Science Friday - Summer Science Books, Naked Mole Rats. July 3, 2020, Part 2

Episode Date: July 3, 2020

The pandemic has nixed many summer vacation plans, but our summer science book list will help you still escape. While staying socially distant, you can take a trip to the great outdoors to unlock the mysteries of bird behaviors. Or instead of trekking to a museum, you can learn about the little-known history of lightbulbs, clocks, and other inventions. Our guests Stephanie Sendaula and Sarah Olson Michel talk with Ira about their favorite science book picks for summer reading. Naked mole rats, native to East Africa, are strange mammals: They’re almost completely hairless. They live in underground colonies, like ants. And, like ants and bees, they have a single reproducing “queen.” Their biology is also unique: They resist cancer, live a long time for such small rodents (often for 30 years or more), and have been found not just to tolerate high, normally toxic levels of carbon dioxide in their nests—but require them. And in the newest strange discovery, researchers writing in Cell earlier this year found that mole rats were prone to anxiety and even seizures when carbon dioxide levels get too low, such as in an environment similar to above-ground air. Ira talks to the paper’s co-author Dan McCloskey, a neuroscientist at the City University of New York. McCloskey explains why mole rat brains might be helpful guides to human brains, especially in the case of infants who have seizures with high fevers. Plus, the mystery of how such homebodies found new colonies, and other naked mole rat oddities. 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 Plato. I've seen many people on social media asking for book recommendations as they stay homebound during this pandemic. They have run out of books and book ideas. And if you're one of them, we're here to help you with our summer reading list. Yes, I know summer started about a week ago, but there's a virus going on out there. So we've been a bit distracted. Forgive us. The good news now is that if you're looking for something new to read, we have the suggestions. I want to welcome our panel. Joining us now is Stephanie Sandala, associate editor for library journal reviews, and Sarah Olson Mitchell,

science writer and book reviewer and biology undergrad at Oregon State University in Corvallus. Welcome to Science Friday. Thank you. We're so happy to be here. Do you both get what I get that people are just reading

and reading and reading while they're staying home? I mean, I especially have lately. I mean, I've kind of like taken a break from Netflix and chill. So reading is a nice little change of pace for me for the summer months. Yeah. And I think people have run out of books because I really do think that we can help them out today. So let's get going now that it is summer, people are trying to escape into nature.

Stephanie, do you have a book about what might be a good outdoor escape for us? Yeah. One of my favorite books this season is The Bird Away by Jennifer Ackerman. I'm really liking this book a lot because it's really gotten me into birding recently. She talks a lot about how there's really no one way to be a bird since they vary in behavior, flight, song, and form. So everything from collaboration to competitiveness, communal parenting, group nesting systems, I thought it was really interesting how they have various strategies for raising alarm.

So Blue Jay is what you're outside my house right now. We'll sometimes imitate hawks to scare off prey, sometimes imitate car alarms, which I found all this really fascinating. There's a great chapter about ravens playing and catching twigs while, they're flying just to play with each other. So this is a great book, I think, for anyone new to popular science who just wants to learn about nature and sit outside in your backyard and just cozy up to a really good book. Do you have a bird feeder out in your backyard? We don't. That's my next thing I want to get. Thank you for reminding me. No, because it's good. You read a book like that, and then you go out

to your bird feeder and you get to see all these actions that they're doing that you would not have looked for if you hadn't read the book. Stephanie, what are some of the most interesting bird facts that you learned in this book that you will be looking for when you go to that bird feeder? Yeah, well, for me, Blue Jets especially, because I see them outside all the time. So just the different sounds at night, like just even in the morning and you hear them like making noise and mimicking other birds or just mimicking other sounds in nature. So I'm just more especially fascinated by them lately and kind of just seeing different colors and a different, how they, you know, communicate with their, not just with their voice, but also with their feathers. which I think is also really fascinating. Forward to more time outside this summer.

Yeah, they're kind of bullies, you'll notice. They're big birds. You ever notice that? Yeah, it's interesting but fascinating too. So, yeah, just a really fascinating read overall. Yeah, they chase everybody away from the bird feeder when they're around. Sarah, you have a recommendation that talks about nature that's right outside our door. Tell us about that.

Yeah, I'm actually really excited to start Kelly Brenner's Nature Obscura. She looks at natural urban landscapes and kind of like, you know, the different organisms you can find in your backyard. And it's the perfect pick for the current times that we're in because a lot of people are stuck at home or they're stuck in their local area. And so this is a great way to get to know what lives in your area, what lives in your backyard, what lives on the hiking trail down the road. It's a good way to get people outside birding or looking for bugs. it's probably a good one for parents who want to tell their kids about different insects and things that are outside. My top pick for observing that can help you escape into the natural world is, and this was a great book, American Eden, David Hasek, Botany and Medicine in the Garden of the Early Republic by Victoria Johnson. A lot of people don't know about America's first botanical garden.

and he built the first one, and you know where he built it, right in Rockefeller Center, before there was a Rockefeller Center. And what's cool about the book besides reading about his history is that there's a tiny little plaque right on the bottom of one of the little gardening exhibitions where they have the angels out there in Christmas that has a little plaque saying right on this spot was that botanical garden. The book is really cool history of botanical gardens and how they, they, they, They were brought over from England and his role in it. And it hits all my buttons.

Being a gardener, I love it, and loving the history of science, I love it. So it's got all those things in it for me. That's when I've been meaning to read, too, as I'm looking forward to that one, and learning more about gardening, especially lately. So I'll be making note of that one to read as well. Let's go to our Vox Pop. I want to go to a pick from one of our listeners from Seattle. This is Kyla.

I hope I'm getting it right, Kyla. Her summer book recommendation. A really great book that I just finished reading is ocean outbreak confronting the rising tide of marine disease by Drew Harville, who is a professor of marine ecology at Cornell. And this book examines marine epidemics that have potential to cause a mass die off of wildlife from the top and bottom of the food chain. And it looks of different infectious disease outbreaks in the marine environments. If you're the type of person that like slippery sea creatures.

We've got the right book for you, Stephanie, right? You've got a book. Lepidstreet creatures. I have a book in mind for that. Yeah, I've also been really loving the book of eels by Patrick Spenson. And I was shown to this one because I don't know anything about eels. And I realized while reading the book that most people don't know anything about them either. They're very mysterious, very secretive, very solitary.

And so this is kind of a natural history and a memoir where the author talks about eel fishing with his dad who loved to eat, eels. So there's images of his dad, like reflections of his dad, cooking eels, like boiling, frying, smoking them, which I did not know there's so many ways to prepare eels, to be honest. So I thought it's really interesting, especially how they can live for decades, which I had no idea, and can migrate thousands of miles to find a stream or lake to live in. We'll just live for a while. But it was really interesting to see how eel fishermen in his native Sweden, the author's native Sweden and in Japan are affected by a declining population of eels and how disease and climate change are really threatening their habitat. So this is a really fun book. I mean, fun in like a creepy

way for anyone interested in marine biology. This is a really great, like, you know, fascinating read overall, I think. Yeah, it's sort of another nature pick. Definitely. I want to go to Jeff from San Carlos California on our vox pop. He has a pick about looking at how the brain works. I'm reading consciousness and the social brain by Michael Graziano. It's a book that tries to make the connection between the way we reason about others and how they think, maybe exactly the same process about how we reason about ourselves. This interests me because I'm autistic. I developed a sense of self-latan life.

So I'm interested in the mechanisms involved in the brain that make that possible. Stephanie, you had a book on science's great hope to understanding and illness. Yeah, Hidden Valley Road by Robert Culker, which I thought was really interesting, kind of like feeding into the whole theme of thinking about the brain and health and science. So this is a great natural, like, not natural history story. So yeah, this is a great kind of like biography of science of the Galvin family. There were 12 children, which is, yeah, a lot to think about. So two girls and 10 boys and six of the 10 sons were eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia. and he talks about, the author talks about how the family donated their DNA to the National

Institute of Health and to other organizations in order to help scientists and medical researchers better understand their genetic markers for schizophrenia. And I thought this is really fascinating because you get to know the entire family. It's not just those with schizophrenia, but also the sisters who are watching her brothers experience some really difficult situations and you really get the insight into their lives, their personal stories and it's just a really great story overall. It's a lot of buzz about this book in general and the hype, I think, is definitely warranted. What surprised you the most about this story, Stephanie? I think what surprised me the most is, which isn't really new, but just like the shame and stigma of

schizophrenia and other mental illnesses and how different family members either wanted to, you know, openly talk about it or wanted to not talk about it at all. I think that's something we need to talk about more just as a society in general. So that really resonated with me. And I thought that was really just, you know, really nice that he pointed that out with, with thoughtfulness and sensitivity especially. Yeah, it's always good to read a great writer, isn't it? Definitely. And finding great writers who can write about science and medicine is even rare

because you don't see somebody, right? Yeah, and since science and medicine, the combination of the two for sure. Sarah, you have a book that examines the evolution of the human body. Very interesting book. Are you talking about skeleton keys? I am. Okay, good.

Okay. Yeah, so this is a phenomenal book. about bones and everything inside the human body and the evolution of skeletons. It's one of those books that I felt like as I was reading it, I was becoming aware of the bones underneath my own skin. It's like how could you not notice this? The author does a phenomenal job of making connections to things that go unseen. I love this book too, so I'm excited to what do you love so much about it? I think just bones and skeletons in general are something we don't really think much about,

but they just affect so much of what we do. And I think Riley, the author, just does a great job of reminding us throughout history of how bones is important in so many situations, like scientific medical research to cultural significance. And I think it's important to mention this. You know, Riley Black, she published under the pseudonym Brian Sweathek, but Riley Black is a transgender woman and non-binary person. And so he talks, she writes a lot about being queer in paleontology. And it's such a great thing to see because that's just not something that's very represented in the field. You know, paleontology is very Indiana Jones, you know, older white men off on adventures,

outfinding dinosaur bones. And so Riley brings just a totally unique perspective to paleontology and to evolution. And I think that that is her talent. She actually, she's able to find things that are overlooked by others because she's got a different perspective. And she's used to, you know, maybe even being overlooked. And so her book is just this beautiful story that's so personal to her journey in paleontology, but also these connections to humans over millions of years and how we've changed and how our skeleton benefits us. And it's just one of those books that it's hard to put down. Yeah, it is an interesting read. I remember speaking with Raleigh about her book, and she was really a very interesting guest to talk about things like that. She was talking about the evolution of the evolutionary history of the bones, but you bring up a very good point about there are other kinds of messages in the things that she writes about.

After the break, we'll be talking about more summer book recommendations. So stay with us. We'll be right back. This is Science Friday. I am Ira Flato. In case you just joined us, we're talking this hour about what summer readings are great to take your mind off the pandemic for a little while, especially if you've run out of books to read. Joining us now is Stephanie Sondala, Associate Editor for Library Journal Reviews, and Sarah Olson Mitchell, science writer and book reviewer and biology undergrad at Oregon State University in Corvallis. For people who like history and science, Sarah, you have a book that covers those topics and mixes in material science. Tell us about that. Yeah, so this book I've been loving. It's called The Alchemy of Us by Anisa Ramirez. It's about how humans in matter

transformed one another. And I love that because she draws these incredible connections between objects and inventions and the way that they've transformed society. And it's so intersectional. She brings up groups of people you wouldn't have thought of in ways that they were impacted. And she's a phenomenal writer. So it's very immersive. It feels like you're reading historical fiction because she's a storyteller. So she's walking you through literally dialogue between these historical figures. And to me, it feels like cracking open a novel, even though you're reading about science and history.

We had Anisa Ramirez come on to the show to talk about that book. She had so many interesting anecdotes that you don't hear about. And she said, we often think of technology as being precious and neutral. But technology just picks up whatever someone is thinking or whatever is part of their experience. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And she has a lot of examples in the book where, you know, she talks about the types of people who would have been excluded from these objects and materials. and inventions. To me, that was what was so interesting is that she's bringing things into the conversation that we haven't talked about yet. Stephanie, Shandra Lewis tweeted the book,

Breath, the new science of a lost art by James Nestor. She says, snore, have allergies, asthma, autoimmune disease, teeth problems. Why, read this. Stephanie, this is one of your picks. Yeah, this one was a really fun, quirky adventure into the art and science of breathing. The author lives with nasal congestion, sleep apnea, and was talking about his snoring. And he talks about how he goes to these different specialists and doctors in order to find the right way to breathe. So mouth breathing and nose breathing. And it's really interesting to watch as he meets different people. And everyone has stories. Like everyone can relate. Everyone's like, oh, yeah, I have this too. Or this is how I breathe. And we really learn a lot about how our ability to breathe has

changed evolved over time. So from when we were hunter-gatherers into when we were like mashing and cooking food to even how we chew now, I thought it's especially interesting how humans are the only species to have misaligned jaws and overbite or underbite. And especially since I'd an overbite when I was younger. So I'm like, hmm, this is something to take note of. And especially how athletes, he talks about swimmers to divers, to runners, how they breathe during different performances. So it's something you don't really think about until you're reading it. And you're just like, wait, okay, all these connections are coming together. And it's just a really fun, accessible read for a wide variety of people, I think. People don't really think much about

their breathing unless they're doing mindfulness or yoga or something like that. Right. It's something you don't really think about until you read the book and you're just like, wait, okay, this all makes sense now. We don't really think about our breathing or we don't really think about how our breathing changes during running or walking or yoga or anything until you read the book and you're just like, oh, okay, this is all connected. So yeah, highly recommend this one as well. While we're on the topic of breathing and health and human body, one of my favorite authors is Eric Topal. And he writes a lot about the intersection of the mind, the body, and AI, things like that.

He wrote a book called Deep Medicine, How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again. And the interesting part about his thesis is that people think that artificial intelligence will do away with doctors, right? the AI will diagnose the diseases you have or take the substitute for a doctor. And he says just the opposite. He says, AI will do the mundane tasks of looking through the slides or the scans and things like that. And that will allow your doctor to have more personal time with you to talk about your whole body experience. And I thought that was a really interesting take on that. Yeah, I agree.

I remember when Eric was on this show before, and he always has, great insight into, you know, not just his books, but science in general. So I really like his stuff. Sarah, you have a pick that examines race and science. Tell us about that. It's probably my favorite over the past couple of years. It's called Superior, The Return of Re-Science by Angela Sani. Angela is a science journalist who wrote Inferior, which was the study of gender and the

supposed inferiority of women and how these pseudoscientific studies led to, this notion that women are inferior physically and mentally to men. And she takes a really similar approach in this book in examining race. And she debunks a lot of studies and a lot of historical inaccuracies that led to this notion that humans are basically separate species based on skin color. She's writing this at a time when, you know, this is obviously a really important conversation for the world right now. But she's taking a scientific approach to it in a way that has honestly never been explored before for the benefit of the general public. So this is a book anybody could pick up and read about without having a scientific

background, without being involved in conversations about race, and understand what she has to say and learn something and come out of it seeing humans as more connected than before. So it's sort of an historical book, I'll look backwards. It is. And she has a lot of historical anecdotes. She's also made a historical documentary, I believe, with BBC. And that's a great thing to watch if you're interested in reading the book, but you aren't sure that documentary goes through these historical stories that she has to tell. And she talks about the people who basically had agendas, who wanted to prove the superiority of white men and were the ones conducting these scientific studies.

And as any scientist knows, that's... an unethical reason to go into a study. You can't start with an agenda like that. And she not only takes those studies that are clearly biased, but she compares them to studies that are supposedly not biased and finds biases and prejudices within them that the data does not support. And so I think it's a really persuasive argument for why race isn't necessarily real. And that's a bold statement of her to make because the whole argument of inferiority, superiority, equality rests on this idea of, are we equal? And she just has a fabulous job dissecting that. Yeah, this is one of library journal's best science books for last year. And I agree with you, Sarah. It was a really fascinating

discussion, really interesting thought-provoking read about how science can be flawed and data can be flawed. So I'm not like that she brought that to the table and just shows that throughout history that not all science is based in actual factious evidence. So, yeah, I really get support and recommend this one as well. Does this book have obscure studies in it besides the studies we've heard about race with the Nazis and historical figures like that? Are these smaller studies that no one hears about? She does a good job of digging out studies that you likely had not heard of.

She spends a lot of time on the ones that people might be slightly more familiar with if they've ever examined or researched the topic before. But she does bring up some studies and information that people may not have seen before. I think that's her talent as a science journalist. She's able to really dig into stuff. You know, it's because people naturally expect science to be objective all the time, right? That's the whole point of science is objectivity, but it's done by people. Right. Exactly.

Yes. I would expect that we're going to see more books about race and science. in the year ahead, don't you think? I certainly hope so. And I would be interested to see, I know that a lot of people are getting nonfiction books that are about race and how to talk about it and that those are thankfully reaching the bestseller list right now

with everything going on. And I think it would be important to see Superior reach that list as well and end up on, you know, book clubs that are about race because she takes a scientific approach to it. And I think that that is important to consider too. I am seeing more books about race in general, but I would also, like Sarah, would like to see more books about race in terms of science also. So I'm really hoping to see that in the next couple of years for sure.

Yeah. Let's go to another comment from Jen from Connecticut. I just started reading Timefulness, How Thinking Like a Geologist Can Help Save the World. And the author is Marcia Burenerud. I'm hoping that this can help me. I teach geology classes, maybe bring in some why you should learn geology to my teaching. Geology, one of my favorite topics. I think going back to Centennial, where I first started reading about Colorado and the geology James Mitchell put in that book. And then going on to John McPhee, and he was a guest in 1993 on the book Assembly, California.

I just love rocks. What do you think? It sounds great. That's exactly the kind of pop science book. I'd be likely to grab off the shelf. It's a great idea, especially for people who are going out in the wild now and looking to get to faraway places, staying socially away from people. There's nothing better than taking a hike among the rocks and seeing what you discover.

Yeah, and I'm a big advocate for those kinds of nature and physical science books that convince you to get outside because what's better than reading about something and deciding that you want to go check it out for yourself. Yeah, and there are all these apps now that let you take a look. I natural, things like that, if you see something and you don't know what it is, you put it up in the cloud and people tell you within seconds I have found what you're looking at. You know, it's funny a while back, actually last summer, I read this book called Spying on Whales by Nick Pineson.

And it's a fantastic book about the evolutionary history of whales. And one thing I was really surprised to learn was that a lot of the fossilized whales that he oversees at the Smithsonian were actually found in my county where I live, in Oregon or the next county over. And so I was talking to the author for an interview for my blog, readmore science.com. And he told me that if I ever go out to the Oregon coast, you can actually find fossilized whales. And he was telling me about where to look for them and that sort of thing. And it completely blew my mind. I had no idea that you could just go for a hike and potentially come across fossils. So that was really eye-opening for me. I enjoyed that book.

I love that book, too. I didn't know that about the Oregon Coast. So now I'm just, I just want to travel there. Well, you know, not right now, obviously, but later on. That's just like so interesting to learn that. I didn't know that there are those whale fossils there. It's gorgeous. If you can ever make it out to Lincoln City, that is where so many fossilized whale bones have been found. Okay, I'm making note of that right now. Let me ask both of you, do you have a book pick that really looks at the world or made you look at the world? Or made you look at the world? world in a completely different way? I definitely do. My last one is Fire in Paradise by Alistair G. and Danny Anguiano. And this is actually about the campfire in Paradise, California in 2018, which was a deadless wildfire in California history. And it's really changed the way, I think, because you don't really realize, or I don't really realize the extent to which natural disasters really affect our day to day. So they talk about the history of the Sierra Nevada,

the natural history, how it has less snowpack. and recent drought in more years. And so as a result, there's more frequent increased wildfires. And they really profile the town and its residents. And essentially talking to them about their lives before the fire immediately after and where they're going now. So you see people who are displaced who are moving, either within California or even other states, trying to figure out the best place to live for them for the future.

And it's just something we don't really talk about as much as we should, I feel like. And their writing is just really great. That's what really drew me to it also. It really reads like a novel. Your investigative reporting is just so good. They humanize everyone. So you're just really feeling for the entire town, for their stories, for the people.

And I recommend this one really strongly to anyone looking for a really good, you know, just really good read, just not for natural history, just like for people and community in general, I think. I'm Ira Flato, and this is Science Friday from WNYC Studios. Do you have one?

Yeah, mine is. for small creatures such as we by Sasha Sagan. So she's the daughter of Carl Sagan and Andrew. And everything that you'd expect from a Carl Sagan book, the profundity of the cosmos, the value in understanding the natural world, the quest for truth and science is all in this book as well. The reason that it really stood out to me, even though it's not necessarily a science book, It's really a nonfiction book, is that she's interested in the quest for meaning and the quest for truth. The driving question of her book is what is meaning, you know, what is the meaning of life? The approach she takes is in rituals. Rituals are extremely important to humans. You know,

from a evolutionary perspective, people have always had religion and rituals and things that created meaning within their individual cultures. And she takes a look at how we can have rituals and meaning in a society that's less and less religious. And that's a really interesting question for someone to take from a scientific perspective. And she does a really good job. The book is part memoir, part guidebook, and she's kind of introducing readers to these profound questions about our meaning and our purpose, while also appreciating the beautiful world and universe that we exist in. So it's sort of a spiritual-like book. If you enjoy reading about spirituality, I think it's great.

But coming from a perspective as a non-religious person, I found it just as valuable. Yeah, and that's what I mean. You don't have to have a religious outlook. You can have a spiritual outlook and enjoy the same kinds of things. Absolutely. One of my topics isn't a standard book, but I have found myself, while I've been home a lot, doing a lot of fermentations. I've been working on the perfect sourdough bread recipe. Boy, do I have some flops? But I've also have some good ones learning about how fermentation works and the actions of yeast and bacteria working together and whatever. And so I'm going to recommend Noma's Guide to Fermentation. It's a fantastic book of fermentation.

And if you like to do these sort of things, whether you're making homemade pickles or you're making kimchi or cabbage or whatever you're doing it, these people, they pick it up a notch. I'm laughing because I'm a microbiology major. And so all of my at-home experiments right now are fermentation, and I've got microscopes and things. And so I'm just playing around with a, I've been making sour crowd. things like that. I'm no good at any of it because I'm a terrible cook, but it's so much fun as

a microbiology major to do it home. It's a lot harder in the kitchen, isn't it? It is. We've run out of time, but I would like to thank my guest, Stephanie Sandula, Associate Editor for Library Journal Reviews, and Sarah Olson Mitchell, science writer, book reviewer and biology undergrad at Oregon State University. In Corvallis, I think we're all heading out, make room for all of us, Sarah. We're definitely all heading there. Fantastic. I'll meet you out there in Oregon. And you can read more

about the books we've talked about on our website, science friday.com slash summer books. After the break, we peer into the weird, wonderful world of the naked mole wrap. The mammal that lives in underground colonies and needs carbon dioxide.

How much can their brains explain? It's all coming up after the break, so stay with us. We'll be right back. This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flato. If there was ever a controversial nominee for the Cute Animal Award, it would be the Naked Mole Rat. It's not everyone's cup of tea. It's bald, mostly hairless with pink wrinkly skin,

long front teeth that they can use for digging. They're kind of funny-looking. But they have wonderful biological talents, consider. They live in underground colonies that you could easily confuse for an ant's nest, one queen, and all her children. They are remarkably resistant to cancer. That's cool, potentially useful to know. And they can go without oxygen for 18 minutes. You got to love them.

And adding to all that cuteness, new research has another mole rat mystery to explain. they seem to need high levels of carbon dioxide, or else they have seizures. Explain that. And we will. Here to explain why this quirk of naked mole rats may help humans and especially children is Dr. Dan McCluskey, a neuroscientist and associate professor of psychology at the City University of New York in, well, New York. Welcome, Dan. Thanks, Ira. Great to be with you. This is such a strange thing to say about mammals that they need. need carbon dioxide, when it's usually such a poison, right? We exhale it. Yeah, we consider it waste and most other animals do, you know, except for a few strains of bacteria. Nobody's really relying

on carbon dioxide. But yeah, as you said, our research seems to suggest that they're relying on it for keeping their brain balanced. How did you figure this out in the first place? Yeah, so it took a while for us to pull it all together. So one of the things that we've been doing is tracking whole colonies of naked mole rats in captivity, where we have 40, 50, 60 animals, and we're looking at all the micro-movements that each animal makes through the colony. And for a while, we thought that they were completely bored, that they wouldn't move. They sort of, no matter what we did, we give them some food or some warmth or some shelter elsewhere, and they would just no matter what, they would always go right back to the same location and just pile on each other.

But then when we did another experiment where we put CO2, carbon dioxide, in another area of their environment, it was the only thing that we could use to draw them out. And so we were really surprised that they were actually attracted to it. And so there's the mystery. Why would an oxygen-breathing mammal be attracted to lower oxygen environments and like the CO2? So we think that this provides what we would consider approximate cause for use sociality. We think that this is driving them. Say that again?

A proximate cause for use-sociality. So like you mentioned, they're use social. So they're really unusual for mammals in that they have a queen and a breeding male. And rather than do what most mammals do, which is grow up and leave the nest and start their own colony, these guys stick around. So the older brothers and sisters stay around for multiple generations and helping raise the young. And it's been sort of a mystery of how this comes about. But the data that we have seems to suggest that maybe they're relying on the carbon dioxide to help balance their brain.

And this way, if they ever venture above ground, they start feeling a little bit anxious or worse. They could have an epileptic seizure. And that might get them to return to the nest rather than go off on their own. That's interesting. So it has something to do with living underground and their brain has adapted to that. Yeah. So one of the things that we see over and over again with these guys is that they require very, a lot of their adaptations seem to reduce the need for energy. So they live in this real underground, very stuffy environment. And so a lot of the things that they've adapted over the 35 million years of their existence has been to kind of reduce their oxygen needs, reduce their caloric intake and all of these things. And so what we think happened is over, you know, millions of years. years as they evolved, they developed ways where they can rely on less oxygen. Eventually, they sort of used it as a crutch where they would use the high carbon dioxide to keep the brain balanced. So it's been known for since at least the 1500s that carbon dioxide itself does a good job of suppressing

brain activity. And so the naked mole rats figured out a long time ago that if they have the carbon dioxide, they don't need some of the things that you and I have in our brains to suppress activity. Now, isn't there some sort of usually a vulnerability in rodents that are immature? but as they get older, do they leave this sort of need, but not happening in the mole rats? That's exactly right. So a lot of the things that we see in these, you know, strange adaptations for mole rats is that they seem to maintain baby brains throughout their whole life. And their life is long. They live 30 years, which is a really long time for a small rodent. This tolerance for CO2, which they have, is something that small humans and other small mammals have early in childhood,

but most of us grow out of it. These guys seem to have a mutation that keeps them in this sort of infantile brain state that allows them to keep this high CO2 tolerance. Now, you mentioned that like bees, they live in colonies and there's a queen there. Has the queen grown up out of the baby state? It's a really great question. Apart from all the mysteries of naked mall rats, one of the real mysteries is how do they ever start new colonies? You know, you've got this multiple generations, punches of animals that live together below

ground, and very little evidence that they ever go above ground. One of the big mysteries that remains is how do new colonies get started? And so there's this sort of mystical character called the dispersive morph, which gains a lot of fat, gets a pale appearance, and we think is storing up energy so that it can go above ground. And with the data we've seen, it looks like the dispersive morph grows up very quickly, that the brain grows out of this phase, and they're able to tolerate normal air, just like you or I. And we think it's a temporary switch that once they go below ground and start their own colony, that they go back to this baby brain state again. And so we're really interested in the mechanisms that's driving that. Quite interesting. I was talking before we were talking about the seizures. And of course, is there a takeaway from this for diagnosing or understanding human seizures? There is. So before the age of five, children are prone to what are called febrile seizures, which are seizures that occur under conditions of high fever. And our collaborators at the University of Helsinki showed in 2006 that those seizures arise from breathing fast. So as you and I and anyone else gets into a warm environment or when we

feel a fever coming on, we start breathing faster to lose some of that hyperthermia. For most of us, the brain can balance that perfectly well. But for babies and for young children, and particularly young children that have a mutation in this gene called KCC2, we see that they can't tolerate the changes in the loss of carbon dioxide. And so this is exactly what's happening in the naked mulrats. They have a mutation in this KCC2 gene that's keeping them in this immature state. And as a result, whenever they lose carbon dioxide, they run into trouble and they have these fever-induced seizures. And so we think by studying the naked mole rats, we might be able to better understand what's going on in the children, where these seizures are emanating from the brain and ultimately what we might be able to do to treat them. Quite interesting. I'm going to get in trouble for saying that mole rats are such weird animals because they are a fan favorite on the SciFri staff.

Everybody loves them here. How is it that they're also so relevant to medical research? I mentioned their resistance to cancer earlier. Mammals, is this related to that energy-saving adaptation you mentioned earlier? Yeah, I think so. And I think there's a lot of commonalities between humans and naked mole rats. When you first look at them, you might not think so, but the more you study of them, they're the humans of the rodent world in many ways.

They're hairless compared to their closest relatives. They're a lot more social. They live a lot longer, just like humans do. We've seemed to adapt some of the same features over the years. And so we do share a lot of genes in common with making mole rats. And by studying their genome and differences in it, we might be able to understand a little bit more about ourselves. And how are your mole rats doing right now?

Are you able to take good care of them? Great question. We have a really great staff. Our frontline workers who are going in and caring for the mole rats every day, and I'm happy to report that they're doing really well. We have a live video feed of one of our nests, and I check in on them at least once a day to see how they're doing. And I think they're quite happy to be left alone for a little while. You know, when I had my little ant colony as a kid, I had to actually put them underground, right?

The ant colony has a little bit of soil in it that they dig and burrow under. Do you have to supply that for the mole rats, too? We give them some basically corn cob and some other materials. They really like paper. They like to use paper to build their nests. One of the things that's fun to do is we put all these little radio frequency identification chips under the skin of every single animals. We have about somewhere around 250, 300 animals.

And each one has this unique, easy pass type chip under their skin, and we're tracking all of their movements. But it's fun to put the chips inside of paper and cardboard and other things like that and see who's doing the nest building and sort of figure out what each of their roles is in the colony. And so by using this technology, we can actually answer questions about their behavior and their tasks in the colony. Are they curious? Do they like to explore things if you leave stuff out? They do. Yeah, they do. Yeah, they love to explore. You know, no matter what we give them, they'll spend a few hours really investigating it.

And they have a pretty interesting communication system where they can sort of bring back information to the nest and communicate to the other mall rats. And so it's fun to put some new object in part of their environment and watch them kind of send messages to each other. about going to check it out and see them all start to gravitate towards it. It's pretty fun to watch. Now, I hear that your tape recorder that you use in recording your audio has naked mole rat teeth marks on it. Is that correct? That is correct. We're really interested in the communication tools that they use, you know, unlike mice and rats that use sounds that we can't hear, they're in a higher frequency range than what we can hear. Naked mole rats have chirps that are audible. And there's this sort of telltale indicator that something is going on where all of the members in the nest will start to admit this sort of high-frequency chirp.

And when that happens, very interestingly, the queen seems to kind of come towards a nest wherever she is in the colony. And she really spends a minute investigating all the animals in the nest and then finds one in particular and shoves it out. And we think that this is related to this dispersion, that she's selecting animals to be pushed out of the colony. And so, yeah, we've put recording devices in just to try to get at this type of recording and break it down and figure out if there's ways that we can detect it. And just like everything else, they're going to chew on it. And so you have to be careful with what you put in. And you can't be too linked to things because they will get eaten for sure. So you're saying that the queen actually, you know, expels some of her children from the nest?

There's a really interesting movie, I think, to be made, Ira, on The Naked Mulrats, and not a documentary, but some story to be told. Because, yeah, the Queen seems to, you know, there's this, while they're good at communication, there's certain things that I think they can't communicate. So what we think is that the Queen is specifically selecting members of the colony to go on and disperse and start their own colony. And the way that we think this happens is that she's banishing them from the colony nest. in some ways to habituate them to normal air so that they can go above ground and start their own colony.

And so there's this, you know, if you watch these animals that are, they're banished from the nest, they'll linger for a while and then eventually try to go back to the nest. And then this whole experience will happen where the animals chirp and the queen will shove them out. And then the animal just looks completely defeated. And, you know, there's this kind of really beautiful story where the mother is selecting them to be the next queen and they can't express that. And they're sort of banished from the nest. Meanwhile, they're the champion of the group that's going on to spread the gene.

So it's a really fascinating kind of story there. I see a great animated feature here, you know, you know what I'm talking about? I do. I wish I had the skill to do it. About the naked mole rat that gets banished from the nest and goes on to do great things. That's right. Is there something that you'd like to know in your research about naked mole rats that you don't know but would like to find out? we are really interested in this, you know, we're all in a position where I think we're getting more pale and putting on more fat these days. Whatever the mechanism is that drives that really

fascinates me, this idea of why an animal is selected to become a disperser. And why I think it's so fascinating is because if we can figure it out, if we can figure out what changes in the body of these animals, they're switching for a two-week period from naked mold. rats to humans, essentially. They're adapting our traits and our features and tolerating our air. And, you know, ultimately, as we talked about, you know, the people who may have similar disposition and maybe some problems with tolerating carbon dioxide or low levels of carbon dioxide, whatever the mole rats are doing, they've solved the problem. So if we can, if we can study them and see how they're solving the problem, it might teach us something about how we can

help ourselves. Just a reminder that I'm Ira Flato, and this is Science Friday from WNYC Studios. talking about the weird wonderful world of naked mole rats with neuroscientist Dan McCluskey. And something I've been fascinating with as we've been speaking here, they live in colonies from like bees or ants. If you study bees or ants, can you learn something about how the colonies of naked mole rats might be behaving? They do seem to have certain features that are really interesting and common. For example, we look at something in the brain called neuropeptide Y, which we see is different in some of our animals that help to stick around and build the nest versus animals that are likely to go out and forage and try to find new food. And that neuropeptide Y difference is also seen in honeybees, that the drones bees have higher levels of neuropeptide Y, the ones that are out in foraging, just like we see. So that was really fascinating because they don't have any commonality in the genome.

but that we're seeing some of the same mechanisms that are driving different behaviors in a youth social group. Are you a neuroscientist who got interested in mole rats, or were you first a mole rat fan who got interested in neuroscience? I am the former. In 2006, for Christmas, I got a fact-a-day calendar from my sister-in-law, and I made it, you know, I every day would get to the, a new page on the calendar in April 17th of 2007, I saw this comment about a naked mole rat and that it was neither a molener or a rat and is the only cold-blooded mammal.

And as a neuroscientist at the time who was interested in studying fibral seizures and how heating the brain might cause seizure activity, I thought it would be a really interesting model where we can take room temperature, take a cold-blooded mammal that has a brain similar to ours and see what happens. And man, you know, 13 years later, I think... couldn't believe how well it mimicked what happened in the humans in the same state. And so I had never heard of a naked mole rat back then until I got to that calendar post and then it just changed my life forever. My only other question I would have for you is, what do you say to people who really

think they're ugly? You know, they're certainly polarizing. Nobody doesn't have a reaction to them. Either people think they're really cute or really ugly. And we've had a lot of the ugly camp come into the lab and start to work with them. And they'll change their mind pretty quickly. I guess one of the things unfortunate about is that I get to spend a lot of time with them. So when I first brought them back and started them in my lab in 2010, I would bring in a desk and a laptop and a chair and just sitting there and work on my grading and work on my papers and do everything in the room and just sit and observe them.

And it really is remarkable. You have a whole community that you're just watching and seeing how they interact with one another. And I don't do that much anymore because we keep it pretty warm in there because they are nearly cold-blooded. And so you'll break a sweat sitting in there if you're in there long enough. But it's hard to think that they're ugly if you spend enough time with them, I think. Well, this has been a truly fascinating discussion. I've learned a whole bunch of stuff, even in the last stuff you talked about, cold-blooded, warm-blooded mammals. I never knew that. Thank you very much, Dan McCluskey,

for taking time to be with us today. It's been great, Ira. Thank you very much. Dan McCluskey is a neuroscientist and associate professor of psychology at the City University of New York. If you missed any part of this program, or you would like to hear it again, subscribe to our podcasts, or ask your smart speaker to play Science Friday. Every day now is Science Friday. Our Science Friday Voxpob app Question of the Week. Have you convinced someone else to be more climate conscious

and take action? And how did you convince them? That's on the Science Friday Vox Pop app. We'd like to hear from you and you can get that app wherever you get your apps. Have a great and safe 4th of July weekend.

We'll see you next week. I'm Ira Flato.