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How Pollen Works · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Clark and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and that means
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: it's time for stuff you should know that itchy screezy
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: seezy scratchy addition, not scheezy. No, that's not itchy scratchy
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: sneezy edition. That's what I mean. There you go. It's
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: funny how you can mix words together come up with
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: other words. You didn't mean to say, Jerry's eyes are
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: at itching. Yeah, well we should say. We were just
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: talking about the pollen count here in Atlanta. That's pretty
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  Speaker 1: much all we ever talked about. Ever when the camera's
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  Speaker 1: not honor that mikes aren't recording that in Coca Cola.
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  Speaker 1: Oh you know how everyone comes to Atlanta and they're like, oh,
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: every street's named Peachtree. Let's go drink a coke because
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: so's the only two things we've ever had. Alright, Sorry,
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  Speaker 1: that's fun. So you want to talk about pollittin Moore
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  Speaker 1: it's low right now in Atlanta thirty nine that's moderate. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: well low for us, right, but like according to the
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  Speaker 1: pollen scale they scale that they used to count pollen
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  Speaker 1: and then designated somewhere along the pollen spectrum. Thirty nine
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  Speaker 1: is considered moderate, not even low moderate. When it's really
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  Speaker 1: bad here in Georgia, it gets to about nine thousand.
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  Speaker 1: Those are the few weeks that the the streets run
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  Speaker 1: yellow with. When it rains with yellow water, it looks
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  Speaker 1: like p yep, your car is totally covered in it.
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  Speaker 1: You're covered in it. It's just everywhere everywhere. Yeah, but
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: now we're about to tell everybody we're basically going to
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  Speaker 1: turn everybody into a palenologist. Yeah, to an extent, should
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: be a big fan after this an amateur palenologists. I
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: think about a third of all the plants and vegetables
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  Speaker 1: and fruits and vegetables we eat, are you know here
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  Speaker 1: thanks to pollen. So if you like eating food, yeah,
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: it doesn't come in a box, thank you pollen. Is
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: it just a third that pollinate or a third that
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: are just angiosperms or gymna sperms? That wow, what's up
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  Speaker 1: with the other two thirds? Well, you know, bananas, they're
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  Speaker 1: clones of one another. There's like that, there's the one.
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  Speaker 1: There's like I think a thousand varieties of bananas, And
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  Speaker 1: thanks by the way, to damn interesting for this information.
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  Speaker 1: But there's like a thousand varieties or species of bananas,
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  Speaker 1: but each one, like if you eat like a type
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: of just one of those species of bananas, you're eating
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  Speaker 1: an exact clone of every other banana in that species,
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  Speaker 1: because many thousands of years ago, humans just stumbled upon
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: the banana, which is the hybrid of two basically inedible
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: fruits that came together to form the delicious banana, but
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  Speaker 1: made them sterile. All banana plants are sterile, and the
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  Speaker 1: only way that they're allowed to propagate is by human hand.
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  Speaker 1: They're delicious. I did a Don't be dumb about that? Yeah,
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: well you just did it again. Yeah, you can check
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  Speaker 1: out Don't be dumbs on our website Stuff you should
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: know dot com. Wow, all right, anyway, pollen, Yes, it's
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  Speaker 1: been around for a while. Um. I know. In our
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  Speaker 1: b podcast we talked about how bees and and pauling
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  Speaker 1: kind of emerged side by side a hundred million years ago,
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  Speaker 1: but Paullen actually goes further back than that. In this article,
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: it says about three five million years ago is when
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: the plants started getting clever and spreading their seed literally
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  Speaker 1: using pollen different techniques, and I think the um the
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: gymnast sperms were first, I believe so. Uh yeah. And
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: the author of the article here points out that the
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  Speaker 1: reason why it evolved was so plants didn't have to
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: be dumb and rely on water to carry their junk
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: to fertilize other junk. You know, they're like, how about
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: wind or how about that bat a beetle? Yeah, or
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: how about that bird pooping it out? That's right? Yeah? Um?
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  Speaker 1: And like I said, I think Paullen Green's plants spread
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  Speaker 1: their seed. Literally, plant pollen is what amounts to plant sperm. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: It's like I always go to the kids science pages
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  Speaker 1: to research. First off, I mean they're good, they're they're colorful.
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  Speaker 1: Uh yeah. If we want to pollination very simply, you know,
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  Speaker 1: people reproduce. Animals reproduce, they need male and female parts.
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  Speaker 1: Plants and flowers are no different. They need male parts
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  Speaker 1: to connect with the female parts to make an egg.
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  Speaker 1: And in this case, pollination is how it's done. Basically,
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  Speaker 1: how that sperm, the pollen reaches that egg, which is
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  Speaker 1: the ovule, right, and once they get together, magic happens.
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  Speaker 1: That's right. But let's talk about the way it looks
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  Speaker 1: first of all. Yeah, there's like there's a lot of
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  Speaker 1: different looks to pollen depending on the plant um and
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  Speaker 1: all of these variations. It can be like a cone
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  Speaker 1: literally a pine cone. Yeah, it looks at you know,
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  Speaker 1: just look up microscope pollen on Google Images and you'll
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  Speaker 1: see all sorts of weird colorful shapes and sizes. Some
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  Speaker 1: look like blowfish. Yeah, others look like spot nick really yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I didn't see this spot Some have ribbed edges for
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  Speaker 1: and all of these adaptations are or mutations, I guess
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  Speaker 1: they became adaptations allow that pollen to kind of better
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  Speaker 1: ensure that it's going to be carried to where it
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  Speaker 1: needs to go. Yeah, it has a purpose. It's not
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  Speaker 1: just like, hey, this one would look neat if it
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  Speaker 1: looks like a starfish in the end. Some have wings
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  Speaker 1: kind of what amount of basically wings because they're carried
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: on the wind. Oh yeah, yeah, like dandelion pollen, it's
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: carried on the wind. True. Well, dandelion's self polling night too.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: We'll get to that though. Yeah. They're slippery little guys.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: They are. They're also high and phytonutrients as well. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: dandelion greens are O the stems, No, the leaves, oh,
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: the little leaves, the yellow part. So here here's the
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: rule of thumb. There's a New York Times article that
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: came out very recently about phyto nutrients and how we
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: basically bred them out of our food, and um, the
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: rule of thumb is the the bit, the bitterer or
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  Speaker 1: more bitter the plant, the higher it is in phytonutrients.
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  Speaker 1: Phyto nutrients have kind of a bitterest, stringent taste, and
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  Speaker 1: we tend to not really like that, so we stopped
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  Speaker 1: eating those things over time, replace them with sweet things
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  Speaker 1: that aren't necessarily good for us, like you know, potatoes
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  Speaker 1: and other starches. Ye, well, bitter things can also kill you,
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  Speaker 1: that's probably why. Maybe, So that's that's a pretty good point.
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  Speaker 1: But bitter stuff that you know won't kill you. Dandelion
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  Speaker 1: leaves go out and needs some right now. But back
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  Speaker 1: in the day, I bet people are like that tastes
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  Speaker 1: bad and it killed tuk tuk, So let's just not
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: eat it right exactly? Alright, So should we talk about pollination?
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: Talked a little bit about pollen. Yeah, now we need
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  Speaker 1: to talk about how plants make little baby plants, right,
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  Speaker 1: and it's it's pretty simple, like I said, the male
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  Speaker 1: part and have you. Uh, it really helps to follow
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  Speaker 1: along if you go to a handied andy little visual
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  Speaker 1: aid I found, because they really break down the male
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  Speaker 1: parts and the female parts. The female is the has
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  Speaker 1: the pistol and that's p I S T I L.
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  Speaker 1: And within that you have the ovary, which are you know,
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  Speaker 1: sits down low in the plant, and the style which
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  Speaker 1: is a long ah thin h appendage. I guess that
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  Speaker 1: contains pollen tubes. And then at the top you have
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  Speaker 1: your stigma, which is gonna catch the pollen. Yeah, and
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  Speaker 1: that's the female part, right, that's the lady. Don't be
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: confused because it is phallic in nature. Yeah, true, but
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  Speaker 1: it's still the female part. And the male has the
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  Speaker 1: filament which is a long stem, and then the anther
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  Speaker 1: at the top which holds all the pollen. And that's
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  Speaker 1: pretty much the long and short of the parts. And
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  Speaker 1: is that just angiosperms that you're describing or is that
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  Speaker 1: all all? I think these are just the and a sperms. Well,
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  Speaker 1: we should say quite explicitly that there's basically two ways
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  Speaker 1: that plants can pollinate. There's gymnasperms and angiosperms, And the
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  Speaker 1: big difference between the two is that gymnasperms literally that
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  Speaker 1: means naked seed, which, by the way, gymnasium is means
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  Speaker 1: place to be naked canasium in German. Did you know that?
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  Speaker 1: So gymnasperms naked seed. There's nothing protecting the seed once
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  Speaker 1: it's once it's produced, and a seed is just a germ,
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  Speaker 1: a fertilized ovum or ovule, right um, Angia sperms produce
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  Speaker 1: something to protect that seed, whether it's a shell like
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  Speaker 1: a nut or fruit like an apple with the seeds inside,
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  Speaker 1: because an apple is just a an enlarged ovule ovary
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  Speaker 1: and the seeds are the fertilized though. Well, you can
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  Speaker 1: also pollinate, across pollinate or self pollinate, right, those are
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  Speaker 1: the other two differences. So you're saying, what what dandelions
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  Speaker 1: self pollinate? Well, they can do both, um, but do
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: have a little a cool little feature. They basically grow up.
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  Speaker 1: You know, this is when there's still the little yellow flower.
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  Speaker 1: They have these little florets that grow up. If you look, well,
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  Speaker 1: you probably can't see if you look really really close, though,
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  Speaker 1: these little florets that grow up and as it grows
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  Speaker 1: it carries uh, the pollen on its little stem and
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  Speaker 1: then eventually gets to a point where it doesn't start
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  Speaker 1: grow growing up anymore, and it splits and then starts
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  Speaker 1: curling back on itself to uh, you know, no way.
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  Speaker 1: It picks up its own pollen from its own style,
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  Speaker 1: and it's self pollination. It's not gross or like perverted.
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  Speaker 1: There's a there's a lot of them. There's a lot
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  Speaker 1: of plants out there though, that have mechanisms to prevent
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  Speaker 1: them from self pollinating. It couldn't can't be good or bad.
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  Speaker 1: That's what I couldn't figure out. Well, the plants somewhere
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  Speaker 1: along the way figured out like, hey, the wider the
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  Speaker 1: gene pool, the better off we are, because the more
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  Speaker 1: room there is for adaptation mutations and than adaptations. Right. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: But in here the author said ideally it cross pollinates.
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  Speaker 1: But I don't think that's the case always. Well, it's
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: the ideal, it's just some doing some don't write. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: if you look at it, like from just an animalistic
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: or an organism viewpoint, right like with us, if you
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  Speaker 1: just get a bunch of Mennonites together and they just
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  Speaker 1: reproduce with one another, there's going to be defects that
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  Speaker 1: just are propagated throughout this this little gene pool. But
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  Speaker 1: if the Mennonites spread out into the you know, larger
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  Speaker 1: country as a whole, those defects are going to you know,
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  Speaker 1: I guess we kind of watered down by the size
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  Speaker 1: of the gene pool. I think it's the same thing
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: with self pollinating and cross pollinating. Yeah, because it's interesting
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: because things like peanuts or self pollinators and that's why
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: they thrive. But corn has a mechanism to not allow
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: itself to self pollinate. Like there. I think the sperm
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  Speaker 1: is ready at a different time than the ovule is
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: ready to accept it, So it's it's a timing thing.
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  Speaker 1: The thing is, peanuts would probably be able to talk
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  Speaker 1: if they didn't self pollinate, and they sound like Jimmy
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  Speaker 1: carter um. So there's a lot of mechanisms that plants
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  Speaker 1: have to prevent themselves from self pollinating. Um some. Some
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: might have either just male plants and just female plants.
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  Speaker 1: UM some maybe uh where the male part if the
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  Speaker 1: plant has both male and female flowers, for example, yes,
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  Speaker 1: they they the the male flower might come out before
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  Speaker 1: the female flower on the same plant, so that they're not.
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  Speaker 1: The timing is off a little bit. Um, and then
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  Speaker 1: there's some they're just like they'll they'll signal a biochemical marker.
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  Speaker 1: If pollen from the same plant gets near the ovule,
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  Speaker 1: it'll just basically turn barren. So it just is incapable
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  Speaker 1: of fertilizing itself, or like corn where the timing is
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  Speaker 1: thrown off. So they rely on cross pollination, right, which
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: is pretty cool. So let's let's get explicit again here
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  Speaker 1: gymnaspers naked seed. How does this happen? Like it? We'll
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  Speaker 1: use the example of a pine, a lob lolly pine.
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  Speaker 1: It's fun to say, um, but it's a conifer. Conifers
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  Speaker 1: are ancient. I believe they were the first pollinating plant. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I think so. Nice. So let's talk about it. Well,
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  Speaker 1: the pine cones, they're they're little male pine cones, a
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: little female pine cones. Might not realize that you've got
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: quite a show going on in your backyard at certain
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  Speaker 1: times of the year. Um. And basically, if once you
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  Speaker 1: get the two together, you get a male pine cone
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  Speaker 1: and a a female pine cone together, the male pine cone fertilized, well,
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  Speaker 1: the pollen comes in contact with an ovule and the
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: pollen starts to go to town. It absorbs a bunch
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  Speaker 1: of water. Well, the female pine cones a little sticky too.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: That helps, by the way, it does, helps collect the pollen.
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  Speaker 1: Right um, So the female or the the pollen, the male,
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  Speaker 1: the male part of the pine cone germinates and it
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: starts growing. It's called a pollen tube, which basically allows
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: this pollen to directly fertilize the ovule. Once that happens,
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: the ovule basically becomes a seed, and the seed is
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: released from the pine cone. They go everywhere and then
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: they're eaten by birds and pooped out elsewhere, carried along
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: in the there trampled by a rhinoceros who knows which
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: just got loose from the zoo. But then that seed
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  Speaker 1: is carried along, but it's not protected by anything. It's
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: just a seed and hence a naked seed. Hence gymnasperms,
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: So angiosperms, they have kind of like a similar process,
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: whereas there's a pollen tube that's grown and the male
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: pollen has to come in contact with the female pollen
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: and all that. And we're talking about flowers in most
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: cases here with andrew sperms, they're the only ones that
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: flower and produce fruit. So when you think about your
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: garden with the honey bee and all, that's right. So
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: that's a non naked seed and that's the that's where
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: the fruit comes in or the shell comes and there's
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Andrew's firms have developed a mechanism to protect the seed
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: to better ensure survival and if you think about it,
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: to entice the things that transport these seeds to go
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: ahead and do their thing. Yeah, there's like every flower
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: has some sort of cool shape or scent or color
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: or something that matches with some little insect or bird
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: or bat that's gonna be enticed. Like the bumblebee in
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: the fox glove, they go hand in hand because it
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: fits up. They're just perfect. And it has a little
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: colorful landing strip on the bottom pedal to guide the
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: bumblebee in and it's just like nature's it's just like harmonious.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: There's that one orchid that I believe Darwin predicted the
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: existence of a type of hummingbird that had a very
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: long curled beak right that it co evolves with it,
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: and he was absolutely correct. Members in that movie ad Yeah,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: that's a great movie. Um, and then uh, you can
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: learn a lot from that movie. Yeah, yeah, anything that
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: what's his name? Charlie Kaufman writes, well, researched um. The
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: fruit is another thing too. Animals love to eat fruit.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: The fruit is basically once the fruit piece of fruit
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: drops to the ground, that means those seeds are ready
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: to go. They're ready to become seedlings. But first they
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: need a fox to eat the apple, carry it in
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: its stomach over you know, several meters or miles or whatever,
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: and then poop it out. And then you have seeds
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: that are basically just planted. That's amazing. They take purchase
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: and a new tree begins where his seed her insides
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: where a rocky place where seed you can find nor purchase.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: So pollen grains um are actually created. I guess we
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: should step back a second and talk about myosis. That's
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: the cells are dividing and growing. Eventually you get a
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: little pollen. Uh, it looks like a little dust spec
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: to our eyeball, but it's contains the sperm. Is not
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: actually the sperm. It contains the sperm therein and uh,
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: the pollen is in pollen sacks at the end of
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: the stamen, which we talked about and that little two
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: lobed ant uh almost at antler antherer and then eventually
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: it'll find its way to the stigma and travel down
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: to the ovary. And and in the case of angiosperms,
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: there are two sperm that are used. I don't think
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: we said in the case of gymnosperms, it's only one
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: of the sperm is used, right, Yeah, in a in
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: a pollen sact, there's two sperm, but you just need
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: one for the gymnasperm for the anti sperm unit to yeah,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: because one is actually fertilizing the egg and the other
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: is developing into endo sperm together alongside and what will
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: eventually be the seed. And if you think that sounds gross,
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: like the gymnos sperm, I'm sorry. The endosperm is like
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: a protein basically to keep it all alive. Yeah, that
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: keeps the seedling happy, healthy. So when you're eating corn,
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: you're actually eating the indo sperm. Each corn kernel is
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: actually you know, it's like that starchy indo sperm which
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: the seed loves to eat itself. And that's true. Um,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: So we talked about bees, we talked about birds, foxes,
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: mentioned poop a couple of times. Yeah, and you were
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: saying that, like basically every every flowering plant especially has
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: some sort of mechanism to attract at least one kind
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: of um bug or animal that's been proven to help
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: pollinate transport this pollen. And so I mean, for the
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: most part, we enjoy them, like you like the scent
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: of you know, a good flower, right, sure, but you
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: might not like the Devil's Tongue, yeah, which is a
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: sumatran plant that apparently reads so badly smells like a
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: decomposing flash. Basically, basically, did you this thing? I've seen
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: it before. You actually remarkable like two feet and it's
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: it's like it it basically um flowers or blooms like
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: once every like ten years or twenty years something like that. Right,
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure if it's the same one I'm thinking
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: of things, but it's sink right, And the reason why
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: it's stinky is because it pollinates with the help of
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: a type of carrion beetle that's attracted to decomposing flesh.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: So the plant attracts this beetle that likes to eat
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: decomposing flesh by putting out the smell of decomposing flesh
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: that's so gross. Yeah, but it's pretty spectacular. It is,
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: you know, yeah, in the philodendron, something you might have
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: in your house. It actually does the same thing, but
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: it doesn't stink always. Um. There's actual chemical reaction that
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: takes place and heats it up to omit this odor
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: that the beetle is attracted to, which sounds pretty gross too,
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: but it all works, and I would google that. Um
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: the sumatra and devil stung. It's pretty cool looking. Like
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: the flower itself is two feet It's not like, oh,
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: what a long stem, it's just as huge flower. It's amazing.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: And then you're also saying, like, was it foxglove that
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: provided a landing strip for bumblebees? Yeah, So flowers in
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: general typically have certain types of um like their color
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: will be based on the kind of creature that um
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: that that helps pollinate it, whether it's diurnal meaning it
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: it's awake during the day or nocturnal meaning it's awake
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: at night, right, right, I guess that's in case of
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: like bats and stuff like that. Yeah, and then our
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: old friend nectar is a big lure and basically nectar
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: is around right just because it tastes delicious and is
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: enticing from Yeah, it's basically like a little enticement like
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: you said, for like a bee or something or a bird. Yeah,
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: come get it, because it's placed by the stamen that's right,
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: or the way that the the anthers are situated, just
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: the way they're placed in the flower. If it gave
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: it an advantage to bump up against that bee, then
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: it's gonna be successful in the long run and live
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: out as a species as nice stuff. That is pretty good. So, Chuck,
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: we've reached a point where, um, I mean, ever since
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: we started selectively breeding plants, domesticating crops that's pretty right.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: Or hey, I like this banana um or that's hardy
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: and it grows in my awful hot area that I
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: live in. Many reasons to do so, right, Um, you know,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: we we wanted to keep plants, We wanted to keep
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: the bad stuff out, keep the good ones we wanted in.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: But it never became more crucial, um until we started
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: genetically modifying crops. And now all of a sudden, not
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: only are the corporations saying like, hey man, you can't
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: cross pollinate with our stuff for else that's patent infringement,
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: and nearby farmers says I'm not using your seeds as
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: the bees. You can't blame me. And the farmers who
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: don't want to know most stuff in their crops say,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: hey man, you need to keep your crops over there
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: because I don't want your GMO crowd in here. I
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: have an organic farm exactly, and you're just blowing by
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: the wind. It's a touchy subject. We should do that.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: It's I agree. The idea of like patenting jeans in
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: general and they alone like crops is it's really interesting. Um,
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: but there's been some pretty clever, simple ways of getting
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: around this problem. It's posed by pollination of GMO crops
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: with non gmo crops. Yeah. Well, distance is obviously one thing.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: Don't put my farm near your farm. But they have
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: to do all kinds of studies to see how the
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: wind reacts and how like how far does that be fly? Yeah,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: and they found in uh, in certain parts of Africa,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: these will go about four miles three kilometers that's their
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: range for food. That's you know, that's a lot. But
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, just using that kind of thinking with all
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: process though, like okay, well this you know, there's this
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: guy's growing this over here, so I can't of this
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: here right, That will prevent that kind of pollination though. Yeah.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: Another thing they can do is, uh, sort of like
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: with the corn, they can time their crop rotation to
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: time out so where they're flowering at different times and
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: not interfering with one another. But um, it's a touchy subject.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: Like from what I understand, there's a lot a lot
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: more going on then you know, is preferred by like
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: the organic farmers of the world, and in't the GMOs.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: They can then say that you're infringing just because they
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: cross pollinated to their crop, even though you didn't buy
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: their seeds or even want their seeds. If a bee
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: carries there, there's seeds, there's crops falling over to your crops,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: and you start to develop plants that have the characteristics
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: that's patented. According to the corporations, you're infringing on their patent.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: It's very tricky ground, there isn't it. I don't think
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: it's triggy ground. If you ask me, you should not
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: be allowed to have a patent on any living organism. Yeah,
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean, though, that's my opinion. It
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: gets tricky, uh in courts and studies and corporations, and
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: of course they tend to side on the corporation's side. Typically.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: Let's do that one though soon GM. Yeah all right, Um,
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: so let's say, for Paullen, if you're interested in how
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: pollen causes allergies, and you should listen to our how
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: Allergies Work episode. That was pretty good. Ye I was
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: gonna recommend that. Nice work. Um, thanks man. So, uh,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: if you want to learn more about pollen in the meantime,
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: you can type that word in the search bar how
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: stiff works dot com. Since I said search bar, it's time,
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: of course for a message break. And now how about
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: some listener mail. Yeah, uh, whip correction. It's been blowing
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: up lately. Oh man, I'm sorry. You know it's craziest.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: That's the second time I've done that, and a podcast
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: on that same same thing. I don't remember what the
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: other podcast was, but I've mentioned it before and we've
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: gotten tons of corrections about it, and I didn't learn
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: my lesson. Well, this guy was really nice about it,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: so I'm gonna read his. And it's an important correction
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: because anytime you're talking about drugs. So to recap in
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: the PTSD podcast, we got the two drugs beta blocker,
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: called propan and all, which helps with PTSD, confused with propofol,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: which is what killed Michael Jackson. And so this is
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: from Chris. He's a big fan. He's listened to every
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: episode on his commute in southern California, which we know stinks.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: So he said what we just said about the getting
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: the drugs confused. He seconds, see how you guys can
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: mix it up because the names are very similar, but
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: they're significantly different. Obviously, propan and All is relatively mild
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: and um commonly prescribed, and very little potential for overdose,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: while propofol is a very powerful drug, extremely high potential
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: for overdose, and rarely administrated outside of strictly monitored medical settings.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: It is actually a hypnotic agent that must be administered intravenously.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Because we talked about Michael Jackson's drip. Uh and is
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: often used in conjunction with general anesthetics. Like most general aesthetics,
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: it's steep dose response curve significantly increases the risk of overdose,
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: where the effective dose is only slightly below a lethal dose.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: That's kind of scary, Yeah, it really is. I mean,
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: like when you're when you're on that, like you're right
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: along the border. Yeah, Well, he says, Michael Jackson's case
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: is extremely rare, as he was essentially exposing himself to
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: risk similar to those associated with general anesthetics used during
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: surgery with a higher potential for overdose and death on
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: a daily basis for a relatively trivial purposes, which were
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: in this case is insomnia. Yeah, but from what I understand,
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: he had like years long insomnia. Like this guy was
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: not sleeping at all, Like they would they wouldn't. They
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: would give him everything first and then they try that
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: last resort and like sometimes it's still wouldn't work. Really, Yeah,
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: he was really in bad shape at the end. Well,
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: he probably had a resistance to certain ship things like that.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: Uh So, Chris goes on to say, I'm not certain
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: about the exact amount of risk posed by propofile administration,
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: but I believe the risk of death is something on
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: the order of tenths of a percent, meaning he would
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: have died according to the statistical model, within a couple
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: of years of daily use, like British guaranteed. Frankly, he
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: would have been better off using heroin that whole time.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: In spite of his ironically strict yet poorly informed anti
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: drug stance. So that's from Chris. Thanks Chris, that was
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: a genuinely awesome email. That was good. Um, and I'm
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: sorry everybody freaking so wrong. Well, I mean the names
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: are just confusing, yeah, but I mean one's like a
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: blood pressure medicine. The other one's like pretty much a
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: general anesthetic. I know. But what gets me is that
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: half of the emails were like, well, yeah, they just
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: sound alike, so you cooke did it in Half of
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: them were like those drugs couldn't be any more different,
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: like you really thought that, you know. It's just it's
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: like a verbal pipeo and key chuck. Yeah, thanks for
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: letting me off anyway. Uh, if you have a correction
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: for us, we really do like to get those. We
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: like to know what we're talking about. Sometimes we get
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: we get things wrong, sometimes I get things wrong, but
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: we do want to be corrected in the nicest way
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: possible because that's usually who gets their letter read right exactly. Yeah.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: You can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast.
• 27:28
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• 27:30
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• 27:32
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• 27:35
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• 27:37
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