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Naked Mole Rats: A Face Only a Mother Could Love · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
0:11
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
0:14
Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is Stuff you
0:16
Speaker 2: should Know, part of our ongoing Amazing Animals edition. Maybe
0:21
Speaker 2: the most robust rhinoceros like suite of all of our sweets.
0:28
Speaker 3: Probably that are crime and punishment.
0:32
Speaker 2: Sure, sure, but I think everybody can get behind you know,
0:36
Speaker 2: sloths and elephants and not everybody's like sure.
0:40
Speaker 3: Prison right or crime scene clean up?
0:44
Speaker 2: Sure? Well that was a tough one. But today we're
0:48
Speaker 2: adding to the animal one, and we're adding a good one. Chuck.
0:52
Speaker 2: This is a great pick because thank you. We're talking
0:54
Speaker 2: about naked mole rats. And they're one of those things
0:57
Speaker 2: like narwhals where you're like, I've heard of it. I
1:00
Speaker 2: know everybody's into him and everything, But unlike narwals, when
1:04
Speaker 2: you do a little investigating into him, naked mule rats
1:08
Speaker 2: are ridiculously interesting.
1:11
Speaker 3: They are. And I think I mentioned this on an episode,
1:15
Speaker 3: but where I got this idea it was long simmering
1:19
Speaker 3: because the great Errol Morris documentary Fast, Cheap and out
1:22
Speaker 3: of Control, which have you seen it? No, it's a
1:27
Speaker 3: great documentary. It's been around for a long time. And
1:31
Speaker 3: in that documentary he takes I think three disparate professions
1:37
Speaker 3: gentlemen who performed these professions, and also ties it into
1:41
Speaker 3: an old lion tamer guy from a circus with like
1:44
Speaker 3: footage and telling his story. There's like a robot scientist,
1:48
Speaker 3: a topiary gardener, the aforementioned lion tamer from footage, and
1:53
Speaker 3: then this guy who is a naked mole rat scientist.
1:58
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, what's his name?
2:00
Speaker 3: I don't remember his name. I can picture his face
2:03
Speaker 3: and looking at you know. When that documentary was, it
2:07
Speaker 3: was pretty early on and kind of what we knew
2:09
Speaker 3: about naked mole rat, so he was probably on the
2:11
Speaker 3: leading edge, but.
2:12
Speaker 2: On the leading edge, not the bleeding edge.
2:15
Speaker 3: That's when I first sort of discovered the naked mole
2:18
Speaker 3: rat and fell in love with what might be the
2:22
Speaker 3: ugliest animal on earth.
2:24
Speaker 2: For real, for real. Yeah. I saw somewhere that National
2:28
Speaker 2: Geographic described them as bratwurst with teeth.
2:33
Speaker 3: Oh Man, and apparently.
2:34
Speaker 2: The guy who first described him, Edward Repel, back in
2:39
Speaker 2: eighteen forty two. When he described him, other biologists were like, well, clearly, Repel,
2:43
Speaker 2: you're dumb, because this has got to be a baby
2:46
Speaker 2: of some sort of some other species, or these things
2:50
Speaker 2: are diseased. They're not their own thing. And he said, no, really,
2:55
Speaker 2: I think they're their own thing. And he turned out
2:57
Speaker 2: to be right. But that just goes to show just
2:58
Speaker 2: how weird looking they are that even biologists were like,
3:02
Speaker 2: what is this thing?
3:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, like any naked animal, and there are a handful.
3:08
Speaker 3: Is strange looking to people that are accustomed to mammals
3:11
Speaker 3: with fur. Yeah, I should say mammals, but the naked
3:16
Speaker 3: mole rat is I mean, boy, this thing is like
3:21
Speaker 3: only a mother could love, is the saying. I think
3:23
Speaker 3: a face and body for sure.
3:26
Speaker 2: They all have the same mother pretty much, I do know.
3:29
Speaker 3: Look at you.
3:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll get into that later. But dropping it in,
3:32
Speaker 2: let's talk a little bit about the taxonomic classification of
3:36
Speaker 2: naked mole rats, shall we.
3:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, uh, take it away, because they used to be
3:42
Speaker 3: classified differently, but they finally settled on giving them their
3:46
Speaker 3: own little space, now right.
3:47
Speaker 2: I don't know that they settled on it. I think
3:49
Speaker 2: it's proposed, and not everybody in the naked mole rat
3:51
Speaker 2: research community agrees on it. But they are rodents. They're
3:55
Speaker 2: in the order Rodentia. They're in the family bath there, Ergide,
4:01
Speaker 2: I even practiced. That's so frustrating to have practiced it
4:06
Speaker 2: out loud and still miffed it.
4:09
Speaker 3: No, I think you got it, Beth Ergide.
4:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, I got it the second time, but it should
4:13
Speaker 2: have rolled off my tongue for as much as I
4:15
Speaker 2: practiced it.
4:16
Speaker 3: That never does.
4:17
Speaker 2: So all of the family Bathi Ergiday are are located
4:22
Speaker 2: in Sub Saharan Africa. Yeah, and uh, there's a bunch
4:26
Speaker 2: of different kinds of mole rats. It's just the naked
4:29
Speaker 2: morad is its own thing, and it's so distinct in
4:33
Speaker 2: so many different ways that, like you were saying, some
4:36
Speaker 2: naked morat scientists are like, there, we just need to
4:38
Speaker 2: make their own family because right now they're a separate genus.
4:42
Speaker 2: They're their own genus heterocephal Heterocephalida practice that one too,
4:50
Speaker 2: But they're so different from the other members of the
4:52
Speaker 2: family that they're like, we should not just classify them
4:55
Speaker 2: as their own genus and species, We should classify them
4:57
Speaker 2: as their own family. This one type of animals should
5:01
Speaker 2: be its own family. Not everybody's on.
5:02
Speaker 3: Board, Yeah, but I think everyone listening has a family
5:05
Speaker 3: member that you know, they think maybe should be classified
5:09
Speaker 3: as their own family.
5:10
Speaker 2: Always naked buck teeth. Sure that family member rusty uncle Rusty.
5:19
Speaker 3: Like you mentioned, the naked mole rats live throughout the
5:21
Speaker 3: Horn of Africa, generally in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Somalia, and
5:27
Speaker 3: they are doing great. There are a lot of them.
5:29
Speaker 3: This isn't one of those I feel like most of
5:31
Speaker 3: the animals we cover have some sort of threatened designation,
5:36
Speaker 3: but they're killing it and they're doing awesome. There's lots
5:39
Speaker 3: of them.
5:39
Speaker 2: One reason why is because the land that they live
5:43
Speaker 2: under is so arid that it's not usually disturbed for
5:48
Speaker 2: crop land, so they don't get into fights with farmers typically,
5:52
Speaker 2: which would be a big problem for them because they
5:54
Speaker 2: would eat all the farmers' crops and the farmers would
5:56
Speaker 2: kill them all. So because they don't really dwell where
6:00
Speaker 2: humans tend to dwell, that's a big mark in their
6:03
Speaker 2: favor from what I.
6:04
Speaker 3: Saw, totally they I mean, hopefully you've looked up a picture,
6:08
Speaker 3: like pulled off to the side of the road or
6:09
Speaker 3: something if you're driving, to see a picture of these things,
6:12
Speaker 3: so you have an idea of what we're talking about.
6:14
Speaker 3: If not, do so, because you might think they look
6:17
Speaker 3: like maybe a newborn guinea pig or something. Maybe, I
6:22
Speaker 3: mean that's being kind, I guess, and that's the adults. Yeah, exactly.
6:27
Speaker 3: But they did diverge from guinea pigs they believe, about
6:31
Speaker 3: fifty million years ago, so they're related in a way,
6:35
Speaker 3: but they, like you said, they really are their own thing.
6:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they're pretty much not related to moles or rats.
6:40
Speaker 2: It's their closest relative as guinea pigs, like you said.
6:44
Speaker 2: And one of the things that really makes naked mole
6:47
Speaker 2: rats special is that they are fossorial, which is a
6:53
Speaker 2: type of animal that lives underground pretty much all the time.
6:58
Speaker 2: They don't live underground and it's hot out and then
7:01
Speaker 2: come out at night to feed or hunt. They live underground.
7:05
Speaker 2: I'm sure plenty of them spend their entire lives underground,
7:09
Speaker 2: and their lives are significant in length, as we'll see,
7:13
Speaker 2: But that that's a big distinction because there's a lot
7:15
Speaker 2: of animals that live underground but spend time above ground too.
7:18
Speaker 2: Not naked mole rats.
7:19
Speaker 3: No, they love it down there. And as we've covered
7:23
Speaker 3: in what was the bios Spieliology episode, I think yeah,
7:27
Speaker 3: and we also didn't we also do one on other
7:29
Speaker 3: cave dwelling animals or was that that one? I think
7:32
Speaker 3: it was that one, all right, either one or two
7:34
Speaker 3: of those. But we you know, they have some features
7:37
Speaker 3: that other animals who live generally deep underground for a
7:41
Speaker 3: lot of their lives have, which is not really useless eyes.
7:45
Speaker 3: I mean they have technically they have eyes. They can
7:49
Speaker 3: sense bright and dark, but they're basically blind. And they
7:53
Speaker 3: don't have ears really either. They have, you know, little
7:56
Speaker 3: tiny ear flaps if they have anything at all. They're
8:00
Speaker 3: about three to four inches long, except for the queen,
8:03
Speaker 3: who can be a bit bigger. Yeah, talk about the
8:05
Speaker 3: queen because it's very very interesting. And then they have
8:08
Speaker 3: a little short tail, sort of a taper tail, and
8:12
Speaker 3: then a little piggy snout. But what's really like when
8:16
Speaker 3: you look at a naked mole rat, the first thing
8:18
Speaker 3: you're going to notice is they're naked and really wrinkly
8:22
Speaker 3: and funny looking. And then those chompers up front.
8:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, because their teeth if you look closely, they come
8:29
Speaker 2: out of their face, not their mouth.
8:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, they can close their mouth which they still had
8:34
Speaker 3: their teeth out.
8:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's pretty cool. It's an adaptation that they came
8:38
Speaker 2: up with where they can use their teeth to dig
8:42
Speaker 2: while their mouth is close, so they keep dirt from
8:44
Speaker 2: getting in their mouths.
8:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's amazing, And you dug up some extra stuff
8:49
Speaker 3: which is pretty remarkable about those teeth. And we're going
8:53
Speaker 3: to talk a little bit about the teeth, probably a
8:55
Speaker 3: lot about the teeth, but they basically function as a
8:58
Speaker 3: sense organ. Scientists have found that the Sommo man I
9:02
Speaker 3: practiced that one too, So mattisensory cortex that's not even
9:04
Speaker 3: a hard one, which is involved in the sense of touch,
9:08
Speaker 3: is very, very large, and about a third of it
9:10
Speaker 3: is dedicated to those incisors. So they actually feel through
9:14
Speaker 3: those teeth.
9:15
Speaker 2: Yeah they yeah, like you said, it's a sense organ.
9:17
Speaker 2: That's really cool. They also use them not only to
9:20
Speaker 2: sense the world, but also to carry stuff around. They
9:23
Speaker 2: can use them like needlenose pliers. They can move them
9:26
Speaker 2: independently in all sorts of different weird directions. They I
9:30
Speaker 2: don't know of any other animal that has teeth as
9:34
Speaker 2: a sense organ. It's pretty cool.
9:36
Speaker 3: No, how about those jaws too.
9:38
Speaker 2: So, because their teeth are so important to them, not
9:41
Speaker 2: just for eating, but for digging and creating their habitats
9:45
Speaker 2: and for defense too, their jaws. I think twenty five
9:51
Speaker 2: percent of their entire muscle mass of their body is
9:55
Speaker 2: in their jaws, specifically in the jaw muscle, the deep
9:59
Speaker 2: massiter muscle. If you make if you put three fingers
10:04
Speaker 2: upward on your cheek so that you're kind of making
10:08
Speaker 2: that scouts on or thing. Sure, the finger closest to
10:12
Speaker 2: you is just touching your ear, the outside of your
10:15
Speaker 2: ear or where your ear touches your face.
10:18
Speaker 3: I'm doing it.
10:19
Speaker 2: And then you start making a chewing sound or chewing motion.
10:22
Speaker 2: Do you feel how it's like your cheek is pushing
10:25
Speaker 2: out against your fingers.
10:26
Speaker 3: Beneath I do.
10:28
Speaker 2: That's your mass And then do one other thing. Leave
10:30
Speaker 2: your fingers there, don't move, but slide them up a
10:33
Speaker 2: little further to your temple, and then do the same thing.
10:36
Speaker 2: Do you feel that muscle.
10:37
Speaker 3: Moving, Yeah, that's the headache button exactly.
10:40
Speaker 2: That's your MASSI muscle as well, So we have them too,
10:44
Speaker 2: but only about one percent of our muscle mass is
10:46
Speaker 2: invested in our jaws. A quarter of their muscle mass
10:50
Speaker 2: is invested in their jaw and specifically in the mass complex.
10:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's amazing, and that makes those teeth. Basically, like
10:59
Speaker 3: it's sort of like a shovel chisel combination. They can shovel.
11:04
Speaker 3: It is shovel. They have tremendous power. Just Snoop Dogg
11:10
Speaker 3: has that train work. So I think we could suit
11:13
Speaker 3: for that. Uh and we'll be like, hey, go after
11:15
Speaker 3: the naked mole rat. Snoop, I saved those sideburns years ago. Uh.
11:22
Speaker 3: So they use them. You know, they're they're scraping, they're
11:24
Speaker 3: always digging, they're always carrying dirt. Like you mentioned, they
11:27
Speaker 3: can close their little lips because they don't want to
11:29
Speaker 3: get dirt in their mouths, and they're always just sort
11:32
Speaker 3: of at work digging tunnels. They're like Charles Bronson in
11:37
Speaker 3: The Great.
11:37
Speaker 2: Escape, right pretty much that's who they've modeled their entire
11:41
Speaker 2: society on.
11:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they do this in a little like an
11:44
Speaker 3: assembly line.
11:45
Speaker 2: Yeah.
11:45
Speaker 3: They will gnaw into the earth and they will pass
11:48
Speaker 3: dirt back, and eventually that dirt forms what else, a
11:52
Speaker 3: mole hill.
11:53
Speaker 2: Yeah. I saw those kind of like a conveyor belt.
11:55
Speaker 2: So there's one mole or one naked mole rat at
11:58
Speaker 2: the front doing all the digging, and there's a bunch
12:00
Speaker 2: of mole rats following them that are sweeping like a
12:04
Speaker 2: specific pile out and as they're sweeping it further and
12:07
Speaker 2: further back, and as they're moving backward, they finally get
12:11
Speaker 2: to the end, and then there's a larger mole rat
12:14
Speaker 2: there's kicking it outside, forming that molehill you were talking about.
12:18
Speaker 2: And then when the when the mole rat that's been
12:21
Speaker 2: sweeping it to the guy who's kicking it out of
12:22
Speaker 2: the tunnel, they climb back over the people in front
12:26
Speaker 2: of them and go to the front of the line again.
12:28
Speaker 2: So it is it's like this conveyor belt that's just tunneling,
12:31
Speaker 2: like boring through the earth. And this is really hard
12:34
Speaker 2: packed dry dirt too. It's not easy stuff to chew through.
12:38
Speaker 3: No, they make easier work out of it when things
12:42
Speaker 3: are a little wetter, but generally this dirt is fairly dry,
12:45
Speaker 3: like you said, so it's pretty tough. And we mentioned
12:48
Speaker 3: that they're a hairless. They do have some tiny, tiny
12:50
Speaker 3: little hairs here and there. They have some sensory hairs
12:53
Speaker 3: on their faces and tails, and a little bit of
12:55
Speaker 3: hair between their toes, so they can sweep away that
12:58
Speaker 3: dirt like you were talking about. But if you look
13:01
Speaker 3: at a naked mole rat. I mean, the first thing
13:03
Speaker 3: that you're gonna say is that things naked, and look
13:05
Speaker 3: at those teeth, and I imagine a large one would
13:08
Speaker 3: be terrifying because they're pretty small, like we said, just
13:11
Speaker 3: a few inches.
13:11
Speaker 2: Yes, did you watch the Smithsonian Naked mole Rat.
13:15
Speaker 3: Camsh No, but there's so much of that in fast,
13:20
Speaker 3: cheap and out of control. Okay, it's amazing.
13:22
Speaker 1: I hadn't.
13:23
Speaker 2: I had not seen them before, and they are really cute.
13:25
Speaker 2: They're so studious and so serious about the digging around
13:29
Speaker 2: and moving around.
13:30
Speaker 3: That they're doing very hard.
13:31
Speaker 2: Pushing this thing over there, and they just they're super
13:34
Speaker 2: cute when you watch them. Apparently they're not very aggressive.
13:39
Speaker 2: There's only specific instances where they show aggression, but for
13:42
Speaker 2: the most part, they're pretty peaceful, even though to us
13:45
Speaker 2: they would seem pretty rude because they climb over one another,
13:50
Speaker 2: in part because they are very closely related, so you
13:54
Speaker 2: know they're fine with that, but also because their habitats
13:57
Speaker 2: are enormous, but they still live on top of each other.
14:01
Speaker 2: Like a naked mole rat. Tunnel system can be comprised
14:04
Speaker 2: of miles of tunnel that's spread out over like five
14:09
Speaker 2: acres of land, and yet when they're when they live together,
14:13
Speaker 2: they live in a really tight, close knit community that
14:18
Speaker 2: they literally crawl on top of each other.
14:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, they crawl all over each other like it's nothing
14:24
Speaker 3: like they're crawling over like a rock or something. And
14:27
Speaker 3: they are just as good at going backwards as forwards.
14:30
Speaker 3: And when we say that, like we mean it. They
14:33
Speaker 3: they've they've done little races and they found that naked
14:37
Speaker 3: mole rats can go backwards just as fast as they
14:40
Speaker 3: can go forwards and are just as coordinated, which isn't
14:43
Speaker 3: super coordinated, but we're talking naked mole rats here. That's
14:46
Speaker 3: in a smallish tunnel.
14:48
Speaker 2: Well, I'm pretty stimulated, Chuck. Do you want to take
14:50
Speaker 2: a break.
14:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's take a break. Since you're stimulated.
14:53
Speaker 2: I got a d stem stuff.
15:02
Speaker 1: You should know, the stuff you should I should know.
15:29
Speaker 2: I'm pretty distimmed.
15:30
Speaker 3: I'm feeling all right now you're feeling good.
15:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I'm gonna get stimulated again, Chuck, because there's
15:34
Speaker 2: so much more, Like we haven't even really tapped into
15:37
Speaker 2: the most amazing stuff about naked mole rats, Like oh,
15:39
Speaker 2: this is still this is neat, this is interesting, but
15:42
Speaker 2: just wait, everybody just you.
15:44
Speaker 3: Wait, should we talk about respiration?
15:47
Speaker 2: I think we should.
15:49
Speaker 3: Well, here's the deal. They are underground in these very
15:52
Speaker 3: tight spaces and down there because there are so many
15:56
Speaker 3: naked mole rats. I don't think we said, but they
15:57
Speaker 3: live in colonies, and we'll get to the social structure
16:01
Speaker 3: because it's very very interesting among mammals for sure, and
16:04
Speaker 3: especially among rodents. But you know, seventy to two hundred
16:08
Speaker 3: to three hundred naked mole rats living together in these
16:11
Speaker 3: tightish quarters even though it's spread out. You know, they're
16:14
Speaker 3: small tunnels because they're small animals and there's not a
16:17
Speaker 3: lot of oxygen down there. They can get by on
16:22
Speaker 3: a startlingly low amount of oxygen.
16:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, in an environment that's also high in carbon dioxide.
16:29
Speaker 2: Like you or I would suffocate to death in a
16:31
Speaker 2: naked mole rat tunnel system.
16:34
Speaker 3: Any animal would, I think, yeah, pretty much.
16:36
Speaker 2: And the reason why is because they've become adapted to
16:40
Speaker 2: that kind of environment, a low oxygen, high carbon dioxide environment.
16:44
Speaker 2: And the way that they've adapted is they have they
16:49
Speaker 2: have evolved a system that, aside from naked mole rats,
16:53
Speaker 2: has only been found in plants.
16:56
Speaker 3: That's right, So oh, I don't keep going.
16:59
Speaker 2: So the toast pump. We all have fructose pumps, but
17:02
Speaker 2: ours are all in our guts. The naked mole rats
17:05
Speaker 2: have a fructose pump that uses a metabolic pathway that
17:09
Speaker 2: takes fructose to be burned for energy in their brains.
17:12
Speaker 2: And the reason fructose is so important is because it
17:15
Speaker 2: can be burned anaerobically. You don't need oxygen to power
17:19
Speaker 2: that system of energy creation or unlocking energy. I guess
17:24
Speaker 2: from the fruit toase you can just do it without oxygen.
17:27
Speaker 2: So they lower their metabolism enough that they don't need
17:30
Speaker 2: much much oxygen. They can get by on the burning
17:33
Speaker 2: fruit toase until there's more oxygen available. Again.
17:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, it can live in an atmosphere that is twenty
17:39
Speaker 3: percent oxygen and eighty percent CO two, and they've been
17:43
Speaker 3: able to survive for at least five hours with as
17:47
Speaker 3: little as five percent oxygen. Five percent.
17:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, you couldn't do that. I think twenty percent is
17:52
Speaker 2: like the andes. Five percent is not much at all. No,
17:57
Speaker 2: So there's another thing I said that they were generally peaceful.
18:01
Speaker 2: They're generally peaceful within the colony. Apparently there's a behavior
18:05
Speaker 2: that queens have where they show up and just start
18:09
Speaker 2: shoving workers around. Did you see that?
18:11
Speaker 3: Yeah? And they're not quite sure aggressive at times.
18:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's mostly just the queen and she's mostly
18:17
Speaker 2: shoving workers. They thought maybe they were it was because
18:20
Speaker 2: they were being lazy, but the worker is much more
18:23
Speaker 2: likely to be shoved while they're working, which just seems obnoxious.
18:27
Speaker 3: Maybe it's just a little reminder. Yeah, yeah, maybe.
18:30
Speaker 2: But other than that, they aren't very aggressive unless you're
18:34
Speaker 2: a naked molerat from another colony. And from what I saw,
18:37
Speaker 2: if you stumble into a naked morat colony and you're
18:40
Speaker 2: an outsider, they will kill you.
18:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not pretty. If you're a predator as well,
18:47
Speaker 3: they will band together and stack on one another and
18:51
Speaker 3: reveal those teeth if a centipede or a snake or
18:55
Speaker 3: something comes down there. And U yeah, and like you said,
19:01
Speaker 3: if you're not a member of the family, and I
19:03
Speaker 3: guess we should go ahead and say it like they're
19:06
Speaker 3: all the same family, right. Isn't there a lot of
19:07
Speaker 3: insects going on?
19:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's talk about their incests, shall we. Sure, so
19:13
Speaker 2: they inbreed. The reason why is because they have one
19:18
Speaker 2: queen that's just part of their hierarchy, their social structure,
19:24
Speaker 2: and the Queen has a very limited number of people
19:28
Speaker 2: the breed with. She basically says you, you, and you
19:31
Speaker 2: you're my breeding males. Everybody else not only like, don't
19:35
Speaker 2: breed with the queen. Somehow, mysteriously, the Queen keeps worker
19:41
Speaker 2: males and worker females from even like maturing sexually. Yes,
19:47
Speaker 2: they have no idea how this is happening. Because if
19:49
Speaker 2: you take a non breeding worker male in a non
19:52
Speaker 2: breeding worker female out of their colony, within days they
19:56
Speaker 2: develop like adult mature reproductive systems and can reproduce. Yeah,
20:01
Speaker 2: like something going on.
20:01
Speaker 3: A male literally will they have tiny kind of buried testicles,
20:06
Speaker 3: But five days after they're out of that hole, those
20:09
Speaker 3: testicles literally grow.
20:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, you should see that on fast motion. It's really funny.
20:15
Speaker 3: Please tell me that's not existent.
20:17
Speaker 2: Oh but there's a gift out there somewhere. Yeah, okay,
20:20
Speaker 2: I haven't seen it though.
20:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's it's weird. It's the suppression of reproduce ability,
20:29
Speaker 3: and it's it's the Queen. It's just the Queen and
20:32
Speaker 3: all the other males have their hands up. And only
20:35
Speaker 3: if you get to go in there and take care
20:37
Speaker 3: of business.
20:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, so very frequently they're her own offspring. That's just
20:41
Speaker 2: how it goes. For a couple of reasons. One, she
20:44
Speaker 2: makes so many she has so many litters over her lifetime.
20:48
Speaker 2: And then also they are there. They are very long lived.
20:53
Speaker 2: I think in captivity they live up to thirty years
20:56
Speaker 2: so far.
20:56
Speaker 3: I saw longer too. I saw one that was like
20:58
Speaker 3: close to forty.
21:00
Speaker 2: So we've only been studying them in captivity for about
21:03
Speaker 2: forty ish years, maybe fifty, so we don't really know
21:08
Speaker 2: what they're actual Like the upper limit of their lifespan is.
21:11
Speaker 2: We'll talk about that later. But a mouse, if it's lucky,
21:15
Speaker 2: lives five years in captivity. These guys are living thirty
21:19
Speaker 2: forty years, right, that's old.
21:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, I saw the Queen's not in captivity. Can it's
21:26
Speaker 3: usually like eighteen to twenty years okay, underground, which is
21:30
Speaker 3: still remarkable.
21:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's super remarkable. So during that time, because she's
21:35
Speaker 2: creating so many letters and there's outsiders who come to
21:38
Speaker 2: the colony get killed, she has to. It's inevitable she's
21:42
Speaker 2: reproducing with her own kin. And so they found genetically, Chuck,
21:47
Speaker 2: that the average genetic similarity between just any two members
21:54
Speaker 2: of a colony is about point five in human terms.
21:58
Speaker 2: Point five is what and their offspring has. These are
22:01
Speaker 2: just brothers and sisters have zero point five similarity. Yeah,
22:05
Speaker 2: I think between the queen and her offspring, it's like
22:09
Speaker 2: point eight, and you're like, what is all this getting
22:12
Speaker 2: at the highest number you can get to is one
22:14
Speaker 2: point zero, and that's for identical twins that came from
22:18
Speaker 2: the same egg. They're almost genetically perfectly identical. And the
22:23
Speaker 2: queen and her offspring are like at point eight. So
22:26
Speaker 2: they are super duper imbread.
22:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're I mean, it's only them down there. What
22:33
Speaker 3: happens underground stays underground, you know what I'm saying.
22:35
Speaker 2: I guess.
22:36
Speaker 3: So the other cool thing or another cool thing about
22:40
Speaker 3: them living underground is that they're basically cold blooded. I
22:44
Speaker 3: think scientifically technically they're probably not, but effectively they are
22:49
Speaker 3: cold blooded mammals because they don't have self regulating body temperature.
22:56
Speaker 3: They regulate their body temperature in a few ways, but
22:59
Speaker 3: they basically call it behavioral regulation thermoregulation. They will work
23:04
Speaker 3: harder sometimes to get there, you know, to get the
23:07
Speaker 3: heat going. They will stack themselves on one another when
23:10
Speaker 3: it's colder and they will go higher in the tunnel system,
23:14
Speaker 3: closer to the surface to feel that sun's heat, but
23:18
Speaker 3: still not go outside to warm up. When it's colder,
23:21
Speaker 3: they will, I'm sorry, when it's warmer, they will go
23:23
Speaker 3: deeper and have more space in between them and stuff
23:26
Speaker 3: like that.
23:26
Speaker 2: And yet despite all that, despite not being able to
23:29
Speaker 2: regulate their own temperature, they still maintain about in the
23:33
Speaker 2: eighties fahrenheit. That's how warm it is in a naked
23:38
Speaker 2: mole rat tunnel system, and the humidity is like fifty
23:41
Speaker 2: to sixty percent. It's balmy.
23:43
Speaker 3: It's balmy. It's warm, and it's not balmy because it's
23:48
Speaker 3: full of water. Because get this, I know you know this.
23:52
Speaker 3: I'm talking to the people in podcast land. I know
23:54
Speaker 3: they don't drink water. They don't say like they try
23:58
Speaker 3: to seal off those tunnels. You know, it's not probably
24:01
Speaker 3: not possible to completely seal them off, but they would
24:03
Speaker 3: flood very easily if they didn't do as good a
24:05
Speaker 3: job as they do already. Sure, but it's not like
24:08
Speaker 3: they dig little water wells and let them fill up
24:11
Speaker 3: and go lap it up. You know, through those teeth.
24:13
Speaker 3: They don't drink water. They get water from what they eat.
24:18
Speaker 3: We said they didn't go out to find food and stuff.
24:20
Speaker 3: So you're wondering, like, what are they eating, like little
24:22
Speaker 3: insects is stumble in there? No, No, they are eating
24:26
Speaker 3: roots and bulbs and rhizomes and you know tubers, like
24:30
Speaker 3: basically what part of the plant is underground. They're eating
24:34
Speaker 3: that stuff and that's also where they're getting every bit
24:37
Speaker 3: of water they need.
24:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's pretty awesome. Again, like they live in the desert,
24:43
Speaker 2: so this is where desert plants store their waters in
24:46
Speaker 2: like big tubers and bulbs. And typically when a naked
24:49
Speaker 2: mole rat goes out and stumbles into a tuber, they'll
24:54
Speaker 2: start bringing it back to the rest of the colony.
24:57
Speaker 2: Very very good like that. They really look out for
24:59
Speaker 2: one another. But once in a while they'll find a
25:02
Speaker 2: tuber that's like fifty pounds. It's just huge, and they're
25:06
Speaker 2: no naked mole rat could do anything with that, So
25:09
Speaker 2: they eat it in situ, and they do it in
25:12
Speaker 2: such a way that when they'll bore a hole into
25:15
Speaker 2: this giant tuber, eat the inside flesh and then come
25:19
Speaker 2: back out and they'll plug the hole with dirt and
25:22
Speaker 2: then they'll let the tuber like regenerate, let the plant
25:25
Speaker 2: like regrow, and then they'll go back and do it
25:27
Speaker 2: again once the plant's healthy again.
25:29
Speaker 3: In that neat, it's amazing. And they're not doing this
25:34
Speaker 3: in any kind of I don't think we mentioned like
25:37
Speaker 3: their their sleep cycles. They're not. They work together like
25:41
Speaker 3: very very well. And we'll talk about that structure more
25:43
Speaker 3: in a minute. But it's not like they get up
25:45
Speaker 3: in the morning. They don't know what morning is. They're underground. Yeah, so,
25:48
Speaker 3: as far as anyone can tell, they don't have any
25:51
Speaker 3: kind of regular sleep cycle going on. They just they
25:54
Speaker 3: work when they're supposed to work, and they work till
25:56
Speaker 3: they get tired and then they sleep.
25:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's no morning under ground, isn't the grim.
26:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, but that's a that's a song title of some
26:07
Speaker 3: sort of death metal band. Probably.
26:09
Speaker 2: I think you could make it the the titular song
26:12
Speaker 2: title for the album.
26:14
Speaker 3: The Naked Mole Rats. Sure, that's it. That's the name
26:18
Speaker 3: of the man.
26:18
Speaker 2: I guess No, I mean, like, there is no Morning
26:20
Speaker 2: Underground is the name of the first single and the album.
26:24
Speaker 3: And the album, and then in parentheses it says like
26:28
Speaker 3: believe me or something like that. Sure, uh, or can
26:33
Speaker 3: we talk I mean, we talked about what they eat,
26:35
Speaker 3: but we should also talk about the other thing they
26:37
Speaker 3: sometimes eat.
26:37
Speaker 2: I'm kind of excited about this.
26:40
Speaker 3: Take it away.
26:41
Speaker 2: Then they eat poop.
26:43
Speaker 3: They eat their own poop.
26:44
Speaker 2: They eat their own poop, they eat others poop. Apparently
26:47
Speaker 2: the adults of the colony will poop directly into the
26:51
Speaker 2: mouths of the pups when they need it, when they
26:53
Speaker 2: want it. And this all sounds gross, and it is.
26:56
Speaker 2: I think even other types of mole rats are like,
26:58
Speaker 2: good God, have you seen what our cousins do when
27:01
Speaker 2: we're not around. But there's a good reason for this.
27:05
Speaker 2: This is actually a big strategy. They have a gut
27:08
Speaker 2: to digest these really hard tubers. This is not the
27:12
Speaker 2: kind of like root vegetables you would get at a
27:14
Speaker 2: grocery store. This is wild sub Saharan Africa tubers that
27:18
Speaker 2: they're eating and trying to digest, and they can't possibly
27:21
Speaker 2: digest it all the first time, so when they poop,
27:23
Speaker 2: it's still chuck full of food, so they don't waste it.
27:27
Speaker 2: They just eat the.
27:28
Speaker 3: Poop, that's right. And they have a hind gut because
27:32
Speaker 3: you know, herbivores often have things inside their body that
27:35
Speaker 3: are going to help them digest this really vibrus plant matter,
27:39
Speaker 3: and they do have a hind gut that is really
27:41
Speaker 3: good for that, but it's still not good enough. And
27:44
Speaker 3: so like you said, they eat, they poop, they eat
27:46
Speaker 3: it again, and that pretty much takes care of it.
27:49
Speaker 2: There's one other really cool thing about it, too.
27:51
Speaker 3: Well.
27:51
Speaker 2: There's two other cool things about eating poop. One, when
27:54
Speaker 2: the adults poop into the pup's mouths, they're not just
27:58
Speaker 2: feeding them, they're also transferfing gut microbiota, which will help
28:02
Speaker 2: them protect them from disease, will help them digest stuff
28:07
Speaker 2: even better. It's pretty neat. And then they also think
28:11
Speaker 2: we talked about suppressing the reproductiveness of the others, like
28:16
Speaker 2: the other females, the Queen can somehow repress them. They
28:20
Speaker 2: don't know how she's doing that, but they do think
28:23
Speaker 2: that the reason why other non worker females help raise
28:28
Speaker 2: pops with no incentive whatsoever and with no reproductive organs
28:32
Speaker 2: or hormones is that when they eat the queen's poop,
28:36
Speaker 2: she passes just enough estrogen to them to make them
28:39
Speaker 2: want to take care of the pipes.
28:41
Speaker 3: That is astounding, it is. And there's one more part
28:47
Speaker 3: to the poop. We mentioned, if you come in and
28:49
Speaker 3: you're from another colony, you're in big trouble. They also
28:54
Speaker 3: think that feeding the poop and also occasionally rolling in
28:57
Speaker 3: the poop is a way that they can impart like
28:59
Speaker 3: a colony smell that everyone's gonna have.
29:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, so everybody will smell the same. So if somebody
29:03
Speaker 2: shows up, you're like, you're not terry, and then they're
29:05
Speaker 2: dead right, because they can tell from your smell because
29:08
Speaker 2: their sense of smell is just ridiculously acute. That's basically
29:12
Speaker 2: what they have. Smell, touch, and then hearing somehow because
29:15
Speaker 2: they make more vocalizations than any other rodent on the planet,
29:20
Speaker 2: and yet they basically don't have ears, So I'm not
29:22
Speaker 2: sure how they do that.
29:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean we can talk about that a little bit.
29:26
Speaker 3: They have the queen has a toilet song when she
29:29
Speaker 3: goes poo poo in her toilet chamber. And I guess
29:33
Speaker 3: we should also say that they have different chambers for
29:35
Speaker 3: different things. They have bathrooms and they have bedrooms. They
29:41
Speaker 3: have these sort of expressway super highways that are a
29:43
Speaker 3: little larger where they're just crawling all over each other
29:46
Speaker 3: back and forth, but they have different rooms and one
29:49
Speaker 3: of them is a bathroom and she sings a little
29:51
Speaker 3: toilet song when she goes, and they think that might
29:54
Speaker 3: be like, hey, I just pooped. Is anyone going to
29:58
Speaker 3: come in here and eat this? Or'm not gonna have
29:59
Speaker 3: to throw it at you. She also says, hey, you
30:04
Speaker 3: three that I picked out earlier, I'm ready to have
30:07
Speaker 3: intercourse with you. So here here's my song for that.
30:12
Speaker 3: We mentioned those predators there sounds for predator invasions.
30:16
Speaker 1: Uh.
30:16
Speaker 3: And then you know, and this might lead us into
30:19
Speaker 3: talking about the social structure, maybe after a break. But
30:23
Speaker 3: they do have little chirps that will signal their social order,
30:27
Speaker 3: which is still not quite figured out. But maybe we'll
30:30
Speaker 3: take a break there and talk about that.
30:31
Speaker 2: Let's do it, all right, We'll be right back.
30:40
Speaker 1: Stop. You should know.
31:06
Speaker 3: So we mentioned early on that they are a part
31:09
Speaker 3: of the Bathier GID Is that right, Yeah, all right,
31:16
Speaker 3: Bathier GID group. And they are generally pretty solitary there.
31:20
Speaker 3: They may live with a few others here and there,
31:23
Speaker 3: but they don't do what naked mole rats do, which is,
31:25
Speaker 3: you know, colonies that can get up into the hundreds.
31:29
Speaker 3: They are the closest thing that you can compare a
31:31
Speaker 3: naked mole rat to is like an ant colony.
31:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, or bees, like they're like, you find you sociality.
31:38
Speaker 2: They're you social, I think you said before, you find
31:41
Speaker 2: that in the insect world, not in the mammal world.
31:44
Speaker 2: Apparently there's only other one kind of mole rat that
31:47
Speaker 2: has you social hierarchy. But theirs is even like it's
31:52
Speaker 2: just nothing compared to the rigidity of the naked mole rats.
31:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you social means it is like you said,
31:59
Speaker 3: it is rigid. It is very defined. Uh, but they
32:03
Speaker 3: don't fully understand that structure and full they have some
32:09
Speaker 3: little clues. I think some of the males vary in
32:11
Speaker 3: size a little bit, and I think they think that
32:14
Speaker 3: the ones that are a little bigger, maybe higher up
32:17
Speaker 3: on the you know, social structure. They most of them
32:20
Speaker 3: are workers, but some of them, it seems, are specifically soldiers. Yeah,
32:25
Speaker 3: kind of are on the front lines when that scorpion
32:27
Speaker 3: comes down.
32:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, they have a division of labor. What else, Well,
32:32
Speaker 2: I've got so there. So the fact that they're you
32:34
Speaker 2: social is not intuitive because no one knew that there
32:38
Speaker 2: were such a thing as mammals that were you social.
32:40
Speaker 2: And I found out that they've only known that these
32:43
Speaker 2: things were you social for since like the eighties or nineties,
32:47
Speaker 2: and the way that they found out was really astounding
32:50
Speaker 2: because some of these early naked morat researchers were like,
32:54
Speaker 2: where are why aren't these these morats pregnant? Like I
32:57
Speaker 2: have not seen a pregnant female because they didn't know
33:00
Speaker 2: that it's just the queen that's creating the litters, right.
33:03
Speaker 2: And there was a biologist named Richard Alexander who described
33:07
Speaker 2: a hypothetical you social mammal species, and somebody who was
33:13
Speaker 2: a researcher named Jennifer Jarvis, who is a naked mole
33:17
Speaker 2: rat researcher, was like, buddy, you just described naked mole rats,
33:20
Speaker 2: and I think you just solved this puzzle, this mystery
33:23
Speaker 2: that there are actually a you social mammal species. And
33:26
Speaker 2: that's how we figured it out, just totally by chance.
33:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, we mentioned the queen a few times.
33:31
Speaker 3: The queen is obviously at the top of that you
33:34
Speaker 3: social structure, and much like bees that we've talked about
33:39
Speaker 3: a lot, that queen runs the show. There is almost
33:44
Speaker 3: always only one queen. I think in rare cases there
33:47
Speaker 3: can be a couple of queens. But when it's time
33:49
Speaker 3: for a new queen to take the crown, there's a
33:52
Speaker 3: big fight. The females sometimes will kill each other to
33:56
Speaker 3: become queen. Oh yeah, but it's a violent affair to
33:59
Speaker 3: become queen, and they think that this is one of
34:03
Speaker 3: the reasons, one of a few reasons why the queen
34:06
Speaker 3: ends up larger is because you may start out a
34:10
Speaker 3: little larger if you're the one defeating the other females.
34:14
Speaker 3: And then this is another remarkable naked mole rat fact.
34:18
Speaker 3: Once you become queen, your body literally gets longer, your
34:23
Speaker 3: spine linkedins.
34:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, like I saw a picture I think ed added
34:28
Speaker 2: it in this article. Any of like the first litter queen,
34:32
Speaker 2: you know, five litter queen, ten litter queen, and that
34:36
Speaker 2: like I think the ten litter queen her spine is
34:39
Speaker 2: about at least one and a half times the length
34:42
Speaker 2: of what it would have been during her first litter.
34:44
Speaker 2: That's how significantly their body changes so that they can
34:48
Speaker 2: have larger and larger litters over time.
34:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's remarkable. And how many so they can
34:56
Speaker 3: have up to like ten litters total throughout their life.
35:00
Speaker 2: I think it can get even even larger than that
35:02
Speaker 2: I've seen, and I think that the number of pups
35:05
Speaker 2: in the litter the record is twenty seven.
35:09
Speaker 3: Oh wow.
35:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they're having a lot, and they can have
35:12
Speaker 2: tons of litters over their lifetime and then as many
35:16
Speaker 2: as you know, twenty seven in a single litter. They're
35:19
Speaker 2: really reproducing. There's a lot of pressure on them to produce,
35:22
Speaker 2: you know what I.
35:23
Speaker 3: Mean, Oh totally. You know, we mentioned that they almost
35:26
Speaker 3: never never go outside of the cave system and the
35:30
Speaker 3: tunnel system. The very few times that they've seen it
35:32
Speaker 3: happen is like they call it, like a mini migration
35:36
Speaker 3: where they will see one maybe try to go to
35:40
Speaker 3: a different colony. I don't know if they figured out
35:43
Speaker 3: why they would leave their colony, but periodically that will happen,
35:47
Speaker 3: and they will travel at night of course, because if
35:51
Speaker 3: they went out in the sun in the desert during
35:53
Speaker 3: the day, they would probably fry like little sausages with teeth,
35:56
Speaker 3: Like you said, for.
35:57
Speaker 2: Sure brought worst. So they also think that one of
36:02
Speaker 2: the main reasons that they would ever leave the colony
36:04
Speaker 2: and go up top is to form a new colony,
36:08
Speaker 2: kind of like a peaceful I guess, a peaceful coup.
36:13
Speaker 2: A bloodless coup that actually leaves the existing queen in place,
36:16
Speaker 2: because you know bees do that when they swarm. That's
36:19
Speaker 2: a bunch of bees in a colony that's gotten overcrowded,
36:22
Speaker 2: going and forming their own colony. Apparently, as you social mammals,
36:27
Speaker 2: that's what naked mole rats do as well. Sometimes.
36:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's pretty interesting, and I guess we should
36:35
Speaker 3: talk about. The final remarkable fact about naked molerats is
36:41
Speaker 3: that they don't age in the sense that we think
36:46
Speaker 3: about aging. Right, they get older on the calendar, but
36:51
Speaker 3: they have shown a remarkable lack of like their body
36:56
Speaker 3: and their organs and like their tissue and stuff like
37:00
Speaker 3: that showing signs of traditional aging.
37:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, which I mean they get up to thirty, like
37:06
Speaker 2: six times the average age of a mouse or the
37:09
Speaker 2: far end age of a mouse, and they're just not aging,
37:12
Speaker 2: no inflammation, Their bones don't deteriorate. They just are ageless.
37:18
Speaker 2: And people researchers who started to notice this are like,
37:22
Speaker 2: what is going on? And they have kind of zeroed
37:26
Speaker 2: in on one particular molecule called the high A lurinon
37:32
Speaker 2: And you might be familiar with higher luronic acid, which
37:37
Speaker 2: people love to put in like their facial moisturizers and
37:41
Speaker 2: stuff like that, because it's found in skin, well, it's
37:44
Speaker 2: also found in naked mole rat skin and it's found
37:47
Speaker 2: in aces. They have ten times the amount that humans do,
37:50
Speaker 2: and the molecules of high A luranon that they do
37:55
Speaker 2: have are like five times larger in size.
37:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, so they have more, bigger, high alurn molecules and
38:04
Speaker 3: they think that it's possible because they're very resistant to
38:08
Speaker 3: They found out at first they were very resistant to
38:11
Speaker 3: tumors in cancer, and so they're like in the naked
38:14
Speaker 3: mole rat does the is that the secret to curing cancer?
38:18
Speaker 3: And I don't think that anyone is like saying that
38:21
Speaker 3: they're right around the corner from figuring that out. But
38:24
Speaker 3: they have gotten this high allurn and they have put
38:27
Speaker 3: it in mice and that they because mice are very
38:31
Speaker 3: cancer prone, which is one reason we study mice when
38:33
Speaker 3: we study cancer. But they have found that these mice
38:37
Speaker 3: do much better and they live longer, and they it's
38:41
Speaker 3: almost like an immediate shot of youth when they get
38:44
Speaker 3: this stuff.
38:44
Speaker 2: Yeah. When they transfer the high alert and on synthase
38:47
Speaker 2: two gene into mice, they really benefit from it. And
38:51
Speaker 2: then on the cancer front, when they when they suppress
38:55
Speaker 2: the tumor suppressing genes that are found in mammals, in
39:00
Speaker 2: the naked mole rats, they still don't get tumors, but
39:04
Speaker 2: when they suppress the gene that expresses high alurinon, they
39:09
Speaker 2: start to get tumors. So they've pretty much zeroed in
39:12
Speaker 2: on high alurinon as some sort of an anti tumor agent.
39:15
Speaker 2: And it's a gooey sugar and they've shown that when
39:19
Speaker 2: you remove it from a petri dish of naked molerat cells,
39:22
Speaker 2: the cells will goop together, but they won't stick together
39:25
Speaker 2: as long as there's high alurinon in there.
39:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's in it's in there. Like you said,
39:31
Speaker 3: they're connected tissues. So it's one of the reasons they
39:34
Speaker 3: have that loose, kind of stretchy, weird looking skin is
39:39
Speaker 3: because of this high lurinon And we went over we
39:42
Speaker 3: drove right by. One of the facts that you duck
39:44
Speaker 3: up this pretty amazing is that in their is it
39:48
Speaker 3: their body can move inside their skin without their skin.
39:52
Speaker 2: Moving, they can turn about halfway around within their skin.
39:56
Speaker 3: It's that loose, so like they could be doing that
39:59
Speaker 3: in front of your face, and you would not know
40:00
Speaker 3: it because their skin is just static.
40:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, you'd be like, wow, why is their head over
40:05
Speaker 2: there all of a sudden righter still will seem to
40:07
Speaker 2: be facing forward, doesn't make any sense.
40:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that skin comes in handy when they're calling
40:13
Speaker 3: around those tunnels and slipping by each other and stuff
40:17
Speaker 3: like that. I mean, there are reasons why their skin
40:19
Speaker 3: is like that, and it's just remarkable these old guys.
40:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they think that the anti aging, anti tumor
40:26
Speaker 2: traits that they've developed over time are just a byproduct
40:32
Speaker 2: of the actual adaptation, which is super loose skin that's
40:37
Speaker 2: created by cells that aren't allowed to stick together.
40:40
Speaker 3: Yeah. And they've also found out that they don't experience
40:43
Speaker 3: pain like other mammals do, and you would, of course
40:48
Speaker 3: the first thing you think of is like, pain is
40:50
Speaker 3: a good thing, because that tells you when you've got
40:52
Speaker 3: your hand on a hot stove or what have you.
40:53
Speaker 2: That's not the first thing I think of. It's not, no,
40:57
Speaker 2: I think of that's great.
40:58
Speaker 3: I don't like pain, oh sure, but it's a you know,
41:02
Speaker 3: we have to have pain so we know when we're
41:04
Speaker 3: experiencing something that could kill us. Granted, but they have
41:10
Speaker 3: just enough of a pain receptor to like keep them
41:14
Speaker 3: from dying stupidly, but not enough to actually feel pain.
41:18
Speaker 3: And I saw this one fact, I guess from an
41:21
Speaker 3: experiment that means like somebody actually did this. They said
41:24
Speaker 3: that their skin doesn't respond to pain when you put
41:27
Speaker 3: acid or cap sasan like what they put in like pepper,
41:33
Speaker 3: you know, hot pepper stuff like in pepper spray, that's
41:35
Speaker 3: cap season, and their skin doesn't react when you put
41:38
Speaker 3: that stuff on their skin.
41:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, or they don't even if their skin's showing signs
41:42
Speaker 2: of burning. They're just like what, I didn't hear it.
41:45
Speaker 3: No, their skin literally doesn't respond to ask.
41:46
Speaker 2: Oh so the skin itself doesn't. The skin itself doesn't, Okay,
41:50
Speaker 2: But I get the impression also that if you like
41:52
Speaker 2: hurt one. I hate to even talk about this, but
41:55
Speaker 2: if you hurt one, it wouldn't even notice it because
41:58
Speaker 2: it's pain threshold is so high. And the reason they
42:01
Speaker 2: think that this is the case is because their metabolism
42:06
Speaker 2: is so fragile, a on such like a razor's edge,
42:08
Speaker 2: that they think that their nervous system evolved to, like
42:11
Speaker 2: you said, just give them enough pain signals to get by,
42:15
Speaker 2: but not enough to really require a lot of extra energy.
42:18
Speaker 2: They don't need that kind of sensation to survive.
42:22
Speaker 3: Does that mean in some lab somewhere they draw straws
42:25
Speaker 3: to see who has to thump the naked mole rat.
42:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll bet that's a bummer day for you at
42:30
Speaker 2: the office, would be for me.
42:35
Speaker 3: I think that's all the amazing facts. I'm looking over
42:38
Speaker 3: my notes. I don't think there's anything else, is there?
42:41
Speaker 2: I don't think so. The only thing I would say
42:43
Speaker 2: is go to the Smithsonian Naked mole rat camps as
42:46
Speaker 2: soon as you can. They're very cute to watch.
42:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, and watch fast, cheap and out of control. It's
42:51
Speaker 3: a great documentary because he somehow managed manages to Errol
42:55
Speaker 3: Morris does to tie each of these professions into a theme,
43:03
Speaker 3: a common theme. It's really interesting And if you think
43:07
Speaker 3: about it, it's robots that this guy's making that look
43:11
Speaker 3: like insects. It's plants that a guy is shaping to
43:15
Speaker 3: look like animals.
43:17
Speaker 2: Wait, wait, are you spoiling it right now?
43:19
Speaker 3: No, okay, these are just the jobs they have. The
43:23
Speaker 3: naked mole rat guy. I'm trying to figure out how
43:26
Speaker 3: that figured him that way. I can't remember, it's been
43:28
Speaker 3: a while, but anyway, this guy's enthusiasm the scientists that
43:31
Speaker 3: they found just just very contagious of how much he
43:34
Speaker 3: loves hiss naked mole rat.
43:35
Speaker 2: I could see it. I mean, you could do a
43:36
Speaker 2: lot worse to pin your career to that animal as
43:40
Speaker 2: a biologist. Like they are just coming up with some
43:43
Speaker 2: amazing stuff.
43:46
Speaker 3: Greed.
43:46
Speaker 2: So since I mentioned amazing stuff and Chuck said agreed,
43:50
Speaker 2: that means everybody, it's time for listener.
43:51
Speaker 3: Now that's right. But I'm going to shout out that
43:56
Speaker 3: naked mole rat guy. His name is Ray Mendez and
44:01
Speaker 3: he's pretty amazing nice all right, So I'm gonna call this.
44:05
Speaker 3: Let me see, I'm gonna open up the folder.
44:08
Speaker 2: Oh boy, mail you guys, you don't know what this means.
44:10
Speaker 2: When Chuck opens up the folder, it gets real.
44:15
Speaker 3: Uh oh boy, that's an old one. I'm going to
44:18
Speaker 3: read that one that might be out of date. I'll read, Oh, okay,
44:22
Speaker 3: this is fairly recent. Hoya. I remember we talked about
44:24
Speaker 3: the Georgetown Hoyas and were like, what the heck is
44:27
Speaker 3: a hooya? We heard from a few Hoyas and this
44:29
Speaker 3: was from Mark Mayer or Mark Meyer. Excuse me, Hey guys,
44:33
Speaker 3: first time writer, a longtime listener, graduate of Georgetown, You
44:37
Speaker 3: and I actually have some knowledge to give back. Your
44:40
Speaker 3: answer to the question, was a hoya is? Exactly? Let
44:45
Speaker 3: me explain. What I was taught was that Georgetown's nickname
44:49
Speaker 3: came from the stone walls, named after the university's beautiful
44:52
Speaker 3: walls or the football team's defense, depending on who you ask, okay,
44:58
Speaker 3: defense the good Jesuits that we are our cheer was
45:02
Speaker 3: the Latin translation of what rocks hoya saksa, and that
45:08
Speaker 3: was eventually shortened to hoya's the mascot change, but the
45:12
Speaker 3: nickname stuck. So if a Georgetown if you ask a
45:15
Speaker 3: Georgetown student what a hoya is, the standard tongue in
45:18
Speaker 3: cheek response is something like correct or exactly what is
45:23
Speaker 3: a hooya? Because the word hoya literally translates to what
45:28
Speaker 3: what is hoya?
45:29
Speaker 2: Is?
45:29
Speaker 3: How I should have read it?
45:30
Speaker 2: And now I understand why people don't like Georgetown graduates.
45:34
Speaker 2: I never knew, but now I do.
45:36
Speaker 3: Mark says, this is some nineteenth century who's on first
45:39
Speaker 3: type of fun. I hope this helps. Thanks for the
45:42
Speaker 3: quality entertainment that has gotten me through countless Moe's drives
45:48
Speaker 3: and runs. I guess mowing lawn. Sure, all right, that's
45:52
Speaker 3: for Mark Meyer.
45:53
Speaker 2: Thanks a lot, Mark, that was great knowledge you imparted.
45:56
Speaker 2: Thank you very much. I can't wait till somebody asks
45:59
Speaker 2: me what's a hoya? Can't wait?
46:01
Speaker 3: Say exactly?
46:02
Speaker 2: We can't wait. And if you want to be like
46:04
Speaker 2: Mark and send us some info that we didn't know,
46:07
Speaker 2: you can put it in an email and send it
46:09
Speaker 2: off to stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.
46:16
Speaker 3: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
46:19
Speaker 3: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
46:23
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