Science Friday - Science Issues In the Election, Diabetes and Hibernating Bears, Medicine Nobel. Oct 7, 2022, Part 2

Episode Date: October 7, 2022

The Politics Of Science: Voters Have An Important Voice This November’s general election season covers every level of government, from Congress at the federal level, to state governors and local ballot initiatives. Also on the ballot are many issues where understanding science better might result in better policy—think zoning questions about building next to rising seas or fire-prone wildlands, or questions about drug legalization and abortion access. Even whether to invest in education that might create more STEM workers—that’s a science question too. Ira talks to Rachel Kerestes of the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s ‘Science is US’ initiative, and Howard Learner of the Environmental Law & Policy Center. They cover region-specific and state-specific science concerns, the need to connect more policy makers to scientific expertise, and how voters can have a voice in science issues even at the local and state level. Make your voice heard! Go to www.sciencefriday.com to fill our our survey about which science issues you see on your ballot.   Svante Pääbo Awarded Nobel For Examining The Ancient Human Genome This week, geneticist Svante Pääbo was awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Pääbo is the director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, and his research looks at finding bits of genetic material from ancient hominid lineages embedded within the modern human genome. The prize committee awarded the prize “for his discoveries concerning the genomes of extinct hominins and human evolution.” Pääbo described his work as like an archeological dig. “We sort of make excavations in the human genome,” he said. “What we do is to look for the genetic material, for DNA, from people who have lived here long before us, and try to see how they are related to us, and how they are related to other forms of humans that were also here, such as Neanderthals.” In a conversation recorded in 2017, Pääbo describes his research, and how his team has developed molecular techniques to see where fragments of ancient DNA might still be found in the modern human genome. Spoiler alert—we’re all a little bit Neanderthal.   What We Can Learn About Diabetes From Hibernating Bears About one in 10 Americans have diabetes, and most of the cases are Type 2, in which cells become more resistant to insulin. But wouldn’t it be cool if we could flip a switch so those cells become sensitive to insulin again? That’s pretty much what bears do when they hibernate. A new study in the journal iScience identifies the eight proteins that allow bears to turn their insulin on and off, which keeps them from burning through their fat stores while they snooze. Although they hibernate for months, bears wake up from their slumber with their muscle still toned, bones intact, and organs functioning normally. But after a few weeks on bedrest, humans can’t. By studying how bears hibernate, researchers hope to find ways to cure human ailments. Dr. Blair Perry, a postdoc studying genomics at Washington State University, joins Ira to talk about what we can learn from bear biology.   Transcripts for each segment will be available the week after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.   Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flato. Later in the hour, a pioneer in Neanderthal DNA extraction is one of this year's Nobel Prize winners will review his guest appearances on Science Friday. Plus why hibernating bears may hold clues to fighting diabetes. But first, it is election season, and you may have your eyes on your state's Senate race, may be a governor, but you may be surprised to hear that science is also on the ballot, and it just don't mean that some candidates think climate changes. a hoax. No, there are over a hundred statewide ballot measures schedule.

Coloradans will be voting on decriminalizing and regulating psychedelics and mushrooms, fungi. In Arkansas, Maryland, North and South Dakota, voters will decide whether to legalize marijuana use. Voters in Michigan are debating whether to explicitly protect the right to an abortion and even officials at the local level. I have to have, they all have a say in science. Like, Think about managing power utilities and protecting local wetlands. We're going to talk about all of this, including issues that are not up for a vote, but should be, what do you think? And we're living, we're alive in a studio today, which means, yes, we want your calls. Where do you see science on your November ballot?

Maybe you don't see science there, and you think it should be. You make the call to tell us, but only if you make the call, our number 844-724-8255-8-4-Sy-Talk, where you can tweet us at Cy Frye. Let me introduce my guests. Rachel Korestis is Executive Director of Science, is us at the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She joins us from Jacksonville, Florida. Welcome, Rachel. Hi, Ira. Thanks for having me. Nice to have you. Howard Lerner is President and Executive Director of the Environmental Law and Policy Center that's based in Chicago. Welcome, Howard. Good to join you today, Ira. Nice to have you. You know, I just listed some of the ballot items, and I alluded to some candidate matchups. Now we're not here to make any endorsements

today. That's not what we're doing, but I do want to help people understand where science is in their election options. How would you begin to explain the choices voters have in science policy this fall? And Rachel, let me begin with you. Well, I think that's actually a huge question, Ira, because one of the things we work on is trying to bridge that gap between science and policy. And the thing is, is that science and evidence can actually be employed on almost any public policy issue, even those things that don't seem obvious. So you mentioned just a moment ago some of those local issues. For example, questions of development. How much should we build? Where should we build? What sort of density should we have in our community? Those are very much decisions that can be

driven by science and evidence. And so there's almost every topic you can think of is something that could be science related. Science touches everything, doesn't it? It really does. Yeah. I know that you work at science is us to connect legislators to scientists and to help them understand science better. Why does this feel so important to you? It feels important. It feels important. to us, honestly, because we know that there's a gap between scientists and engineers and policymakers. And we recognize our part in creating that gap. And we think really that science and engineering and evidence can help policymakers make more efficient and more effective decisions. And so it's important to us just because we think we have something useful to offer in the policy debate. And

that's, as you said earlier, it's a nonpartisan thing. Science doesn't take sides, but it can help you. And it's a very important tool that any policymaker can rely on. Howard, I know that your work focuses on environmental issues, especially in the Midwest. Tell me what is at the top of people's minds right now. Right now, protecting safe, clean water for people to drink, climate change, which affects everybody, and the Great Lakes. And I, On two of those, it really is getting pretty partisan. So when it comes to safe clean drinking water, the Supreme Court had a case earlier this week, the Sackett case.

The state and the federal governments are fighting on who has jurisdiction to protect wetlands, community waterways, and that's breaking down on something of partisan lines. And it's coming out as an election issue. It's a sleeper issue, but everybody cares about safe clean water, particularly if you're in in western Lake Erie, toxic algae blooms, almost every summer. When it comes to the Great Lakes, it's bipartisan in the Midwest. There really isn't much of a difference. Republicans and Democrats, younger people and older people, everybody loves the Great Lakes.

It's where we live, where we work, where we play. Climate change, we know there's a partisan divide. And in states like Wisconsin, you know, where sound science drives sound policy, Mayor Daly of Chicago famously said, good policy is good politics. Senator Ron Johnson, who's running for re-election, a Republican, is pretty much a climate denier. Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes, who's running against him, a Democrat, is saying climate change is a major challenge for Wisconsin. Governor Pritzker in Illinois, Governor Whitmer in Michigan, are running for re-election on what they're doing for climate change solutions. So that one's getting pretty partisan between the U.S.

two parties. But when it comes to water and particularly the Great Lakes, everybody's concerned about it, and we know that sound science drives sound policy. We have a comment from MJ and Grand Forks North Dakota on the SciFri Voxpop app. My biggest concern is that the oceans have been warming regularly, yearly. And this causes a lot of commotion in our climate and problems. I don't really care about the ballots. I care about what are people willing to do to stop the oceans from warming up. Yeah.

Wow. Rachel, how do you answer that? How do you answer that on a ballot? Well, I think it's a little bit hard to answer specifically on a ballot because, of course, the science behind what's happening in the oceans is very complicated, right? And that's one of the tricks here, right? How do you boil down a very complicated scientific question into something that can be actionable public policy, and particularly if it's a ballot initiative, right? But what I think you want to do and what we try to encourage policymakers to do is, first of all,

seek out the evidence, talk to the experts, hear what they're saying, and figure out. out how you can put it into context. You know, we work primarily at the state and local government level and state and local policymakers don't have a lot of bandwidth to tackle a subject, right? So like a county commissioner here in Florida, for example, where I live, is not going to solve the problem of how oceans are warming, right? Right. But they can approach the questions related to their community asking, what are the best outcomes I can achieve from my community? How can I use science and evidence to influence those outcomes? And then what's my plan to get there from where I'm at now? And so what would surprise people most about that issue that you're working on?

It's something that may not seem like an obvious place for science and policy, but where you're hard at work, Rachel. Well, I think when it comes to, you know, ocean policy, for example, we spend a lot of time just talking about issues along the coastline. I mentioned development earlier, but that's a key one. What do we build? Where do we build? How do we build? What kind of infrastructure? What kind of utilities do we rely on? How do we, you mentioned protecting wetlands earlier? How do we protect the wetlands that we have? So it's all of those sub questions underneath there, which granted makes it very difficult for individual voters to say, I want to vote along the evidence because it's complicated. Right. 844-724-8255 is our number. Let's go to the phones because lots of people

would like to jump in here. Let's go to Nolan in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hi, Nolan. Hey, how's it going? Hey there. Go ahead. Yeah, I mean, it's kind of some common sense stuff, but I feel like from an ecology standpoint, kind of encouraging people to not have manicured grass from like a policy standpoint kind of take away the power of HOAs and force developers to plant native species in different areas. And I've also heard terrifying things about the impacts of domesticating elk for meat that could have disastrous. So just things like that that I think are overlooked. So they're not on the ballot. And these are things you wish were on the ballot is what you're saying. Yeah, defund the HOA. You know what I mean? Get rid of your lawn.

Okay. Thanks for taking time to be with us and for joining us today. Yeah, happy Friday. Happy Friday of you. Let's go to another phone call. Let's go to Jonas in Charleston, South Carolina. Hi, Jenna. Well, hey, we just missed the bullet of the last hurricane, so we're quite aware of the impact of climate change, and of course, we haven't flooding even on non-hursting days. Sorry to hear that. Sorry to hear that. But for an extension, the essential challenge of climate

change in the Supreme Court is not allowing the president to regulate them, EPA to regulate CO2, what we really need is more funding for the inventors and to build demonstration plants or demonstrate, like with advanced biofiel feedstocks, electricity from wood chips

and waste products. We can do this, but there's no funding to do it. I mean, the only funding goes to big university. and USDA has a pitiful budget for helping work on. You know, we have an atmosphere in the first place because of green plants. We had a little ice age in the late 1700s because there were so many trees that grew back after the Indians left North America. You know, we're driven out. So you want money for small inventors.

You think small inventors are not being appreciated enough and funded? Well, look in the 90s when we were in the doldrums, right? Where did the innovation come from? Bill Gates sitting in a hotel room with his friends and jobs in the garage, right? But without funding to scale up, we can't demonstrate these new technologies we're developing. I'm developed an energy tuber for food, fuel, and feed, and it gets four and a half times much ethanol per acre as corn with 10% of the nitrogen and 10% of the water. But can't get funding to build a demonstration plant. All right.

I'm going to have to let you go, Jenna. Thank you for voicing your concerns. Howard, what do you say to that about not enough funding for small investors and inventors? You know, one of the biggest drivers is the Farm Bill when it comes to the sorts of issues and concerns your listener was just commenting on. And the Farm Bill starting in 2000, Senator Bipartisan basis, Senator Dick Lugar of Indiana, Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, began pushing the biomass research and development act. The purpose of which was to take some of the technologies your listener was describing and provide some research and support for them and help to get things

moving. But look at what Congress just did in the Inflation Reduction Act. Tremendous tax credit incentives for solar energy and storage that's really going to boost that and move that forward and move innovation forward. Okay. I can have to... So that's an important step. Okay. We'll talk about more of these important steps after the break. Stay with us. We'll be right back. Hey there, podcast listeners. I were here with a simple request. If you're listening to this podcast, learning something, enjoying yourself, please go to sciencefriady.com slash support to make a donation. Our work and this podcast depends on public support from listeners like you. You know that. You're here listening, which means you find our programming

valuable. Any amount makes a difference, even two bucks. But the lasting gifts are the ones we can count on sustaining donations which we can rely on every year. So please go to ScienceFriday.com slash support to make your gift. Again, that's sciencefriiday.com slash support. And thanks. You're listening to Science Friday. I'm Ira Flato. In case you just joined us, we're looking at all the science issues that might be on your November ballot or might not be and should be. Talking with Rachel Koresstis, she is a a pandemic response. She thinks a lot about this stuff. And Howard Lerner, he reports on environmental issues. Both of them are here with us talking about some of these issues. Let me go to these

questions. Howard, you talked about the Great Lakes regions. What about other regions around the country? What are some of the other environmental issues they may be facing? You know, it's interesting. When you look at sort of the great places that people focus around, certainly the Great Lakes, for us Midwesterners, the Great Lakes is where we live, work and play, Chesapeake Bay, the Everglades. Rachel, you can talk about the Everglades, other regions like that. All of them are suffering these days from toxic algae booms.

So where does that come from? That's about agricultural runoff. It's about manure coming from large animal feedlots. It's about excessive fertilizer and phosphorus that's coming from in the Midwest, corn and soy. In Florida, it's coming from the sugar industry. We have a national problem with Western Lake Erie in the Great Lakes, with Chesapeake Bay, with the Everglades, with toxic algae blooms. And that's something that everybody understands, everybody sees it and goes yuck. The science is pretty clear.

We know what causes it. Excess phosphorus. And we've got to get the political will. and the policy drivers to do something about it. Public support is overwhelming in the Great Lakes, and I know the data is pretty compelling as well in Florida, as well as it is in Chesapeake Bay. So that's an example of where we know from a science standpoint

what the problem is. We know how to solve it. We need the political will to get some serious progress going in multiple regions in the country. Rachel, I should have told people that you're the executive director of the sciences us at the American Association for the advancement of science, what do you see as other important issues on the ballots or that are not on the ballot?

Sure. Well, when it comes to things that are driven by science and evidence that we see in our conversations, particularly with state legislators around the country, we see big conversations about workforce development, not just STEM workforce and health care workforce, but that's a hot topic. and it's a place where science and evidence can play a role. We were talking about climate, but specifically the impacts of extreme weather events, from the directios in Iowa to the wildfires in the west

to obviously Hurricane Ian, which we just experienced here in Florida. Electric vehicles are a hot topic, which I know you've already talked about during the show today. But you can't avoid it. It's a big topic. You can't. It's a huge topic.

And it's top of mind pretty much in, every state we've talked to, you know, at the recent national conference of state legislatures meeting, the session on electric vehicles, you couldn't even get in the room. It was so packed. And the other thing a lot of state legislators are talking about around the country are mental health issues, from sort of things related to the pandemic and, you know, the impact on children, all the way through, again, the health care workforce and the mental health workforce. So those are things, in some cases they are on the ballot. in other cases they're not, but those are kind of the top of mind science-related policy issues

that we see pretty much in every state around the country. Let's go to the phones, lots of new phone calls coming in. Let's go to Kevin in Fresno. Hi, Kevin. Hello, how are you? Hi there. Go ahead. Well, I'm calling all these issues intersect so perfectly for where I am. We're in the Salonquin River watershed below the Sierra Nevada.

of mountains side of the Big Creek fire a couple of years ago and ongoing fires. I'm working on a local county, couple of county transportation sales taxes, and our issues are climate resiliency and equity in transportation spending. And we're having a great challenge convincing local elected officials that these are important related issues. And workforce development is another aspect of this. what we find is that people want to continue in their old ways of using our local transportation sales tax dollars to leverage state and federal dollars to sprawl and actually building highways

up into the wildfire zones while ignoring electrification. That's got to be very frustrating. That's got to be frustrating for you, that you can't get them to change. I fought this same fight 20 years ago when we were arguing for transit-oriented development and other further thinking, forward-thinking projects. It's very frustrating. It's almost like one cannot talk about climate change. The activist, the community leaders on the renewal committee argued just to get on the committee for nine months.

It's a conservative county and how to break through with data, perhaps with help. But how to integrate that in a narrative that breaks through sort of the, current objection to changing our, now our state, I should say, is changing our transportation planning priorities in a significant way. The governor is leading tremendously there. Local counties don't want to follow. Yeah. All right. Thank you for taking time to share your thoughts with us. Good luck out there. That's measure C and measure T. Okay. Rachel, you know, how much of what we see that people know about is from a lack of science education and how science works. I think that is part of it. I also think that part of it is, and this is on us on the scientific and engineering community, is that scientists and engineers aren't really trained to communicate outside of our own networks. Right. So we're not trained to communicate with policymakers or communicate with the public. And there's a big challenge in doing that. So it's not that you want the average person to have the same knowledge as, you know, someone with a piece.

that's not going to happen. But what we need to do is find better ways as scientists and engineers to communicate to the public in ways that they can understand. So I think that that burden is really more on our side than it is on the public side. So do you think that scientists then should be going out? And I ask this of Howard also and becoming, I guess, proactive in talking to people about these issues, Howard? Let me tell a little story, Ira. We found out from doing some market research here in the Midwest, Big Ten University scientists, and those of you who follow football know that the Big Ten is now more than the Big Ten. But the in-state university scientists are terrific messengers.

People trust in Michigan, the scientists from University of Michigan and from Michigan State, and people in Indiana trust the scientists from Indiana University and so on and so forth. So at the Environmental Law and Policy Center, we commissioned that each, 18 Big Ten university scientists and Canadian scientists to do a study on the impact of climate change on the Great Lakes. And it's exactly as Rachel was describing. It's very dense scientific data. And what we did was we worked a lot with the scientists to take the data and make it in

a form that was easier to understand for the public. So we got the policy people and the communications people working with the scientists, But people trust, you know, the Big Ten university scientists. They're terrific messengers. And when they talked about the effect of extreme weather on the Great Lakes, when they talked about what was causing toxic algae, how to deal with invasive species, people listen and trust it. So it's exactly what Rachel's saying.

We need to get the sound science there. And we need to wrap it up in a policy framework that can make a difference. And we need to help explain things in ways that are not dumb. down that are smart science, but that are more intelligible to people. But it's, you know, the local in-state university scientists, people really trust their great messengers. And that's helped move public policy on the Great Lakes in a lot of ways. As I said earlier, when it comes to protecting the Great Lakes, it's a bipartisan. It's not even bipartisan. It's a nonpartisan issue. Well, what you're saying is what we're finding out is true about talking to people is that people

it's hard to change anyone's mind when their minds are made up, but that people they trust and their friends can help sway those opinions. And that's what you're, you know, the people they trust at their local universities. That's right. And when you look at it not just as climate change we're at large, and we know that's a divisive issue publicly, when you talk about it in terms of the Great Lakes, which everybody in the Midwest loves, then it puts climate change within a frame that people are saying, well, if it's having an impact on Lake Michigan, which is where I go and swim and enjoy the beach and so forth, okay, now I'm feeling a little bit closer to home here.

It's becoming real to me. It's a different frame for thinking about climate change rather than some of the debates we're having politically that have just become so partisan and so divided. I get it. Let's go to the phones. Lisa in Rochester, New York. Hi, Lisa.

Hello there. Hi there. Well, I want to thank Science Friday for the, a great job it does in educating those of us who haven't got great science educations or orientations about these issues. And one of the issues I wish we'd think more about funding is training our judges in science issues, state and federal level. Most of our judges, their last science education was before cell phones were invented.

And these issues come before them as gatekeepers, where they decide whether we're going to even decide the issue or not. So that's what I'd like to see. That's a great, great topic. What do you think of that, Rachel? Well, it's actually something we have programs on at AAAS. So we agree with you, and it's something that we've been working on. Just to go back to the previous point for one quick second, though, you know, to that question of how we change behaviors,

you know, we were talking about types of science that were underfunded. Well, there is no branch of science that's more underfunded than that. the social sciences. And if we really want to figure out how to change behavior, how to connect with people, how to move things forward, we really need to look at social and behavioral sciences. I want to go back. That's an interesting point. I want to go back to something we were talking about earlier. I mentioned abortion earlier. It would be hard to avoid talking about reproductive health care this year and the access to it. And several states are looking to either ban or preserve that right. Rachel, is this an issue where you see legislators seeking more information, or has everyone

kind of already made up their minds on this? You know, we know it's a hot topic. It's not one that legislators have engaged with us on, so I'm afraid I can't give you details on that conversation, but I do know from some of our colleagues in biological science-specific societies that they've been engaging a lot on that topic with legislators across the country. Howard, do you have any opinions on that? Well, for example, you asked about ballot measures in Michigan. There's a ballot measure coming up on questions of reproductive rights. I really think most of the polling data, IRA, shows that people are pretty stuck in terms of what they think when it comes to reproductive rights. Now, as technology emerges and as we get to questions of both viability and what's an acceptable

procedure and what's not, there may be a room for science to much better inform people of some of the real options and some of the real possibilities. But that's an issue right now in which the country is so divided. And in some ways, where people come down as surprising. I'm thinking about what the vote was on the referendum in Kansas several months ago. I think it was 60-40, if you will, more on the reproductive rights sides. And that really opened up a lot of eyes. And that really opened up a lot of So you're going to see more ballot measures coming on reproductive rights like in Michigan this fall. And I think increasingly we're going to see ballot measures moving forward on climate change if state legislatures don't step up an act the way they're doing in Illinois, California, and a number of other states, probably Minnesota coming next. This is Science Friday from WNYC Studios.

We're talking about science politics, what's on the ballot this year with Rachel Crestes and Howard Lerner. just to pick up on that issue that Howard was talking about, Rachel. Overall, how is severe weather like Hurricane E and like wildfires touching policy interests around the country? I mean, it's a top topic everywhere around the country. And I think that this is one of those places where the language matters, right? In some states, they're talking about it as climate change. In other states, they're talking about it as extreme weather or disaster. related things, but everybody's talking about it and how to solve these issues, how to create

resilience, and all of the things related to that. I mean, there's conversations happening pretty much in every state, depending on what, you know, what the weather event may be. And let me go to Ryan in California who's going to touch on this issue as someone who lives in California knows about droughts and fires. Hi, Ryan. Welcome to Science Friday. How you doing? Hi there. So something I'd like to hear on the doubt. And just talking about generally more is focus on the entire hydrological cycle. So many towns all across the United States, a hydrological cycle has been broken.

And since you mentioned California out here, you hear about fire and drought often. You also hear about water rates a lot. And conversation often is downstream-centric, so focus on end-users. And really, this water comes from all the way up in the mountains and fully makes it way down to the ocean. And we tend to manage it very poorly. So almost like it's a plumbing problem, culverts and subversion when it does rain and the water leaves the landscape very quickly. So many problems we're talking about in the conversation today, such as climate change, drought, fire. A lot of these can be mitigated with a healthy hydrological cycle.

Ryan, do you find that local politicians talk about these issues a lot, of things that they need to take care of and be on their radar screen? No. Well, not a thing. I don't know if the politicians really have a great understanding of the complete hydrological cycle. I think that's probably part of the issue. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Thank you for taking time to talk with us, and good luck out there. Thanks, Laura. Yeah. I have a tweet from a farm limb owner. I'm going to go see if I can read it right off the tweet. It says many conservation-related issues in candidates who can make a difference on the ballot.

Support them on November 8th and support regulations for no-till and cover crops on corn and soybean land in the upper Midwest. Howard, you have the last word on that? Good things to vote on? Those are good things to vote on. Look, when it comes to water, the public's ahead of the politicians. And if you do the polling in the Midwest, whether it's in the Toledo area around Lake Erie or southwest Wisconsin around the Mississippi River and the Wisconsin River, it's all about the water. Yeah. And it doesn't matter whether it's Republican or Democrat or young or old or racial divides or gender. people need safe, clean water.

And this is one where the public is saying, we've got to take some actions on this. And the politicians aren't there yet. I think we're going to hear much, much more about water going forward, and that's going to become a ballot box issue. Rachel Koreshese, Howard Lerner, thank you both for taking time to be with us today. We're not going to be taking your thoughts on this one in order,

but we have a little ballot scavenger hunt for you. Visit science Friday.com slash ballot to explore how science is appearing on your and your neighbor states ballots this November, ScienceFriiday.com slash ballot. After the break, this year's batch of no bells and research into bears and diabetes. Stay with us. This is Science Friday.

I'm Ira Flato. This week, one of the rituals of science featuring the iconic early morning phone call. I first thought this is probably an elaborate prank done by people in my group. But then it sounded a little bit too serious to me. So I sort of accepted the fact. That's Dr. Savante Pabot.

He's the director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig and winner of this year's Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. The prize committee awarded the prize, quote, for his discoveries concerning the genomes of extinct hominins and human evolution. What that means? He found that genes from ancient Neanderthals reside in people today. So what we do is to look for the genetic material for DNA from people who have lived here long before us and try to see how they are related to us and how they are related to other forms of humans that we're also here, such as Neanderthals.

He's been a guest on this program several times over the years. Back in 2017, I talked with Dr. Pabo about his work on trying to pin down the answer to the question, how much of our DNA comes from Neanderthal ancestors? He spoke to me by phone. How many people are descendants of Neanderthals then? And how did we come to that 2% number and then raising it? Back in 2004, high-quality Neanderthal genome, but that genome came from southern Siberia.

Not really close to what we have now done is to sequence the genome from southern Europe, from Croatia. That is also, and indeed we can show that this individual from which helps in that we can identify more pieces, more fragments of DNA in people than we had more million. Are we more interested then in the Neanderthals because we want to know about them or because what they can tell us about who we are? Well, I would say that's quite interesting. What ways do they live on in us that? these variants may also allow us, at least in the future, to tell us more about what they were like. So how is it that just two genetic sequences? We're talking about two Neanderthals now.

Tell us so much about a whole species of hominid. Well, when you have a whole genome from an individual, two versions of that genome, the version that individual inherited, we have chromosomes and we can then get a fairly good idea, particularly when they come from the graphic distribution like this. How come you were able to get such a good, high-quality sequence? Well,

so we have looked through a lot of in creating 19 different both Neander-called DNA, and then we use techniques that will fit in the genome. Dr. Paba, what are you working on now? Do you have anything in the pipeline

that you're sequencing? So, one direction, the other direction is to try to understand. On Monday, Dr. Pablo compared his work to an archaeological dig. What really drives our work is really curiosity, I would say. It is just as if you do an archaeological excavation to find out about the past. We sort of make excavations in the human genome. What my own group and my biggest interest is actually to study the genetic differences

between present-day people and our closest relatives. undertals, particularly genetic changes that exist in everybody today or almost everybody, and that may be important for why modern humans became so numerous, foreign big societies, and so on. Dr. Svante Pabo, winner of this year's Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. Congratulations to all of this year's winners. We hope to talk with more of them in the weeks ahead. I'm Ira Flato, and this is Science Friday from WNYC Studios. About one in ten Americans have diabetes. Most of them are type two, the kind that develops when cells become resistant to insulin.

Wouldn't it be cool if we could just flip a switch so those cells become sensitive to insulin again? Well, that's pretty much what bears do, and it helps them get through a long hibernation. So, of course, researchers are looking at how bears do this, and if we might apply it to treating diabetes in humans. Here to tell us more about this and other grisly superpowers is Dr. Blair Perry. He's a postdoc studying genomics at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington. Welcome to Science Friday. Thank you so much for having me. So nice to have you.

Okay. So before we get into your research, I want to know why is bear hibernation so cool? Why do you want to study it? Yeah, so bear hibernation is actually a lot more complicated and interesting than a lot of people realize. So, you know, a lot of children's books and pop culture make you think that bear, are simply just going to sleep for the entire winter, but in reality, there's a lot of really interesting and extreme changes to their physiology and their metabolism that allow them to do that. Pretty much every cell, every tissue in the bear's body is changing how it processes nutrients

to enable them to survive these long periods without access to food. And one of those adaptations has to do with insulin, right? And bears can turn it on and off. Yeah. So when we look at adipose or fat tissue and hibernating bears, we see that it becomes resistant to insulin. Like you said earlier, this is typically in humans kind of an early sign of progression towards type 2 diabetes. But in bears, they become resistant to insulin every winter. And then in the spring, when they're returning to kind of their active normal bear activity level,

they regain sensitivity to insulin. So we think that a lot of it has to do with the fact that they're relying on burning fat. during the hibernation months. So in the summer and especially in the fall, they essentially devote all their time and energy to gaining as much weight as possible, putting on as much pounds as they can so that they can burn that fat for energy

and survive the winter. And typically, insulin actually inhibits the ability for adipose tissue to burn that fat. So by turning off sensitivity to it, we think that it kind of boosts their ability to utilize all that fat they've gained to essentially power the body during hibernation. That really is very interesting. And you studied insulin resistance in the bears trying to figure out how they do it. And did you find an answer?

We think we're getting close. So this study that we did recently was aiming to identify potential proteins or molecules in the blood of bears that may control their ability to become insulin resistant and to regain that sensitivity in the spring. So by stimulating cultures of bear adipose tissue cells, or fat cells in the lab with serum from different seasons during the summer, during the winter when they're hibernating. And by comparing the differences in the proteins present in the blood serum between these different seasons, we were able to identify eight proteins that we think are actually really important for driving this because they are abundant at different levels in different times during the year. So these eight proteins that are driving this, are any of them found in humans? Yeah. In fact, all eight of these proteins are, proteins that are known to be present in humans. And a subset of these, I think three specifically,

are actually known in humans to be involved in the reception and processing and response to insulin. We think that, you know, perhaps bears are using these proteins in a slightly different way. Maybe they are having slightly different changes to the bear's cellular activity than what we see in humans. And so by identifying where that difference is in bears, essentially unlocking this unique adaptation in bears, we might be able to, for example, stimulate similar changes in cellular activity or synthesize similar proteins for humans that might be able to, for example, help them to regain sensitivity to insulin if they're in this pre-diabetic insulin-resistant state. And so how similar are humans to bears if we're trying to compare stuff like proteins and genes?

Well, so, you know, bears and humans obviously look and act and, you know, are very different at one level, we actually look at the genes that are present, the proteins that are present, and typically how these genes and proteins kind of act to do basic functions like metabolism and things like that, there's actually a really high degree of similarity. So pretty much every gene that you see in a bear has some related version in a human and vice versa. But oftentimes these genes will have experienced changes during the evolution of these different species that allow them to essentially do things slightly differently than they might in a different species. That's fascinating. I mean, I normally think of bears as being outdoor creatures, right?

Where did you get all the blood samples to do this stuff? Right. So we're actually very fortunate to work with the Washington State University Bear Center, which is a one-of-a-kind facility, the only kind like it in the world in Pullman, Washington that has a captive population of bears that are often bears that were getting into trouble in national parks, things like like that and had to be moved. And at this facility, we can study these bears year-round. We can take small, non-invasive, non-damaging blood samples and tissue samples and really have this unprecedented and really unique and exciting access to studying all aspects of bear biology that normally would be very dangerous if you're doing this in wild bears for the researchers and for the bears

potentially. And oftentimes, you know, frankly impossible. For example, it's really hard to find and get tissue samples from hibernating bears in the wild. You've got grizzlies cooperating with you. We do, yes. So as you might expect, they're very, very food motivated. And they're also very, very smart, which is something that a lot of people don't realize. So they pick up really quick on, you know, things that we want them to do by, you know, rewarding them with treats, which in this case is actually honey.

So the children's books did get that part right. They do love honey. But for example, they'll come up to the edge of the yarn, closure, they'll put their paw through a little opening so that we can take a small blood sample, just a tiny little ping-prick to them, and then they get a nice big dose of honey water, which they absolutely love. Wow. You talk here about the insulin resistance in bears, and what we can learn from that.

What else can bears possibly tell us about human health? Right. So pretty much any aspect, any tissue that you look at during hibernation is typically doing something that's pretty remarkable and pretty different than what you would expect. to see in a human. So, for example, they aren't sleeping the entire winter. They do lay around a lot. You know, they're relatively lazy during this time. But we don't see any degradation of muscle tissue or, you know, loss of muscle tone. And in humans, for example, if someone was injured or had to be in bed for a long period of time, that's a really very detrimental thing in that you see their

muscle tone start to degrade. Bears don't experience any of those harmful losses of muscle. So that's one aspect that we're interested. Really? Yeah, exactly. Their heart rate decreases slightly during hibernation, so we're interested also in understanding how they're able to maintain normal body functions with this decreased cardiac output. They don't urinate or defecate for the entirety of hibernation, which in humans would obviously put you in a pretty uncomfortable and pretty dangerous situation. So really, if you just look at a hibernating bear, pick a tissue, pick a part of their body, there's probably something really interesting going on there that in some way or another parallels something

in humans typically related to a disease or some negative condition in terms of human health. Is there anything about the hibernating process itself and the changes that go on in the bear as you speak, that might be applicable to hibernating people? Yeah, so that's not something that my research is specifically getting at right now, but it is something that has been discussed and thought about in the hibernation research world For example, there have been discussions about ways that in the future we might be able to apply our understanding of hibernation and other mammals to, for example, help humans make very long space journeys and things like that, where, you know, you might be able to essentially induce hibernation in humans so that they can go these long periods of time traveling to Mars or beyond or something like that. And, you know, obviously, I think we're still a little ways away from that. But there's some real, I think, interesting and exciting applications to trying to, you know, instead of look at specific aspects of hibernation and understand how we can apply that to humans, trying to essentially apply the whole thing to humans and, you know, like you said, enable humans to hibernate in a way similar to the bears.

I see that we have barely scratched the surface of all the things to be learned. Dr. Blair Perry is a postdoc studying genomics at Washington State University based in Pullman, Washington. Thank you for joining us today. Thank you so much for having me. One final note, it's World Space Week, and people all over the earth are celebrating as they learn more about the universe. We're exploring a little bit closer to home. For five weeks, starting October 19th, we're hosting Sun Camp for families and educators with kids aged five to nine. There'll be conversations with sun scientists, hands-on activities to try on your own, and yes, it's all free.

To learn more and sign up, visit our website at sciencefriiday.com slash suncamp. That's sciencefriiday.com slash suncamp. And that about wraps up this week's show. Have a great weekend. I'm Ira Flato.