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Speaker 1: Imagine for a second that you are you're standing in

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the cave, freezing cold, and you are looking at this

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massive block of ice that hasn't melted in like five

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thousand years. Right inside that ice is a bacteria that

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literally went to sleep before the Egyptian Pyramids were even built.

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Speaker 2: A biological time capsule exactly.

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Speaker 1: Now, imagine it wakes up today, and imagine that when

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you hit it with the absolute strongest medicine modern science

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has ever invented medicine. It has never encountered in its

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entire history. It just it just completely shrugs it off.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. See that is a terrifying image. But unfortunately for us,

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it is not a screenplay pitch. It is an actual

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biological reality.

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Speaker 1: Right. Or if that doesn't get your heart rate up,

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picture a rock the size of a football stadium, which

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is substantial, huge. It's moving at thirty thousand miles per

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hour heading right for US, but NASA sensors can't see

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it because it's hiding in the glare of the sun.

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Speaker 2: Blind spot.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, the blind spot. We literally don't know it's there

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until it is parking itslf on top of a major city.

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Speaker 2: Also, a very real documented problem in astrophysics right now.

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Speaker 1: And finally, just to really set the mood for you today,

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visualize a sealed tomb that hasn't been opened into millennia,

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and inside, according to the ground sensors, is a river

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of liquid mercury that is still flowing.

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Speaker 2: It sounds exactly like the opening montage of a summer blockbuster,

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doesn't it.

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Speaker 1: It really does.

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Speaker 2: But these are the actual data points sitting on the

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desks of scientists right now.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Thrilling Threads. I am your host, and today

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we are doing exactly what we always promise. We are

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taking a stack of intense, sometimes frankly terrifying, but always

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fascinating scientific reports, and we are pulling at the threads

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to see where they lead.

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Speaker 2: And today's thread is a bit of a high wire act.

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We are looking at what we've dubbed the Terror Index.

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Speaker 1: The Terror Index. I have to admit when I saw

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that title on our research folder, I almost genuinely almost

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didn't open the file. It felt a little ominous for

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a Tuesday morning.

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Speaker 2: It is evocative, I will give you that. But to

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be clear to you listening and to you, my friend,

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this isn't about fear mongering. We aren't here to tell

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you the world is ending tomorrow. We aren't standing on

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a street corner with a sandwich board that says the

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end is nigh.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, we're leaving the sandwich boards in the basement today exactly.

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Speaker 2: This is about facing raw data. It is about understanding

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why the smartest people in the room, the biologists, the astrophysicists,

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the climatologists, are genuinely losing sleep. It's a reality check,

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a major reality check on just how fragile our biological, ecological,

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and planetary systems actually are.

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Speaker 1: So our mission today is to explore ten specific recent discoveries.

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We are going to range from the microscopic stuff happening

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inside your own cells right now to the cosmic with

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rocks hurling through space.

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Speaker 2: We want to understand why these experts are worried, and.

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Speaker 1: For the listener tuning in our learner, remember this. Understanding

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the risk is the very first step to resilience.

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Speaker 2: Ignorance might be bliss, but it is a terrible survival strategy.

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Speaker 1: Well said, So buckle up. We've got hard science, we've

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got some serious aha moments, and we are even going

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to end with a historical mystery that feels straight out

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of an adventure novel.

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Speaker 2: But we need to start small, very very small.

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Speaker 1: And honestly, this first one is a little heartbreaking to me.

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Speaker 2: You are referring to section one, the invisible invasion, specifically

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the biology and chemistry of our modern world.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, we are calling this topic the pre polluted generation,

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and this comes from a study involving the Environmental Working Group.

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Speaker 2: Correct, this is a profound and unsettling study regarding umbilical cords.

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Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack this because usually when we think of

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pollution or toxicity, we think of it as something you

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accumulate over time. Yes, you know you live in a

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city with heavy smog, you eat junk food, maybe you

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work in an industrial factory. You think of a body

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burden as something you build up over forty or fifty years.

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Speaker 2: That is the traditional view. We assume we start with

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a clean slate, right. A newborn baby is supposed to

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be the absolutely definition of purity biologically speaking.

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Speaker 1: But this study says, well, not so much. No.

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Speaker 2: Scientists conducted some of the most detailed mass spectrometry scans

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ever performed on umbilical cord samples. These were from babies

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born between two thousand and three and two.

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Speaker 1: Thousand and six, and what were they looking for.

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Speaker 2: They were looking specifically for forever chemicals or pfas.

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Speaker 1: Okay, I have to stop you. There forever chemicals gets

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thrown around a lot in the news lately.

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Speaker 2: It does.

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Speaker 1: It almost sounds like a marketing term, or maybe an

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anti marketing term, because nothing lasts forever. If I bury

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a plastic bottle, it eventually degrades, right, even if it

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takes a thousand years. Why are these different? Why forever?

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Speaker 2: That is a very fair skepticism. Usually in nature, chemical

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bonds are meant to be broken. Your body has enzymes

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to break down food, bacteria in the soil have enzymes

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to break down dead leaves. But pfas per and polychloro

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alclsubstances are built on a very specific architecture, the carbon

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fluorine bond bond. Exactly in organic chemistry, the carbon fluorine

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bond is the strongest single bond possible. It is a

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total beast like, indestructible. It requires an immense amount of

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energy to shatter. Nature didn't evolve an enzyme to cut

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that bond because for the most part, that bond doesn't

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really exist in nature. We invented it. It's an artificial fortress.

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Speaker 1: So we basically built a chemical wall that nature doesn't

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have a wrecking ball for Precisely.

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Speaker 2: These chemicals are used in nonstick pans, stained resistant cloating,

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firefighting foam.

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Speaker 1: Things we use every single day, every day.

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Speaker 2: They are designed to repel water and oil. They are

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designed to survive, and that durability means they do not

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break down, not in the soil, not in the water,

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and definitely not in the human body.

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Speaker 1: So they get in and they just stay in.

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Speaker 2: They bioaccumulate and in these umbilical cord samples, remember these

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are from babies who have not yet taken a single

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breath of outside air, scientists found an average of forty

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two different forever chemical forty two.

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Speaker 1: That is it is But wait, isn't the placenta supposed

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to be the ultimate bodyguard. I always thought the whole

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point of the placenta was to filter out the bad

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stuff and only let the nutrients through to the baby.

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Speaker 2: That's the general idea.

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Speaker 1: Yes, how are these complex industrial chemicals getting past the bouncer?

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Speaker 2: That is the truly insidious part of this discovery. Many

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of these chemicals are what we call protein.

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Speaker 1: Philic, meaning they love proteins.

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Speaker 2: They bind to proteins in the blood. So when the

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mother's blood is transporting vital nutrients, proteins, fats to the fetus,

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these chemicals are just hitching a ride. Wow, they are

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chemically camouflaged. They slip right across the placental barrier because

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the barrier thinks they are part of the essentral cargo.

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Speaker 1: That paints a much darker picture than I realized. It's

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not just pollution floating around randomly. It's pollution that chemically

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locks onto our nutrients and tricks our biology exactly.

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Speaker 2: The study shatters the myth of the clean slate. These

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children are entering the world already carrying a chemical load.

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Speaker 1: They are pre polluted, and the obvious question I have

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is what does that do to a developing human. Forty

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two industrial chemicals swirling around in a six month old fetus.

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Speaker 2: That is the scary part. We know that early exposure

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to pfas can affect growth, it can alter immune responses,

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and it can seriously mess with metabolism later.

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Speaker 1: In life because it messes with hormones.

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Speaker 2: It's endocrine disruptor. Yes, it mimics hormones, but Here is

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the real kicker. Many of the forty two chemicals found

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in the study are barely studied.

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Speaker 1: Wait, so we found them inside humans, but we don't

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actually know what they do.

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Speaker 2: We know they are there, we know their industrial byproducts,

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but we don't know the specific long term physiological effects

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of this specific cocktail of chemicals.

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Speaker 1: Because we only test them one at a time.

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Speaker 2: Right, we study chemicals in isolation. Is chemical A safe?

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Is chemical B safe? We almost never study what happens

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when chemical AB and C mixed together inside a highly

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sensitive developing body.

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Speaker 1: So we are effectively running a massive generational experiment on

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ourselves without knowing the out come.

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Speaker 2: And since these samples were from two thousand and three

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to two thousand and six, and these chemicals are still widely.

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Speaker 1: Used today and new generations are likely getting the exact same,

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if not a much higher exposure.

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Speaker 2: It raises a massive crawling in about the baseline health

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of humanity moving forward. Are we seeing sudden rises in

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autoimmune diseases or metabolic issues simply because the baseline of

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human biology has shifted.

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Speaker 1: It's the unknown that gets me. It's not just saying, oh,

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this is bad, it's admitting that we don't even know

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how bad this is yet.

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Speaker 2: Precisely, and speaking of unknowns and things that definitely shouldn't

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be where they are, let's pivot from modern chemistry to

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ancient biology.

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Speaker 1: Oh, this one is wild topic b the ancient enemy.

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We are going from a mother's womb to an ice

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cave in Romania.

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Speaker 2: The scary Sora ice cave.

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Speaker 1: I actually looked up pictures of this place while preparing

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for this deep dive. It's breathtaking.

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Speaker 2: It is stunning.

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Speaker 1: It's this massive underground glacier illuminated by these dramatic shafts

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of light. It looks incredibly peaceful. Picture. Scientists down their

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drilling cores, maybe looking for an ancient pollen or atmospheric dust, but.

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Speaker 2: They found something else entirely. They found a bacteria, specifically

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a strain called Cyrobacter se sixty five, a.

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Speaker 1: Three very catching name. I'll just call it the ice bug.

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Speaker 2: The name matters much less than its capability. When they

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took this five thousand year old bacteria back to the

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lab and warmed it up, it simply woke up.

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Speaker 1: Which in itself is impressive to me. Sleeping for five

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thousand years basically since the Late Stone Age and then

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just waking up and asking for a cup of coffee.

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Speaker 2: Bacteria are the ultimate survivalists on this planet. But waking

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up wasn't the big surprise. No, the surprise came when

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lead researcher, doctor Christina Precaria, decided to test this ancient

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bug against modern medicine, which you'd think.

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Speaker 1: Would be a blood bath. Right, it's five thousand years old,

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It's never seen an antibiotic in its life.

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Speaker 2: Never.

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Speaker 1: Antibiotics are a twentieth century invention. Penicillin wasn't exactly floating

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around when this thing went to sleep. It should be

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incredibly easy to wipe out.

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Speaker 2: That would certainly be the logical assumption. Yet when they

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exposed it to antibiotics, the syrobacter didn't care at all.

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It was completely resistant to ten different modern antibiotics. Ten ten.

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We're talking about diverse, powerful classes of drugs used to

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treat serious infections in hospitals today. Doctor Percaria found that

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this single bacteria carries over one hundred resistance related genes.

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Speaker 1: How is that even possible? I mean, really, how can

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something predate the cure and already be immune to it?

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Did it have a tiny bacterial time.

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Speaker 2: Machine It's a fascinating, if somewhat frightening look into evolution.

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It suggests that antibiotic resistance isn't just a modern reaction

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to human medicine.

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Speaker 1: We always hear that we cause this by over prescribing pills.

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Speaker 2: We tend to think we created resistance by over using drugs.

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But this proves that the chemical war between bacteria and

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fungi has been raging in the dirt for millions of years.

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Speaker 1: So nature has been fighting this microscopic war long before

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we even showed up on the scene.

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Speaker 2: Exactly, fungi produced natural chemicals to kill bacteria. That's what

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penicillin actually is. Originally, it's a mold defense mechanism, right,

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So bacteria evolve chemical shields to survive. This syrobacter had

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evolved dense armor to fight off mold and other aggressive

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bacteria in the prehistoric soil. It's like finding a caveman

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frozen in ice who happens to already be wearing a

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modern kevlar vest.

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Speaker 1: That is a perfect analogy. But here is the thrilling

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thread that keeps those scientists up at night. As the

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world warms up, ice is melting everywhere Greenland, Antarctica, mountain glaciers.

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Speaker 2: And that ice isn't just frozen water. It's a biological vault.

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It's a true Pandora's box, right.

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Speaker 1: Because if these ancient superbugs, these guys in the kevlar vest,

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get released into the global waterways, they can start mixing

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with our modern bacteria.

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Speaker 2: And bacteria love to swap genetic material.

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Speaker 1: Like trading cards.

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Speaker 2: We call it horizontal gene transfer. Yes, it is one

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of the scariest mechanisms in all of biology. Two different

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bacteria bump into each other and one says, hey, here's

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the blueprint for that shield I have, and literally passes

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a plasmid over to the other.

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Speaker 1: So if those one hundred resistance genes from the cyrobacter

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get transferred to say a modern staff infection or an

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Ecola strain.

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Speaker 2: We suddenly have a modern pathogen that is highly resistant

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to everything we have in our medical arsenal, and it

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appears seemingly out of nowhere.

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Speaker 1: It complicates the global antibiotic resistance crisis exponentially. We aren't

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just fighting the bugs we know today. We are suddenly

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fighting the ghosts of the prehistoric past.

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Speaker 2: Precisely, it introduces a massive, unseen variable into public health.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so we have industrial chemicals hiding inside us and

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ancient armored bugs waiting to thaw out of the ice.

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But there is a third threat in this biological section.

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And this one honestly feels like it was ripped straight

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out of a weird sci fi novel.

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Speaker 2: This is the realm of synthetic biology, specifically what we

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call mirror image life.

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Speaker 1: This one completely blew my mind during prep. I need

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you to explain this concept of mirror life to the

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listeners because it almost sounds thick.

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Speaker 2: It is very real theoretical science, though it sounds bizarre.

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Think about your hands. You have a left handed right hand.

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They look exactly the same, but they are non superimposable.

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Speaker 1: Meaning I can't put my left hand perfectly over my

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right hand facing the same way.

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Speaker 2: Exactly. If you try to put a left handed glove

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on a right hand, it just doesn't fit. The thumb

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is on the wrong side.

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Speaker 1: Okay, I got that.

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Speaker 2: Molecules work the exact same way. They have property called

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chirality or handedness. Here's the mind bending thing. All natural

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life on earth, every plant, every animal you meet, the

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bacteria in your gut, we all use the exact same

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handedness for our biological building blocks.

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Speaker 1: So chemically speaking, we are all left handed.

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Speaker 2: Right Evolution picked a lane billions of years ago and

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just stuck with it. But scientists today can theoretically create

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mere image molecules in a lab. They can build a

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right handed version of DNA or right handed proteins, and.

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Speaker 1: If you somehow string those together and make a living

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life form out of that, you get mirror life.

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Speaker 2: Correct And recently, in December twenty twenty four, a group

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of thirty eight eminent scientists, which actually included two Nobel laureates,

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published a report that was essentially a screaming warning sign.

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Speaker 1: What were they warning about?

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Speaker 2: They are terrified of what happens if we actually succeed

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in creating a mirror organism in the lab.

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Speaker 1: Why is it just because it feels unnatural to play

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god like that?

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Speaker 2: No, it's not a philosophical objection. It's because the organism

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would be biologically.

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Speaker 1: Invisible, invisible like literally see through.

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Speaker 2: Invisible to your body. Think about how your immune system works.

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It's a complex lock and key system. Your white blood

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cells physically feel the shape of a virus or bacteria, right,

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if the shape of the invader fits the bad guy

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receptor on your white blood cell. The cell attacks and

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destroys it. But our immune system is entirely trained on

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left handed life.

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Speaker 1: Oh, I see where you're going with this.

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Speaker 2: If a right handed mirror bacteria enter your bloodstream, your

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immune cells might simply bump right off it like it's

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a ghost. They wouldn't recognize it as biological material. They

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simply wouldn't have a receptor that fits the backward shape.

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Speaker 1: So it could just set up shop in my lungs, reproduce,

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and eat away at my tissue, and my body wouldn't

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even note raise a fever.

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Speaker 2: That is the ultimate nightmare scenario. The report explicitly warned

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that mirror microbes could quote escape immune defenses and invade

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natural ecosystems, leading to pervasive lethal infections.

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Speaker 1: Pervasive lethal infections that honestly sounds like.

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Speaker 2: The end of the world and not just a threat

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to humans, plants, animals, fungi. The entire global ecosystem operates

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on the left handed system. A mirror organism would be

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the ultimate invasive species because absolutely nothing could eat it

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and absolutely nothing could fight it off.

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Speaker 1: Has anyone actually done it yet? Is there a mirror

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mouse or a mirror bug running around a lab somewhere

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right now.

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Speaker 2: Thankfully no no one has managed to create a fully

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living mirror cell yet. Okay, good, but the research is

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getting alarmingly closer to synthesizing the machinery needed to do it.

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Our fear is that scientific curiosity, the overwhelming drive of

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can we do this, will override the fundamental safety question

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of should we do this.

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Speaker 1: It's the classic Jurassic Park problem, but on a terrifying

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molecular level.

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Speaker 2: Precisely, we are playing with the absolute fundamental building blocks

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of existence.

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Speaker 1: And with that incredibly uplifting thought, perhaps we should zoom

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out a bit. We've looked at the microscopic terror. Let's

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look at the planetary scale.

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Speaker 2: Yes, let's move to section two, the planetary fever. We

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are talking oceans.

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Speaker 1: And climate, and I want to start with the specific

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record that was broken very recently.

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Speaker 2: The twenty twenty five climate record.

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Speaker 1: Right. This was a major study led by Lejing Cheng

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at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics in Beijing. They looked

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at the total ocean heat content, and the stark headline

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is just the ocean is extremely.

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Speaker 2: Hot, hotter than ever recorded in human history. In twenty

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twenty five, the oceans absorbed more heat than at any

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point since modern measurements began.

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Speaker 1: And this wasn't just some fringe group saying this, not

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at all.

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Speaker 2: This involved rigorous data collection from over fifty scientists across

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thirty one global institutions. It is an overwhelming consensus.

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Speaker 1: I really like the analogy they use of the heat sponge.

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Speaker 2: It's a highly accurate analogy. The ocean absorbs about ninety

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percent of the excess heat trapped by our greenhouse gas emissions.

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It is Earth's ultimate buffer.

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Speaker 1: So it's protecting us.

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Speaker 2: If the ocean didn't do this, the surface of the

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planet where we live would be completely unlivable by now.

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It saves us from frying immediately. But a sponge can

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only hold so much water before it drips.

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Speaker 1: And when you say it absorbed more heat than ever,

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what does that actually mean for me? Why should I

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care if the water out the middle of the Pacific

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Ocean is a single degree.

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Speaker 2: Warmer Because the ocean is the primary engine of our

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global weather system. Heat is energy. When you add massive

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amounts of extra energy to a closed system, the engine

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spins much faster and becomes wildly erratic. Warmer surface water

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fuels significantly stronger hurricanes.

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Speaker 1: We've definitely been seeing that.

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Speaker 2: It alters the gest stream, it changes global rainfall patterns,

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leading to incredibly intense flooding in some places and devastating

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multi year droughts in others.

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Speaker 1: And water actually physically expands when it gets hot, right,

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just simple physics.

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Speaker 2: Thermal expansion. Yes, a very significant portion of global sea

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level rise isn't just from melting ice caps. It's simply

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the water molecules in the ocean vibrating faster and taking

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up slightly more physical space.

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Speaker 1: But there's another specific thing you mentioned in our pre

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show chat that I want to bring up, heat memory.

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Speaker 2: Ah. Yes, heat memory is crucial. Water has a very

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high heat capacity. It holds onto thermal energy for a very.

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Speaker 1: Long time, unlike air.

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Speaker 2: Exactly, Air cools down quite quickly at night or during

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the winter. The ocean doesn't. That massive amount of heat

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absorbed in twenty twenty five doesn't just mysteriously vent out

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into space next Tuesday. It stays right there in the

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water column. It circulates deep down. We are essentially locking

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in global warming for decades, perhaps even centuries, regardless of

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what we do today.

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Speaker 1: So we are. We're loading the gun essentially and handing

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it to the next generation.

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Speaker 2: We are fully priming the planetary system for extreme volatility.

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Speaker 1: And we can already see the direct casualties of this.

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Right now, let's talk about topic E, the whitewash coral reefs.

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Speaker 2: This is truly tragic to watch unfold. Since early twenty

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twenty three, we've been witnessing the largest continuous coral bleaching

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event on record.

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Speaker 1: Eighty four percent of the entire planet's reefs affected.

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Speaker 2: Eighty four percent. That number is genuinely hard for a

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marine biologist to even comprehend, and.

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Speaker 1: For anyone listening who thinks, well, bleaching just means they

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turn white. Maybe they'll just turn back to normal later.

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Can you explain the actual biology, because it's not just

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a superficial color change.

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Speaker 2: No, it is a desperate survival response. Coral is a

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fascinating partnership. It's a tiny animal, the polp, living in

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a symbiotic relationship with a microscopic plant, an algae. Right

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the algae gives the coral its beautiful, vibrant colors, and crucially,

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it performs photosynthesis to provide the coral with its main

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food source. But When the water gets too hot, the

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coral becomes incredibly stressed. It literally vomits out the algae.

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Speaker 1: It kicks out its own roommate, who pays the rent

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and buys all the groceries.

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Speaker 2: That's exactly what it does. The coral turns stark white

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because you are suddenly seeing its transparent animal tissue right

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over its white calcium carbonate skeleton.

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Speaker 1: It's starting to dith.

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Speaker 2: It is actively starving. Now. If the water pools down

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quickly enough, the algae can sometimes return and the coral recovers.

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But if the severe heat persists, which it is doing,

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the coral simply dies.

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Speaker 1: And marine scientist Melanie Macfield had a quote in her

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report that really stuck with me. She said, some reef

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areas that used to have fifty percent living vibrant coral

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now have quote almost none. Yes, she explicitly called it unprecedented.

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Speaker 2: It is the real time collapse of an entire global biome.

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And this isn't just about losing some pretty vacation spots

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for scuba diving. Coral reefs support twenty five percent of

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all known marine species.

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Speaker 1: A quarter of the ocean.

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Speaker 2: They physically protect our coastlines from massive storm surges. By

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breaking the waves, they directly support billions of dollars in

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local fisheries. If the reefs go extinct, it triggers a

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catastrophic domino effect through the oceanic food web that eventually

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reaches our own dinner plates and our global economies.

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Speaker 1: Speaking of oceanic food webs and really weird sea creatures,

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we have to talk about the zombie worms.

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Speaker 2: Ah yes, o zaacs.

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Speaker 1: Topic f the vanishing zombies. First off, you have to

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tell everyone what a zombie worm actually is, because it

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is delightfully gross.

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Speaker 2: They are extreme deep sea specialists. They literally feed on

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the sunken bones of dead whales, what we call whalefalls.

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But the strange thing is they have no mouth, no gut,

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and no anus.

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Speaker 1: So how on earth do they eat a whale skeleton?

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Speaker 2: They look a bit like tiny red snot flowers, swaying

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in the dark. They secrete a powerful acid to slowly

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dissolve the dense whalebone, and then they use complex symbiotic

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bacteria in their root systems to digest the trapped fats

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and proteins. That's why they basically grow invasive roots deep

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into the skeleton, much like a tree grows into soil.

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Speaker 1: Nature is completely horrifying sometimes and I absolutely love it.

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But here is the deep sea mystery. Researchers deliberately left

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several whalebones on the deep sea floor for ten years,

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fully expecting to come back to a massive worm feast.

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Speaker 2: They finally came back with their submersibles and the bones

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were perfectly pristine, zero worms.

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Speaker 1: The zombies didn't show up to their own buffet.

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Speaker 2: Why this directly connects back to our ocean warming discussion.

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Researchers Fabia Delio and Craig Smith linked this sudden disappearance

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to massively expanding oxygen minimum zones or OMZs. The death

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stones exactly, warm water physically holds less dissolved oxygen than

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cold water. It's just a basic physical property of fluids.

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As the global ocean's rapidly warm, these deep low oxygen

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zones are dramatically expanding.

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Speaker 1: Outwards, phisicating everything.

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Speaker 2: They're suffocating, even the absolute heartiest creatures of the deep abyss.

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Fact that Austaks, a hyper specialized scavenger that literally evolved

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for extreme harsh environments, couldn't survive there strongly suggests that

474
00:23:08,279 --> 00:23:11,519
huge vast waves of the deep ocean are quietly becoming

475
00:23:11,559 --> 00:23:12,759
completely uninhabitable.

476
00:23:12,839 --> 00:23:14,960
Speaker 1: It's basically a canary in the coal mine, but the

477
00:23:15,000 --> 00:23:17,680
canary is a weird bone eating worm, and the coal

478
00:23:17,680 --> 00:23:19,759
mine is the freezing bottom of the ocean.

479
00:23:19,960 --> 00:23:23,599
Speaker 2: Precisely, it clearly shows that global warming isn't just affecting

480
00:23:23,640 --> 00:23:26,319
the sunny surface waters or the coastal reefs. It is

481
00:23:26,359 --> 00:23:29,240
fundamentally changing the core chemistry of the deep abyss.

482
00:23:29,519 --> 00:23:32,359
Speaker 1: And that leads us to possibly the scariest concept in

483
00:23:32,440 --> 00:23:37,160
all of climate science today, topic g. The feedback loops.

484
00:23:37,119 --> 00:23:40,759
Speaker 2: The tipping points. This relies on the complex modeling work

485
00:23:40,799 --> 00:23:44,200
of scientists like William Ripple and Johann Rockstrom.

486
00:23:44,440 --> 00:23:47,240
Speaker 1: The basic idea that we aren't just slowly sliding down

487
00:23:47,240 --> 00:23:51,200
a steep hill, We're actually walking blindfolded toward a cliff edge.

488
00:23:51,359 --> 00:23:55,599
Speaker 2: That is the crucial distinction to understand. A linear climate

489
00:23:55,680 --> 00:23:58,319
change means if you emit a little less carbon tomorrow,

490
00:23:58,400 --> 00:24:01,440
the weather gets a little better. A feedback loop means

491
00:24:01,480 --> 00:24:05,440
the planetary system eventually takes over and dries itself. The classic,

492
00:24:05,480 --> 00:24:07,599
easiest example is the albedo effect.

493
00:24:07,960 --> 00:24:09,599
Speaker 1: Break that down for us. What is albedo?

494
00:24:09,839 --> 00:24:13,599
Speaker 2: Its reflectivity ice is bright white. It reflects incoming sunlight

495
00:24:13,680 --> 00:24:16,359
right back into space, much like the giant mirror. Open

496
00:24:16,400 --> 00:24:19,319
water and bare land are dark, they absorbed sunlight much

497
00:24:19,400 --> 00:24:21,640
like wearing a black T shirt on a sweltering.

498
00:24:21,240 --> 00:24:23,920
Speaker 1: Hot day, right you get way hotter in black exactly.

499
00:24:24,000 --> 00:24:26,400
Speaker 2: So as the white ice naturally melts, it exposes the

500
00:24:26,440 --> 00:24:30,440
dark ocean surface underneath. That dark surface suddenly absorbs much

501
00:24:30,480 --> 00:24:34,400
more solar heat, which dramatically warms the local area, which

502
00:24:34,400 --> 00:24:36,400
in turn melts even more surrounding ice.

503
00:24:36,759 --> 00:24:39,279
Speaker 1: So the melting directly causes more melting.

504
00:24:39,480 --> 00:24:44,359
Speaker 2: It becomes completely self perpetuating. The profound fear among climatologists

505
00:24:44,519 --> 00:24:48,079
is that we are rapidly approaching a strict mathematical point

506
00:24:48,119 --> 00:24:51,240
where even if every human on Earth stopped all carbon

507
00:24:51,240 --> 00:24:55,119
emissions tomorrow morning, the planet would simply keep warming because

508
00:24:55,160 --> 00:24:58,599
these immense planetary loops have started spinning entirely on their own.

509
00:24:58,640 --> 00:25:04,680
Speaker 1: Momentum talks about humanity risking entering a quote hotter, more

510
00:25:04,720 --> 00:25:08,519
extreme state that hasn't been seen in eleven thousand years.

511
00:25:08,440 --> 00:25:11,440
Speaker 2: Since the absolute dawn of human civilization. I really want

512
00:25:11,480 --> 00:25:14,279
you to think about that time scale all of recorded

513
00:25:14,359 --> 00:25:18,359
human history, the invention of agriculture, the first cities written language,

514
00:25:18,400 --> 00:25:20,400
the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, the entire

515
00:25:20,480 --> 00:25:25,000
Industrial Revolution. It all successfully happened within a very specific,

516
00:25:25,359 --> 00:25:27,720
highly stable, narrow climate window.

517
00:25:27,960 --> 00:25:29,920
Speaker 1: And we are currently taking a hammer to the glass

518
00:25:29,960 --> 00:25:30,759
of that stable window.

519
00:25:30,799 --> 00:25:35,839
Speaker 2: We are smashing it to pieces. Okay, that's incredibly heavy.

520
00:25:36,480 --> 00:25:39,079
We've done the invisible chemical invasion inside our own bodies.

521
00:25:39,119 --> 00:25:42,599
We've done the planetary ocean fever. Now let's look up,

522
00:25:43,319 --> 00:25:46,640
because apparently the universe itself is also casually trying to

523
00:25:46,720 --> 00:25:47,079
kill us.

524
00:25:47,200 --> 00:25:52,240
Speaker 1: Section three, the Existential Threats, Space and Time topic h.

525
00:25:52,440 --> 00:25:55,240
Speaker 2: The blind spot. We are talking about.

526
00:25:55,119 --> 00:25:59,680
Speaker 1: Asteroids, specifically the asteroids we absolutely cannot see.

527
00:26:00,000 --> 00:26:03,160
Speaker 2: I've heard from doctor Kelly Fast from NASA's Planetary Defense

528
00:26:03,200 --> 00:26:06,759
Coordination Office. First of all, I love that planetary defense

529
00:26:06,920 --> 00:26:10,319
is an actual, real government job title. It sounds like

530
00:26:10,359 --> 00:26:12,279
she should wear a superhero cape to the office.

531
00:26:12,319 --> 00:26:15,359
Speaker 1: It is a highly critical role. But she openly admitted

532
00:26:15,519 --> 00:26:17,599
that what actually keeps her up at night are the

533
00:26:17,640 --> 00:26:19,440
asteroids they still don't know about.

534
00:26:19,559 --> 00:26:21,799
Speaker 2: Because here are the numbers that genuinely terrified me when

535
00:26:21,799 --> 00:26:24,119
I read them. She says, there are roughly twenty five

536
00:26:24,200 --> 00:26:27,319
thousand near Earth asteroids flying around out there that are

537
00:26:27,359 --> 00:26:29,759
large enough to completely wipe out a major.

538
00:26:29,519 --> 00:26:31,519
Speaker 1: City correct twenty five thousand, and.

539
00:26:31,440 --> 00:26:34,319
Speaker 2: We have successfully tracked how many of those.

540
00:26:34,200 --> 00:26:37,359
Speaker 1: Currently only about forty percent. So just doing some quick

541
00:26:37,400 --> 00:26:42,559
mental math here, that leaves roughly fifteen thousand city killers

542
00:26:42,640 --> 00:26:46,400
randomly flying around our cosmic neighborhood, and we have absolutely

543
00:26:46,559 --> 00:26:48,240
zero idea where they are right now.

544
00:26:48,559 --> 00:26:51,039
Speaker 2: That is what we call the blind spot. Now, to

545
00:26:51,079 --> 00:26:54,640
be entirely fair to NASA, we have tracked almost all

546
00:26:54,720 --> 00:26:59,000
the true planet killers, the massive dinosaur ending rocks.

547
00:26:59,079 --> 00:26:59,839
Speaker 1: Okay, that's good.

548
00:27:00,000 --> 00:27:02,759
Speaker 2: Those are extremely huge and very easy to spot with

549
00:27:02,839 --> 00:27:06,559
basic telescopes. We know exactly where they are, and thankfully

550
00:27:06,680 --> 00:27:08,920
none are currently on a collision course with Earth.

551
00:27:09,319 --> 00:27:11,359
Speaker 1: Small mercies I really don't want to go out like

552
00:27:11,359 --> 00:27:12,880
a t rex, but these.

553
00:27:12,720 --> 00:27:15,160
Speaker 2: Mid size ones, say roughly the size of a large

554
00:27:15,160 --> 00:27:19,759
football stadium, are incredibly tricky. They're very dark, they're relatively

555
00:27:19,839 --> 00:27:22,599
small in cosmic terms, and if they happen to come

556
00:27:22,640 --> 00:27:25,079
at us from the direction of the sun, our optical

557
00:27:25,079 --> 00:27:28,200
telescopes are completely blinded by the intense solar glare.

558
00:27:28,480 --> 00:27:31,240
Speaker 1: A football stadium hitting a major city at thirty thousand

559
00:27:31,319 --> 00:27:33,880
miles an hour, that's game over for the city.

560
00:27:33,960 --> 00:27:37,720
Speaker 2: Absolutely, it'll be an instant catastrophe of historic proportions, millions

561
00:27:37,759 --> 00:27:39,200
of lives lost in seconds.

562
00:27:39,359 --> 00:27:42,480
Speaker 1: So what's the actual plan here? If we suddenly see

563
00:27:42,519 --> 00:27:45,519
one tomorrow? Do we shoot a nuclear missile at it?

564
00:27:45,599 --> 00:27:48,359
Like in the Hollywood movies? Do we send Bruce Willis

565
00:27:48,440 --> 00:27:48,960
up there with a.

566
00:27:49,000 --> 00:27:53,000
Speaker 2: Droll Doctor Faust is refreshingly honest about our current capabilities?

567
00:27:53,680 --> 00:27:56,440
There is real hope on the horizon. The Near Earth

568
00:27:56,480 --> 00:27:58,599
Object surveyor telescope is launching soon.

569
00:27:59,000 --> 00:27:59,640
Speaker 1: What does that do?

570
00:28:00,039 --> 00:28:02,680
Speaker 2: It is specifically designed to sit in space and find

571
00:28:02,920 --> 00:28:05,960
ninety percent of these hidden rocks using advanced heat detection

572
00:28:06,319 --> 00:28:09,079
rather than visible light. It'll spot them against the cold

573
00:28:09,119 --> 00:28:09,920
background of space.

574
00:28:10,119 --> 00:28:14,279
Speaker 1: Okay, let's quickly talk about the other terrifying countdown topic.

575
00:28:14,359 --> 00:28:17,759
I the doomsday clock, created.

576
00:28:17,319 --> 00:28:20,000
Speaker 2: And maintained by the Bolton of the atomic scientists.

577
00:28:20,799 --> 00:28:23,240
Speaker 1: Now, I saw the big headline for the January twenty

578
00:28:23,279 --> 00:28:26,480
twenty six update, and I'll be totally honest, the math

579
00:28:26,599 --> 00:28:27,839
really threw me off for a second.

580
00:28:28,000 --> 00:28:28,359
Speaker 2: HAISO.

581
00:28:28,599 --> 00:28:31,200
Speaker 1: Well, back in twenty twenty five, we were officially at

582
00:28:31,279 --> 00:28:34,440
ninety seconds to midnight, but the new update places us

583
00:28:34,480 --> 00:28:38,160
at one minute and forty two seconds. My brain immediately went, oh,

584
00:28:38,240 --> 00:28:40,880
one minute forty two is a bigger number than ninety seconds.

585
00:28:40,880 --> 00:28:44,480
We bought ourselves some extra time. The world is finally safer.

586
00:28:44,799 --> 00:28:47,759
Speaker 2: I completely see the confusion there. Ninety seconds is of

587
00:28:47,799 --> 00:28:51,079
course one minute and thirty seconds, So one minute forty

588
00:28:51,079 --> 00:28:53,559
two is actually twelve seconds further away from midnight.

589
00:28:53,759 --> 00:28:57,000
Speaker 1: Right, So why were the scientists aggressively sounding the alarm

590
00:28:57,039 --> 00:28:59,039
this year? Did they just mess up the basic math

591
00:28:59,279 --> 00:29:01,759
or is the terror deliberately misleading us here?

592
00:29:01,839 --> 00:29:04,000
Speaker 2: Yeah? No, this is where you really have to read

593
00:29:04,039 --> 00:29:06,839
the fine print of their annual report. The bulletin explicitly

594
00:29:06,839 --> 00:29:09,319
stated this new time is the absolute closest the clock

595
00:29:09,359 --> 00:29:12,200
has ever been to midnight in its entire seventy eight year.

596
00:29:12,039 --> 00:29:14,160
Speaker 1: History, but the math still feels backwards.

597
00:29:14,559 --> 00:29:17,839
Speaker 2: This implies, though, while the strict symbolic time might seem

598
00:29:17,880 --> 00:29:21,839
confusingly close to the previous record, the underlying reasoning behind

599
00:29:21,839 --> 00:29:26,000
the move suggests we are significantly deeper in the unprecedented

600
00:29:26,039 --> 00:29:26,920
danger zone.

601
00:29:27,240 --> 00:29:29,799
Speaker 1: So I should just ignore my bad mental arithmetic and

602
00:29:29,799 --> 00:29:32,200
focus on the actual message they are sending exactly.

603
00:29:32,480 --> 00:29:35,599
Speaker 2: The core message is all about convergence. During the height

604
00:29:35,640 --> 00:29:38,160
of the Cold War, the clock mainly moved back and

605
00:29:38,200 --> 00:29:41,680
forth because of nuclear arsenals, a singular clear.

606
00:29:41,519 --> 00:29:43,279
Speaker 1: Threat US versus soviets.

607
00:29:43,680 --> 00:29:48,240
Speaker 2: Today, the bulletin explicitly cites a massive convergence of interacting crises.

608
00:29:48,640 --> 00:29:51,799
You have the persistent nuclear risk, yes, but you drastically

609
00:29:51,880 --> 00:29:54,920
stack the climate feedback loops we just discussed right on

610
00:29:54,960 --> 00:29:57,960
top of that. Then you add the totally unregulated AI

611
00:29:58,119 --> 00:30:02,759
risks and the synthetic mirror life possibilities and global political instability.

612
00:30:02,839 --> 00:30:04,240
Speaker 1: It's a giant threat multiplier.

613
00:30:04,400 --> 00:30:08,359
Speaker 2: Exactly if a severe climate crisis causes a desperate rethource

614
00:30:08,440 --> 00:30:11,640
war over fresh water, which then directly triggers a tense

615
00:30:11,720 --> 00:30:15,960
nuclear standoff. The global systems are all inextricably linked. Now,

616
00:30:16,119 --> 00:30:19,799
the clock is desperately trying to measure the overwhelming complexity

617
00:30:19,839 --> 00:30:23,079
of a potential collapse, not just the raw likelihood of

618
00:30:23,079 --> 00:30:25,519
a single bomb going off. The terror comes from the

619
00:30:25,519 --> 00:30:28,440
stark fact that we simply can't solve these huge problems

620
00:30:28,440 --> 00:30:30,880
one at a time anymore. We have to somehow solve

621
00:30:30,880 --> 00:30:31,559
them all at once.

622
00:30:31,720 --> 00:30:34,759
Speaker 1: Okay, we definitely need a break, not a commercial break,

623
00:30:34,799 --> 00:30:37,960
but a genuine mental break. We have been hit with

624
00:30:38,200 --> 00:30:43,359
ancient superbugs. Boiling oceans, invisible city, killer asteroids, and the

625
00:30:43,440 --> 00:30:46,680
overwhelming complexity of the end of the world. Can we

626
00:30:46,720 --> 00:30:49,160
please go somewhere slightly quiet for a minute.

627
00:30:49,400 --> 00:30:50,359
Speaker 2: Let's good with tune.

628
00:30:50,599 --> 00:30:53,680
Speaker 1: That still sounds incredibly ominous, but honestly, I'll take it.

629
00:30:54,119 --> 00:30:57,400
Section four The Palate Cleanser. We are traveling to China.

630
00:30:57,559 --> 00:31:01,920
Speaker 2: Topic jay the Emperor's Curse, the massive Tomb of Kinshiwan.

631
00:31:02,240 --> 00:31:04,960
Speaker 1: This is a historical story. I absolutely love. This is

632
00:31:05,000 --> 00:31:07,799
the ancient emperor who famously created the terra cotta army,

633
00:31:07,920 --> 00:31:11,200
those thousands of life sized clay soldiers.

634
00:31:10,880 --> 00:31:13,519
Speaker 2: The first emperor of a unified China. He died roughly

635
00:31:13,559 --> 00:31:14,960
twenty two hundred years ago.

636
00:31:14,960 --> 00:31:18,839
Speaker 1: And his actual tomb, the massive central burial chamber beneath

637
00:31:18,880 --> 00:31:22,359
the man made mountain, has never been opened by modern archaeologists.

638
00:31:22,799 --> 00:31:26,079
Speaker 2: Never it remains completely sealed, which is.

639
00:31:26,119 --> 00:31:28,839
Speaker 1: Just wild to me. We are so curious as a species.

640
00:31:28,880 --> 00:31:31,759
We've dug up giant dinosaurs, We've dug up the Lost

641
00:31:31,799 --> 00:31:35,799
City of Troy, We've famously dug up King tut in Egypt.

642
00:31:36,119 --> 00:31:36,960
Why not this guy?

643
00:31:37,319 --> 00:31:40,839
Speaker 2: Well, there are two primary reasons holding the scientific community back.

644
00:31:41,440 --> 00:31:44,440
One is a genuine fear of what's physically inside waiting

645
00:31:44,480 --> 00:31:47,880
for them. The other is a deep fear of completely

646
00:31:47,920 --> 00:31:49,200
destroying what's inside.

647
00:31:49,400 --> 00:31:51,519
Speaker 1: Let's start with the fear of what's inside, because the

648
00:31:51,599 --> 00:31:53,839
ancient legends say it's full of deadly traps.

649
00:31:54,039 --> 00:31:58,119
Speaker 2: Ancient historians, writing roughly a century after his death, explicitly

650
00:31:58,200 --> 00:32:01,880
described that the tomb was heavily rich with complex mechanical

651
00:32:01,880 --> 00:32:05,680
crossbows designed to automatically fire on any intruders who breached

652
00:32:05,720 --> 00:32:09,039
the tunnels. Sounds like Indiana Jones, but much more famously,

653
00:32:09,160 --> 00:32:11,799
they wrote that the emperor was buried surrounded by vast

654
00:32:11,839 --> 00:32:16,119
flowing rivers of liquid mercury, mechanically pumped to simulate the

655
00:32:16,160 --> 00:32:18,160
Great Yellow and Yank Sea rivers.

656
00:32:17,880 --> 00:32:20,680
Speaker 1: Of China mercury rivers. It really does sound like pure

657
00:32:20,759 --> 00:32:23,200
exaggerated myth, like something out of a fantasy novel.

658
00:32:23,240 --> 00:32:25,119
Speaker 2: It does sound mythical until you actually look at the

659
00:32:25,119 --> 00:32:27,039
modern scientific soil samples.

660
00:32:26,680 --> 00:32:27,400
Speaker 1: They tested it.

661
00:32:27,599 --> 00:32:31,200
Speaker 2: Scientists have extensively tested the earth immediately around and above

662
00:32:31,240 --> 00:32:34,759
the main Tombe mound using advanced remote sensing and core sampling,

663
00:32:35,279 --> 00:32:39,720
and they consistently found wildly uncharacteristically high levels of heavy mercury.

664
00:32:39,960 --> 00:32:43,519
Speaker 1: So the ancient legend might actually be entirely true. There

665
00:32:43,599 --> 00:32:47,000
might actually be a massive, highly toxic lake of heavy

666
00:32:47,039 --> 00:32:49,079
metal sitting down there in the dark, which.

667
00:32:48,839 --> 00:32:51,640
Speaker 2: Is a very very good reason not to just eagerly

668
00:32:51,680 --> 00:32:53,960
dig a hole, grab a flashlight, and jump right in.

669
00:32:54,440 --> 00:32:56,880
But the second reason they wait is perhaps much more

670
00:32:56,960 --> 00:32:58,799
terrifying to a dedicated archaeologist.

671
00:32:58,799 --> 00:33:00,319
Speaker 1: This preservation issue.

672
00:33:00,799 --> 00:33:04,559
Speaker 2: What they often call the terra Cotta lesson. When those samous,

673
00:33:04,559 --> 00:33:08,279
incredible clay warriors were first accidentally unearthed by local farmers

674
00:33:08,279 --> 00:33:12,279
in the nineteen seventies, they weren't the drab, uniform brown

675
00:33:12,319 --> 00:33:14,519
clay we see in all the museum photos today.

676
00:33:14,640 --> 00:33:17,720
Speaker 1: Really, I always thought they were just plain baked clay.

677
00:33:17,559 --> 00:33:20,839
Speaker 2: Not at all. They were originally vividly and intricately painted,

678
00:33:21,400 --> 00:33:25,319
bright striking reds, deep blues, greens, purples. They were lifelike.

679
00:33:25,480 --> 00:33:27,759
Speaker 1: But the moment they finally hit the modern air.

680
00:33:27,799 --> 00:33:31,160
Speaker 2: The ancient paint instantly curled up and violently flaked off.

681
00:33:31,559 --> 00:33:35,240
The sudden drastic change in ambient humidity and rapid oxidation

682
00:33:35,799 --> 00:33:39,000
literally destroyed the priceless art in a matter of minutes.

683
00:33:39,079 --> 00:33:41,079
Speaker 1: That is just heartbreakingly tragic.

684
00:33:41,160 --> 00:33:44,599
Speaker 2: It is an archaeological nightmare scientists today are terrified that

685
00:33:44,680 --> 00:33:50,759
the sealed central tomb undoubtedly contains fragile silks, intricate wall paintings,

686
00:33:51,119 --> 00:33:55,799
delicate wooden structures, or invaluable bamboo manuscripts that would instantly

687
00:33:55,839 --> 00:33:58,960
turn to dust the very second they breached the vacuum seal.

688
00:33:59,079 --> 00:34:00,000
Speaker 1: So they just wait.

689
00:33:59,880 --> 00:34:03,160
Speaker 2: They are nervously avoiding cracking it open until future technology,

690
00:34:03,400 --> 00:34:07,799
maybe using atmospheric nuance scanning or ultra advanced ground penetrating

691
00:34:07,920 --> 00:34:12,239
radar or some completely new radical preservation technique, guarantees they

692
00:34:12,239 --> 00:34:15,599
absolutely won't destroy history simply by trying to view it.

693
00:34:15,599 --> 00:34:18,480
Speaker 1: It really represents a completely different kind of terror, doesn't it.

694
00:34:18,480 --> 00:34:21,280
It's not the visceral terror of a massive rock falling

695
00:34:21,280 --> 00:34:24,280
from the sky or an ancient disease, but the quiet

696
00:34:24,400 --> 00:34:28,599
terror of human ignorance, the terror of permanently ruining something

697
00:34:28,679 --> 00:34:31,880
priceless simply because you were too impatient to fully understand

698
00:34:31,880 --> 00:34:32,320
it first.

699
00:34:32,679 --> 00:34:37,559
Speaker 2: That is a very profound observation, and it actually beautifully

700
00:34:37,559 --> 00:34:40,519
circles back to practically everything we have discussed in this

701
00:34:40,559 --> 00:34:44,159
deep dive today. Oh so, look at the undeniable common

702
00:34:44,199 --> 00:34:49,000
thread running through all these reports, the prepolluted generation we

703
00:34:49,079 --> 00:34:52,719
eagerly use forever chemicals to make better raincoats before we

704
00:34:52,800 --> 00:34:56,360
understood their terrifying long term stability in human blood. Oh,

705
00:34:56,400 --> 00:35:00,599
I see the mirror life. We are deeply worried about

706
00:35:00,679 --> 00:35:04,239
artificially creating something novel before we understand how to safely

707
00:35:04,280 --> 00:35:08,000
contain it. The zombie worms. We are rapidly changing the

708
00:35:08,039 --> 00:35:11,159
ocean chemistry with fossil fuels before we even realize how

709
00:35:11,159 --> 00:35:14,400
incredibly fragile the deep sea ecosystems actually were.

710
00:35:14,559 --> 00:35:17,280
Speaker 1: We are constantly playing the bowl in the planetary China shops.

711
00:35:17,320 --> 00:35:22,960
Speaker 2: We are rapidly altering incredibly complex systems biological, ecological, planetary

712
00:35:23,199 --> 00:35:25,800
long before we fully grasp all the moving variables. The

713
00:35:25,840 --> 00:35:28,840
true terror in that index always comes from the unseen variables.

714
00:35:28,880 --> 00:35:30,639
Speaker 1: So what does this actually all mean for us? We've

715
00:35:30,639 --> 00:35:32,519
covered a massive amount of ground today.

716
00:35:32,599 --> 00:35:34,760
Speaker 2: It means we are currently sitting at a critical pivot

717
00:35:34,800 --> 00:35:35,760
point in our history.

718
00:35:36,039 --> 00:35:39,440
Speaker 1: It's incredibly scary. Yes, I'm certainly not going to lie

719
00:35:39,440 --> 00:35:43,119
to you. The whole idea of fifteen thousand invisible asteroids

720
00:35:43,199 --> 00:35:45,360
hovering out there in the dark is absolutely going to

721
00:35:45,400 --> 00:35:46,280
stick with me tonight.

722
00:35:46,360 --> 00:35:49,119
Speaker 2: But you have to flip that coin over. Deep knowledge

723
00:35:49,519 --> 00:35:50,480
is actual power.

724
00:35:50,800 --> 00:35:51,719
Speaker 1: That is true.

725
00:35:51,880 --> 00:35:55,280
Speaker 2: We explicitly know about the asteroids right now. We had

726
00:35:55,320 --> 00:35:59,480
absolutely no idea fifty years ago. Now we are actively

727
00:35:59,519 --> 00:36:02,159
building specific space telescope to go find them.

728
00:36:02,239 --> 00:36:03,079
Speaker 1: We're taking action.

729
00:36:03,320 --> 00:36:06,880
Speaker 2: We finally know about the hidden pfas and the umbilical cords.

730
00:36:07,559 --> 00:36:10,840
Now we can actively push for strict government regulation and

731
00:36:10,920 --> 00:36:15,039
aggressive chemical safety standards. We know about the immense existential

732
00:36:15,119 --> 00:36:18,000
risk of mirror life, which is exactly why those thirty

733
00:36:18,000 --> 00:36:21,320
eight brilliant scientists took the time to write that comprehensive

734
00:36:21,360 --> 00:36:24,880
report to establish global ethical guardrails before it happens.

735
00:36:24,920 --> 00:36:27,840
Speaker 1: So the terrifying discovery itself, the very thing that makes

736
00:36:27,920 --> 00:36:31,320
us lose sleep, is actually also the very first step

737
00:36:31,320 --> 00:36:32,280
of the ultimate solution.

738
00:36:32,679 --> 00:36:36,719
Speaker 2: It is the absolutely necessary first step. Our universe is

739
00:36:36,760 --> 00:36:39,719
incredibly fragile, and it is vastly more dangerous than it

740
00:36:39,760 --> 00:36:43,719
probably looks on a normal Tuesday morning commute. But huing curiosity,

741
00:36:44,440 --> 00:36:47,760
the exact same relentless drive that finally led us to

742
00:36:47,800 --> 00:36:51,320
meticulously find those forty two hidden chemicals or to bravely

743
00:36:51,400 --> 00:36:55,519
drill deep into that freezing Romanian ice cave, is undoubtedly

744
00:36:55,559 --> 00:36:57,480
our very best planetary defense.

745
00:36:57,679 --> 00:37:00,480
Speaker 1: We just have to make completely sure our collective wisdom

746
00:37:00,519 --> 00:37:02,960
manages to keep up with our relentless curiosity.

747
00:37:03,039 --> 00:37:06,679
Speaker 2: Precisely, we need to be exceedingly careful not to blindly

748
00:37:06,719 --> 00:37:10,800
open the ancient tomb until we are absolutely technologically ready

749
00:37:10,840 --> 00:37:12,519
to safely handle the mercury rivers.

750
00:37:12,760 --> 00:37:15,559
Speaker 1: I really like that phrase. That's a legitimately great bumper sticker.

751
00:37:15,599 --> 00:37:18,119
Don't open the tomb until you're ready for the mercury.

752
00:37:18,320 --> 00:37:20,920
Speaker 2: It's perhaps a bit long for a standard bumper sticker,

753
00:37:21,079 --> 00:37:23,559
but the core sentiment absolutely holds true.

754
00:37:23,719 --> 00:37:26,800
Speaker 1: So here's our final question for you, the listener. We've

755
00:37:26,840 --> 00:37:30,440
steadily pulled ten very different threads today. We've covered everything

756
00:37:30,480 --> 00:37:35,519
from bone eating zombie worms, to invisible mirror life, to

757
00:37:36,000 --> 00:37:41,039
city killer asteroids and heavily armored ancient superbugs. Out of

758
00:37:41,199 --> 00:37:44,000
all of these, which of these thrilling threads do you

759
00:37:44,039 --> 00:37:47,599
honestly think post is the absolute most immediate reality check

760
00:37:47,639 --> 00:37:48,679
for humanity today.

761
00:37:48,800 --> 00:37:52,079
Speaker 2: I am personally very curious to see where people naturally

762
00:37:52,199 --> 00:37:55,480
land on this debate. Is it the invisible chemical threat

763
00:37:55,559 --> 00:37:59,320
hiding inside us or the giant fiery rock waiting outside?

764
00:37:59,559 --> 00:38:01,599
Speaker 1: And on the flip side of that, which one feels

765
00:38:01,639 --> 00:38:05,079
like pure exaggerated sci FI to you, even though the

766
00:38:05,119 --> 00:38:08,360
hard scientific data clearly says it's real. We really want

767
00:38:08,360 --> 00:38:10,320
to read your specific take on this. Leave us a comment,

768
00:38:10,400 --> 00:38:12,400
let us know exactly what keeps you up at night, and.

769
00:38:12,400 --> 00:38:15,079
Speaker 2: Please remember a good night's sleep is critically important for

770
00:38:15,119 --> 00:38:17,559
your immune system, so please don't let this deep dive

771
00:38:17,639 --> 00:38:18,760
keep you up too late tonight.

772
00:38:19,000 --> 00:38:21,159
Speaker 1: Thanks for pulling these wild threads with us today. We'll

773
00:38:21,199 --> 00:38:23,760
see you, yes specifically you, in the next one.

774
00:38:23,840 --> 00:38:24,440
Speaker 2: Goodbye,