WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.640 --> 00:00:03.240 Welcome. This is Marsha for Radio I, and today I 2 00:00:03.240 --> 00:00:07.200 will be reading National Geographic magazine dated November twenty twenty five, 3 00:00:07.719 --> 00:00:11.119 which is donated by the publisher as a reminder RADIOI 4 00:00:11.199 --> 00:00:13.640 as a reading service intended for people who are blind 5 00:00:13.720 --> 00:00:16.519 or have other disabilities that make it difficult to read 6 00:00:16.640 --> 00:00:20.320 printed material. Please join me now for the first article 7 00:00:20.399 --> 00:00:26.519 titled this Gibbon Can Do the Robot, Decoding the uncanny 8 00:00:26.559 --> 00:00:30.640 moves of Asia's dancing apes. Most apes don't know how 9 00:00:30.640 --> 00:00:34.679 to dance, but female crested gibbons of the genus Nomascus, 10 00:00:35.000 --> 00:00:38.880 the long limbed primates, known for their acrobatics swinging from 11 00:00:38.880 --> 00:00:41.960 tree to tree, regularly perform a series of boombents that 12 00:00:42.000 --> 00:00:46.359 can only be described as the robot. Scientists recently analyzed 13 00:00:46.399 --> 00:00:49.920 dozens of videos of mature, female crested gibbons living in 14 00:00:50.039 --> 00:00:53.759 zoos and rescue centers around the world, and interviewed researchers 15 00:00:53.759 --> 00:00:56.359 who had observed the dancing in the wilds of China 16 00:00:56.439 --> 00:01:00.600 and Vietnam. Their study, released in the journal Primates, found 17 00:01:00.679 --> 00:01:04.519 that the dances follow clear rhythmic patterns. In captivity, the 18 00:01:04.560 --> 00:01:08.560 gibbons generally direct their routines at caretakers most likely to 19 00:01:08.599 --> 00:01:11.840 socialize in solicit snacks in the wild, they seem to 20 00:01:11.959 --> 00:01:16.439 dance as a mating invitation. This is especially puzzling, says 21 00:01:16.519 --> 00:01:21.319 zoologists and study co author Kai Kasper of Germany's Heinrich 22 00:01:21.480 --> 00:01:26.200 Heina University Duzeldorff. Most crested gibbons live in small family 23 00:01:26.239 --> 00:01:30.719 groups that form around stable monogamous pairs, which means the 24 00:01:30.760 --> 00:01:33.599 females don't have to compete for the attention of their partners, 25 00:01:33.920 --> 00:01:38.280 says Kaspar, Dancing may just ease the tension. This by 26 00:01:38.799 --> 00:01:44.599 Kelsey Noah Kowski. Next. How to photograph a firestorm. Scientists 27 00:01:44.640 --> 00:01:47.560 say that the fires ravaging the Western United States are 28 00:01:47.560 --> 00:01:52.200 burning differently these days. For one's landscape photographer, documenting the 29 00:01:52.239 --> 00:01:57.680 aftermath requires a new approach as well. This by Brian Resnik. 30 00:01:58.799 --> 00:02:02.040 Today's fires are different. Blazes have scarred and scorched the 31 00:02:02.079 --> 00:02:05.400 Western United States for ages, but for scientists who study 32 00:02:05.400 --> 00:02:10.039 extreme climate events, like UCLA's Daniel Swain, the wild flowers 33 00:02:10.039 --> 00:02:14.439 are now defying historic precedent, moving and growing with devastating intensity. 34 00:02:15.000 --> 00:02:17.759 As Swain puts it, these new fires are doing seemingly 35 00:02:17.800 --> 00:02:23.120 impossible things. Take northern California's twenty twenty gigafire, the first 36 00:02:23.240 --> 00:02:26.759 in the state's modern fire tracking history to burn more 37 00:02:26.759 --> 00:02:30.159 than a million acres, a footprint larger than Rhode Island. 38 00:02:30.639 --> 00:02:34.520 Its size wasn't unprecedented. The speed of the destruction was 39 00:02:35.000 --> 00:02:37.280 two hundred years ago, you probably would have seen million 40 00:02:37.360 --> 00:02:41.080 acre fires sometimes in California. Swain says, they wouldn't have 41 00:02:41.080 --> 00:02:43.319 burned a million acres in a few days, It would 42 00:02:43.360 --> 00:02:47.319 have taken months. More recently, Swain was monitoring the twenty 43 00:02:47.360 --> 00:02:50.759 twenty four Bridge fire raging north of Los Angeles via 44 00:02:50.800 --> 00:02:54.400 satellite thermal imagery. On his screen, he could see black 45 00:02:54.479 --> 00:02:58.400 splotches on a map that indicated areas burning at temperatures 46 00:02:58.680 --> 00:03:02.080 upwards of several hundred year greeze, temperatures so hot that 47 00:03:02.159 --> 00:03:05.120 you're either looking at a volcanic eruption or a wildfire. 48 00:03:05.800 --> 00:03:08.280 In just as second day, the fire expanded like an 49 00:03:08.280 --> 00:03:12.199 ink stain through cotton, running across forty five thousand acres 50 00:03:12.479 --> 00:03:16.520 about seventy square miles. That burn rate isn't unheard of. 51 00:03:16.960 --> 00:03:20.879 It occurs with grass fires racing over flat plains, but 52 00:03:21.000 --> 00:03:23.719 this was burning forest in some of the steepest mountains 53 00:03:23.719 --> 00:03:26.719 of North America. The fire, Swain says, had to burn 54 00:03:26.800 --> 00:03:30.319 up Mount Baldy and down Mount Baldy, and then up 55 00:03:30.360 --> 00:03:32.919 the next mountain and down the next mountain, and up 56 00:03:32.960 --> 00:03:36.639 and down. Researchers have been tracking fires with precision from 57 00:03:36.680 --> 00:03:39.759 satellites for more than forty years, just a small slice 58 00:03:39.759 --> 00:03:43.280 of time geographically speaking, but the trends they see are clear. 59 00:03:43.759 --> 00:03:48.000 Fires are hotter, burning faster, and destroying more property. Nearly 60 00:03:48.039 --> 00:03:50.680 every year for the past decade, there's been at least 61 00:03:50.680 --> 00:03:53.199 one town in California or a large part of town 62 00:03:53.639 --> 00:03:57.719 completely decimated by wildfire that didn't use to happen. Swain says, 63 00:03:58.039 --> 00:04:01.479 the changes we're seeing in deckscades are changes that would 64 00:04:01.520 --> 00:04:05.319 take millennia to many millennia to unfold in a more 65 00:04:05.400 --> 00:04:11.159 typical geological history context. When National Geographic Explorer and photographer 66 00:04:11.199 --> 00:04:15.199 Matt Black saw these extraordinary changes happening so close to 67 00:04:15.280 --> 00:04:19.079 his home in California's Sierra Nevada, a four hundred plus 68 00:04:19.120 --> 00:04:22.879 mile mountain range that stretches along the interior of the state, 69 00:04:23.319 --> 00:04:26.040 he took on the challenge of capturing the aftermath of 70 00:04:26.120 --> 00:04:28.800 the fires. But as someone who shoots in black and white, 71 00:04:28.839 --> 00:04:33.399 he was concerned about an obvious comparison. Over the past century, 72 00:04:33.439 --> 00:04:36.160 no one has taken such iconic black and white images 73 00:04:36.360 --> 00:04:40.319 of Sierra Nevada landscapes as ansel Atoms. His work was 74 00:04:40.439 --> 00:04:44.680 integral to the modern conservation movement, inspiring generations of people 75 00:04:44.759 --> 00:04:49.240 to work together to protect precious wilderness areas, but photographing 76 00:04:49.240 --> 00:04:51.879 the landscape in a way reminiscent of the Atoms did 77 00:04:51.920 --> 00:04:55.399 not feel like it was matching the moment. Black says, 78 00:04:55.839 --> 00:04:59.920 Adams images convey a post guard perfect vision of imposing permanence, 79 00:05:00.399 --> 00:05:03.639 that such places might stay untouched if we protected them, 80 00:05:03.800 --> 00:05:07.879 but climate devastation has destroyed that ideal. So Black turned 81 00:05:07.879 --> 00:05:11.800 to an unconventional tool. An industrial thermal camera more typically 82 00:05:11.879 --> 00:05:16.920 used to inspect steel forging equipment. While a traditional camera 83 00:05:17.040 --> 00:05:20.240 uses light to make images, a thermal camera uses heat. 84 00:05:20.639 --> 00:05:24.399 The hottest objects in a thermal image are usually exposed 85 00:05:24.399 --> 00:05:28.279 in bright white, the coolest in inky black. Beyond its 86 00:05:28.279 --> 00:05:32.680 specialized lens and sensor, Black's hand held camera is fairly conventional, 87 00:05:33.160 --> 00:05:36.120 yet when it's trained on the natural world, the thermal 88 00:05:36.199 --> 00:05:40.720 images it produces are unexpectedly beautiful, but there's a sinister 89 00:05:40.879 --> 00:05:44.279 quality to them too. An ever present reminder of what 90 00:05:44.439 --> 00:05:47.720 made them. Our atmospheres holding more heat than it used to, 91 00:05:48.079 --> 00:05:51.360 and some portion of the heat could radiate in each image. 92 00:05:51.839 --> 00:05:54.920 They're built out of heat that came from elsewhere. That 93 00:05:55.079 --> 00:05:57.480 came from the co two in the skies above, that 94 00:05:57.600 --> 00:06:00.519 came from the exhaust pipes in the city below. Black 95 00:06:00.600 --> 00:06:04.240 says taking the camera on trucks through burned down forest 96 00:06:04.360 --> 00:06:07.040 felt like a revelation. What was amazing to me was 97 00:06:07.040 --> 00:06:09.800 the way it reacted to dead trees, He says, The 98 00:06:09.959 --> 00:06:14.079 charred black trunk's trap heat, so when you look through 99 00:06:14.079 --> 00:06:17.680 the thermal camera, they become the brightest points on the landscape. 100 00:06:17.920 --> 00:06:21.480 They appear alive again, but a ghostly kind of life, 101 00:06:21.600 --> 00:06:26.680 shining spectrally among the ruin. Next what do the world's 102 00:06:26.720 --> 00:06:30.759 oldest tattoos mean? A new breed of archaeologists wants to 103 00:06:30.839 --> 00:06:34.600 unravel some ancient mysteries by studying long overlooked body art. 104 00:06:35.360 --> 00:06:39.160 This by Sam Keane. Some years back, a man wandered 105 00:06:39.199 --> 00:06:42.600 into Aaron deeeder Wolf's office in Nashville at the Tennessee 106 00:06:42.600 --> 00:06:45.680 Division of Archaeology to hand over a two foot portion 107 00:06:45.800 --> 00:06:48.920 of a Macedon dusk. The man had spotted the relic 108 00:06:49.000 --> 00:06:51.160 poking out of a riverbank and saw it off the 109 00:06:51.199 --> 00:06:55.680 exposed end. Removing the tusk sullied its scientific value, so 110 00:06:55.879 --> 00:06:59.800 deeeder Wolf started trotting it out during talks at grade schools, 111 00:07:00.040 --> 00:07:03.040 until a kid dropped it and its outer layers shattered. 112 00:07:03.680 --> 00:07:06.000 For many archaeologists, that might have marked the end of 113 00:07:06.040 --> 00:07:09.759 the tusk's usefulness, but not for deeeder Wolf. He salvaged 114 00:07:09.839 --> 00:07:14.120 a few shorts and later transformed them into tattooed needles, 115 00:07:14.160 --> 00:07:18.040 carving each with flint and smoothing it on sandstone. But 116 00:07:18.199 --> 00:07:21.160 when he tried tattooing a colleague with one, it went poorly. 117 00:07:21.839 --> 00:07:26.279 Microfractures in the ivory snagged skin each time he withdrew 118 00:07:26.279 --> 00:07:30.040 the tip it was, he recalls a bloody mess. By day, 119 00:07:30.160 --> 00:07:34.040 deeterer Wolf surveys sights to assess the archaeological impacts of 120 00:07:34.120 --> 00:07:37.680 new construction, but in his spare hours he's among the 121 00:07:37.720 --> 00:07:42.560 foremost experts on ancient tattooing, a field formally discounted but 122 00:07:42.759 --> 00:07:47.879 increasingly recognized as offering vital insight into cultures worldwide. Once 123 00:07:47.879 --> 00:07:50.879 an outlier, he's now part of an emerging cohort of 124 00:07:51.000 --> 00:07:55.439 researchers showing the practice was more widespread than archaeologists ever 125 00:07:55.519 --> 00:07:59.319 knew and helping reveal new meaning in a historically suppressed art. 126 00:08:00.000 --> 00:08:04.439 Hostility to tattoo research has colonialist roots, with missionaries and 127 00:08:04.480 --> 00:08:09.879 officials having considered the practice of barbaric. As archaeologisgy emerged 128 00:08:09.920 --> 00:08:13.519 as a discipline in the nineteenth century, its practitioners seemed 129 00:08:13.560 --> 00:08:18.079 to inherit this disdain, mentioning tattoos in their work rarely 130 00:08:18.160 --> 00:08:21.800 and pejoratively a practice of so called savages and deviants, 131 00:08:22.319 --> 00:08:25.000 and as Deeeder Wolf learned early in his career, that 132 00:08:25.120 --> 00:08:29.560 attitude lingered into the twenty first century now forty nine. 133 00:08:29.600 --> 00:08:32.519 He started as a Mayanist before switching focus to the 134 00:08:32.559 --> 00:08:37.919 pre colonial southeastern United States, but personal fondness for tattoos 135 00:08:37.960 --> 00:08:41.279 he has a dozen drove his side research. After he 136 00:08:41.399 --> 00:08:45.080 organized his first conference session on ancient tattooing in two 137 00:08:45.120 --> 00:08:48.720 thousand and nine, an older attendee buttonholed him. The guy 138 00:08:48.799 --> 00:08:51.240 told me there are more tattoos of ancient art on 139 00:08:51.320 --> 00:08:55.000 graduate students than there ever were tattoos in the ancient world. 140 00:08:55.360 --> 00:08:58.559 Deeter Wolf says he was one hundred percent wrong, and 141 00:08:58.639 --> 00:09:01.279 it's not like the evidence was hidden. He just didn't 142 00:09:01.320 --> 00:09:04.440 care to engage with it. In that lack of engagement, 143 00:09:04.480 --> 00:09:08.399 Dieter Wolf says, has led archaeologists to overlook critical details 144 00:09:08.399 --> 00:09:12.360 about those their striving to understand. As tattoos throughout history 145 00:09:12.399 --> 00:09:17.639 have helped define group identity, marked rites of passage signaled 146 00:09:18.399 --> 00:09:24.799 spiritual power, one way to combat colleagues dismissive stance. Peter 147 00:09:24.919 --> 00:09:28.360 Wolf went looking for how best to identify tattoo tools 148 00:09:28.360 --> 00:09:31.840 in the archaeological record. Doing so is tricky, since a 149 00:09:31.840 --> 00:09:35.679 pointing instrument from a a dig site might have been 150 00:09:35.759 --> 00:09:38.000 used to apply ink to skin, or it might have 151 00:09:38.080 --> 00:09:40.639 been an all or a sewing needle. How to tell 152 00:09:40.679 --> 00:09:44.960 the difference. Dieter Wulf started by assembling other archaeologists and 153 00:09:45.000 --> 00:09:48.840 researchers who shared his interest, and together they launched a 154 00:09:48.919 --> 00:09:52.120 series of experiments carried out over the better part of 155 00:09:52.159 --> 00:09:56.080 a decade. Some formal and controlled, others were at hack 156 00:09:56.559 --> 00:09:59.399 for each. He made tattoo needles out of materials that 157 00:09:59.440 --> 00:10:04.320 ancient closeures may have used, feather shafts, deer bones, fish teeth, 158 00:10:04.440 --> 00:10:09.559 cactus thorns, and yes, gastodon tusk shards. They applied either 159 00:10:09.720 --> 00:10:12.879 modern tattoo ink or a mix of charcoal's soot and 160 00:10:13.000 --> 00:10:16.679 water what most ancient cultures would likely have used. Then 161 00:10:16.759 --> 00:10:19.559 he tried the tools out on volunteers and on pigskin, 162 00:10:20.000 --> 00:10:23.159 as well as on his own skin. The feather proved 163 00:10:23.200 --> 00:10:26.639 too soft, like tattooing with a sharpie. Deeeder Wolf says 164 00:10:26.840 --> 00:10:30.399 he suspects a historical account that mentions tattooing with feathers 165 00:10:30.480 --> 00:10:34.320 was mistaken. The tusk was a debacle, but thorn and 166 00:10:34.360 --> 00:10:37.919 bone tools worked nicely. The porous structure of bone held 167 00:10:37.960 --> 00:10:41.159 ink particularly well, and when Deeter Wulf and his team 168 00:10:41.440 --> 00:10:45.879 analyzed some of the tools microscopically, they noted distinct patterns 169 00:10:45.879 --> 00:10:49.720 of wear. Tattooing blunted and smoothed the tips, and drove 170 00:10:49.840 --> 00:10:54.600 in tiny charcoal fragments to day, The published bindings helped 171 00:10:54.679 --> 00:10:59.080 archaeologists distinguish what is and isn't an ancient tattoo needle, 172 00:11:00.639 --> 00:11:03.679 but some insight into millennia old methods can only be 173 00:11:03.759 --> 00:11:08.679 gleaned from ancient bodies. Enter Butzi, the fifty three hundred 174 00:11:08.759 --> 00:11:11.120 year old ice man discovered in the Alps in nineteen 175 00:11:11.159 --> 00:11:15.360 ninety one. Researchers analyzing the sixty one lines and crosses 176 00:11:15.639 --> 00:11:20.320 spread across his body. Initially suggested Botsi's tattoos were applied 177 00:11:20.360 --> 00:11:24.240 by slicing his skin with sharp stones, then rubbing soot 178 00:11:24.320 --> 00:11:28.080 into the wounds. Decades later, Deeter Wolf designed an experiment 179 00:11:28.159 --> 00:11:31.759 that would allow him to test that theory, collaborating with 180 00:11:31.919 --> 00:11:40.360 Maya Siluc Koch Madsten, a traditional Inuit tattoo artist from Greenland, 181 00:11:40.679 --> 00:11:45.200 and Daniel Ride, a tattoo artist then based in New Zealand. 182 00:11:45.960 --> 00:11:49.480 Using eight techniques, including poking with a needle and the 183 00:11:49.559 --> 00:11:54.600 slice and rubbed method, Ride gave himself eight identical tattoos 184 00:11:54.639 --> 00:11:58.639 of stacked triangles on his left thigh. He noted how 185 00:11:58.679 --> 00:12:00.919 long each took to heel, along with how much pain 186 00:12:01.000 --> 00:12:04.960 he felt. The work to grueling twelve hours, though time 187 00:12:05.039 --> 00:12:09.240 and pain weren't equally distributed, some methods took minutes. One 188 00:12:09.399 --> 00:12:15.600 Inuit technique executed with cock Medisene's guid guidance involved sowing 189 00:12:15.639 --> 00:12:20.519 his skin with ink soaked thread and lasted three agonizing hours. Afterward, 190 00:12:20.639 --> 00:12:24.600 Redae says his thighs looked like Swiss cheese. Dieter Wolf 191 00:12:24.679 --> 00:12:29.279 later compared magnified images of Otzie's tattoos with Redays. On 192 00:12:29.320 --> 00:12:32.480 the latter, he saw line segments for the slice and 193 00:12:32.559 --> 00:12:36.759 rubb tattoos tapering into wisps on the needle poked ones 194 00:12:37.000 --> 00:12:42.600 segments had blunt, rounded ends that matched Oatzie's. The Iceman's tattoos, 195 00:12:42.639 --> 00:12:47.960 Deeterwolf concluded were not sliced in, but carefully strippled with needles. 196 00:12:48.000 --> 00:12:51.320 The study shed light on Ossy's culture and provided the 197 00:12:51.360 --> 00:12:56.279 first published reference set of what differing tattoo applications looked 198 00:12:56.320 --> 00:13:01.240 like microscopically, now used by archaeologists to analyze tattoos in 199 00:13:01.440 --> 00:13:05.720 other mummies. Anne Austin, a co author of Deeeder Wolf's 200 00:13:05.759 --> 00:13:08.879 and an egyptologist at the University of Missouri Saint Louis, 201 00:13:09.200 --> 00:13:14.080 says tattoos can convey details about societies that aren't found elsewhere. 202 00:13:14.600 --> 00:13:16.679 The things you write down on skin, she says, are 203 00:13:16.679 --> 00:13:23.720 different than things you write down on paper. Egyptian texts, 204 00:13:23.759 --> 00:13:25.840 for example, have little to say about the role of 205 00:13:25.879 --> 00:13:28.679 women in the clergy. But Austin, who has found some 206 00:13:28.720 --> 00:13:32.159 of the most extensive evidence of tattooing on Egyptian mummies, 207 00:13:32.519 --> 00:13:36.320 has studied a mummified Egyptian woman whose thirty plus tattoos 208 00:13:36.720 --> 00:13:41.080 of hieroglyphs, musical instruments, snake deities, and more indicates she 209 00:13:41.159 --> 00:13:44.919 was something like a priestess. Tattoos over the mummy's voice box, 210 00:13:45.519 --> 00:13:49.200 Austin says, suggests she had an active speaking or singing role, 211 00:13:49.320 --> 00:13:54.240 her voice imbued with sacred power to coach's new information 212 00:13:54.320 --> 00:13:58.320 out of old mummies and tools. Tattoo archaeologists are increasingly 213 00:13:58.440 --> 00:14:03.080 turning to imagining to imaging technology. Deeter Wolf and a 214 00:14:03.240 --> 00:14:09.399 Canadian colleague, Benoi Robitale, recently used infrared sensitive cameras to 215 00:14:09.440 --> 00:14:12.440 find hidden ink among one of the world's largest collections 216 00:14:12.480 --> 00:14:16.799 of mummies from coastal Peru. Some specimens date back twenty 217 00:14:16.840 --> 00:14:20.519 four hundred years, their tattoos obscured by the darkening and 218 00:14:20.600 --> 00:14:24.600 weathering of skin over time, the pair are finding. Robitai 219 00:14:24.759 --> 00:14:29.559 says that religious iconography and tattoos stayed consistent over almost 220 00:14:29.559 --> 00:14:34.440 two millennia, suggesting the local beliefs persevered even during periods 221 00:14:34.440 --> 00:14:38.279 of invasion and conflict. The frontiers of the discipline likely 222 00:14:38.360 --> 00:14:42.759 involve applying such modern techniques to more museum collections, and 223 00:14:42.799 --> 00:14:47.279 as new generation of tattoo savvy scholars are reassessing what 224 00:14:47.440 --> 00:14:51.639 lies in tombs and sarcophagi, they're also belatedly recognizing and 225 00:14:51.720 --> 00:14:57.960 collaborating with indigenous stewards of ancestral tattooing techniques. As indigenous people, 226 00:14:58.080 --> 00:15:01.240 we've kind of been taught that there were people before 227 00:15:01.279 --> 00:15:04.960 and then there's us. Cock Medicine says. This science is 228 00:15:05.000 --> 00:15:07.120 building a bridge between the two so we can feel 229 00:15:07.120 --> 00:15:11.799 connected to our ancestors again. Opportunities for more discovery seem 230 00:15:11.879 --> 00:15:15.879 almost limitless, Geter Wolff says, noting that researchers have found 231 00:15:15.919 --> 00:15:18.759 more evidence of tattoos on mummies in the past five 232 00:15:18.840 --> 00:15:22.360 years than was documented over the previous one hundred and fifty. 233 00:15:22.919 --> 00:15:26.039 We've got this outrageous data set, he says, Now, what 234 00:15:26.120 --> 00:15:29.840 are we going to do with it next? Searching for 235 00:15:30.000 --> 00:15:36.399 Sleep Mode by Adam Piore. Putting humans into hibernation is 236 00:15:36.480 --> 00:15:40.159 a sci fi concept that could revolutionize medicine and transform 237 00:15:40.240 --> 00:15:43.320 space travel. It's also a lot closer to becoming real 238 00:15:43.759 --> 00:15:48.120 than you might think. The test subject had slipped into 239 00:15:48.159 --> 00:15:51.720 what physician Clinton Callaway describes as a twilight kind of 240 00:15:51.799 --> 00:15:55.360 sleep eighteen hours after Callaway's team at the University of 241 00:15:55.360 --> 00:15:59.919 Pittsburgh's Applied Physiology Lab started the man on a sedative 242 00:16:00.039 --> 00:16:04.320 that suppressed his body's natural shivering response. His internal temperature 243 00:16:04.360 --> 00:16:07.759 had sunk from ninety eight point six degrees fahrenheit to 244 00:16:07.879 --> 00:16:11.559 ninety five degrees fahrenheit. His heart rate and blood pressure 245 00:16:11.600 --> 00:16:15.279 had dropped. His metabolism and along with it, his need 246 00:16:15.320 --> 00:16:19.559 for food, oxygen, and carbon dioxide removal had plunged twenty percent. 247 00:16:20.000 --> 00:16:22.559 Yet the subject could still rise from his bed, shuffle 248 00:16:22.639 --> 00:16:25.480 to the bathroom to empty his bladder, and when hungry, 249 00:16:25.600 --> 00:16:27.919 ring a bell to ask for food or a drink, 250 00:16:28.240 --> 00:16:32.000 alleviating the need for a catheter or intravenous lines and 251 00:16:32.159 --> 00:16:35.360 ensuring he could still respond and react. The man was 252 00:16:35.399 --> 00:16:39.360 one of five exceedingly fit volunteers raging in age from 253 00:16:39.399 --> 00:16:42.279 twenty one to fifty four, who quietly doozed in the 254 00:16:42.320 --> 00:16:46.840 semi darkness. Pretend astronauts on a nine month journey to 255 00:16:46.919 --> 00:16:51.120 Mars Nassau had tasked Callaway, an expert in cardiac care 256 00:16:51.200 --> 00:16:54.600 and induced typothermia, with figuring out a simple way to 257 00:16:54.639 --> 00:16:57.720 put human beings into a state that mimics some of 258 00:16:57.799 --> 00:17:00.720 the key features of hibernation with out the use of 259 00:17:00.720 --> 00:17:07.440 a ventilator or immobilizing drugs and careful dosing of dex metodonomine. 260 00:17:07.920 --> 00:17:12.559 Did the trick. His subject. Callaway says now was woozy, dreamy, 261 00:17:12.640 --> 00:17:15.519 but still able to function in an emergency if required, 262 00:17:15.920 --> 00:17:19.000 just like a bear. Humans in hibernation mode are a 263 00:17:19.000 --> 00:17:23.079 classic staple of space travel and science fiction movies, whether 264 00:17:23.119 --> 00:17:27.519 it's Hal nine thousand fatally unplugging a few of his 265 00:17:27.640 --> 00:17:30.599 passengers in two thousand and one A Space Odyssey, or 266 00:17:30.680 --> 00:17:33.799 Chris Pratt waking up Jennifer Lawrence too soon because he's 267 00:17:33.839 --> 00:17:37.880 lonely in passengers. But NASA has grand ambitions of sending 268 00:17:37.920 --> 00:17:41.640 astronauts to Mars for reel as soon as the twenty thirties, 269 00:17:42.000 --> 00:17:45.359 and putting humans in hibernation mode for real could be 270 00:17:45.480 --> 00:17:48.440 the key to achieving it, which is why both NASA 271 00:17:48.599 --> 00:17:52.680 and the European Space Agency are supporting studies like Callaways. 272 00:17:53.119 --> 00:17:56.079 A bear like state of hibernation could, in theory, help 273 00:17:56.200 --> 00:18:00.119 astronauts snooze through the tum of extended space travel and 274 00:18:00.200 --> 00:18:05.279 limit crew made conflict there. Slowed metabolism could help reduce 275 00:18:05.359 --> 00:18:09.519 cargo missions would require less food in oxygen and consequently 276 00:18:09.599 --> 00:18:13.680 less fuel. Space Agency funded research is even exploring whether 277 00:18:13.759 --> 00:18:18.519 slowing a person's metabolism weakens the health impact of harmful radiation. 278 00:18:19.279 --> 00:18:21.799 This would be an encouraging boost for the viability of 279 00:18:21.839 --> 00:18:25.839 extended travel through space, where radiation is as much as 280 00:18:25.880 --> 00:18:29.200 two hundred times greater than on Earth. In fact, when 281 00:18:29.240 --> 00:18:31.960 it comes to achieving the dream of crew missions to Mars, 282 00:18:32.319 --> 00:18:39.039 says ESA's chief exploration scientists, Angelique than Omburgen, space radiation 283 00:18:39.319 --> 00:18:43.640 is a big showstopper. Scientists aren't studying hibernation just so 284 00:18:43.640 --> 00:18:47.000 we can ship astronauts ever deeper into space, though its 285 00:18:47.039 --> 00:18:51.039 physiological superpowers could save countless lives here on Earth. If 286 00:18:51.039 --> 00:18:54.119 we can unlock the secrets to the mysterious molecular level 287 00:18:54.240 --> 00:18:57.160 changes that shift animals in and out of a state 288 00:18:57.160 --> 00:19:02.599 of hibernation or torpor, a miraculously reversible state of dormancy 289 00:19:03.039 --> 00:19:08.079 characterized by extreme lethargy, a lowered body temperature and metabolic rate, 290 00:19:08.519 --> 00:19:12.519 and host of other remarkable changes. It's a well established principle. 291 00:19:12.599 --> 00:19:16.599 Calaua explains that at low temperatures, like in hibernating animals, 292 00:19:16.839 --> 00:19:20.039 you tolerate lack of oxygen lack of blood flow better 293 00:19:20.119 --> 00:19:24.240 and longer. But why why don't bears muscles atrophy when 294 00:19:24.240 --> 00:19:27.160 they sleep? How come their blood doesn't clot and what 295 00:19:27.279 --> 00:19:30.599 triggers the process to begin with. In their hunt for answers, 296 00:19:30.799 --> 00:19:34.480 scientists are now inching closer to their most ambitious discovery yet, 297 00:19:34.880 --> 00:19:37.920 A central switch in the brains of hibernating animals that 298 00:19:38.039 --> 00:19:42.519 activates the various beneficial phenomena of hibernation all at once. 299 00:19:43.319 --> 00:19:47.160 Mimicking the colder body temperature of bears during hibernation, for instance, 300 00:19:47.440 --> 00:19:52.519 could lessen the severity of reperfusion injuries, the often devastating 301 00:19:52.599 --> 00:19:56.559 damage that occurs after cardiac arrest when blood flow is 302 00:19:56.599 --> 00:20:00.359 restored to the oxygen deprived tissues of the body, setting 303 00:20:00.440 --> 00:20:07.039 off massive inflammation, oxid exeitative stress, and cell death. It 304 00:20:07.079 --> 00:20:10.160 could also help extend the narrow window of time that 305 00:20:10.200 --> 00:20:13.680 doctors have to provide critical care during strokes and heart attacks. 306 00:20:14.240 --> 00:20:18.799 A clearer understanding of how hibernating bears preserve muscle mass 307 00:20:18.839 --> 00:20:23.039 and turned insulin resistance on and off could have other benefits. 308 00:20:23.279 --> 00:20:26.880 It might help us treat chronic obesity and diabetes in humans. 309 00:20:27.640 --> 00:20:30.440 Ice you patients can lose more than ten percent of 310 00:20:30.480 --> 00:20:35.319 their muscle mass in seven days. Could an induced state 311 00:20:35.400 --> 00:20:39.720 of hibernation staller even stop the decline. Scientists are searching 312 00:20:39.759 --> 00:20:42.720 beyond bears for the answers, because, of course, bears aren't 313 00:20:42.799 --> 00:20:46.200 the only animals that hibernate. A team at Colorado State 314 00:20:46.319 --> 00:20:51.720 University is investigating how the thirteen lined ground squirrel can 315 00:20:52.319 --> 00:20:55.720 rapidly fatten and then switch off its appetite before hibernation 316 00:20:55.960 --> 00:21:01.480 for clues to combating obesity. UCLA research examining the genes 317 00:21:01.480 --> 00:21:07.200 of yellow bellied marmots have recently found that epigenic epigenetic 318 00:21:07.319 --> 00:21:10.319 aging is essentially stalled during the seven to eight months 319 00:21:10.359 --> 00:21:14.240 they hibernate each year. Experts in Germany are exploring how 320 00:21:14.319 --> 00:21:18.240 bats maintain blood circulation at low temperatures with an eye 321 00:21:18.279 --> 00:21:22.519 to human hibernation applications, and biologists at the University of 322 00:21:22.559 --> 00:21:26.839 Alaska Fairbanks are studying a squirrel that could drop its 323 00:21:26.839 --> 00:21:30.039 body temperature by seventy degrees and heart rate down to 324 00:21:30.079 --> 00:21:34.000 five beats permitted, and survive eight months in subzero temperatures. 325 00:21:34.319 --> 00:21:38.240 Their goal is to develop a hibernation mimetic drug that 326 00:21:38.400 --> 00:21:42.799 might safely allow clinicians to place humans into an immediate 327 00:21:42.839 --> 00:21:45.880 state of hibernation without a long prep time in a 328 00:21:45.960 --> 00:21:50.039 rural hospital lacking advanced equipment, or even in an ambulance 329 00:21:50.160 --> 00:21:54.799 racing through the streets. It would instantly dial down cellular metabolism, 330 00:21:55.160 --> 00:21:59.160 slow cell death, and catalyze a whole host of other 331 00:21:59.640 --> 00:22:05.880 biol logical processes associated with hibernation. Callaway's twilight sleep experiment 332 00:22:06.000 --> 00:22:08.759 provides a glimpse into what might be possible for humans, 333 00:22:08.799 --> 00:22:11.240 but what happens in the lab and in the wild 334 00:22:11.319 --> 00:22:14.839 are clearly two different things. Bears don't need drugs to 335 00:22:14.880 --> 00:22:18.000 settle in for the winner. They have a natural torpor switch, 336 00:22:18.039 --> 00:22:21.599 he says, which is flipped through some process that we 337 00:22:21.680 --> 00:22:25.559 don't fully understand. And though their unruly bears still offer 338 00:22:25.599 --> 00:22:28.440 a good comparison for our own potential, they're at least 339 00:22:28.480 --> 00:22:31.240 closer to us in size than a rodent, and perhaps 340 00:22:31.319 --> 00:22:35.000 most critically, their temperature drop during sleep deep sleep is 341 00:22:35.200 --> 00:22:39.559 well within the range of human survivability. One bright afternoon 342 00:22:39.599 --> 00:22:43.640 in late March, biologist Haiko Jansen stood outside of fence 343 00:22:43.680 --> 00:22:47.920 dan Pasture at the Washington State University Bear Research, Education 344 00:22:48.119 --> 00:22:51.880 and Conservation Center in Pullman and watched as a shaggy, 345 00:22:52.240 --> 00:22:56.240 three hundred pound female grizzly bear named Kiyo struggled to 346 00:22:56.240 --> 00:22:59.400 eat a marshmallow. Other than a serious case of BedHead 347 00:22:59.440 --> 00:23:02.799 than the glacier pace of quees chewing. There were few 348 00:23:02.880 --> 00:23:06.559 visible clothes that the dangerous, disheveled giant with the four 349 00:23:06.640 --> 00:23:12.160 inch claws was undergoing a profound metamorphosis. Looking from the outside, 350 00:23:12.200 --> 00:23:17.440 little about Hugh's metabolic process seems applicable to humans. Ten 351 00:23:17.519 --> 00:23:19.759 days earlier, she rose from her bed of straw and 352 00:23:19.799 --> 00:23:22.759 began to slowly work through a feast of bare kibble, 353 00:23:22.880 --> 00:23:25.960 apples and elk bones and leg meat. It was her 354 00:23:25.960 --> 00:23:29.839 first meal in five months. Her salverary glands were still sluggish. 355 00:23:30.319 --> 00:23:33.559 Then she pooped out a fecal plug composed of plants, 356 00:23:33.640 --> 00:23:38.119 dried feces, dead cells, and hair lodged in her glower intestine. 357 00:23:38.559 --> 00:23:42.119 Those three key activities rise, eat, poop out the plug 358 00:23:42.599 --> 00:23:45.519 seemed to have helped to flip a series of microscopic 359 00:23:45.599 --> 00:23:50.119 genetic switches inside her cells, catalyzing the slow motion reversal 360 00:23:50.200 --> 00:23:53.759 of a host of bizarre biological cycles her body had 361 00:23:53.880 --> 00:23:58.640 entered into over the winter. Q's metabolism, which had been 362 00:23:58.720 --> 00:24:02.240 operated at one quarter its normal speed, kicked into gear 363 00:24:02.359 --> 00:24:04.680 more than doubling by the time she was struggling with 364 00:24:04.720 --> 00:24:08.599 the marshmallow. Her core body temperature hovering about twelve degrees 365 00:24:08.640 --> 00:24:12.400 below normal, began to rise. Two of her heart's four chambers, 366 00:24:12.640 --> 00:24:15.200 which had all but shut down for the winter, reopened 367 00:24:15.240 --> 00:24:20.119 for business. Her fat cells, for months miraculously resistant to insulin, 368 00:24:20.200 --> 00:24:23.839 the hormone that tells the body when to absorb sugars, 369 00:24:23.839 --> 00:24:27.440 started to respond to it again. Her appetite, absent for months, 370 00:24:27.839 --> 00:24:31.519 rumbled to life five months earlier, back in November, when 371 00:24:31.599 --> 00:24:33.799 Ki lay down and packed it in for the winter, 372 00:24:34.240 --> 00:24:38.240 she stopped eating. Her gut entered stasis, her saliva glands 373 00:24:38.279 --> 00:24:41.319 shut down, and she began living on her own body fat. 374 00:24:41.839 --> 00:24:44.960 Over the following months, she burned roughly twenty percent, or 375 00:24:45.039 --> 00:24:48.400 seventy pounds of her body weight. To facilitate this, her 376 00:24:48.440 --> 00:24:52.160 body became resistant to insulin, a good thing for hibinator's. 377 00:24:52.759 --> 00:24:57.799 Humans who become insulin resistance often developed diabetes, clearly a 378 00:24:57.880 --> 00:25:00.559 bad thing. Bears can switch that resistance and on and 379 00:25:00.599 --> 00:25:04.759 off depending on the season, without health consequences. If we 380 00:25:04.799 --> 00:25:07.319 could understand how, maybe we could figure out a way 381 00:25:07.359 --> 00:25:10.680 for humans to do it too. The notion got a 382 00:25:10.720 --> 00:25:13.839 boost of confidence in twenty eighteen when a Canadian group 383 00:25:13.880 --> 00:25:18.279 published the first complete grizzly bear DNA sequence. A year later, 384 00:25:18.400 --> 00:25:21.480 Jansen headed up a team that used a technique known 385 00:25:21.559 --> 00:25:27.759 as RNA sequencing to identify which genes are activated in beer, muscle, fat, 386 00:25:27.839 --> 00:25:32.799 and liver tissue samples before, during, and after hibernation. They 387 00:25:32.839 --> 00:25:35.759 found seasonal changes in more than ten thousand of a 388 00:25:35.799 --> 00:25:39.839 grizzly's thirty thousand, seven hundred and twenty three genes. Now, 389 00:25:39.920 --> 00:25:43.680 in order to decode how bears switch insulin resistance on 390 00:25:43.759 --> 00:25:48.000 and off, Jansen has been extracting stem cells from blood 391 00:25:48.000 --> 00:25:51.440 samples collected from Pullman's bears at different times of year, 392 00:25:52.000 --> 00:25:56.039 methodically eliminating individual genes, and then growing colonies of fat 393 00:25:56.079 --> 00:26:00.319 cells in peatrie dishes to see what happens. We're not 394 00:26:00.359 --> 00:26:04.000 saying that we'll find something that can reverse diabetes, Jansen offers, 395 00:26:04.279 --> 00:26:07.079 but at least by looking at a model system the 396 00:26:07.160 --> 00:26:11.519 cells that change their sensitivity, we can begin to develop 397 00:26:11.599 --> 00:26:15.200 some clues as to what's going on. Q's cardiac function 398 00:26:15.319 --> 00:26:19.519 may also yield insights that help treat human blood clotting disorders. 399 00:26:19.960 --> 00:26:23.240 While Q was hibernating, her heart rate slowed from eighty 400 00:26:23.319 --> 00:26:26.920 to one hundred beats per minute to about ten Normally. 401 00:26:26.960 --> 00:26:29.960