Speaker 1: Welcome to the nonprofits. For today, we have another science episode,
Speaker 1: but this one's a little bit different because today we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about butts as well. Kara, what do
Speaker 1: you have about butts to tell us about today?
Speaker 2: Well, I'll tell you. Scientists recently discovered a fascinating instance
Speaker 2: of two individual comb jellies fusing into a single body
Speaker 2: after realizing that one of their specimens appeared to have
Speaker 2: developed two butts. In the instance described in this article, apparently, overnight,
Speaker 2: the bodies of two comb jellies had not only fused together,
Speaker 2: but also their nervous systems and digestive systems were operating
Speaker 2: as one entity. The only remaining vestiges of individuality were
Speaker 2: their transient anuses, which continued to poop independently of one another.
Speaker 2: This rare phenomenon challenges the traditional concept of what defines
Speaker 2: an individual organism, revealing the plasticity and adaptability of life forms.
Speaker 2: The study of his new insights into how organisms evolve
Speaker 2: and function when combined, building on historical experiments by those
Speaker 2: like those by B. R. Coonfield in the nineteen thirties,
Speaker 2: and these findings contribute to our understanding of marine biology,
Speaker 2: evolutionary development, as well as transplant research. Oh and this
Speaker 2: story is from Scientific American by Elizabeth Ann Brown on
Speaker 2: October seventh, twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: Thanks Kara. Now, I've got to say that I'm going
Speaker 1: to do my best to not make this a childless
Speaker 1: ran about butts, because really the story actually had some
Speaker 1: very interesting topics to be brought up in it. One
Speaker 1: in particular for me is I have a friend who
Speaker 1: came home from the hospital today from a liver transplant,
Speaker 1: so understanding how risky and complicated that process is, this
Speaker 1: is definitely one of those things I thought that shed
Speaker 1: a lot of light on potentials in that field. AJ,
Speaker 1: could you enlighten us on that.
Speaker 3: Now, these frankin jellies may seem like just a creepy, freaky,
Speaker 3: or even funny creature, something hard to imagine existing in
Speaker 3: the real worldwide, but this discovery and the research around
Speaker 3: it could have some major implications in human medical advancements.
Speaker 3: Their researchers explain that this could help scientists unravel the
Speaker 3: mystery of what's called a lot recognition in humans. Just
Speaker 3: like in Jelly's, this process helps human bodies recognize that
Speaker 3: a body party transplanted into their bodies doesn't belong to them,
Speaker 3: and this happens by activating the immune system and triggering
Speaker 3: the rejection process. So by learning more about the exact
Speaker 3: processes that the immune system and the body use that
Speaker 3: leads to rejection could help us develop medications, procedures, or
Speaker 3: anything that can prevent or lower the rate of organ
Speaker 3: rejection in the future. And one of the researchers say
Speaker 3: that simple organisms hold clues to understanding our own complexities
Speaker 3: as well as stressures that can benefit our lives.
Speaker 1: Thanks Aj, and I really thought that was a great quote.
Speaker 1: In fact, I was going to use that quote leading
Speaker 1: up to my next segment with Kara, but I won't
Speaker 1: have to even say it this time. But taking that
Speaker 1: quote that AJ brought up, I do think that this
Speaker 1: is also a reminder in me personally. I was wondering
Speaker 1: how you felt on it about how we define life
Speaker 1: and individuality in the first place. You know, people like
Speaker 1: to put things in a box and say this is
Speaker 1: what it means to be a person or this is
Speaker 1: and then they always want all these little specific easy
Speaker 1: to fit on, one size fits all. What did you
Speaker 1: think about what that quote that Aj about simple organisms
Speaker 1: holding clues to understanding our own complexity.
Speaker 2: Well, I liked that quote as well, And you know,
Speaker 2: I think you bring up a good point too, about
Speaker 2: how we really have a tendency to center human life
Speaker 2: as sort of the metric by which we measure anything
Speaker 2: else in terms of value or meaning or anything like that.
Speaker 2: And yeah, and in fact, our bodies as humans are
Speaker 2: not entirely made up of human cells. In fact, the
Speaker 2: majority of the cells in our body, we have learned,
Speaker 2: are not necessarily human. We have a lot of other
Speaker 2: critters and organisms in and on us at all times,
Speaker 2: and that is a normal state of affairs. You know,
Speaker 2: we've learned a lot more about our microbiome in recent years,
Speaker 2: and it's even been proposed by some people that perhaps
Speaker 2: bacteria were the first species to domesticate other species, as
Speaker 2: it were, and maybe we're all going around doing just
Speaker 2: what they want us to to keep them alive inside
Speaker 2: of our bodies. So yeah, I think it's an interesting
Speaker 2: point and a good example of an organism doing something
Speaker 2: that we don't normally think of as possible. But that
Speaker 2: suggests possibility for what we might be able to do
Speaker 2: with technology and with additional learning, for things like finding
Speaker 2: ways to prevent transplant patients from rejecting the organs that
Speaker 2: they're using and things like that, which I think is fantastic.
Speaker 2: I also think that to your earlier point, it's kind
Speaker 2: of interesting that probably the only reason we're talking about
Speaker 2: this article is because the science communicator who wrote about
Speaker 2: it in this article framed it in terms of this
Speaker 2: is a story about this organism with two butts, and
Speaker 2: we all want to laugh and joke about the two
Speaker 2: butts and the transient anus. And that was a great
Speaker 2: strategy to get us reading about research that might otherwise
Speaker 2: seem pretty dry and uninteresting. And here we are talking
Speaker 2: about it on a podcast. So I think that was
Speaker 2: a win.
Speaker 3: On a Halloween episode, no less, you know Halloween, we
Speaker 3: see we see spiders and bats and black cats as
Speaker 3: the mascots for spookines. But I was not expecting a
Speaker 3: jelly with two buttholes to make the cut. But I
Speaker 3: have to say that the weirdest thing about this calm
Speaker 3: jelly isn't that it had two bats, but how they work. Okay,
Speaker 3: you mentioned earlier that they have was called that transient anals,
Speaker 3: and this means that they're inners, not only forms. It
Speaker 3: only forms when they need to poop, so after they're
Speaker 3: finished defecating, the anals completely disappears. It's gone. You can't
Speaker 3: see it nowhere to be found, you know. Uh. And
Speaker 3: in the study they were saying that that they injected
Speaker 3: dye into the food for the jellies, right, and they
Speaker 3: fed it to the jellies, and they realized that even
Speaker 3: though the food was going into one of the jelly's mouth,
Speaker 3: it was actually going through both of their gastro intestinal systems,
Speaker 3: and they both pooped out out of the food that,
Speaker 3: you know, even even though only one of them had
Speaker 3: eaten it. So it means that their internal organs completely merged,
Speaker 3: which I was disgusting and quey. At the same.
Speaker 1: Time, I've definitely thought that the idea of I was
Speaker 1: fascinated and I probably shouldn't admit it by the idea
Speaker 1: of the transient anus where it was just as I
Speaker 1: may have mentioned to someone one of you earlier, it
Speaker 1: felt like playing whack a mole with butts, because you
Speaker 1: just never know where it's going to show up. And
Speaker 1: I thought that was really cool, especially realizing that in
Speaker 1: spite of all the things that they had in common,
Speaker 1: they still had retained that aspect of individuality, and I
Speaker 1: couldn't help but think that I think that's an aspect
Speaker 1: of originality that as humans, many of us make sure
Speaker 1: we hold on to our ability to be a transient.
Speaker 1: But but you know, that's something else entirely. Caroen, did
Speaker 1: you have something you wanted to say about the whole
Speaker 1: idea of this nineteen thirties Coonfield experiments. Did you have
Speaker 1: any perspective on that?
Speaker 2: Well, Yeah, I do think it's a bit creepy personally,
Speaker 2: And if you read up on the experiments, which I
Speaker 2: have just only done a cursory review of, it sounds
Speaker 2: as though the researchers were kind of intentionally inflicting these
Speaker 2: injuries and then actually connecting these other kinds of jellyfishes
Speaker 2: together to see if that would work and how it
Speaker 2: would work. And I find that visual imagery particularly horrifying.
Speaker 2: It reminds me of some of those horror movies where
Speaker 2: they're sewing people together. And what I think is interesting
Speaker 2: is that in the story about this article, it doesn't
Speaker 2: tell us that the researchers here intentionally injured the two
Speaker 2: jellies to see if they would fuse together. It's very
Speaker 2: vague on how this occurred. But reading some other articles
Speaker 2: about it, it seems to imply that it may have
Speaker 2: been intentional, but this article doesn't say that so, and
Speaker 2: I don't know for sure. I wasn't able to find
Speaker 2: a full copy of the actual published article about this,
Speaker 2: so I will hold off on judgment there. But I
Speaker 2: think it's interesting that it was probably apparent to the
Speaker 2: writer of this article that it would be a little
Speaker 2: bit more horrifying than intended if we mentioned that this
Speaker 2: was something that was intentionally done to the jellies, And
Speaker 2: to me, that kind of brings up some questions about
Speaker 2: sort of the ethical implications of the types of studies
Speaker 2: that we do on other kinds of organisms. Of course,
Speaker 2: this one does sound like it has some very important
Speaker 2: benefits to humans in terms of the types of medical
Speaker 2: technology that we could gain from it. I can see
Speaker 2: how it may have been approved even if it was
Speaker 2: something that was intentionally done. But at the same time,
Speaker 2: that's just another aspect of it that kind of gives
Speaker 2: me the creeps.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so on that topic, you know, just like you,
Speaker 3: I had to go and look for more because it
Speaker 3: was such an interesting st And I do remember reading
Speaker 3: on one of the articles that said that they had
Speaker 3: actually picked up the jelly's from the beach or whatever
Speaker 3: they were at and the facility and brought them into
Speaker 3: the facility, and they had gotten injured in the sort
Speaker 3: of transportation. So I don't think it was necessarily done
Speaker 3: on purpose. It is possible, you don't know, But I
Speaker 3: think the interesting thing that I learned about it was
Speaker 3: that in the nineteen thirties day at the same facility,
Speaker 3: they had done a very similar experiment. So it makes
Speaker 3: you wonder whether they did do it on purpose, since
Speaker 3: they had already done that in the past, and it
Speaker 3: seems like another marine biologist had performed, as I said,
Speaker 3: performed the same a very similar experiment and found that
Speaker 3: there was just the result was something that was like
Speaker 3: what night mirrors are made of, because it was like
Speaker 3: a sort of Franken jelly that had the bodies of
Speaker 3: four individual of jelly's with the mouth and the sensory
Speaker 3: organs and the butt of a fifth win So it
Speaker 3: was just very, very creepy and crazy. So yeah, it
Speaker 3: really does make you wonder whether there was some intention
Speaker 3: to trying to repeat that same experiment from the nineteen thirties.
Speaker 3: But you know, since we have much better technology now
Speaker 3: maybe they were trying to do some more research on
Speaker 3: the similar aspects that they to what they had found
Speaker 3: out back then.
Speaker 1: You have to consider at least the possibility considering that's
Speaker 1: the same facility that even though years later, that these
Speaker 1: things get around. It's not like the marine biologist community
Speaker 1: is this massive, multi billion number numerical people who just
Speaker 1: are all isolated, So it wouldn't surprise me. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, I did notice that the article made
Speaker 1: a comment about but with modern day you know, rigorous
Speaker 1: studies and all that. It framed it as being a
Speaker 1: more modernized version and a more what we would consider
Speaker 1: modern day scientific way of doing it that perhaps was
Speaker 1: done in Konsfield time. Maybe not. Maybe this is just
Speaker 1: an assumption the article, the writer the article wanted to
Speaker 1: portray because of the squeamish factor of people going on,
Speaker 1: what are they doing? So we don't have anything better
Speaker 1: to do than go around using comb jellies, you know,
Speaker 1: for the fun of it. But of course this isn't
Speaker 1: really for the fun of it. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: you do bring up an important point, Kara, and that
Speaker 1: is is that there is an ethics aspect here to
Speaker 1: be considered. Even in what we consider a simple, simple organism.
Speaker 1: Because the truth is they talked about this us learning
Speaker 1: from these simple organisms. I couldn't help it apply what
Speaker 1: an ultimately social creature. We wouldn't even think of this
Speaker 1: as being a social animal. But how much more social
Speaker 1: is it to share your own body with another person
Speaker 1: in a quite literal sense. Obviously not something that we
Speaker 1: can literally do, But what do you think reflects aja
Speaker 1: on social aspects and our species and our origin as
Speaker 1: social species? Is this an example social species starting out?
Speaker 3: I think that that's really what what's really interesting is
Speaker 3: that I believe that the reason they were studying these
Speaker 3: specific jellius is because they are the only animals that
Speaker 3: we know of so far that have this lack of
Speaker 3: all recognition, so their bodies cannot separate whether their souls
Speaker 3: come from a different body within their own same species
Speaker 3: or not. And every other animal that we know of,
Speaker 3: including humans, have that ability to do that, and that's
Speaker 3: why we have, you know, our organ rejection. But I
Speaker 3: think that I don't know if if it is exactly
Speaker 3: sort of like an adaptation, perhaps maybe it helps them survive.
Speaker 3: And I think that studying this very unique quality could
Speaker 3: help us humans learn a lot more about about ourselves
Speaker 3: and about how how we came to be this way, right,
Speaker 3: and as you said, on a more as we are
Speaker 3: as a socio species, this could help us with recognizing
Speaker 3: how how we are individual, how individual we are.
Speaker 1: I was just wondering about you, because I definitely think
Speaker 1: the next time I'm talking to someone who starts talking
Speaker 1: about the superiority of humans and how they only they
Speaker 1: do these certain things, I would say that because these
Speaker 1: start out with wounds there, these are creatures that are
Speaker 1: harmed who then work together and they both survive in
Speaker 1: this process. So I think that is very telling. What
Speaker 1: about you, No.
Speaker 2: I completely agree. One of my pet peeves is actually
Speaker 2: when people kind of talk about being a human almost
Speaker 2: as if it's the ultimate organism and every other species
Speaker 2: is sort of defined by its differences as a deficit
Speaker 2: in comparison to the way people are. And in fact,
Speaker 2: I think that's incredibly myopic view, and I mean that
Speaker 2: in some cases quite literally, and that you know, human
Speaker 2: vision is not nearly as good as many other species,
Speaker 2: and yet we tend to talk about our companion animals
Speaker 2: in terms of things like, oh, well, you know dogs
Speaker 2: are color blind, and you know this and that, But
Speaker 2: you know, how often do we talk about the fact that,
Speaker 2: you know, their sense of smell is so far beyond
Speaker 2: ours that we can't even imagine what it would be
Speaker 2: like to be able to sniff the air and determine
Speaker 2: how many people were here recently and when they left
Speaker 2: in which direction they went. And you know, that's just
Speaker 2: one example. And this is another one where we've got
Speaker 2: an animal that, in cases of injury, can actually not
Speaker 2: just heal itself, but you know, fuse with another to
Speaker 2: continue to have all of its internal functions continue, which
Speaker 2: is an incredible So I love that we're kind of
Speaker 2: thinking about it in terms of, look, how cool these
Speaker 2: other organisms are and all of the things that we
Speaker 2: can learn from them, not just how are they similar
Speaker 2: to or different from us, but actually having a greater
Speaker 2: appreciation for them and their existence. And maybe even in
Speaker 2: the future we'll start to incorporate things like considering their
Speaker 2: willingness to participate in our experiments and interventions.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting that you mentioned doves being color blind
Speaker 3: in comparison to humans and how we see ourselves as
Speaker 3: being above them, right, because humans have only we color
Speaker 3: receptive cones in our eyes