SciShow Tangents - Trick or Treat Month: Blood with Justin and Sydnee McElroy!

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hello and welcome to SciShow Tangents, the frightly competitive science knowledge screamcase I'm your ghost, Hank Gangrene. And joining me this week, as always, is mad scientist, Scary Riley. Hello. And our resident everywolf man, Sam Skulls. Ow, ow, ow.

Starting point is 00:00:37 The old calendar on the wall says it's Halloween time once more, and we here at SciShow Tangents love getting into the Halloween spirit, and this year is no different. October is Trick or Treat month and Sam and Sari have invited some ghoulish guests over to Tangents Manor to join us this month. In fact, I hear one of

Starting point is 00:00:54 them approaching the door now. Trick or Treat. Trick or Treat. Hello. Hello. Welcome to Tangents Manor. Oh, thanks. That's so cool. Thanks. Yeah, thanks for having us. Our car broke down outside and there was a light here over at the old green place. So we decided to just come and use your phone.

Starting point is 00:01:14 Everybody, it's Justin and Sydney McElroy of Sawbones and also of trying to become a representative of some sort of the state of West Virginia. Yes, I am in the House of Delegates. A delegate. Nothing scarier than the U.S. government. Very spooky. West Virginia state government. Yeah, West Virginia state government is somewhat spookier, yeah. Yes, definitely populated with ghosts, or at least people who seem like they probably

Starting point is 00:01:42 should have retired by now. Do you want to hear about the 15 gallons of chili that we made this weekend? Is that how you win an election? Is that like the main way to the House of Delegates? In West Virginia, that's a big part of it. Yeah, slinging chili, slinging meat and beans. He's like, show up at somebody's door and you're like, you want a gallon? It was for Chili Fest, which in Huntington, it's like the Christmas of Huntington.

Starting point is 00:02:05 And it's a chili holiday. We have many festivals, food festivals, just in Huntington. Just in Huntington alone. The Pumpkin Festival. The Chili Fest. The Hot Dog Fest. The Hot Dog Festival. Wow.

Starting point is 00:02:15 The Rib Fest. Rib Fest. Rib Fest, too. Ramp Fest. So at least one vegetable. Just onions. Stink Fest is what that's called. Stink Fest? St stink fest is like a festival

Starting point is 00:02:26 because ramps are stinky ramps are stinky we're big in the food fest so we did a booth for the Democrats the Capel County Democrats and between Cindy's mom and I we made 30 gallons 30 gallons of chips in what vessel?

Starting point is 00:02:43 that's a great question let me tell you what I'm picturing Where are you keeping all of it? In what vessel? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's a great, that's a great question. Um, I'm picturing, let me tell you what I'm picturing. I'm picturing, uh, like Yeti coolers.

Starting point is 00:02:53 Those are part of it. Absolutely. Um, and not just filled with chili though. No, I was, I was picturing like you just push the button and it comes out the spout. Like we use Gatorade coolers and just push the button at the bottom

Starting point is 00:03:05 and it all just gooshes out. No, it's a bunch of freezing and pots and gallon storage bags. And then I'd have to, I was cooking, heating up the chili while people were eating the chili. And then I would have to dump the big pot of chili into the eating pot.

Starting point is 00:03:20 And I would ask people, please don't look at this. You're hungry for chili and you won't be hungry after you watch a man dump three gallons of chili into a pail. I guarantee it's an appetite killer right there. Was it a hit? Did people like the chili? I mean, we sold out of all 30 gallons. They really did. No, it went over well. Oh, did it cost? Was it free chili or was it cost chili? So the whole thing is a fundraiser for the Ronald McDonald House. And the way that it works is you go buy your tickets and then you exchange your tickets for chili at all the various chili booths.

Starting point is 00:03:53 Yes. The organizers, the infinite wisdom had put us our booth directly across from the political opposition. The counterpart of the Democrat Cabo County Party. And they ran out of chili in an hour they brought two standards with donald trump and one pot of chili more chili less donald yeah this is this is definitely how we heal america uh here at tangents manor we have a similar thing except instead of chili it's just big bowls of eyeballs because it's creepy season but instead of talking about that i do want to talk about i recently went to bozeman montana to also do an event related to

Starting point is 00:04:38 the election i was doing an event with monica tronell who's running for one of the two montana house districts and um and in the in the third row back so the first row was reserved for a family of monica trinell second row normal people third row normal people one of them held up us a banner that said i love sam schultz and and i and i said because because i was in a i was in a place that's quite close to sam's hometown and i was like do you know sam and he said no i just love sam i think maybe it was like a brother or a friend lovely but no you didn't think people could just like me without knowing me hank well it was close but i had just been in view i like sam i've known

Starting point is 00:05:24 sam all of eight minutes. We like Sam. That's very exciting. I'd love to see it. Did you take a picture of the banner? Oh, God, you know, I didn't. This was a big moment for me, Hank. What a massive mistake. I know. You could have gotten it. I hear you. Bozeman Man, if you still have your banner and didn't throw it in the garbage, can you take a picture

Starting point is 00:05:39 of it and send it to us on Twitter? I would like to see it. It's going to be just as impressive draped across this couch as it was held up in a big crowd. For sure. So, Justin, Sydney, would you like to know how our podcast works? Please. Yeah, at this point I'm just

Starting point is 00:05:55 grasping at straws. So every week here on Tangents, we gather to try to unnerve disgust and delight and horrify each other with science facts while trying to stay on topic and failing. We are all playing for gory and for candy, which we will be awarding as we play. And at the end of the episode,

Starting point is 00:06:12 one of us will be crowned the king of Halloween. And if the guest is the trick of Trick or Treat Month, here's the trick. Our regular panel will take turns presenting games this month, and I get to play along some. There's two tricks according to you but that's okay i don't know what's going on that's fine you did great now as always we're going to introduce this week's topic with the traditional science poem this week i think from

Starting point is 00:06:34 our guests i gave this job sydney uh who has written not one not two but three science i wrote a shakespearean sonnet i wrote a haiku and I wrote a limerick. Nice. So what, what, you know, whatever you prefer. I mean,

Starting point is 00:06:50 we have time for all three of them. Of course. I'm going to need all three. I'm sorry. Yeah. I was very excited to have a project that was not campaign or child related. You want to read my science poems? I feel weird reading my poems.

Starting point is 00:07:07 You want me to read your science poems? Yeah, will you read my science poems? You have such a nice poem voice. Wow, that's very cute. Professional podcaster voice. Yes, that's true. Very cute. This is the sonnet.

Starting point is 00:07:18 What more essential farrier than you? Who with each beat breathes life into our limbs? But for you, for your your flow our lips would fade to blue and every mortal functioning would dim although our vital need for you is clear an absence of your warmth ensures our doom the sight of you and some can evoke fear and cause to faint the staunchest in the room to find your secrets too small for the eye we smear across a slide and peer to view obsessively count test try to help guess if help or harm you mean to do so i will write and seek to understand you as you fuel my brain and move my hand holy shit Holy shit. Wow. Here's your haiku.

Starting point is 00:08:05 The haiku, a flutter of nerves, cause color and warmth to flow. The flushing of cheeks. Ooh. There's my blood limerick. For a surgeon to be rated on top, she must carefully guard every drop, but she need not feel stressed,

Starting point is 00:08:23 for as I can attest, eventually all bleeding will stop. That's a dark one. That's a dark one. Oh, I thought it was stopped because the guy got better. You didn't get better. All bleeding stops because we have enough band-aids

Starting point is 00:08:44 for everyone. Thanks for mixing it up and giving us uh lots to think about and many things to feel including the reality that we all must die i didn't mean to bring that into the energy yeah we come around to that a lot kind of almost like a pretty central central uh fact of the not not so much the podcast but the existence uh part of the thing that we're doing right now so but it's exciting but it's exciting too that's what makes it all the more all the more luscious memento mori right it's thrilling halloween's a good time to get those fears out and just be like, I know you're there. I get it. Just like the surgeon counts every drop,

Starting point is 00:09:30 we have to count every moment and then feel really bad when we realize how many of them we're spending on Twitter. What is blood? This one actually has a definition that is pretty precise. Blood is a circulatory fluid in various animals.

Starting point is 00:09:48 So we don't consider in prokaryotic organisms, which are entirely single-celled, that's just cytoplasm hanging out. That's just cell goop. But when you have multiple cells and organ structures, you need some sort of fluid to carry things around, whether it's nutrients or oxygen or your immune system, whatever immune molecules you have. And to help regulate temperature and the acid content of your body. And in invertebrates like arthropods, so spiders and crustaceans and insects, you have a fluid that you can call blood. It's sometimes called hemolymph also because they have what's called an open circulatory system. So just chambers within them. And the fluid washes over the organs and just kind of carries everything around whereas in vertebrates so humans birds reptiles things like that

Starting point is 00:10:56 i forgot all the fish fish the fish anything with a backbone um blood is carried within vessels it's a closed circulatory system and has the protein structure hemoglobin which is iron based and that's what helps transport oxygen throughout it so if you were a vampire looking to drink blood, you probably wouldn't crush a bug and squish that. Can we talk? Can we just pause for a second? Because we've all realized, I assume, like myself, that invertebrates, the blood's just squishing around loose in there. I find that very upsetting. There's no veins or anything.

Starting point is 00:11:43 The blood's just kind of gooshing around. All higgledy-piggledy. I find that very upsetting. There's no veins or anything. The blood just kind of gooshes around. All higgledy-piggledy. I find that very concerning. What if it gets to the wrong places? How does it know where to go? For some reason, this is fine for me when it's a fly, but when it's a lobster, I'm not on board. I'm like, that's too much gushing.

Starting point is 00:12:02 Like a giant squid? All in that big body. it's just gushing in there that's a real big boy real big gush is that the biggest gush i don't know can you think of a bigger a giant clam is a giant clam bigger than a giant squid the largest invertebrate yeah if it's a worm worms have closed circulatory systems even though they're an invertebrate, they have little vessels. Why? Earthworms have little vessels. I don't know.

Starting point is 00:12:31 I didn't decide that. Is there some advantage to being gushy or being vessel-y, or is it just whatever? You don't know that either. I don't know the answer. Yeah, my guess is that. Form follows function, Sam. This is the point in every episode you reach where you go to the Lord in prayer

Starting point is 00:12:47 and ask him to give you a fun instrument as the mind is fine. We really pushed the envelope of my science expert title as I make so many uncomfortable noises. I think they just evolved that way. I don't know. It made more sense for them to stop gushing at some point. Points to us for getting the largest invertebrate, which is the squid.

Starting point is 00:13:06 The colossal squid is the largest invertebrate. We were on it. I had never thought about it before, but it makes a lot of sense. And do we know where the word blood comes from? So this is an interesting one. Very Halloween-y, in my opinion. So there's the Latin sanguine uh which you've heard of that uh there's the greek haima which is where we get like hemoglobin and tomato like those prefixes but the word blood appears in

Starting point is 00:13:36 a lot of different germanic languages so old saxon old norse English, but it just kind of popped up out of nowhere. And the Oxford English Dictionary, and from there, me, we think that blood was used as a word because what we used to call blood was somehow forbidden or taboo. So it had some weird name, like the mystical substance within us, and no one was allowed to say that. And so we were had some weird name like the mystical substance within us and no one was allowed to say that and so we were like let's call it something funny blood but and then everyone started using blood we just collectively agreed we europeans white people collectively agreed uh we're like we'll just call it blood we'll ignore whatever it was called in the past that's too gross and yucky what the heck there's a lost

Starting point is 00:14:25 creepy word for blood i like the idea that like it's so powerful that we lost it and so like if somebody out there knew the word for blood then they'd be able to like make you do a dance even if you didn't want to or something or just like murder you all your make your clots clot and i also love that we decided that the fun word was blood which is great yeah it's fun to see in so many different ways and it also feels like correct there's like a lot of words that don't quite

Starting point is 00:14:53 match their thing but I feel like blood I'm like yes I am on board that's blood like that whoever came up with that they must have felt very pleased themselves when they opened their mouth and it's like what about this? Blood. Yes!

Starting point is 00:15:09 You got it! That's it! Greg! Close, man! The branding! You've been quiet this whole time, Greg! You're just working on that one. Yeah, yeah. I'm working on it.

Starting point is 00:15:19 I didn't think about it. I didn't want you guys to laugh. I now feel over-informed on the topic of blood, which means that it's time to move on to the quiz portion of our show, which I will kick off with a... I'm so excited about this one. It's so weird. So, there are plenty of very great organs in your body,

Starting point is 00:15:40 and though many of us have likely forgotten what the point of a spleen is, it was considered for a long time to be one of our most vital organs, thanks to the belief that it was necessary for black bile, one of the four humors responsible for health, and also considered to be associated with laughter and, confusingly, darker thoughts, which may be why Shakespeare's version of King Richard III involved a rallying cry of, which may be why Shakespeare's version of King Richard III involved a rallying cry of, Fair St. George, inspire us with the spleen of fiery dragons! The spleen, it turns out, is a small organ just above our stomachs. It's located inside our left ribcage, and it stores blood, it gets rid of damaged blood cells,

Starting point is 00:16:20 and it helps us make white blood cells and antibodies when we are fighting infections. And untangling the mechanics of the spleen has led to many strange medical and scientific observations over the years. The following are three stories of spleens, but only one of them is true. Which one is it? Is it story number one? In the 1800s, wealthy English women would consume powdered rabbit spleens during pregnancy because doctors believed it would soothe what they described as overstimulated nerves. Or it might be story number two. Patients have sometimes reported feeling pain long after an injury to their spleen, which doctors have later realized is because cells from their damaged spleen broke off and created smaller spleens in other parts of their body. Or it could be... What, what, what? You don't like that one?

Starting point is 00:17:13 No, that's horrible. That sounds bad. But that might be fake. It could be story number three. Scientists have realized that people who take Viagra are less likely to be infected with malaria because the medication binds to particular mosquito-attracting molecules in our blood and causes the spleen to clear them from our bodies. Now, I will say here, we do have a doctor in our midst. You know the answers. Don't give it away. I don't. Okay, great.

Starting point is 00:17:48 I do, but I i'm gonna stay quiet um i think for the sake of the game justin and sydney can be either on a team or two different people i was thinking two different people but it's up to you guys what do you want i feel like a team team the top of my head, teen feels good. Teen. All right. Not that I know this, though, so. So it could be, story number one, doctors prescribed English woman rabbit spleens to contend with pregnancy mood swings. Or, story number two, damaged spleens can go on to make many smaller spleens inside the body. Or, story number three, Viagra helps the spleen clear out molecules that make us tastier to mosquitoes. Number one, I feel like you could say, old Victorian ladies, they made the meat this.

Starting point is 00:18:30 You could put anything in that blank. It's true. They powdered absolutely whatever they could get their hands on. Yeah, that's tough. Because number one, that's what I was thinking. Like, have I said that on our show before? It sounds like a sawdust mad lib. We've said something like that.

Starting point is 00:18:51 Powdered something for mood swings and women yeah this yes the second one i hate thinking about i hate the idea that a second spleen could form an accessory organ is that what you called it or something oh wow is that what my head made up? Like, you think somebody said that in this episode, accessory organ? Maybe my head said it as Hank was talking. No, that would be it. I usually try and think about, like, what it would be called if it was a science-y word. Right. I would call it, if I would call it in a non-creepy way, I'd be like, oh, you developed an accessory organ here. Sure.

Starting point is 00:19:24 Nice call. I think a doctor could call it to not freak you out too much. Yeah. Versus like, you got a new spleen in your leg, Jeff. Yeah. You're full of spleens. I feel like I would know that, but there's so much in medicine. There's so many things.

Starting point is 00:19:39 Learn things every day. And I gotta say, the last one sounds so specifically weird. That would be a weird thing to lie about. I feel like I read something about Viagra being a useful treatment for baby blood or something like that. Baby blood? Because of the way it is. My baby's great, but he doesn't have the spark that he used to. We do use it.

Starting point is 00:20:09 We do in the NICU sometimes. Just for confidence? Mainly for confidence? No. What's it for? It's for pulmonary hypertension in newborns to open up blood vessels to allow blood flow. So we do use Viagra in babies. Okay, now wait a minute. That sounds like...

Starting point is 00:20:26 That is a real thing. That sounds like it could... I don't know about the mosquito part. But that sounds like it could be... It's all, you know? Yeah. It's blood and Viagra. I've never heard the other part.

Starting point is 00:20:35 It's blood. Okay, my... I would pick number one because I don't think that mood swings would have been an idea that Victorian people would have been plugged into. They would have had some other name for it. They wouldn't have said mood swings.

Starting point is 00:20:51 But they wouldn't have been the idea. They would have been hysteria or something like that. Two are false and one is true. So you think one is true. Two are false and one is true. I think the Viagra thing is true. That's where I'm going with it. If that's where we're going, that makes me think the Viagra thing too.

Starting point is 00:21:06 I don't know. I know. So there are accessory spleens, but I don't believe that they happen that way. That is a thing, an accessory spleen. Oh. Having an expert taking this, we're confusing. Yeah. Well, but there's just, I mean, there's so many things.

Starting point is 00:21:21 I don't know. People write papers on all kinds of stuff. I mean, there's so many things. I don't know. People write papers on all kinds of stuff. I think number three, he used the basis of the baby thing for the lie. So I'm going to go with number two being true because, I don't know, just sounds right. I think I'm going to go with the spleens being true also because this makes me think I didn't make up accessory organs out of my head. And it's real.

Starting point is 00:21:45 Because Sydney said it's a thing. Accessory organs are real. Yes. Yeah. So, we've got our answers in now. And the reality of it is, and I'm shocked to report, that both Sari and Sam got it right. Oh! Man, I let you down, Justin.

Starting point is 00:22:04 No. I let you down justin no so so spleens i was pushy they can they can grow little tiny spleens on them um and it's called splenosis and it all starts when a spleen is damaged and some of the cells from it travel to other parts of the abdomen where if they land near enough to a blood vessel they can grow into a little spleen called an accessory spleen or a splenunculi. Oh, really? A splenunculi? Boy, that's grand. In some cases, these accessory spleens can cause pains, like a case reported in 2016 where a 35-year-old woman reported severe abdominal pain related to splenosis following an injury that happened 19 years before. Fortunately, it doesn't seem to be very common, which is good,

Starting point is 00:22:47 because it's estimated that around one in five people have splenonculi in their body. What? There's five of us here now. Which of us has the extra spleen? Hank, you're chock full of spleens. I can tell. The truth of the matter is all these were were based on on some real factness um for example uh the first one with the rabbit spleens uh throughout history

Starting point is 00:23:13 the spleen was associated with melancholy or sadness because of the accumulation of black bile supposedly um and that that melancholy and depression was actually sometimes called the spleen so if you had if you was actually sometimes called the spleen. So if you had depression, you had the spleen because of that connection. And in the 17th century, a woman named Anne Finch wrote The Spleen, a poem about her experience with depression. In England, spleen was sometimes called hysteria, hypochondria, or vapors, though there was also a gendered element to all of those things. Both men and women could be diagnosed with spleen, but women's spleen was usually considered related to their delicacy or to their reproductive system, of course. And Viagra also does help with malaria. So, scientists reported that Viagra could help prevent it thanks to a molecule in the

Starting point is 00:24:02 drug called cyclic adenosine monophosphate. help prevent it thanks to a molecule in the drug called cyclic adenosine monophosphate. And in their experiments, they found that this molecule increased the stiffness of red blood cells infected with the malaria-causing parasite, and that made the spleen more likely to filter them out. So, very close to the true fact. Yeah, that was pretty close. That seemed like you were cheating a little bit there, I would say. Had all the words in it and everything. Yeah, just different order. So that means that Sam and Sari and I all got a point.

Starting point is 00:24:33 So we're coming in tied to the second part of the show, which I don't know, is that going to happen after the ad break? Probably, but you're going to have to wait and find out. Hello, we're back! It turns out that we were going to come back. We're headed in with a three-way tie. Justin and Sydney coming in last, and Sari has got our second game for us to play. We got a lot of points up for grabs here, not for me.

Starting point is 00:25:14 So today we're going to play a slightly modified game of This or That, where the rules are very simple. The answer to each question will be one of three things. Blood, which is fancy water with sugars proteins and lots of complex cells to help animals survive nectar which is fancy water with sugars and lots of complex plant chemicals to help attract pollinators or both because after starting to write this game and thinking i was so clever for drawing parallels between these two substances i learned that lots of creatures already noticed over evolutionary time and have adapted to eat both oh okay so it's not that it's not that one substance is blood and nectar which is what i was thinking which would have been great

Starting point is 00:25:56 because it would be called lector but it's that doesn't exist Hannibal Blecter yeah it's either blood or nectar. Which of those two things do animals eat? Yes, the answer to the question will be blood or nectar or both. So one of those three things. And if you get a question right, you get a point slash candy. And it's not built for me to get points. So you lose.

Starting point is 00:26:23 You've lost. Yeah,ari has just given up on the possibility of winning that's brave thank you for taking one for the team can if it's both can i shout blechter yes so blood nectar blechter uh i guess it's the game now so round one is bats are known for slurping up nutritious liquids and to learn more about their specialized mouths a team of researchers observed a couple kinds of bats feeding in a lab with high-speed cameras in 2015. One species, L. robusta, had a grooved tongue that curled up into a loose tube, almost like a straw but without the airtight seal needed for suction. Instead, these bats used rippling muscle contractions of their tongue to help them slurp up pools of liquid, kind of like how our throats swallow or our intestines push out a poop. Are these rippling, muscly bat tongues for drinking

Starting point is 00:27:12 blood, nectar, or both? I'm going to say nectar because I think you want me to say blood. Yeah, I think like almost every bat drinks nectar. We're going to have to answer different from them if we want to have a combat. But I think they're right. Well, I mean, but if they're right, we're exactly where we are right now. But if we're wrong, we're further behind. I mean, you got something about eggs and omelets here. I mean, OK, we'll go.

Starting point is 00:27:41 We'll go. I feel like I mean, there might be another one. I feel like it is. You're all right'll go with nectar. I mean, there might be another one. I feel like it is. You're all right. It is nectar. This is Lanchophila robusta. I'm using scientific names because they're common names will definitely give this game away. This is the orange nectar feeding bat.

Starting point is 00:28:01 And the experiment involved, they just did-speed cameras with glass tubes of nectar and they just watched different bat tongues lick it up and some of them lapped it up like a cat but this one specifically stuck its tongue in and slurped continuously and then they were like ah it's like an intestine gross kind of goofy i guess i say it's gross but it's basically just like your esophagus except it sticks out of your mouth which now that i've said it again gross that's gross that would be i thought that it was going to be not gross but then i thought about shooting my esophagus out of my mouth and i didn't like round two the islands in the galapagos archipelago aren't very lush ecosystems because they're so isolated and fairly

Starting point is 00:28:45 dry, and some, like Wolf Island, are particularly bleak. But even there, small birds called finches have different beak shapes to help them eke out a living and find food and water. It's what Darwin was interested in. Some sharp-beaked ground finches who live on these remote islands, like G. septentrionalis have expanded their diet beyond seeds and insects when they need a little extra nourishment do these finches use their pointy beaks to drink blood nectar or both i ain't going first because i know the answer you know the answer i think so i i know i know at least half the answer. We're losing, so it doesn't seem fair that we have to answer. Oh, right, all right.

Starting point is 00:29:27 I'm going with blood. You said they got a sharp beak. Sharp beak. I'm going with blood, too. I think these are nasty little fellows. Little blood finches. I felt like the blood was for sure. Blood is in the bugs, so they're eating the bugs.

Starting point is 00:29:43 Yeah. I felt good on blood but like is it Blector? I don't know I know you want to say that because that would be a different answer I don't know I know I see it

Starting point is 00:29:57 I see the determination say what you think say Blector you could have been on two different teams you know we should have yeah in hindsight you want to say blackbird no hey just say blood just say blood we'll wait for our moment to all right all right say blood blood oh i'm so sorry it's blechter so they are uh their common name is the vampire finch and the pictures you see of them are pecking at the tails of other birds, specifically the Nazca and blue-footed boobies that land on the Galapagos archipelago.

Starting point is 00:30:52 And these finches have microbiomes similar to vampire bats that help them process all the iron and sodium in blood, which is kind of cool. But because the islands are so sparse, they really need any food source they can get. And Galapagos prickly pear flowers are big and luscious and bloom every once in a while. And so these finches land on the flowers and drink nectar from them too, with their sharp beaks,

Starting point is 00:31:19 just kind of jab right in there like a bird tail. Yeah. You got to look up a picture of these guys too. They're nasty little freaks. Oh no! Oh no! Yeah. Birds should all be friends, I think.

Starting point is 00:31:37 Yeah, they should not peck at each other's assholes. No. Okay, round three. Snails may seem unintimidating from their squishy outsides but different species switch up their mouth structures to help them hunt and swallow their preferred foods for example instead of a nubby head with lips like an iconic garden snail the false triton snail c reticulata has a thin tube-like mouth part called a proboscis that can extend out to three times the length of its shell and from

Starting point is 00:32:05 what scientists have observed they mostly feed at night does the snail use its super long proboscis to drink blood nectar or both blood blood blood blood snail blood snail snail can never reach the flower why can't you squish it they can stick to, you know? They stick and stick their way out. Justin's like, no snail has ever climbed. I've seen them. They are always on the ground. I wanted to choose Blector in the last round. I don't know.

Starting point is 00:32:34 I did. I don't think that anything needs a tongue that long to suck up blood. I think they only need it to get real in those flowers. So I'm going with nectar. I'm not getting hit again. You have to pick this time. The answer is just blood. What?

Starting point is 00:32:53 It is a blood snail. This one doesn't have a fancy, spooky name. It's just part of the Colubraria family. It's a marine snail, so there are no flowers down there with nectar. That's what I thought as well colubraria family that's a marine snail so there are no flowers down there with nectar that's what i thought as well i was like that's probably an ocean boy and the radula so their teeth in or their teeth like structures uh are extremely tiny in this genus so they were considered basically toothless until very recently but they stick out their very long proboscis into fish

Starting point is 00:33:26 including through any protective layers so a lot of fish sometimes excrete a protective mucus like parrotfish do or have outer coatings that would help them prevent any sort of blood suckers but this snail has the extra long little tubey to poke right in there. And it seems like they take advantage of the blood pressure of the fish rather than active suction. So they'd really just drill a hole in and then let the nutrients flow to them. Yeah, that's what most of the vampire animals do. They don't do it.

Starting point is 00:33:58 They just sort of like create a hole and then lick. Okay, round four. The flashy marsupials are kangaroos and koalas, but Australia is home to lots of tiny mouse-sized species too one of them which has the scientific name t rostratus and the aboriginal name nullbanger uh as an especially pointy snout and weird tongue lots of mammalian tongues including ours have little fleshy bits covered in a layer of tougher skin cells with more keratin protein. These are called papillae and help give the tongue a rough, grippy texture, among many other things.

Starting point is 00:34:32 So T. ristratus has a tongue about a quarter of the length of its body with a tuft of brush-like bristles at the tip to help scrape its foods of choice. Does this little possum drink blood, nectar, or both? I gotta go with nectar again. That seems like nectar. I don't know how it's getting its little tongue bristles into a vein. Yeah, that sounds horrid. We can't win at this point by saying the same

Starting point is 00:34:57 things that Sam and Hank do. We have to say different things. But we can make a good showing. What? I'd rather go down. It's just like I've said with the election. I'd rather lose spectacularly by a thousand points.

Starting point is 00:35:11 I wouldn't. There will not be a vote spread that large. The turnout will not be good. It's got to be blood. Got to be blood. You don't even think

Starting point is 00:35:27 history will forget you wanna say say blackter I'm not getting hit again blackter blackter blackter I don't think it's blackter I think it's blood we already said blackter we already said blackter we are fighting over this

Starting point is 00:35:44 either way it's just nectar I'm so sorry We already said black. Alright. We are fighting over this. Either way, it's just nectar. I'm so sorry that this game has become stressful. This must be fun. This is a really cute idea, though. I like that there's a little possum with a little nectar-slapping brush tongue. It has to live with that every day.

Starting point is 00:36:01 With it in its mouth. It's in its mouth. It can't take it out. It mouths in its mouth it can't come it doesn't it can't take it out it's in his mouth all the time that's it's also true of your tongue which is about i'd say probably four times bigger than you think it is it's so big my tongue is hang no yeah it's the strongest muscle in the body too that's what that's what I learned in fifth grade from a person in fifth grade. Maybe Justin should get a bonus point for that. No, I don't need to share. For the tongue facts?

Starting point is 00:36:32 Tell us all the tongue facts, you know. You'll get a point of facts. What else do you know about tongues? What? It's the tongue bonus round. Well, they're wet. I have other qualities, you know. I have friends. I'm a good dad. I have other qualities. I have friends. I'm a good dad.

Starting point is 00:36:48 You have a geographic tongue. That's a thing. It's a tongue fact. Does your tongue look like Africa or something? What is a geographic tongue? It looks like a topographical sort of map. It's a normal variation. There's nothing wrong.

Starting point is 00:37:03 It's just a... Today was a normal variation. There's nothing wrong. A special tongue. Today was a dear diary. Today was so fun. Hank Green beat me in trivia and my wife blew up my tongue's spot. Wow. I guess at least I don't have a brush at the end of it.

Starting point is 00:37:19 Love, Justin. A special tongue. The last one has nothing to do with tongues. So this could be a redemption for Hank, against Hank. Hank just don't know about this bonus round. I love tongues. Which starts, it's so annoying when you set out to cook and then you check your fridge or pantry and you're short by just one ingredient and because cooking is a lot of chemistry you want to make sure any substitute ingredient you pick will react the same way with heat and other things for the right flavors and textures so if you happen to be out of eggs and want to be really resourceful

Starting point is 00:37:56 is blood nectar or blector a decent substitute oh Oh. It's got to be blood. It's got to be blood, right? It would be wild if it was blector, though, huh? Where are you getting nectar? Wouldn't it be easier to get nectar than it would to get blood? No, it's right there. No, it wouldn't. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:38:17 I got it in my body. Who is cooking and they're like, I'm out of eggs, but I do have this blood. I think this is fanciful. It's fanciful? It's fanciful. Is this a flight of fancy? I was told that this was a scientific program, not a whimsical job. This is a factual fact in that someone has cooked with the answer ingredient or ingredients.

Starting point is 00:38:44 Then it would be blood. The protein? Who would like do an article in Bon Appetit that's like, guess what? I cooked with nectar. Everybody would be like, okay, whatever. Cool. If they're like, I substituted eggs for blood,

Starting point is 00:38:57 then you're selling that for $500 freelance. No problem. You're getting that past the editors. I cooked with blood instead of eggs. But there's a lot of questions that follow that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Blood, blood, blood, blood, blood. Blood, blood, blood, blood, blood.

Starting point is 00:39:07 Blood, blood, blood, blood. Blood is right. And it didn't make it into Bon Appetit. It made it to the Nordic Food Lab archive. So not as glamorous. But because the egg white, about most of it is water, but about 50% of the proteins in it is ovalbumin which is a form of albumin and is a water soluble protein there's a lot of albumin also in the serum part portion of blood the watery part of blood and it congeals in the same way so they have ratios you can you

Starting point is 00:39:41 can substitute 65 grams of blood for one egg. And they have developed recipes for sourdough blood pancakes, blood ice cream, blood meringues, and chocolate blood sponge cake. Chocolate blood sponge cake sounds pretty good. Well, look at the picture and it will turn you right off. Because the pictures of the blood pancakes I saw made me think, I do not want that. That's all I got for you. That's the end of my very fun, very whimsical not at all stressful game grand well do you know what that means for our final candy count because i got five points which is like the first time i've won tangents

Starting point is 00:40:17 in forever and ever it also says on my document here that justin and sydney got 23 points i mean that's a typo. I mean, that's Mr. Facts. Hank Green saying that. He knows all kinds of obscure stuff. So I guess this is a post. He said it out loud. Look, I'm going to give it to myself because I haven't won in so long.

Starting point is 00:40:36 You deserve it. And I did write, I did add the three. Oh, it's Frenchie. Oh, okay. It wasn't a typo. It was a theft. It was an attempt to cheat.

Starting point is 00:40:46 He made it 12 at first, and then he decided to go big and make it 23. Go big or go home, baby. I'll do both. I don't think anyone's ever cheated at tangents before. This is a big scandal. It was just having a little heartless fun. Okay, I don't need an asterisk next to our score. was fun okay i don't need an asterisk next to next to our score and now it's time for ask the science couch where we ask a question to our couch of finely honed scientific minds sam what's the

Starting point is 00:41:12 question at alley of hours 26 asks is placing an ivy different from placing a needle for blood donation if so how how are they making sure that stuff only goes in or out how does it even work in there i gotta i gotta guess as a person who's had a bunch of people sticking needles in my body before it's like it's a different i think it might be a different needle but it goes in the same hole and it does a different thing like i think the gauge of the needle might be different when you're getting blood out it seems like it's a bigger needle just from my vibes and then second it's definitely definitely like something on the outside is different to keep the pressure pushing in versus the pressure going out i bet there's somebody on the call who knows all about it i bet that that is true how'd i do sydney i mean yeah

Starting point is 00:42:02 that was that was good those were. Those were all accurate things. Okay. I don't know. I'm not supposed to answer this, right? You can't. You can't do it. Sari has the answer. Official answer.

Starting point is 00:42:12 Kind of. The official answer from me, definitely not a doctor. That's not medical advice. It's pretty similar from what I could find. They're both examples of, I don't know if I'm pronouncing this right, venipuncture. So you very rarely puncture an artery. Yeah, we use an arterial blood gas if we need to look at the oxygen versus carbon dioxide and pH and all that to make adjustments to respiratory support and that kind of thing. But it hurts a lot and we typically don't do it unless we really have to.

Starting point is 00:42:48 Way deeper down hurts more higher pressure than veins. And so a lot of the time when you're getting an IV or giving blood in a donation, then it's a vein. Ones in your arm are just easy, fairly easy to locate. Veins are also just in general more towards the surface. So easier to find and are generally safer in that if you puncture it incorrectly, then there's less of a chance of something bad happening. And as far as I can tell for the difference in collection, sometimes when you insert an IV into a vein,

Starting point is 00:43:31 there can be a backflow of blood because your blood is under pressure. So there's not anything specifically that unique, maybe the gauge of the needle, but there are multiple ways that you can make sure things are pumping in the correct direction with an IV. There's gravity IVs, which are the ones where they suspend it above your body and you use gravity to help make sure, like counter the pressure of your blood and have it flow into your body. But then there are also IVs with pumps attached that specifically like pump the fluid actively to counteract your blood pressure and

Starting point is 00:44:05 then donating blood uh i think it's a lot of it is just gravity it's right off your arm you just scooch it into the bag yeah into the bag i i used to get like every month i'd go i'd have to like get a blood test and they just put it in there and it's just like kind of goops out because veins this was my and comparative anatomy my teacher said just imagine it in there and it's just like kind of goops out because veins this what my and comparative anatomy my my teacher said just imagine it like you got a bunch of long balloons like veins don't have a lot of like strength to them it's just sort of like a reservoir almost of of blood inside of you and yeah so when they when they take it out of your vein it's just sort of like whereas out of an artery it's under pressure and it's like, and arteries are strong and muscular.

Starting point is 00:44:48 Exactly. Yeah. They're much firmer. I always think it's also kind of comforting that when they place an IV, they use a needle to place it. But the thing that's left behind is just this little thin, flexible catheter. And I always feel,

Starting point is 00:44:59 I always want to tell, especially if kids are nervous, I always like to tell them that because I feel like you think there's like a needle left inside you and people get and if you like move wrong yeah oh i did not know that scrape the inside of your body that's yeah that is good they don't leave the needle there yeah cool wow real doctor yeah that's great thank you dr mcelroy if you want to ask the science couch your question you can follow us on Twitter at SciShow Tangents, where we will tweet out topics for upcoming episodes every week. Or you can join the SciShow Tangents Patreon and ask us on our Discord. Thank you to Shaky Hades and Ariel the biologist on Discord. Also, everybody else who asked your questions for this episode. Thank you to Justin and Sydney McElroy. to Justin and Sidney McElroy.

Starting point is 00:45:45 Sawbones is an absolute delight. My wife and I listen to it all the time when we're on car rides and it just is always super informative and super funny and super interesting. So it's a high quality podcast that I'm glad to have in my life. You cannot get any chili from them, but if you want to help out Sidney,

Starting point is 00:46:04 what's the website? Sydney's campaign is McElroyForWV.com. That's where you can find out stuff and volunteer and donate and read about Sydney's policies. If you want to hear about our podcast and stuff, you can go to Blechter.com. That will take you to our family's... You've really done that. Yeah. Yeah, you did that. You can go to blechter.com and

Starting point is 00:46:28 you can see all of our family's podcasts and shows and stuff. I was trying to let you all be distracted by letting you all get all the right answers. He was the real winner. It was truly a distraction, so I could get the incredible URL. I was gonna make Blechter go to Cindy's website,

Starting point is 00:46:48 but then I was like, that's a weird vibe. That's a weird energy. As you can tell, Justin's like my campaign manager, treasurer, all around. Yeah, I'm the one. PR guy, body man. Marketing, yep, all of it. Yeah, Facebook advertising guru. Social media, all of it. Facebook advertising guru.

Starting point is 00:47:06 Social media ninja is what it says on my business card. If you like this show and you want to help us out, super easy to do that. You can go to patreon.com slash SciShow Tangents to become a patron and you get access to things like our newsletter

Starting point is 00:47:23 and our bonus episodes. We even have a tier where you get a special in episode shout out, which is what patron John Pollock subscribed at. Thank you, John. Second, you can leave us a review wherever you listen. That's very helpful. And it lets us know what you like about the show.

Starting point is 00:47:36 And finally, if you want to show your love for the side show tangents, just tell people about us. Thank you for joining us. I've been Hank green. I've been Sari Riley. I've been Sari Reilly. I've been Sam Schultz. She's been Sydney McElroy.

Starting point is 00:47:48 And he's been Justin McElroy. SciShow Tangents is created by all of us and produced by Sam Schultz. Our editor is Seth Glicksman. Our story editor is Alex Billow. Our social media organizer is Julia Buzz Bizzio. Our editorial assistant is Debuki Chakravarti. Our sound design is by Joseph Boone Omedish. Our executive producers are Caitlin Hoffmeister and me, Hank Green,

Starting point is 00:48:06 and we couldn't make this, of course, without our future patrons on Patreon. Thank you, and remember, the mind is not a coffin to be filled, but a jack-o-lantern to be righted. But one more thing. ways to defend themselves when they're afraid from hissing and biting to spewing a stinky musk out of glands near their cloaca which of course is their multi-purpose butt and other stuff whole some species like long-nosed snakes or black king snakes are even known to use cloacal auto hemorrhaging where they squeeze blood from their butts to scare away potential predators.

Starting point is 00:49:05 A few other snake species intentionally bleed from their eyes or mouths instead, which is maybe a little less gross, but way creepier. So if you're looking for the perfect way to get out of that family reunion, I suggest cloacal auto hemorrhaging.com. It's your one stop shop

Starting point is 00:49:26 did you get that too it's available sure it is

SciShow Tangents - Trick or Treat Month: Blood with Justin and Sydnee McElroy!

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