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What's the deal with duckbill platypuses? · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to you Stuff you should know front House stuff
0:04
Speaker 1: Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
0:10
Speaker 1: Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant and the
0:13
Speaker 1: Stuff you should know, right, Yeah, Zoological Edition. Yeah, I
0:19
Speaker 1: like these. Yeah. We we try to cover like interesting animals,
0:23
Speaker 1: not that I mean all interesting animals are fairly interesting,
0:26
Speaker 1: I think, but we try to like hit up things
0:29
Speaker 1: like the optopus and the platypus and other pluses. Butterflies
0:35
Speaker 1: is what you mean. And we did butterflies ones. Yeah,
0:38
Speaker 1: with the narwhal. We gotta do that at some point too,
0:41
Speaker 1: not like it's like a dolphin with the tusk. Well,
0:44
Speaker 1: they'll just be a short one. We just did the narwal. Uh. Yeah,
0:47
Speaker 1: we were talking today about the platypus. We have not
0:50
Speaker 1: ever done it before, and despite Jerry's protests to the contrary,
0:55
Speaker 1: we haven't recorded one. If we have, Chuck and I
0:58
Speaker 1: have both gone totally insane and have no recollection of it.
1:01
Speaker 1: So if we did, let us know, well we covered uh,
1:04
Speaker 1: weird animals in Australia or deadly animals in Australia, venomous
1:08
Speaker 1: animals in Australia. But we have not covered the platypus specifically.
1:13
Speaker 1: Did we mention the platypus in that because I don't don't.
1:16
Speaker 1: I don't recall knowing that the platypus had venom. We
1:19
Speaker 1: definitely didn't. So that's the big twist of this episode.
1:22
Speaker 1: I'm ruined it for everybody. I'm sorry. Oh man, there's
1:24
Speaker 1: so many twists with the platypus. You can't this is
1:26
Speaker 1: spoiler free. So, um, did you know much of this
1:30
Speaker 1: stuff beforehand? No? And in fact, I did not know
1:33
Speaker 1: that they were so small. I didn't either. That took
1:35
Speaker 1: me by surprise. I thought there may be the size
1:37
Speaker 1: of like my torso. Yeah, I thought it was like
1:39
Speaker 1: the size of a of a medium sized dog or something,
1:43
Speaker 1: or a large beaver. And it kind of looks like
1:45
Speaker 1: a beaver that stuck its face and something and got
1:47
Speaker 1: it stuck. Like it looks like a beaver that stuck
1:50
Speaker 1: its face in a fake duck bill and can't get
1:53
Speaker 1: it off. It's not a very cute animal. I want
1:56
Speaker 1: it to be very cute, and it's just not. I
1:58
Speaker 1: like it. But they are tiny. That's like the size
2:00
Speaker 1: of a very small cat even Yeah, they run to
2:02
Speaker 1: about five pounds a little more, is that, right? I
2:05
Speaker 1: saw five pounds somewhere. Yeah. They what's interesting is they
2:09
Speaker 1: well they're only found in Eastern Australia up and down
2:12
Speaker 1: the coast down to the island of Tasmania, right, and
2:14
Speaker 1: they live in woodlands and rivers. Yeah. And the ones
2:18
Speaker 1: in the south though are um larger, is there? Yeah,
2:23
Speaker 1: though they can get up to like six pounds, and
2:25
Speaker 1: the ones in the north up in like the Queensland coast,
2:28
Speaker 1: they're like some of those like two and a half
2:30
Speaker 1: three pounds. They're just teeny little cute guys. They're like
2:32
Speaker 1: teacup platypus. Yeah. So I've always just seen pictures of
2:35
Speaker 1: them without a human around a human did I say human?
2:40
Speaker 1: And um, then when I saw I watched a bunch
2:43
Speaker 1: of videos today when I saw the people holding them up,
2:44
Speaker 1: I was like, that's just a little thing. So yeah,
2:48
Speaker 1: my answer the long window lay saying I didn't know
2:50
Speaker 1: much about them, Well, you know, I didn't know much
2:52
Speaker 1: about him either, And it turns out that, um, most
2:54
Speaker 1: people don't because I've seen a lot of different stuff
2:57
Speaker 1: like that. Just that weight discrepancy is is just one example.
3:01
Speaker 1: Like um, like we said, platypuses They spend most of
3:04
Speaker 1: their lives along river banks and freshwater river banks, we
3:07
Speaker 1: should say, are there saltwater rivers? Truly, there's like tidal
3:12
Speaker 1: creeks and stuff like that. These guys are freshwater animals, um,
3:16
Speaker 1: And they hold their breath when they go eat food
3:19
Speaker 1: because they're actually bottom feeders. But um, they I saw
3:23
Speaker 1: a lot of different variations and estimates of how long
3:26
Speaker 1: they could hold their breath. Thirty seconds I saw all
3:28
Speaker 1: over the place. One person said, eight minutes. I think
3:32
Speaker 1: one source said, I don't know five. I think it's
3:37
Speaker 1: what one source said. So I've seen all over the place.
3:40
Speaker 1: But the point is there's a lot of random facts
3:44
Speaker 1: floating around about platypuses, and we're gonna compile them all
3:47
Speaker 1: together here. That's right. Um. I was instantly surprised by
3:53
Speaker 1: the fact that they were just on the east coast
3:54
Speaker 1: of Australia. Didn't know that, right, I knew Australia. I
3:58
Speaker 1: didn't even know that now first some reason, I don't know.
4:00
Speaker 1: I just didn't know that. So apparently, after Pangaea split,
4:05
Speaker 1: it evolved on one of the huge chunks of land
4:08
Speaker 1: called Gondwana. Then that split formed Australia and South America
4:13
Speaker 1: and some other places, and they were in South America
4:16
Speaker 1: and Australia at the time, and then the ones in
4:18
Speaker 1: South America died off and all he's just like, it's ours, right,
4:24
Speaker 1: what was that? What happened? Just now? That was Australia. Okay,
4:27
Speaker 1: that was my best stab um and we the duck
4:32
Speaker 1: built platypus. As far as it it's called today, that's
4:35
Speaker 1: obviously a European term for it. And it wasn't until
4:39
Speaker 1: almost the nineteenth century that the platypus um was first
4:44
Speaker 1: encountered by Europeans. Before that, Aborigines obviously had run into
4:48
Speaker 1: them before. They had names for him like Malanong, Bundabura,
4:53
Speaker 1: uh tambret a, better names than duck build platypus. Yeah,
4:59
Speaker 1: agreed um. So that the Aborigines knew about it, and
5:02
Speaker 1: the first white colonists that showed up in Australia, I guess,
5:07
Speaker 1: heard legends of these things and then started to see
5:09
Speaker 1: them themselves. And even though these were Europeans telling other Europeans, Hey,
5:14
Speaker 1: there's this really weird animal down here. There's a bunch
5:17
Speaker 1: of weird animals, like you're not gonna believe the kangaroo
5:19
Speaker 1: but this thing has got it, like all of them
5:21
Speaker 1: beat and people in Europe are like, you're full of it.
5:24
Speaker 1: And they even sent them specimens, stuffed specimens, and the
5:28
Speaker 1: the Texa germists and the naturalists and biologists back in
5:32
Speaker 1: Europe said, I still don't believe it because at the time,
5:35
Speaker 1: have you ever seen the mermaid mummies? Yeah, the Chinese
5:39
Speaker 1: were they were in the fabricating animals. Yeah, so everybody
5:42
Speaker 1: thought it was just a Chinese thing until somebody finally
5:45
Speaker 1: got their hands on one, uh and dissected it. His
5:48
Speaker 1: name was Everard Jones, and he proclaimed them real in
5:52
Speaker 1: eighteen o two. Yeah. It's funny that for a while
5:55
Speaker 1: they're like, no, no, no, this went through that. I
5:57
Speaker 1: think they call it the Indian Seas at the time,
5:59
Speaker 1: they're like went close to China and you know that
6:01
Speaker 1: they're just nuts over there with this stuff. Yeah, it's
6:04
Speaker 1: a rogue taxidermy pretty much. What's kind of cool that
6:06
Speaker 1: they were doing that, though, I wonder if it was
6:09
Speaker 1: just like a creative thing or what were they doing.
6:12
Speaker 1: They were selling them to sailors. It's like as some
6:15
Speaker 1: sort of scam as a yeah, as a mermaid. They're like,
6:17
Speaker 1: these are real mermaids from what I understand, like the
6:21
Speaker 1: sea monkeys that you defend, but even less real. So, um,
6:28
Speaker 1: we finally established a ten o two that platypuses are real,
6:32
Speaker 1: and we start to just really dig in to figure
6:34
Speaker 1: out what is going on with these things, and the
6:38
Speaker 1: more we dig in, the stranger things become. So, for example,
6:43
Speaker 1: chuck platypus, it's a mammal, and the reason it's a
6:47
Speaker 1: mammal is because it nurses, it's young, and it has
6:51
Speaker 1: for yet it doesn't have nipples. No, it secretes its
6:56
Speaker 1: milk through its abdomen like it's just leaking or something
6:59
Speaker 1: through poor and the little they're called puggles, they're young,
7:02
Speaker 1: are and the puggles just suckle on the abdomen and
7:06
Speaker 1: it's a very odd thing in in nature for that
7:10
Speaker 1: to happen. It is peculiar. Yeah, very peculiar. Yeah. Um, okay,
7:14
Speaker 1: so they're mammals, but they're not just mammals. They also
7:17
Speaker 1: straddle the line like that. Basically, the platypusts exists to
7:21
Speaker 1: strain the taxonomic system of classification of animals. They have
7:27
Speaker 1: that duck bill, that pesky duck bill. Yeah, and the
7:30
Speaker 1: web feet so it's like, all right, so they're birds, right,
7:34
Speaker 1: I guess, but I thought we just said they were mammals.
7:38
Speaker 1: Officially they are mammals. That's not going to change, although
7:41
Speaker 1: you never know. But yeah, they do have the web
7:43
Speaker 1: feet and the duck bill and then they also have
7:46
Speaker 1: um certain uh, they have eyes like a reptile. They
7:51
Speaker 1: lay eggs like a reptile. Amphibians they suckle their young
7:55
Speaker 1: through their abdomens with milk, but they give birth to eggs,
8:00
Speaker 1: so that's not supposed to happen either. No, the female
8:04
Speaker 1: they have two ovaries, one of them functions, one of
8:06
Speaker 1: them doesn't, and they lay these, you know, one to
8:08
Speaker 1: three little leathery eggs. They're a little more round than
8:11
Speaker 1: the oval bird eggs, but there their eggs. And they're
8:15
Speaker 1: born with teeth that fall out. Then they have these
8:17
Speaker 1: little horny plates that they mash their food up with. Yeah,
8:19
Speaker 1: they don't have teeth, they're just weird. They're born with teeth, right,
8:23
Speaker 1: which actually it's funny because um, both creationists and evolutionists
8:28
Speaker 1: hold the platypus up as evidence of their beliefs. The
8:32
Speaker 1: creationists are like, if anything, it's reverse evolutions. They lose
8:36
Speaker 1: their teeth right, and like you this this thing was
8:40
Speaker 1: obviously assembled, right, Like what what evolves over hundreds of
8:44
Speaker 1: millions of years living by water but can only hold
8:46
Speaker 1: its breath for thirty seconds? Thirty seconds means depending on
8:49
Speaker 1: who you ask, say the creationists evolutionists say, well, no,
8:54
Speaker 1: I mean, like what this is probably the earliest example
8:57
Speaker 1: of a mammal to branch off from the the mammalian line,
9:02
Speaker 1: so it fills in the gaps between us and our distant,
9:05
Speaker 1: distant ancestry. It's a great example of evolution. The fact is,
9:10
Speaker 1: like we're we still don't quite know what the deal
9:14
Speaker 1: is with this thing, even after mapping it's genome. Yeah,
9:17
Speaker 1: I bet you there's a political, great political cartoon out
9:19
Speaker 1: there with a like a Christian pulling on the duck
9:24
Speaker 1: bill and an evolutionist pulling on the tail the platypus
9:27
Speaker 1: in the middle, Like, yeah, I just want to live, right,
9:31
Speaker 1: I guess it just wrote a political cartoon. Don't put
9:33
Speaker 1: your hang ups on me. Yeah, exactly. All we need
9:36
Speaker 1: to do is be able to draw, would be said,
9:38
Speaker 1: so the the the the strange parade of character traits,
9:47
Speaker 1: character traits that would be what, like whether it was
9:49
Speaker 1: good to its mother or something. Um of um what
9:53
Speaker 1: is it called phenotypes? Just biological traits? I guess yeah,
9:57
Speaker 1: that strange parade of those that has ended yet. No
10:02
Speaker 1: platypuses are just one of two members of monotreams mammalion monotreams. Okay,
10:11
Speaker 1: because birds are monotreams because they poop and hatche eggs
10:15
Speaker 1: out of the same hole called the cloaca. Yeah yeah, um,
10:21
Speaker 1: but I guess as far as what you're saying mammals
10:24
Speaker 1: are concerned, there's the spiny ant eater and the platypus
10:26
Speaker 1: are the only ones who excrete and shoot eggs out
10:29
Speaker 1: of one hole? Is that the what the kidneys? That
10:32
Speaker 1: is spiny an eater. It looks like a porcupine with
10:35
Speaker 1: like kind of a longer nose. Yeah. So they have
10:39
Speaker 1: one one hole to do their business with and one
10:42
Speaker 1: hole to lay their eggs with, which is also business.
10:45
Speaker 1: I guess you're right, and that is very much bird like.
10:49
Speaker 1: But like I said, the eye structure is more reptilian.
10:52
Speaker 1: So you said the eggs were leathery, that's pretty reptilian. Yeah,
10:55
Speaker 1: they're just all over the map. It gets even stranger
10:58
Speaker 1: than that that. What else we go let's let's look
11:00
Speaker 1: a little deeper on that duck bill. There's tiny little pores. Right.
11:05
Speaker 1: For a long time, scientists were like, how we know
11:07
Speaker 1: that these things when they dive, their bottom feeders, they
11:09
Speaker 1: feed on shellfish, insects, things that live along the muck
11:13
Speaker 1: of the bottom of the river. Um, we know that
11:16
Speaker 1: they close their eyes and they close their nostrils when
11:19
Speaker 1: they dive, So how are they locating food? And they
11:23
Speaker 1: figured out that there's tiny little holes on their duck
11:25
Speaker 1: bill that um have electro receptors in them, just like
11:29
Speaker 1: a shark. Yeah. Like I think we've talked multiple times
11:32
Speaker 1: about the nose of a shark. That's why you punch
11:35
Speaker 1: the shark in the nose, and that's how they feed
11:37
Speaker 1: is because that will disrupt their their brain if you
11:40
Speaker 1: give them a good sock in those electrical receptors. And yeah,
11:44
Speaker 1: and it's very similar this. Um. They they sense movement
11:48
Speaker 1: through these receptors and they're blind to everything, and this
11:51
Speaker 1: is how they find the shell fish and all that stuff. Yeah,
11:54
Speaker 1: these receptors are so sensitive that even just the tiny
11:57
Speaker 1: movement of an insect's leg, the change in the electrical
12:01
Speaker 1: current in the water that that produces their electro receptors
12:04
Speaker 1: pick up. That's how they go eat, and they get
12:06
Speaker 1: a scoop ful of food and they kind of pocket
12:10
Speaker 1: it in their cheek for a little while until they
12:12
Speaker 1: come back up. And then once they do, they use
12:14
Speaker 1: a bit of the grit on the river bottom to
12:17
Speaker 1: help with their teeth plates or whatever you call it,
12:20
Speaker 1: to grind the food downs. Well, their their horny plates
12:25
Speaker 1: are aided with gravel. Yeah, Ok, then they choose. So
12:28
Speaker 1: all right, we're starting to get kind of a handle
12:30
Speaker 1: on this thing, right, So that's got to be the
12:31
Speaker 1: last weird thing, right, it is not we we've already
12:34
Speaker 1: mentioned it. But they produce venom. They're one of only
12:38
Speaker 1: three types of mammals that produce vendom. So think about this.
12:42
Speaker 1: You've got the kidness, the spiny anneater. It's the only
12:48
Speaker 1: other monitoring but it doesn't have a duck bill. It
12:50
Speaker 1: doesn't play because it doesn't do all this other weird stuff.
12:53
Speaker 1: You've got a certain kind of shrew and selinodones dons.
13:00
Speaker 1: Uh they are. They produce phantom, right, but they also
13:05
Speaker 1: don't have duck bills. They also don't have a lecture.
13:06
Speaker 1: A senters duck built Platypuses are the strangest, hands down
13:11
Speaker 1: animal around. Hodgepods is the best way to describe them.
13:15
Speaker 1: They are a hodgepods and they straddle all these different
13:17
Speaker 1: um different classes. And in the end, I saw an
13:21
Speaker 1: interview with one lady who had worked on the genome project,
13:24
Speaker 1: which we'll get to, and she was like, when you're
13:26
Speaker 1: talking genetics like this, she was like, weird is good.
13:28
Speaker 1: She's like, this is awesome for us because it shows uh.
13:32
Speaker 1: I think she called it um informative variation. And so
13:37
Speaker 1: if you learn about all these weird things that a
13:40
Speaker 1: platypus has and it's in its genetic code, it can
13:43
Speaker 1: help fill in because we're mammals too, some of the
13:45
Speaker 1: stuff that we may not know about and ways that
13:48
Speaker 1: we are different and similar. It just helps inform you know,
13:52
Speaker 1: everything basically all there with a little genome of the platypus, right,
13:56
Speaker 1: And actually not only the differences are good, but also
14:00
Speaker 1: any similarities between us and them also shows well, this
14:04
Speaker 1: is a very very ancient trait since they branched off
14:06
Speaker 1: of mammals a hundred and sixty six million years ago.
14:09
Speaker 1: Like you have any venomous stabber in your heel, right now.
14:17
Speaker 1: I try not to use it sometimes, you know, it's
14:21
Speaker 1: it's easier to just not use than other times. But yes,
14:24
Speaker 1: I do well, and they actually do. They have venom,
14:27
Speaker 1: and I think it's that just the males have that
14:29
Speaker 1: spur on the hind foot. Yeah, and they mostly produce
14:32
Speaker 1: the venom during spring, which is why they think that
14:34
Speaker 1: it's probably used to fight with other males. They live solitary. Yeah,
14:39
Speaker 1: that would make sense because the females are born with
14:41
Speaker 1: one and it falls off, so they wouldn't need one
14:44
Speaker 1: for that. Yeah, and then so males will fight with
14:46
Speaker 1: one another, four females mate and then take off, and
14:50
Speaker 1: then that's that. Like everybody's kind of lives on their
14:52
Speaker 1: own over like a set amount of territory as a platypus. Right,
14:56
Speaker 1: But that that venom doesn't kill other platypus is, but
15:00
Speaker 1: it could kill a dog and it has before. Yeah,
15:03
Speaker 1: I'm surprised it doesn't kill another platypus. They might have
15:05
Speaker 1: some resistance, that's what I think. Yeah, it's got to
15:07
Speaker 1: because they're smaller than most dogs exactly. Um, it hasn't
15:12
Speaker 1: ever killed a human, but humans have been known to
15:15
Speaker 1: get stung by these things, and brother. Does it hurt?
15:18
Speaker 1: And the reason it hurts is because it is a
15:22
Speaker 1: mammalian venom and we have no known cure or treatment
15:26
Speaker 1: for the pain caused by that. So if you are
15:29
Speaker 1: stung by one of them, you are totally on your
15:32
Speaker 1: own as far as pain management goes. There's nothing that
15:35
Speaker 1: can be done. You're just sitting there in agony for
15:37
Speaker 1: like a week or two until it works itself out. Yeah.
15:40
Speaker 1: I think it's supposed to suck pretty bad, like swelling
15:42
Speaker 1: and just lots of pain, right, And like you said,
15:45
Speaker 1: if there's nothing that can be done, you just ride
15:47
Speaker 1: around and curse the platypus, I guess. And that's why
15:50
Speaker 1: you hold them by the tail too. By the way,
15:51
Speaker 1: if you ever got to grab a platypus, grab him
15:54
Speaker 1: by the tail because they don't mind. Yeah, and they
15:57
Speaker 1: can't well yeah, but a possum doesn't have a spur
15:59
Speaker 1: in the No. But they'll bite you, Oh man, they will.
16:02
Speaker 1: They're mean. I don't know if that's true actually, but
16:05
Speaker 1: they hiss. Oh no, they're real means, are they. Yeah,
16:07
Speaker 1: they'll try to bite you. They'll try to curl up.
16:09
Speaker 1: If you hold the end of their tail, they'll curl
16:11
Speaker 1: themselves up trying to get to your wrist, which you
16:13
Speaker 1: really can't blame them. They're trying to get you to
16:15
Speaker 1: let them go. But yeah, they'll bite you. They'll they'll
16:19
Speaker 1: kill you in your whole family if you'd let them.
16:21
Speaker 1: I remember I was actually one of my first dates
16:23
Speaker 1: with my high school girlfriend. We know, it may have
16:27
Speaker 1: been my first date. Actually I walked her back up
16:29
Speaker 1: to the front porch at the end of the night
16:31
Speaker 1: and it was that, you know, it's like something on
16:32
Speaker 1: Norman Rockwell, like, all right, I'm gonna get that first kiss.
16:35
Speaker 1: We walked up on the porch and it was probably
16:37
Speaker 1: like four by four or small, and there was a
16:39
Speaker 1: freaking possum up there that got stuck like trying to
16:43
Speaker 1: get out, and was just we were sharing this very
16:45
Speaker 1: small space with this bowesome like hissing at us and
16:48
Speaker 1: screaming at us, and it made for a very memorable
16:52
Speaker 1: into the evening. I'm sure. And I don't think I
16:54
Speaker 1: got the kissing. I know. I thought, you're gonna say
16:57
Speaker 1: her dad came out to meet you, and he turned
16:58
Speaker 1: out to be a giant post them that didn't happen. Um,
17:03
Speaker 1: what else we were talking about the Platypus Genome Project.
17:06
Speaker 1: Do you sound like you know more about that than me. Well,
17:08
Speaker 1: they did this, um a hundred scientists got together in
17:11
Speaker 1: two thousand eight and said, you know what, if we
17:13
Speaker 1: can figure this thing out, maybe we can help inform
17:15
Speaker 1: our own, you know, human species. And uh. One thing
17:20
Speaker 1: they did found out is that we have two chromosomes.
17:24
Speaker 1: We have a pair if your female give me xx
17:27
Speaker 1: if you're male gam x y. Birds have ZW for
17:30
Speaker 1: female zz for male. Platypuses have is the platypuses, Yeah, okay,
17:35
Speaker 1: they have ten chromosomes, sex chromosomes, and they don't know why.
17:40
Speaker 1: It's that complicated. So females have ten xs and males
17:45
Speaker 1: have x y x y x y x y x y.
17:48
Speaker 1: And the deal is they're similar birds in that their
17:52
Speaker 1: X one chromosome has eleven genes that are found in
17:55
Speaker 1: almo million X chromosomes, but their X five gene carries
17:58
Speaker 1: something called d MRT one, and that's found on the
18:01
Speaker 1: Z chromosomes of birds. So they sort of share these
18:05
Speaker 1: sex chromosomes with regular mammals and birds. But they have
18:09
Speaker 1: ten sets of them. I'm not tin sets, five sets,
18:11
Speaker 1: and they're superfluous like there's no reason for them to
18:13
Speaker 1: have this. They haven't figured it out yet, huh. And
18:15
Speaker 1: they're still working on that, I guess. But that was
18:17
Speaker 1: definitely like an interesting find. And they're they're eighty percent
18:20
Speaker 1: mammal or they share eighty percent of their DNA with mammals, right,
18:24
Speaker 1: So that means if they also share some with birds
18:28
Speaker 1: and they branched off of mammals a hundred and sixty
18:30
Speaker 1: six million years ago and went off on their own,
18:33
Speaker 1: then um, that would mean that we're we possibly are
18:37
Speaker 1: descended from birds as well. Yeah, it definitely writes that question. Um.
18:40
Speaker 1: And my other question is this like the venom, Like
18:45
Speaker 1: it's very similar in composition to reptile venom even though
18:48
Speaker 1: it's mammalian produced. But they figured out from the Platypus
18:52
Speaker 1: Genome project that it came up independently. Yeah, they didn't
18:56
Speaker 1: get it from like a reptilian ancestor. So it almost
19:00
Speaker 1: like the platypus is almost like this idea that nature
19:03
Speaker 1: has a finite number of tools and its tool kit
19:07
Speaker 1: to handle things like reproduction, defense, whatever, and the platypus
19:12
Speaker 1: represents like all these things just kind of evolving independently
19:16
Speaker 1: on its own. After it branched off a hundred and
19:18
Speaker 1: sixty six million years ago. It's pretty neat. Yeah, I
19:21
Speaker 1: mean it's maybe the platypus there in lines the key
19:24
Speaker 1: to it all. Who knows, I sincerely hope not. It's
19:27
Speaker 1: a very strange creature. Well, at the very least, it's
19:30
Speaker 1: it could help us locate and identify new genes and
19:33
Speaker 1: then sequences that could turn those genes on and off
19:36
Speaker 1: in us and uh yes, supposedly ovarian cancer there's some
19:40
Speaker 1: DNA and varying cancer tumors that's found in platypus sex chromosomes.
19:47
Speaker 1: So who knows that? That was as far as they
19:49
Speaker 1: got in what I read. They just discovered that, so
19:52
Speaker 1: they didn't know what to do with it yet. Yeah.
19:54
Speaker 1: I think this was a great like load up on
19:56
Speaker 1: this one people for your next cocktail party, because everyone's like, yea, yeah,
20:00
Speaker 1: I get it. They got referring, they got a duck bill,
20:02
Speaker 1: but you can hit him with a bunch of more
20:04
Speaker 1: cool stuff. Yeah, like, oh yeah, what about the spur
20:07
Speaker 1: in the heel? Yeah? What about these chromosomes? How do
20:09
Speaker 1: you like them? Apples? Like the apples? Put that in
20:12
Speaker 1: your pipe and smoking, right, So that's it. For platypus
20:16
Speaker 1: is for now until they find some other weird thing
20:18
Speaker 1: about it, right, yeah, yeah, do you got anything else? Um?
20:22
Speaker 1: If you want to learn more about platypus is just
20:25
Speaker 1: type duck bill into the search bar at how stuff
20:28
Speaker 1: works dot com. It will bring up this amazing article. Um.
20:32
Speaker 1: And actually no, this article is written by Conger how
20:35
Speaker 1: stuff Works Ryer, it's on animal Planet. To check out
20:38
Speaker 1: animal planet dot com and try searching for duck Bill platypus.
20:42
Speaker 1: Very cool. And and now it's time for listener mal right, great,
20:47
Speaker 1: all right, Josh, I'm gonna call this from Penelope. Okay,
20:50
Speaker 1: how simple is that? Hey, guys, big fan. I remember
20:54
Speaker 1: when how gender reassignment works came up. It was a
20:57
Speaker 1: little worried because I fall into the genderquer slash transgender
21:01
Speaker 1: spectrum somewhere. That's all she says. As most people who
21:06
Speaker 1: try to talk about it in a non offensive way,
21:08
Speaker 1: UH usually fail. Y'all did a really good job, and
21:10
Speaker 1: I've had faith ever since then. But I have one
21:13
Speaker 1: note in the CPR podcast and you think it happeness related, right,
21:17
Speaker 1: I know because I've read this email, So you're not
21:20
Speaker 1: thinking that y'all talked about giving blood and how everyone
21:23
Speaker 1: should give blood. UM, I think in times like these
21:26
Speaker 1: it's important to keep in mind there's a huge population
21:28
Speaker 1: of people in the world who cannot give blood because
21:31
Speaker 1: of the backwards and outdated thinking of the Red Cross.
21:34
Speaker 1: Her words, I'm of course talking about anyone who has
21:37
Speaker 1: had sex with a man, who has had sex with
21:39
Speaker 1: a man ms MS men who have sex with men
21:44
Speaker 1: are indefinitely banned from giving blood. Women who have sex
21:48
Speaker 1: with M s M have a one year waiting window
21:51
Speaker 1: before they can wait M. I didn't know this. Uh.
21:54
Speaker 1: This thinking obviously came from the UH media created aid
21:59
Speaker 1: scare that we are just now coming out of. However,
22:02
Speaker 1: the Red Cross continues this discriminatory policy even though they're
22:07
Speaker 1: testing abilities that we have are incredibly incredibly accurate. To
22:11
Speaker 1: quickly sum it up, guys in the future, when we
22:13
Speaker 1: talk about getting blood in your general daily life on
22:15
Speaker 1: the podcast wherever, it's a good idea to say something
22:18
Speaker 1: like those who are allowed should get blood. And so
22:21
Speaker 1: I didn't know this, and it's always great to get
22:23
Speaker 1: this kind of message out. So thank you, that is,
22:26
Speaker 1: she says, love, which is very sweet. Penelope Poppers, thanks
22:29
Speaker 1: a lot of Penelope. That's awesome. Yeah, thank you for
22:31
Speaker 1: pointing out it's extraordinarily important. I would say, yeah, and
22:35
Speaker 1: you know, if that's the case, and I say, get
22:36
Speaker 1: with it and UH allow people to give blood. I
22:39
Speaker 1: fits safe. You just directed a message to the Red
22:41
Speaker 1: Cross calling them out. UH. If you want to call
22:45
Speaker 1: somebody out through us, we would like to help as
22:48
Speaker 1: any way possible. You can tweet to us at s
22:51
Speaker 1: Y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook
22:53
Speaker 1: dot com, slash stuff you Should Know. You can send
22:56
Speaker 1: us an email to Stuff Podcasts at Discovery dot com,
22:59
Speaker 1: and you can join us our home on the web,
23:01
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know dot com For more on this
23:09
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Is it how Stuff Works
23:11
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