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Short Stuff: Beethoven’s DNA · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh, and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's Chuck and this is short stuff, a pretty interesting
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: one that comes from our friends at How Stuff Works,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: I believe, specifically from Robert Attenborough. Yeah, and lots of
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: other places. Because this I just saw this all over
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: the news last week. The story of Beethoven's DNA has
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: been researched, and it just I don't know, it's like
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: it hit the news cycle and I saw it in
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: a bunch of places. I mean, I can understand why.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: It's very very fascinating, more fascinating than it appears on
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: the surface. And the surface is Beethoven was fairly famous
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: for suffering from a lot of terrible health maladies for
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: many years late in his life until his death, very
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: most famously his hearing loss, which is just fascinating that
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: he was still able to compose with hearing loss. That's
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: just insane. Yeah, But people, some people are very much
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: fast sinated with Beethoven, even more than other people. And
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: one of those people is Justin Beg who is a
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: student of biological anthropology at UC Santa Cruz and also
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: an enormous Beethoven enthusiast. And he said Hey, I want
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: to put my two things together and figure out what
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: the heck was going on with Beethoven's body. Yeah, and
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: now we back up a little bit and talk a
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: little bit about DNA and the challenges of taking DNA
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: from a dead person to figure anything out. It's it's
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: not that easy. DNA from a live human is much
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: easier to work with in sequence, but if you're trying
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: to get good DNA from a body, you're gonna want
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: teeth ideally, or the petris bone in the skull, which
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: we did not have from Beethoven. But during Beethoven's day,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: collecting locks from brilliant people's hair was a thing, and
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: so by virtue of that, it turns out there were
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: quite a few samples of Beethoven's locks around the world,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: and they ended up with what they thought was eight
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: of them. Yes, Tristan beg had eight that he was
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: able to access. None of them had roots, which was
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: made the whole thing much more difficult. If you have
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: a root, you got a much better chance of extracting
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: a whole genome from it, right. Yeah, But plucking a
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: whole handful of hair from Beethoven said was not allowed
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Beethoven did not want that to happen. He said, sure,
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: you can use some old timey scissors on me, or
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: maybe even a sharp knife, and I'll sit here and
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: let you do it. But I do not pluck my hair.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: So that meant that the DNA in there in this
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: hair was composed of short, broken fragments. But Tristan Beg
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: is such a Beethoven enthusiast and such a student of
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: biological anthropology that he said, I don't care. I'm going
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: to piece together different fragments of DNA from these hair samples,
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: from each hair sample to create basically as close to
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: a net profile as I possibly can for each of
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: the eight locks of hairs. And he did it. That's right.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: I was so trying to come up with a joke
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: about plucking hair, and what do you think? I am
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: a harpsichord player. And then I tried to think of
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: a like maybe Bach or somebody I couldn't remember who
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: was most notable for their harpsichord work. And then I
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: thought maybe Beethoven had some harpsichord stuff, and I bailed,
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: But I was just in my head that entire time.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Oh man, you missed some great stuff. Men. All apologies
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: all to think of a joke that I missed the
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: opportunity of, but at least you got to explain it,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: all right. So the big reveal is is that he
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: ended up with two locks of hair that had with
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  Speaker 1: DNA sampling where they were like, all right, it's western
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: central Europe. We got great providence records, yeah, going back
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: to yeah, going back to the early nineteenth century. So
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: these two, we feel really good about three more that
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: are genetically identical to those, So that's also probably Beethoven.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: And this is pretty good providence records, So we think
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: these are for sure Beethoven's. But the other three are
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: problematic because one is a woman, so that's somebody got
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: you know, probably paid way too much money for fake
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Beethoven locks. Yeah, and then another is a little side note.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: Beethoven would probably be mad about that, because there are
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: no side notes. Each notice as important as the last. Yes,
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: the notes that I wrote. But the side note is
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: that that lock, it turns out, had been previously used
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: to conclude that Beethoven had lead poisoning, and it turns
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: out that probably wasn't even Beethoven's hair, right, So the
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: upshot of the whole thing is is that he had
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: on his hands now five locks of hair genetically identical
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: to one another, two of which were basically one percent
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: guaranteed Beethoven's because they had Providence records. So as he
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: had five locks of Beethoven's hair to work with. So
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: I say, Chuck, that that is a great point to
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: take our ad break. Let's do it all right. So
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: here we are with Beethoven's hair. And they did some
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: research on his DNA and they came back with some
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: pretty interesting results, one of which and they kind of
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: figured this, but they were like, all right, his hearing
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: loss wasn't genetic. It rarely is genetic anyway when you
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: have adult onset hearing loss. So they kind of figured
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: that was coming and that was kind of proved out.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: But they said, he does have poopy pants a lot. Yeah,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: he suffers from GI issues, and he has liver disease
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: or had liver disease. Yeah. So they could not find
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: anything that they could connect to the GI problems. It
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: sounds like he just had some bad clams that stayed
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: with him or some sort of bad luck. But it
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: wasn't a genetic thing. But the thing that they did
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: connect to his genetics. His genes were his liver issues. Yeah,
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: apparently he suffered from pretty bad cerrosis. It looks like
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: they know from just sort of historical record that he
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: did have attacks of jaundice, a pretty clear issue with
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: your liver going on. Yeah, but they actually found genetic proof.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: They found particular variant two copies of the p and
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: p LA three gene linked to cirrhosis, and then single
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: copies of two variants of a gene that causes hemochromatosis nice,
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: another liver condition. And then they also found a little
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: surprise and that I don't think they even knew about
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: this at all until then, that he had hepatitis B. Yes,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: at the very least in the final months of his life,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: possibly before. The thing is is that's not scandalous. A
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: lot of people in Europe had he be at the time.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: Another thing that a lot of people did at the
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: time was drink lots and lots of booze by today's standards,
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: And they'd long been question about whether Beethoven's jaundice was
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: brought on by liver disease brought on by excessive drinking.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: And apparently there's even you know, record that mentions he
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: liked to drink, but it was not clear how much
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: he liked to drink and if he liked to drink
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: more than the average person. So apparently Tristan Beg went
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: one step further, examined records as closely as they could,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: and said, I think he just drank like a normal amount, Like, yeah,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: it'd be a lot today, but that's not what causes
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: liver problems. It was genetic, right, pretty interesting stuff. Have
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: you ever seen Immortal Beloved the Beethoven movie Gary Oldman? No,
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: and I have not. It was good. I think I
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: think it was nineties. I want to say it was nineties.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: It was good. I enjoyed it. But when's the last
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: time you saw the professional with Gary Oldman? That's been
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: a while. I saw it a month ago. It's good,
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: but it holds up even better than it was back. Yeah,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: it's amazing. And Natalie Portman being twelve like out acts
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: everybody else on the screen. It's nuts man that she's great.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: That whole movie is just so good. Leon Um. The
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: Immortal Beloved is good, it's not. It's not Amadeus level Um,
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: as evidence by the fact that it didn't like clean
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: up at the Academy Awards. But it was pretty good.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: So just remind me Amadeus was played by the guy
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: who who was in Animal House, right, Yeah, okay, I
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: wanted to Abraham. Yeah if Murray Abraham was was Salieri? Right?
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: And boy boy, that was good. I want to see
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: that again soon. That's a good one. I've not ever
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: seen it. I never got around to it. Hmm. I'm
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: a Dais is good. It's worth a look if you
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: ever get a hanker. And for nineteen I think that
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: was eighties biopic, Yes for sure, because the theme song
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: rock Me I'm a Dais hit the charts in the
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: eighties like Wildfires. Well that's it for short stuff, everybody.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: If you wanted to know more about Beethoven, you couldn't possibly.
• 9:37
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