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What is parallel evolution? · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should Know
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Speaker 1: from house Stuff Works dot com? Hey, and welcome to
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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always is
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Speaker 1: Charles W. Chuck Bryant. I am here, sir, and that
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Speaker 1: makes this stuff you should know. Indeed, the Friday versions
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Speaker 1: been while on the Friday, it is Friday, isn't it?
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Speaker 1: Are we shouting out to Kiva? First thing? I think
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Speaker 1: we definitely should, dudes and do debts. We have surpassed
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Speaker 1: half a million bucks as a team in micro loans
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Speaker 1: to Kiva dot org. And that was our goal was
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Speaker 1: to hit it in May, and darn it all if
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Speaker 1: we didn't do it. We totally did it, and we
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Speaker 1: started our team October ten, two nine, and but by
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Speaker 1: the next October we'd already passed our two fifty dollar goal,
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Speaker 1: and then we wanted to get to five hundred thousand
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Speaker 1: in May. I didn't think it was possible. We totally did.
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Speaker 1: It's possible because of people like Glenn and Sonja who
1:14
Speaker 1: helm the team for us. There are de facto captains.
1:18
Speaker 1: It's because of people like Blake this guy who came
1:21
Speaker 1: in and UM basically put sixteen lemons I think on
1:26
Speaker 1: his credit card because he said he was sick of
1:28
Speaker 1: us being so close to half a million dollars but
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Speaker 1: not quite there. Um. And everybody who's a member on
1:35
Speaker 1: our team who's contributed anything, well at least five bucks. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: we're number three on all of Cuba in the number
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Speaker 1: of team members, ahead of Team Obama in Australia and Europe.
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Speaker 1: We're just so proud of you. We're very proud of everybody,
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Speaker 1: and it's just cool. And I guess Glenn and Sonia
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Speaker 1: will probably help us figure out the next goal, which
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Speaker 1: I guess will be a million bucks. I would say
1:57
Speaker 1: we I'd say a million why not, let's do it.
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Speaker 1: Might take a year from now, but I ain't going anywhere.
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Speaker 1: We'll find out. Let's do it, okay, So our goal
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Speaker 1: now is to lend a million dollars on Cuba through
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Speaker 1: our stuff. You should know team Let's go, guys, all right,
2:11
Speaker 1: way to go. Everybody eat a cupcake, that's right, a
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Speaker 1: good one too. And if you want to know about
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Speaker 1: CIVA and you don't know about our team, you can
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Speaker 1: find that at k I D A dot org slash
2:23
Speaker 1: team or is it teams team team slash stuff. You
2:28
Speaker 1: should know you can join up at the team and
2:30
Speaker 1: just make one little lousy loan and you can get
2:33
Speaker 1: your money back and then you can pull it out
2:35
Speaker 1: if you want, but you're probably gonna want to reinvest it,
2:37
Speaker 1: which is kind of cool. And you know what before
2:39
Speaker 1: you do, before you sign up um, or if you
2:41
Speaker 1: just recently signed up, you should read our two part
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Speaker 1: blog post on CIVA and how we feel about Cuba
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Speaker 1: because it's not a perfect system. Um and after a
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Speaker 1: while everyone inevitably runs up against the flaws and it
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Speaker 1: and talks about quitting and all that and um, so
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Speaker 1: we wrote a couple of posts on it so you
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Speaker 1: could sort whis why we land at s Y s
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Speaker 1: k um and uh, that will bring it up on
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Speaker 1: the blogs, right yeah, And just you know, what I've
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Speaker 1: learned is just like regular loans, micro loans are no different.
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Speaker 1: There are people that get in trouble and should not
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Speaker 1: have borrowed what they borrowed. And it's even sadder I
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Speaker 1: think that people borrow you know, six hundred bucks and
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Speaker 1: can't for that, and so there are there are some downsides,
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Speaker 1: but we found not only that there are also tons
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Speaker 1: of predators out there lending to people at horrible rates.
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Speaker 1: But we believe in Kiva and we found that there
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Speaker 1: are many, many more positive associations. So agreed, Moving on,
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Speaker 1: Moving on, dude, um So also probably wouldn't hurt to
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Speaker 1: go listen to our micro Lending How micro Lending Works
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Speaker 1: podcasts where we first discovered Cuba. That's right, um So, Chuck,
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Speaker 1: We're going to talk about something that has absolutely nothing
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Speaker 1: to do with CIVA as far as I know. Okay,
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Speaker 1: I think you're right. Um let's talk first about Australia. Uh,
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Speaker 1: Australia is this awesome little all natural laboratory, a giant
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Speaker 1: Petrie dish if you will. Just from childhood, I've always
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Speaker 1: been amazed that it's a country and a continent. My
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Speaker 1: hats always gone off to Australia. So to all of
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Speaker 1: our peeps down in Australia, Chuck, take off your hand. Okay,
4:16
Speaker 1: there you get You're supposed to say, ohit oit oi, yes,
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Speaker 1: just pretend I just did. Um and Uh. The reason
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Speaker 1: being is because at one point the the continents all
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Speaker 1: formed a super continent, Pangaea, some of the other continents.
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Speaker 1: Um kind of stuck together a little more. Australia went
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Speaker 1: off by itself, as Australians do. It went off to
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Speaker 1: do its own thing, that's right. And um, there were
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Speaker 1: animals in existence about sixty million years ago when it
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Speaker 1: broke off. Um that we're living on Australia. Yeah. I
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Speaker 1: pictured the little crack forming and then separating and literally
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Speaker 1: animals looking at their little species brethren going by. That's
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Speaker 1: a that's a really good way to look at it too,
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Speaker 1: because it's not like these cracks happened like you know
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Speaker 1: this this species lives over here and this species lives
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Speaker 1: over there, right, I mean that's pretty much exactly how
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Speaker 1: it happened. I mean not that quickly, maybe using time
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Speaker 1: and last photography, but um, essentially that gave that gave
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Speaker 1: rise to related species evolving in in completely different parts
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Speaker 1: of the world, that's right. So Australia gave us some
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Speaker 1: freak shows like koala, bears, kangaroos, wombats, Tasmanian devils that
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Speaker 1: are really different than other animals and other parts of
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Speaker 1: the world exactly. Um, but it also gave us a
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Speaker 1: little something called the flying falangists. I've never heard of this, Okay,
5:42
Speaker 1: the flying falangists looks it's a it's a rodent, has
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Speaker 1: a tail that has a tiny head just covered in fur.
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Speaker 1: It'll give you some sort of pestilent disease if you
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Speaker 1: eat it raw. Yeah. Um. But it also has this
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Speaker 1: weird little um bit of in that were tracks, except
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Speaker 1: when it's jumping from tree to tree, it spreads its
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Speaker 1: arms and legs out yep, spread eagle, and this flap
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Speaker 1: of skin in between its arm and say it's ribs
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Speaker 1: and then its legs and it's so say buttocks. This
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Speaker 1: skin flaps out to allow it to glide. It's like
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Speaker 1: it's like those flying dudes that you see now, the
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Speaker 1: skydivers that they basically wear a little flying suits. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: wingsuit yeah, wings Those things are awesome. It's pretty cool,
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Speaker 1: um and way dangerous. So this is like the original.
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Speaker 1: This is the o G of that. Yeah. I think
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Speaker 1: it was based on that flying flanges. It sounds like, again,
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Speaker 1: a total freak show until you remember, oh yeah, North
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Speaker 1: America has flying squirrels that are the exact same thing.
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Speaker 1: And I had a pet one. I think I mentioned
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Speaker 1: that before you did, didn't you. Okay, So if you
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Speaker 1: go back far enough on the family tree, you're going
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Speaker 1: to find that both of these animals ancestors were living
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Speaker 1: on Australia and elsewhere in the world at the time.
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Speaker 1: That's right. Okay, so when they when they split off,
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Speaker 1: when Australia broke off, um, this this animal's habitat was disrupted,
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Speaker 1: and so you had two members of the same species
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Speaker 1: living on different parts of the world but evolving completely differently. Right.
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Speaker 1: So they've gotten to the point now where the flying
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Speaker 1: squirrel and the flying flanges they're not the same animal.
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Speaker 1: They're different species because they can't engage in successful reproduction
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Speaker 1: any longer. But they still both evolved independently these flaps,
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Speaker 1: which are just totally odd. That's what's called parallel evolution, right,
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Speaker 1: That's right. And um, the flying flanges and flying squirrel
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Speaker 1: are far from the only species that are no longer related,
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Speaker 1: that are no longer the same species that have evolved similarly,
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Speaker 1: which poses a really big question for biology and evolution.
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Speaker 1: How is this happening? It's right. Well, parallel evolution um.
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Speaker 1: Further defined is when they're related species that have been split.
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Speaker 1: When two different species share these traits, it's morphological similarity
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Speaker 1: kind of neat, huh. And when two completely unrelated species
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Speaker 1: develop this morphological similarity. It's called convergent evolution. And it's
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Speaker 1: kind of hard to tell because we don't know exactly
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Speaker 1: how things were millions of years ago. When sure exactly
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Speaker 1: which one of these uh we're similar back then? But
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Speaker 1: we do know in like the case of the squirrel
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Speaker 1: in the Philanger Philanger, Yeah plane filangists, Philanger, I've been
8:31
Speaker 1: saying philangists, Philanger. Yeah, it's a Philanger, the flying Philanger.
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Speaker 1: What they should is called a squirrel. M. Well, that
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Speaker 1: that that occurred to me. Maybe maybe there isn't such
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Speaker 1: a thing as parallel evolution. Maybe it's all humans. We're
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Speaker 1: just not calling everything the same thing. It's our naming convention.
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Speaker 1: There's problem solved. So one of the reason and it's
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Speaker 1: pretty simple actually, and it makes a lot of sense
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Speaker 1: that parallel evolution can occur is that, um, when you
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Speaker 1: have a similar environment with two species, uh, population pressure
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Speaker 1: is gonna lead to similar traits, Like we gotta survive,
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Speaker 1: So if we live in a similar environment, then we're
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Speaker 1: probably gonna evolve similarly. Like if it's really cold, we're
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Speaker 1: probably gonna have thick fur as you know, different species. Um,
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Speaker 1: it's pretty basic. Another really good example I think that
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Speaker 1: was used with teeth, Yes right, yeah, I know that
9:25
Speaker 1: it's jumping around a little bit, but that's all right.
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Speaker 1: Teeth things we take for granted, they're so ubiquitous. Sharp teeth.
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Speaker 1: Sharp teeth are found in all carnivores. And the reason
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Speaker 1: why is because it's a really good trait. Yeah right,
9:38
Speaker 1: because we can dig into meat. Same thing though, although
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Speaker 1: I can't with my stupid bum tooth. I'm I'm devolving
9:45
Speaker 1: someday again through technology, I hope. So. So, what you're
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Speaker 1: talking about, Chuck is Um with natural selection is that basically,
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Speaker 1: if you imagine dropping an animal into a an environment,
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Speaker 1: so a jungle, right, there are parts of it that
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Speaker 1: are going to allow it to thrive. There are things
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Speaker 1: that are going to make it less likely to thrive.
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Speaker 1: The things that make it likelier to thrive, or the
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Speaker 1: the traits that are going to get passed along from
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Speaker 1: generation to generation. As long as they hang along, hang
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Speaker 1: on long enough to to survive through the reproduction process,
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Speaker 1: then it gets ingrained and boom, you've got yourself a
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Speaker 1: trade well by nature, the the traits that allow it
10:27
Speaker 1: to hang on long enough to reproduce are going to
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Speaker 1: be most successful traits because with reproduction, those are the
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Speaker 1: ones that are going to get passed around the most frequently,
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Speaker 1: and then eventually the one the animals that had more
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Speaker 1: of the traits that didn't allow it to thrive are
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Speaker 1: gonna die out. They're not going to reproduce. So on
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Speaker 1: a long enough time scale, this reproduction will lead to
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Speaker 1: um higher frequency of traits that make an animal fit
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Speaker 1: for its environment. Right, Like the guerrilla, for instance, used
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Speaker 1: to have a large ale with a pin wheel on
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Speaker 1: the end of it, but it was really you know,
11:03
Speaker 1: I didn't really do much for him, so over time
11:05
Speaker 1: it just kind of went away. Right. That's not true, though,
11:08
Speaker 1: is it? No, it's not true. What do you mean?
11:11
Speaker 1: Is it all right? It was making sure? Um? So
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Speaker 1: these changes though, these traits, right, they just kind of
11:17
Speaker 1: seemed to pop up here there, if you're in our
11:20
Speaker 1: current understanding of genetics, same nineteen eighties understanding of genetics,
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Speaker 1: they just kind of pop up out of nowhere. Um.
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Speaker 1: But chuck, if I may digress for a second, please,
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Speaker 1: have we ever explained what came first the chicken or
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Speaker 1: the egg. Yeah, it's been a while though it has,
11:38
Speaker 1: but we have already yeah, but it's been a while.
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Speaker 1: I think it deserves a recap okay, because you actually
11:42
Speaker 1: know the answer, Yes, I do. I can say that
11:46
Speaker 1: the egg came first because the genetic mutation that gives
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Speaker 1: rise to new species, to new animals occurs UH in
11:56
Speaker 1: the zygotic stage of development. Right. So that means a
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Speaker 1: non chicken and a non chicken got together and created
12:04
Speaker 1: as I got that had a mutation that eventually turned
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Speaker 1: it into a chicken. Its jeans were expressed to be
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Speaker 1: a chicken. To the egg came first. The egg came
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Speaker 1: before the chicken. Eventually the egg hatched and you had
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Speaker 1: the first chicken. But the egg came first, all right, Um.
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Speaker 1: But the point of me saying that is that the
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Speaker 1: mutations that appear, these traits that change over time or
12:28
Speaker 1: show up that make an animal more fit for its environment,
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Speaker 1: happened in the reproductive level of zygote, That's right. And
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Speaker 1: the accumulation of those traits, the beneficial traits that make
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Speaker 1: it able to survive UH in a certain place, like
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Speaker 1: a polar bear in the cold, is called an ecological niche.
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Speaker 1: Niche and some people say, we talked about the polar
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Speaker 1: bear before um separating from the Brown Bear and the
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Speaker 1: Black Bear and Evolution in Isolation, which was kind of
12:56
Speaker 1: a companion podcast of this one. Did you write that one, Yeah,
13:00
Speaker 1: I wrote that one. I didn't write this one that
13:01
Speaker 1: this was the grabster. Yeah, that's right, of course. So
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Speaker 1: that's an ecological niche and um animals, like we mentioned
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Speaker 1: the polar bear, that have adapted to live in a
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Speaker 1: cold area. You throw a polar bear out in the
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Speaker 1: savannah of Africa and it's not gonna do too well, right,
13:17
Speaker 1: which brings up another point I think that is there's
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Speaker 1: a lesson in all of this what we're talking about,
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Speaker 1: especially with ecological niches. We especially us being humans at
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Speaker 1: the top of the food chain and the smartest things
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Speaker 1: ever since slight spread um or prairie dogs go ahead, okay,
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Speaker 1: tend to look at evolution as um basically a ladder
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Speaker 1: and we're at the top, baby, right, that's not the
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Speaker 1: case an ecological niches point that point that out. If
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Speaker 1: you if humans okay, great example, if you take a
13:50
Speaker 1: human and put it at the bottom of the Marianna trench,
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Speaker 1: it's not going to thrive, It's going to drown or
13:55
Speaker 1: its heads going to explode. We're not suited for it.
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Speaker 1: So we're not evolved. We're not at the top of evolution.
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Speaker 1: If evolution were a ladder and we were at the top,
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Speaker 1: we'd be suited for any environment. We're not at a
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Speaker 1: good point. So, as a guy named Matt Ridley points
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Speaker 1: out in a book called The Red Queen, Sex and
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Speaker 1: the Evolution of Human Nature, um that evolution is not
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Speaker 1: a ladder, it is a treadmill. Yeah. No, animals necessarily
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Speaker 1: better than another more highly evolved. It has to do
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Speaker 1: with adapting to your local environment. That's one of the
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Speaker 1: processes of parallel evolution. Makes sense. We adapt to our
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Speaker 1: local environment or our ecological niche. That's right. That's a
14:39
Speaker 1: very good point. And the reason we're pointing out ecological
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Speaker 1: niche to begin with is because animals are I'm sorry
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Speaker 1: organisms period that have parallel or convergent evolution are usually
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Speaker 1: or more likely to have a similar ecological niche. It's
14:55
Speaker 1: a really really long way of putting that, was it. Yeah. Uh.
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Speaker 1: For instance, you look at um an animal like the
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Speaker 1: wildebeeste or North American cattle, they're actually sort of parallel
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Speaker 1: evolutionized and they because they live in very similar areas.
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Speaker 1: You know, planes, hot, grassy, and uh so they're really
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Speaker 1: similar in the end, even though they're on two different continents.
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Speaker 1: Number one evolutionized t shirt. Okay, okay, Number two, that's
15:24
Speaker 1: absolutely right, all right, yeah, thank you, absolutely right? Right? Okay, great,
15:31
Speaker 1: what do you think? I thought you said? Wrong? And
15:33
Speaker 1: it's absolutely white? Okay, that's absolutely blite. But Josh, absolutely
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Speaker 1: sometimes convergent evolution does not depend on this ecological niche
15:44
Speaker 1: because the trait is really advantageous for all kinds of organisms.
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Speaker 1: And that's when you brought up the sharp teeth, limbs, wings, arms.
15:55
Speaker 1: Consider this the arms. Uh we can say now looking
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Speaker 1: at Jean Ms, that arms are a direct relative of fins.
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Speaker 1: This again goes to the idea that evolution is a treadmill,
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Speaker 1: not a ladder. Right, So it's not like arms are
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Speaker 1: the inevitable and of fins. What are you laughing about.
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Speaker 1: It's that fins are better suited for swimming around the water. Right.
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Speaker 1: But the same genes, the same genetics set, the same
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Speaker 1: genetic code that give you fins also give you arms
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Speaker 1: if you're walking around, maybe swinging from trees or need
16:31
Speaker 1: to climb them, or need to like, you know, high
16:34
Speaker 1: five somebody to keep society going right. Yeah, yeah, same thing. Yeah,
16:39
Speaker 1: you're right, but you know, we're not the only things
16:42
Speaker 1: that evolved limbs. But limbs are so advantageous, just like
16:45
Speaker 1: teeth um that we are. That a lot of different,
16:49
Speaker 1: completely unrelated species evolved limbs to walk and to grab things.
16:55
Speaker 1: And which is what is that convergent evolution? Yes, I
17:00
Speaker 1: would say so we're the very least parallel. You know.
17:02
Speaker 1: I have to say I'm surprising myself, extremely passionate for
17:07
Speaker 1: this one. I don't understand why. Well, it's cool. And
17:09
Speaker 1: you know, we haven't covered evolution in Earnest as a podcast,
17:12
Speaker 1: but we've hit on it in so many I think
17:14
Speaker 1: we're covering it in the long run one way or
17:16
Speaker 1: the other. You know what I think it is. I
17:18
Speaker 1: am just barely hanging on by my fingernails. So I'm
17:21
Speaker 1: really like, yeah, if I say it really fast, it'll
17:24
Speaker 1: it'll be right. All right. Let's talk about genetics in
17:26
Speaker 1: this whole mess a parallel evolution. There are two things
17:30
Speaker 1: to think about when you think about genetics, and the
17:32
Speaker 1: first one, I think it's kind of cool. The genetic
17:35
Speaker 1: code for species potentially has a hidden blueprint almost for
17:42
Speaker 1: what it could do but not necessarily does do. And
17:46
Speaker 1: the grab stre likned it too. Let's say you have
17:48
Speaker 1: a blueprint of a house and the architect designed it
17:51
Speaker 1: such that you can add on a master bedroom here
17:55
Speaker 1: in this spot, but you never do it. But it's there.
17:57
Speaker 1: You've got the land and the blueprint it for it.
18:00
Speaker 1: You just don't use it right because the architects said,
18:03
Speaker 1: don't build that edition yet they don't have the money
18:05
Speaker 1: for it. They're just building the house exactly. But it
18:07
Speaker 1: still exists in the in the master blueprint. And the
18:09
Speaker 1: same can be said of let's say a jellyfish, which
18:12
Speaker 1: is round right. There's no right or left side of
18:15
Speaker 1: a sea and and and and intomy has radial symmetry, right,
18:20
Speaker 1: a jellyfish or an anemony so hard for me? Anemone
18:24
Speaker 1: show off an enemy now it's not an enemy, uhete
18:29
Speaker 1: and chuck. There is no left or right side as
18:32
Speaker 1: a radial body plan. It's circular and which is not
18:35
Speaker 1: a funny shape at all. And the genetic code, though
18:38
Speaker 1: is there. So eventually, one day, let's say the jellyfish
18:42
Speaker 1: needed to evolve to have a left or right side
18:45
Speaker 1: for some reason, it could do that genetically speaking, the
18:48
Speaker 1: code is there. Yeah, for bilateral symmetry, which I have,
18:51
Speaker 1: which you have? That you could as down the middle.
18:54
Speaker 1: We could be folded in half. Yes, if you put
18:58
Speaker 1: a mirror up to your knows perpendicular to your nose, no,
19:03
Speaker 1: parallel to your nose, the point of your nose, it
19:06
Speaker 1: would be half. It looked like you. That's right, right,
19:09
Speaker 1: you know they say symmetry equals beauty. Yes, that's what
19:12
Speaker 1: they say. That's what a lot of people say. Um,
19:15
Speaker 1: you've got a big walleye on one side. That's why
19:18
Speaker 1: you're not attractive. What are you going after? The eyes?
19:22
Speaker 1: You mentioned disco? I'm another recent podcast, did somebody Okay? So,
19:29
Speaker 1: so jellyfish have radio symmetry, but they have a genetic
19:32
Speaker 1: marker to kick in bilateral symmetry they ever need it,
19:35
Speaker 1: and believe me, I would run horrified from Maybe that's
19:39
Speaker 1: what Cathulhu is. It's a it's a jellyfish who's like
19:43
Speaker 1: bilateral symmetry has started to kick in a little bit. Nice. Um.
19:47
Speaker 1: The point is is it's not just jellyfish. There are
19:51
Speaker 1: a lot of dormant jeans just ready to go off
19:54
Speaker 1: with the right mutation um to change all sorts of
19:57
Speaker 1: stuff and they think. Also, I read the article that
20:00
Speaker 1: he cited, the art technical article that the jellyfish have
20:03
Speaker 1: that so that they can develop their mouth. Yeah, cool,
20:08
Speaker 1: because the mouth requires bilateral symmetry jellyfish. The reason we
20:13
Speaker 1: mentioned this to begin with, though, is that the belief
20:16
Speaker 1: that you can develop similar traits even though you evolve separately,
20:20
Speaker 1: which is what we've been talking about this whole time,
20:22
Speaker 1: because the trait has always been in your genetic code
20:24
Speaker 1: to begin with, just dormant, right, it's just very very ancient,
20:29
Speaker 1: and then it can express in different ways, like apparently
20:31
Speaker 1: they looked at the fins of a fish, right and
20:35
Speaker 1: found that they have pretty much the same genes that
20:38
Speaker 1: we do for our arms, okay, and bilateral symmetry. Those
20:43
Speaker 1: genes are the same for everything. Right, So we're all
20:46
Speaker 1: a lot more related, I guess than we thought now
20:49
Speaker 1: that we're starting to look into it. I wonder if,
20:52
Speaker 1: well we probably know this by now, if we have
20:53
Speaker 1: any dormant genetic codes and humans like, we could potentially
20:57
Speaker 1: grow that tail if we needed to. Well, apparently we
21:00
Speaker 1: do have tales in some embryotic development stage. We still
21:05
Speaker 1: have distigial tales, and there are people who are born
21:07
Speaker 1: with him who don't shed them. That's pretty cool. Who
21:10
Speaker 1: had the tale? Uh? Jason Alexander had one in one
21:13
Speaker 1: of the Fairly Brothers movies. Yeah, we're like, if it
21:17
Speaker 1: was was it? There's something there's something about Mary. Wasn't it? No, No,
21:20
Speaker 1: he wouldn't in that. Are you sure that wasn't it? Yes?
21:24
Speaker 1: Thank you? Yeah, yeah, that's what I meant to. Didn't
21:26
Speaker 1: one of the friends have a tale? No? No, no,
21:29
Speaker 1: Channel had a third nipple? Yes, superfluous Nipplesony Krusty the clown.
21:34
Speaker 1: He so, Josh, what's the second thing to consider? Well,
21:37
Speaker 1: I guess the other thing we've been what got biologists
21:42
Speaker 1: into the idea of looking at jeans is that we
21:44
Speaker 1: were looking at morphological changes, right. Stuff we can see
21:48
Speaker 1: like this flying squirrel is not related to that flying squirrel,
21:51
Speaker 1: but they're both flying squirrels, even though we call them
21:53
Speaker 1: different things. Philanders um. When we look at the genetic level,
21:58
Speaker 1: we're finding that like the same morphological traits, the similarities
22:02
Speaker 1: are are also found on the genetic level, right, So
22:06
Speaker 1: basically they're thinking, like you can you can look at
22:10
Speaker 1: the ecological pressure, the environmental pressure that caused a polar
22:15
Speaker 1: bears coat to become white right um on an internal
22:21
Speaker 1: level with the interactions between amino acids and proteins that
22:25
Speaker 1: are causing these genes to be expressed, so internally and externally,
22:30
Speaker 1: these changes are are occurring um to form flying filangers
22:36
Speaker 1: and squirrels on two different continents. Thank you the freak
22:39
Speaker 1: show that is Australia for basically pointing science in the
22:43
Speaker 1: right direction. They love it when we talk about them too.
22:45
Speaker 1: We always get email from masses that are just like you.
22:48
Speaker 1: Guys are the best. Another and they gave us another
22:51
Speaker 1: one too. Um the Tasmanian wolf now extinct wolf which
22:57
Speaker 1: is um almost completely unre related to any other wolf.
23:01
Speaker 1: It's extinct, like I said, um, but it is the
23:05
Speaker 1: spitting image of the gray wolf here in North America,
23:10
Speaker 1: even though they're like they were not related, same everything.
23:14
Speaker 1: This is the kind of science I dig. Yeah, cool science. Yeah,
23:18
Speaker 1: not that physics magnetism. You're into physics that sort of
23:25
Speaker 1: just that a necessity, I guess. Yeah, but you you
23:27
Speaker 1: have an appreciation more than I do. I think. Really, Yeah,
23:29
Speaker 1: you don't like full crumbs? What is wrong with what's
23:32
Speaker 1: the full crumb? The full crumb is the point it's
23:36
Speaker 1: like a see saw, right, and that the full crumb. Yeah, okay,
23:39
Speaker 1: it's the it's the point of balance on a on
23:41
Speaker 1: a sea saw. It's the point that he saw balance. Yeah, yeah,
23:46
Speaker 1: same thing. You got anything else? Are we just gonna
23:50
Speaker 1: evolve separately? Here? I think? So? Okay, if you want
23:53
Speaker 1: to learn more about evolution, UM, you should type in
23:57
Speaker 1: evolution in the search part how stuff works dot com. Um.
24:00
Speaker 1: Also check out can animals evolve in isolation? That's a
24:04
Speaker 1: cool article, Um, This article we've been talking about from
24:07
Speaker 1: the grabster, How can two seemingly unrelated species that live
24:11
Speaker 1: in isolation from each other evolve into identical forms? You
24:15
Speaker 1: can also reach it by typing in parallel evolution in
24:18
Speaker 1: the search bart how stuff works dot Com. So there's
24:22
Speaker 1: a lot for you to go check out there, all right? Yeah,
24:24
Speaker 1: And I would say just type in evolution and how
24:26
Speaker 1: stuff works, and you're gonna get a whole bevy of
24:28
Speaker 1: cool cool stuff. That's what I said first. Yeah, I'm
24:31
Speaker 1: reinforcing that well, Chuck said search bart how stuff works? Right, Yeah,
24:37
Speaker 1: I did too. It means it's super super time for
24:40
Speaker 1: listener mail. That's right, Josh, I'm gonna call this um
24:47
Speaker 1: Mountaintop removable coal mining email from an inside one of millions. Yeah,
24:53
Speaker 1: we got a lot of positive feedback from this, and
24:55
Speaker 1: surprisingly not one person is written in yet that said,
24:58
Speaker 1: you jerks. You never think about the the minor side
25:00
Speaker 1: of things. Most people have been like, yeah, this is
25:03
Speaker 1: probably shouldn't be. Some some guy on Twitter basically said
25:06
Speaker 1: I don't like it when they get political, but this
25:09
Speaker 1: one was pretty good. All right, Yeah, I'll take that. Man.
25:12
Speaker 1: Hey guys, I've heard all your podcasts from day one,
25:14
Speaker 1: and keep up the good work. Please. Uh sometimes you
25:17
Speaker 1: are all I need to get away from the day's stress.
25:19
Speaker 1: I mean mining engineers. Student enrolled at the University of
25:23
Speaker 1: Kentucky Go Wildcats, one of the largest exporters of eager
25:29
Speaker 1: and to do mining engineers. In reality, the decision to
25:32
Speaker 1: enroll here had more to do with scholarship opportunities than
25:35
Speaker 1: a lifelong love of Appalachian mining. However, after being surrounded
25:39
Speaker 1: by over zealous students who would personally blow up the
25:42
Speaker 1: earth for an ounce of coal because it keeps the
25:44
Speaker 1: lights on, I have become entirely infatuated with this mindset.
25:48
Speaker 1: I've interviewed for all the big name companies some of
25:51
Speaker 1: which spend hundreds of thousands of dollars recruiting new workforce.
25:56
Speaker 1: When I interviewed for these companies, they seem to be
25:58
Speaker 1: in complete denial of this satistics, occasionally showing a picture
26:02
Speaker 1: of a deer standing on a patch of grass and
26:04
Speaker 1: claiming that it's as if we were never there in
26:06
Speaker 1: the first place. As I have been shown firsthand what
26:09
Speaker 1: the mining field entails, I have nothing but devout respect
26:13
Speaker 1: for what these people do on a daily basis. And
26:15
Speaker 1: that's something I don't know. If we make clear we're
26:17
Speaker 1: not anti minors, we know these people were very thin. Yeah,
26:22
Speaker 1: I have nothing but devout respect for what these people
26:24
Speaker 1: do on a daily basis to make sure that I
26:26
Speaker 1: can send this email on my electricity powered laptop. At
26:30
Speaker 1: the same time, I shudder in disappointment that they wishfully
26:33
Speaker 1: remain ignorant of the science involved in the harm they
26:36
Speaker 1: are doing. Part of me wishes to enter the field
26:38
Speaker 1: to reinvent the idea that providing energy must come at
26:42
Speaker 1: a sacrifice that compromises our ability to take care of
26:45
Speaker 1: the environment in our neighbors. Wish me luck, as I
26:47
Speaker 1: have a lot of work ahead of me, and I
26:50
Speaker 1: asked him if you want to remain anonymous, and he
26:53
Speaker 1: said it's probably a good idea. So that's anonymous, but
26:56
Speaker 1: pretty cool. He thinks a lot of anonymous pretty trade. Yeah,
27:02
Speaker 1: changing changing the place from the inside, right, Good luck, buddy.
27:06
Speaker 1: We like anonymous emails right there, usually the most like
27:09
Speaker 1: what ones right? Exactly? All right? Well, if you want
27:11
Speaker 1: to send us an anonymous email, we would love to
27:14
Speaker 1: hear from you. Um, you can address it too. Stuff
27:19
Speaker 1: podcasts at how stuff works dot com. For more on
27:27
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff
27:29
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27:32
Speaker 1: on the podcast icon in the upper right corner of
27:34
Speaker 1: our homepage. The how Stuff Works iPhone app has arrived.
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