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Short Stuff: Genetic Mutations · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh, and there's
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Chuck and this is Short Stuff, The Mysteries of Genetic
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Mutations Edition.
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  Speaker 2: That's right, because we're gonna talk about the X Men.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, a mutation. I mean, I don't know if it
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  Speaker 1: would help you join x men, But there are mutations
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  Speaker 1: that alter people, sometimes in positive ways. We usually associated
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  Speaker 1: with negative stuff, like a congenital disease or something. A
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  Speaker 1: lot of them are neutral, I think actually the vast
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  Speaker 1: majority are neutral. They don't really have any noticeable effect.
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  Speaker 1: Some are beneficial. Lactose intolerance, immunity to malaria, when someone's
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  Speaker 1: vestigial tale turns into a glorious full tale. Those are
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  Speaker 1: all beneficial genetic mutations. But all of them share something
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  Speaker 1: in common, and that is that the replication of the
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  Speaker 1: person's genome had some sort of error while it was
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  Speaker 1: being copied.
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  Speaker 2: Is lactose intolerance a beneficial No lactose tolerance, I think
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  Speaker 2: I thought you said intolerance.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, I'm sorry, Yeah, So lactose intolerance is apparently the
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  Speaker 1: base line the default lactose tolerance is from a genetic mutation.
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  Speaker 2: All right, well, let's get into this. Let's talk about
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  Speaker 2: DNA or deoxy riboonucleic acid as we all like to
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  Speaker 2: call it, such a great word around the campfire. That's
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  Speaker 2: a molecule that's going to carry genetic material almost said
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  Speaker 2: mutation when you're developing as a as a future human.
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  Speaker 2: And structurally, I think we've all seen the If you've
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  Speaker 2: seen Jurassic Park, you've seen what these double this double
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  Speaker 2: helix looks like it's a long molecule comprised of nucleotides
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  Speaker 2: and there been you know, there's two strands to that
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  Speaker 2: coil that formed the double helix that kind of wind
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  Speaker 2: around each other. And that's that's what the DNA, the
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  Speaker 2: full DNA what would you call it, just molecule looks.
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  Speaker 1: Like the genome. Yeah, the molecule DNA is a molecule. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: and you said it man, it is long. Apparently if
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  Speaker 1: you stretched it out, it would be about two meters
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  Speaker 1: or six feet tall, if you could figure out how
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  Speaker 1: to stretch it out. It's amazing. And it's made of
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  Speaker 1: three point one billion base pairs of nucleotides, thymine, cytosine, guanine,
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  Speaker 1: and adenine, and adenine goes with thymine, and cytosine goes
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  Speaker 1: with guanine and you put all that together. Just with
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  Speaker 1: those combinations, you have a a galaxy of different code
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  Speaker 1: that's embedded into the DNA that serves as how like,
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  Speaker 1: it tells the rest of your body, each cell what
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  Speaker 1: it's supposed to do and how to do it. And
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  Speaker 1: usually that has to do with expressing proteins.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, like you mentioned, as the cells
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  Speaker 2: divide and the DNA is making copies of itself, there
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  Speaker 2: might be errors here and there, and that's where those
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  Speaker 2: mutations come from. And then if they're in the egg
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  Speaker 2: and sperm cells, that those are going to be passed
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  Speaker 2: on to the next generation. So that's a genetic mutation
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  Speaker 2: that's going to carry on and cause disease or genetic disorders.
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  Speaker 2: You can also have what's called a somatic mutation, and
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  Speaker 2: that only affects you. It's not inherited by your future.
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  Speaker 1: Kids, right exactly. So really the big problem is genes,
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  Speaker 1: like a gene not being replicated correctly, and a gene
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  Speaker 1: is just a stretch of nucleotide base pairs along your
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  Speaker 1: genome that together shows how to encode a protein. It's
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  Speaker 1: the instructions to how to do a specific thing. And
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  Speaker 1: again it's just a segment along your DNA, and when
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  Speaker 1: that stuff gets copied, if there's any kind of error,
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  Speaker 1: like say you match up an AD nine to a cytosine,
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  Speaker 1: it's going to prevent that cellular process that whatever the
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  Speaker 1: gene is telling the cell to do to not be
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  Speaker 1: able to be performed correctly, hence some mutation.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and our cells are constantly copying themselves, either replacing
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  Speaker 2: old cells or damage cells. And when that happens, when
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  Speaker 2: they're doing that copy, that double stranded DNA is going
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  Speaker 2: to split into the two parts and each strand is
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  Speaker 2: copied on its own and then they come back together.
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  Speaker 2: And when that happens, there can be errors. The good
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  Speaker 2: news is it's approximately one in every one hundred million
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  Speaker 2: replications this happens. So that's a you know, that's a
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  Speaker 2: pretty good statistic to have in your hip pocket. The
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  Speaker 2: other good news is DNA knows what it's doing, so
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  Speaker 2: it generally knows when an error happens, and they try
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  Speaker 2: to and often can repair and correct that before any
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  Speaker 2: problems arise.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, I think that's a pretty good place to take
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  Speaker 1: a break, Chuck. So let's take a break, Chuck.
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  Speaker 2: Let's do it.
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  Speaker 3: Shot shot.
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  Speaker 1: Okay. So there's basically two ways that you can that
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  Speaker 1: a genetic mutation can develop, the cell replication, which we've
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  Speaker 1: talked a lot about, and then environmental influences. And there's
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  Speaker 1: actually different ways that can happen. Even during cell replication.
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  Speaker 1: There's tautumeric shifts, which is where the nucleotide itself undergoes
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  Speaker 1: a quick chemical reaction to where suddenly adnine turns into
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  Speaker 1: I don't know, silver just for a second and then
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  Speaker 1: it eventually turns back. But if that if that adnine
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  Speaker 1: nucleotide is being copied at that moment, you're going to
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  Speaker 1: have a silver nucleotide in your DNA.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Silver just don't work when it comes to making proteins.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's sort of due to bad timing. Another
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  Speaker 2: thing that can happen as far as those errors go,
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  Speaker 2: it's called mispairing. And was this a house Off Works article?
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  Speaker 1: Yes, it was.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, they did a pretty good job of putting this
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  Speaker 2: in terms we could understand. If you imagine those two
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  Speaker 2: DNA strands that work together are zipped together like a zipper.
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  Speaker 2: Sometimes that zipper doesn't.
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  Speaker 1: Align and get stuck in it.
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  Speaker 2: Oh my god, And that can happen when the DNA
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  Speaker 2: is getting zipped back up, and that can cause parts
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  Speaker 2: of it to be skipped over or maybe something added
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  Speaker 2: that shouldn't be right.
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  Speaker 1: And then the third way that a mutation can happen
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  Speaker 1: during replication is what's called jumping genes cousins of jumping jacks,
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  Speaker 1: and that is where so these genes are normally I
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  Speaker 1: don't understand this fully, but gene which again are just
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  Speaker 1: stretches of code on your DNA, can actually move. They
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  Speaker 1: can change positions, they can change places. Sometimes they replicate themselves,
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  Speaker 1: and the replicant goes and embeds itself in another segment
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  Speaker 1: of your DNA, And if it does so in a
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  Speaker 1: gene another gene, then it's going to mess up that
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  Speaker 1: gene's ability to perform its function. Did not know that
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  Speaker 1: that was a thing.
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  Speaker 2: Did not either, had never heard of jumping genes. I've
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  Speaker 2: heard of jumping beans and jumping jacks, but never jumping genes.
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  Speaker 1: Very nice. So that's the.
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  Speaker 2: Ways that can happen. As far as like an error
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  Speaker 2: occurring in your body on a cellular level, you mentioned
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  Speaker 2: external factors. One of the big ones, and I didn't
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  Speaker 2: know to this extent even is radiation and you might
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  Speaker 2: be thinking like, yeah, so you just don't get X
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  Speaker 2: rayed when you're pregnant, like that solves everything, right, That's
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  Speaker 2: not necessarily a case, because UV radiation can be a
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  Speaker 2: very big cause of mutations, specifically when it's called like
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  Speaker 2: a sunburn on your DNA. If you have too much
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  Speaker 2: UV radiation, you can they can form something called how
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  Speaker 2: would you say.
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  Speaker 1: That, I'm going to say perimidin dimers.
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  Speaker 2: Perimeding dimers, And I looked, I was.
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  Speaker 1: Like, is that a misprint? Is it supposed to be dimmers?
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  Speaker 1: And Nope.
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  Speaker 2: Now it's dimers and especially diming dimers that can distort
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  Speaker 2: that DNA structure. And that's sort of like a sunburn
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  Speaker 2: on the DNA, and that happens when a couple of
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  Speaker 2: DNA building blocks are stuck together, and that's oftentimes caused
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  Speaker 2: from you know, sun exposure.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's also chemical factors too, which are basically biological
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  Speaker 1: or environmental factors. Essentially, what it is is there's different
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  Speaker 1: kinds of chemicals that can make their way into the
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  Speaker 1: DNA in the nucleus of a cell and just mess
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  Speaker 1: with it. Sometimes they nucleotides and they get pulled in
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  Speaker 1: like like just some guy walking down the street getting
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  Speaker 1: pulled into the Jimmy Fallon Late Night Show because they
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  Speaker 1: couldn't get enough people to fill seats. That can happen
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  Speaker 1: during DNA reproduction replication, and when that nucleotide that didn't
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  Speaker 1: mean to be there gets entered into that the new
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  Speaker 1: code of DNA again, problems arise. That's a mutation.
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  Speaker 2: The problems arise when they have to sit there and
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  Speaker 2: watch Jimmy Fallon. Oh man, boy, I'm gonna hear it.
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  Speaker 2: They're also biological factors like a virus can cause that
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  Speaker 2: can get in the DNA and that can lead to mutations.
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  Speaker 2: And then there's some other environmental stuff as well, right, yeah.
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  Speaker 1: De animating agents they actually remove parts of our DNA.
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  Speaker 1: Substances like stuff found in cigarette smoke can stick to
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  Speaker 1: the DNA like so much tar and change the shape
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  Speaker 1: of the DNA. Essentially, you don't want anything going anywhere
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  Speaker 1: near your DNA. And if there's something that happens, and
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  Speaker 1: it happens on an important gene, that mutation is going
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  Speaker 1: to produce some sort of problems down the line. But
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  Speaker 1: our body is actually really really good at either preventing
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  Speaker 1: these errors or correcting them. When it finds them, which
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  Speaker 1: is just mind boggling to me.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's super cool that our body can do this.
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  Speaker 2: Sometimes it's like it's called a direct fix and these
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  Speaker 2: are these are just small little errors. Like they likened
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  Speaker 2: it to a road crack, and they also likened it
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  Speaker 2: to just a quick patch on that road. The cell
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  Speaker 2: just directly fixes it super quick.
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  Speaker 1: Like yeah, and we should say the cell the Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: the cell that's transcribing the DNA is aware of it
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  Speaker 1: because there are different different molecules that proofread the newly
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  Speaker 1: created DNA to make sure it matches the original.
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  Speaker 2: Amazing.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it is. So if they find a mismatch, if
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  Speaker 1: they find just some stretch it could be big, small, whatever,
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  Speaker 1: they'll actually cut it out excision. They'll digest it and
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  Speaker 1: then they'll reproduce the correct version of it and then
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  Speaker 1: connect it to that part that they cut out of
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  Speaker 1: the DNA and then zip it together.
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  Speaker 2: And if it's if a whole section of DNA gets damaged,
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  Speaker 2: they can go to another DNA strand and say, hey,
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  Speaker 2: I'm glad you're here because we're gonna use you now
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  Speaker 2: to come fix this other strand.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, thank god you're here. They were about to pull
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  Speaker 1: us into Jimmy Fallon and we needed something to do.
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  Speaker 2: That's a off said thing in my house. Thank God
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  Speaker 2: I was here because I know we mentioned one of
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: the roses the movie How It Holds Up. That's one
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  Speaker 2: of the great lines from one of the roses when
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: they are separated, but Michael Douglas is still in the
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  Speaker 2: house and the Christmas tree catches fire and he runs
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  Speaker 2: downstairs and puts it out and screams, thank god I
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  Speaker 2: was here. And I say that a lot, and just
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  Speaker 2: whenever anything dumb happens that I saw for the Face family,
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  Speaker 2: I go, thank god I was here.
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  Speaker 1: That's great. That's a great thing. Man Chuck. Everybody loves
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: Chuck for reasons like that.
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  Speaker 2: Not everybody, just like Raymond.
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  Speaker 1: All those people can go soak their heads.
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  Speaker 2: Oh okay, thank you.
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  Speaker 1: Well, since I think we're out of stuff to talk about,
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: short stuff is out.
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• 12:26
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• 12:30
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