1: it's not like I can't see how it wouldn't. But
39:07
Speaker 1: to me, it's like, no, I mean, you're still experiencing happiness.
39:11
Speaker 1: The happiness is still important to you. Happiness is still
39:14
Speaker 1: the point of life. This is just understanding the mechanism
39:17
Speaker 1: that we experience happiness by. That's true. And I have
39:20
Speaker 1: seen you around dogs and you constantly are just saying,
39:23
Speaker 1: I'm a bag of neurons firing at once. It's like
39:27
Speaker 1: Francis Crick, the guy who co discovered DNA. He had
39:30
Speaker 1: a book in the seventies called The Astonishing Hypothesis. I
39:33
Speaker 1: know we've talked about it before, but he had this
39:35
Speaker 1: famous quote where he said, you're nothing but a pack
39:38
Speaker 1: of neurons. And I mean, like, to me, it's that's
39:41
Speaker 1: a really good way of maintaining a positive outlook on things.
39:46
Speaker 1: It's like, no matter how bad things get, it's just
39:48
Speaker 1: neurotransmitters in your head that are going haywire or that
39:52
Speaker 1: are doing right. Well, that's that's when. That's that's the
39:56
Speaker 1: reason to do all this is to regain control over
39:59
Speaker 1: it and it's not functioning correctly, and then making things
40:03
Speaker 1: even better than they are normally Naturally, there's no written
40:06
Speaker 1: law that says if we figure out how to make
40:09
Speaker 1: ourselves happier, that we shouldn't do that. As a matter
40:13
Speaker 1: of fact, basically every moral code there is says we
40:16
Speaker 1: should do that. If we can be happier, let's figure
40:21
Speaker 1: out how to be happier. Yeah. I think the other
40:23
Speaker 1: thing it makes me think about, slippery slope wise, is, um,
40:28
Speaker 1: will people cease to do the things that they do
40:33
Speaker 1: to make them happy if they can simply touch a
40:36
Speaker 1: button to do so? Yeah, that's called wire heading. And
40:39
Speaker 1: that's actually a big problem with artificial intelligence is um
40:43
Speaker 1: they're saying, like, Okay, if we train artificial intelligence to
40:45
Speaker 1: do something based on a reward, the artificial intelligence just
40:48
Speaker 1: gonna go figure out how to go right to the reward.
40:51
Speaker 1: But it's not. It's going to circumvent that um. And
40:53
Speaker 1: that's that's a great question too, where if we start
40:56
Speaker 1: to become like digital consciousness right where we migrate online
40:59
Speaker 1: and we should at our bodies and our consciousness just
41:02
Speaker 1: exists in digital form, then all that stuff will be
41:04
Speaker 1: available to us. And it does make you think like, okay,
41:08
Speaker 1: if if our existence is just digital, there's no purpose
41:11
Speaker 1: to it except to experience pleasure. Is there anything wrong
41:14
Speaker 1: with just sitting around experiencing pleasure all the time? Or
41:17
Speaker 1: do we need more than that? I don't know. That's
41:19
Speaker 1: a that's a next next level question if you ask me. Yeah,
41:23
Speaker 1: I mean it kind of do you ever see wall
41:24
Speaker 1: e yes? Sort of like that there could be the future,
41:28
Speaker 1: Like why go out and take a walk if you're
41:30
Speaker 1: feeling down to get some sunshine on your face? If
41:34
Speaker 1: you can just press a button to do the same thing. Yeah,
41:37
Speaker 1: And like in that movie, it's it's like there's well,
41:40
Speaker 1: there's something inherently wrong with that. But I don't know, man,
41:43
Speaker 1: because like if you think about it, when you go
41:45
Speaker 1: outside and you get a walk, you feel better, you
41:47
Speaker 1: feel like more positive if you can get that without
41:51
Speaker 1: doing the walk. To you, if you can get everything
41:53
Speaker 1: from a walk without having to go on a walk,
41:56
Speaker 1: do you still need to go on a walk? Will
41:58
Speaker 1: including like the benefits to your health and body? Yes?
42:01
Speaker 1: If you could get every single scrap of benefit that
42:04
Speaker 1: you can get from a walk digitally or somehow without
42:07
Speaker 1: actually going on a walk, do you need to go
42:10
Speaker 1: on a walk? I say yes, but you and I
42:12
Speaker 1: are different. No, No, I'm with you. I still say
42:15
Speaker 1: yes as well, but I can't. I can't explain why. Okay, yeah, yeah,
42:18
Speaker 1: I'm not just like this full transhumanist guy. I definitely
42:21
Speaker 1: have questions about the whole thing too. I think you
42:23
Speaker 1: just built some bond water on the carpet that's never
42:26
Speaker 1: gonna come out. I'm gonna stop it up with a
42:29
Speaker 1: fa breeze dryer sheet. Remember that, Remember when when kids?
42:35
Speaker 1: You saw kids do that at the dorms. Yeah, I
42:37
Speaker 1: don't know if kids had fabrize dryer sheets when I
42:39
Speaker 1: was in college, they didn't exist yet, Okay. Or you
42:42
Speaker 1: mean to just like the bounce sheets? Yes, oh sure, Yeah,
42:46
Speaker 1: yeah I've seen I've seen those old tricks. It's hilarious. Okay, Well,
42:51
Speaker 1: you got anything else about opt to genetics? No, it's
42:54
Speaker 1: pretty pretty fascinating stuff. Yeah, we'll see where it goes, agreed. Actually,
42:58
Speaker 1: probably won't see where it goes in our life time.
43:00
Speaker 1: But I don't know, man. I suspect that while we're alive,
43:03
Speaker 1: things are going to change quite a bit. We'll live
43:05
Speaker 1: to see a lot of this stuff. I'm gonna check
43:07
Speaker 1: in with you in in thirty five years, we'll be
43:11
Speaker 1: sitting across the desk from me. Still, when we get
43:13
Speaker 1: commemorated into the Podcasting Hall of Fame, you're on that,
43:17
Speaker 1: aren't you. You're gonna stroll into that room wearing your
43:20
Speaker 1: your VR headset, pressing your little dopamine button right talking
43:24
Speaker 1: about how great life is, right, just wire headed to
43:28
Speaker 1: the Guild's right. So if you want to know more
43:31
Speaker 1: about optogenetics, well go start reading about It's pretty interesting stuff.
43:36
Speaker 1: And since I said that it's time for listener mail,
43:42
Speaker 1: listener mail, I think it was me who goofed up
43:44
Speaker 1: on the postal going Postal EPP. When I think off handedly,
43:49
Speaker 1: when they were talking about the Californo Commission about how
43:53
Speaker 1: much money we spent, I think it's a tex stollar money. Yeah,
43:57
Speaker 1: like a dope because we've covered the U. S. Postal
44:00
Speaker 1: service and we know that that is not the case.
44:04
Speaker 1: And this is from Peter among many others. Hey guys,
44:07
Speaker 1: want to start off by saying how much I love
44:08
Speaker 1: the show. You always do a great job researching the
44:11
Speaker 1: subjects you talk about. However, I knew, however, I got
44:14
Speaker 1: a small bone to pick. In your recent episode Why
44:16
Speaker 1: Postal Employees Go Postal, you talked about how the US
44:19
Speaker 1: Postal Service spent four million tax dollars on the Joseph
44:22
Speaker 1: Californo Commission. While Congress does still control the USPS budget,
44:26
Speaker 1: it receives no funding from them at all, and has
44:28
Speaker 1: not since the early nineteen eighties. The USPS operates solely
44:32
Speaker 1: on the money they make from stamps and packages zero
44:36
Speaker 1: tax dollars. Anyway, thanks for the amazing content. May you
44:40
Speaker 1: keep doing so for many years to come. That is
44:42
Speaker 1: from Peter and many many others. And by the way,
44:46
Speaker 1: we heard from a lot of people, uh, postal employees
44:50
Speaker 1: or people whose family was are or were in the
44:52
Speaker 1: Postal Service, and we got a range of things from
44:56
Speaker 1: you guys are crazy, my post office is great, there's
44:58
Speaker 1: no toxic environment, to people saying oh, they're absolutely is
45:02
Speaker 1: a very toxic environment. Yeah, like it's even worse than
45:05
Speaker 1: you guys said. Yeah, So I think for the people
45:08
Speaker 1: that wrote in that said that was not the case,
45:10
Speaker 1: then I am very happy that you work in a
45:13
Speaker 1: great place that has a great environment. But it seems
45:15
Speaker 1: like there is a range. They're right, that's the nicest
45:19
Speaker 1: way to say it. Yeah. Uh, well that was Peter, right, Peter,
45:23
Speaker 1: Thanks a lot, Peter. That was a very nice way
45:26
Speaker 1: to put it. And if you want to get in
45:27
Speaker 1: touch with us like Peter did, you can go and
45:31
Speaker 1: send us an email. Send it off to stuff podcast
45:33
Speaker 1: at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is
45:39
Speaker 1: a production of iHeart Radios. How stuff works for more
45:41
Speaker 1: podcasts for my heart Radio because at the iHeart Radio app,
45:44
Speaker 1: Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.