StarTalk Radio - Extended Classic – Cosmic Queries: Primatology

Episode Date: July 6, 2018

Gorillas, bonobos, monkeys, and more – Neil deGrasse Tyson, comic co-host Chuck Nice, and primatologist Natalia Reagan answer fan-submitted questions about primatology. Now extended with Cosmic Queries about cloning featuring Natalia, Chuck, and biological anthropologist Ryan Raaum.NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/all-access/extended-classic-cosmic-queries-primatology/Photo Credit: Natalia Reagan Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. This is StarTalk. I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. And today is Cosmic Queries Primate Edition. And we've got an anthropologist who specializes in primate behavior right in studio with us, Natalia Reagan. Hello. How are you? Natalia. She's like your brand new one of our StarTalk All-Stars.

I'm very excited. Welcome. Thank you. Welcome to the club. Welcome to the club. Welcome to the club. Chuck Nice. Hey. It was good to have you as my co-host.

Of course. Donning an Einstein t-shirt. Indeed. Very nice. Yes. Fiery. And lately, you're host of Playing with Science. That's correct.

A new spinoff of StarTalk. A new spinoff of StarTalk. And you know why we spun this off? I'll tell you. Why? Because we did StarTalk on all manner of topics, and some of them would be sports. And the sports ones had their own following. That's right.

And we said, let's feed them. Let's feed those sportssters. Feed them. That's right. Just give them all they want. Me and Gary O'Reilly, who is a former footballer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A Brit footballer.

A Brit footballer. As they say. Or as my daughter calls it, feetball. Feet Yeah, yeah. A Brit footballer. A Brit footballer. As they say. Or as my daughter calls it, feet ball. Feet ball, good. Because football is an American sport, so she calls it feet ball. And, you know,

we get into all manner of science as it relates to sports. It's really cool. And I wanted to rename football because hardly anyone puts their foot on it. Isn't that funny? Yeah, yeah. So what would you call it?

Arm ball. Arm ball. Well, because yes. Yeah, yeah. You catch it, you run with it. Catch it, you run with it. It's arm ball Isn't that funny? Yeah, yeah. So what would you call it? Arm ball. Arm ball. Well, because yes. Yeah, yeah. You catch it, you run with it. You catch it, you run with it. It's arm ball. There you go.

Yeah, exactly. I thought this through. So this is Cosmic Quarry's primate edition. So Natalia, you've hung out with primates? I have. On human primates? Presumably also human primates. Human primates as well.

Well, they're, you know, I tolerate them. They're okay. Oh, no. I actually studied spider monkeys. I studied a critically endangered subspecies of spider monkey called the Azuero spider monkey in Panama. Whoa. I did.

My main focus was conservation. So I actually was doing a census. The same year that we had our census in 2010, I was in Panama counting spider monkeys. And did you find that the spider monkeys were cooperative in filling out their census forms? They were not. They were very ornery. Like, I had to chase these guys down.

They threw fruit at me. Better than other things they could throw at you. Everybody asks. Everybody asks, do they throw their poop? And I'm like, why would they poop in their hand and throat? And all they have to do is just gently position their bottom right over your head. And just, that's what we call getting baptized.

Oh. No way. When you get baptized in primatology, it's either puberty. So wait a minute, you mean there they, like here we have birds

that do that on your shoulder. There you have monkeys? Yeah, yeah. I'm never going. Yeah, it's, you got spiders and you got howlers and the funny thing is

the diet, you know, whatever you eat affects whatever comes out. Don't they eat a lot of fruit? Yes. Yeah. We talked about how spider monkeys are frugivores. That's their preferred food is fruit.

And howler monkeys are folivores, meaning they eat leaves. They eat leaves. And their poop stinks. I'm just telling you. You can smell them. What kind of a vore are they? Folivore. What does that mean?

They eat leaves. Folivore. Folivore. Folivore. Folivore. Folivore. Folivore. Folivore, yeah. Okay. So now,

and what if they're from Brooklyn and they eat a lot of kale? Ooh, gosh. Are they a hipster-vore? I was going to say, like, yeah, they're just a hipster. Isn't kale leaves?

Right, exactly. They're a folivore. Somebody's leaves are what we call kale. Right. Kale, yeah. No, I... And so you worked among them.

Did you become one with them i wish man they are you the jane goodall of spider monkeys well the funny thing is i god i wish no i know some great spider monkey researchers that would probably should take that particular role but spider monkeys are called the chimpanzees of the new world because their social behavior is a lot like chimps as far as they have big groups and they fission off into smaller groups. Fission. Fission. Physics word.

That is a good fission word. My duty to call it. Yes, exactly. As opposed to fusion. Yeah, exactly. They fuse together in a sleeping tree at the end of the night and then they fission off to go eat and find food elsewhere. Kind of like how chimps do. They'll have a big group and they'll go off into smaller groups.

Isn't it true? People don't want to believe this, but I think it's true. I read it on the internet. Oh, no. No, that chimps and humans are more genetically alike than either chimps or humans are genetically related to the monkeys. Well, it's the common ancestor. Our common ancestor was more recent between chimps and humans.

And as far as the genetic timeline. You have to go farther back in time to get the common ancestor between the common ancestor we had with chimps and all the rest of the monkeys running around. And does that... Primates with tails. Old world monkeys and apparently some new world monkeys.

Yeah, new world monkeys. And those are the only ones, by the way. Is that all the great apes? Do chimps, like, so orangutans and all those as well? Let's make the list.

The great ape list. Who is it? Great apes. There's chimps. There's bonobos. There's orangutans, which are those sexy ginger redheads

in the Southeast Asia. You know what orangutans look like. I know. There's a whole movie series with orangutans. Exactly. What's his There's a whole movie series with orangutan. Exactly. What's his face?

Clint Eastwood. Clint Eastwood. What was it called? Any Which Way But Up. And But Loose. Yeah, something like that. That's why we know orangutan. And according to Bill Maher,

we have one as president. Oh, man. I wouldn't, I don't know. I feel like that's really giving orangutans a bad rap. Oh, that's a burn. Yeah, I know.

That was rough. That was rough. Yeah, he has the flanges, because the male orangs have the flanges. Correct. Like the big giant jowls. The jowly cheeks. The wider cheek. Yeah, these are actually the pads right here. Those are like the big.

You call them flanges? Flanges. Nice, hey, baby, nice flanges. That's their face. Yeah, their face. And you know what that comes from? The mama orangutan is going, such a good boy. What a good boy.

Well, an interesting- The Greek, right? Oh, be a bitch in the cheeks. They've got to do it equally or else you're just going to have one giant weird flan. So do we have the full list? No, we don't. So go ahead. Well, actually, of the great apes, it's humans, gorillas.

We didn't get gorillas. Right. Chimps, bonobos right and then uh and and the earrings are the the southeast and how about the lesser baboons baboons or monkeys oh look at that wait i thought they don't they don't have tails though do they well some i mean they have a little bit of a tail not i mean like they're stumped tail macaques which don't have tails but they are monkeys they are macaques right yeah so they're not part of the yeah they're not south africa yeah and i was in South Africa, and I'd eaten something

out on the porch in the game park, and I turned around and come back, Baboon stole my bacon right off my plate. Waited for me to not look. Waited for you. Waited for me to not look.

That's a monkey, that's an ape. They're smart. Very crafty. Yeah, very crafty. And there's actually great footage, if you Google it, of a baboon taking down a flamingo. They actually will hunt and kill and eat flamingos. It looks like a... It makes some good eating.

Probably tastes like shrimp because they eat them. They eat a lot of shrimp. That's why they're that's their color yeah and then there's the lesser apes oh by the way I was going to throw in that

so great apes don't you be discriminating apes I know it's because they're diminutive size what are the lesser apes gibbons gibbons

well gibbons and then also there's sea amongs which are part of that group but they're a little bit different they have the throat sack they're extremely loud

so howler monkeys which I was kind of showing you that call before we started filming. Well, don't just share it with us. Now that you brought it up, you have to do it. I studied spider monkeys, but there are also a lot of howler monkeys where I worked. Howler monkeys. Howler. So they howl. You'll hear. It's not so much of a howl. It sounds more of like somebody clearing their throat in the morning, but very loud.

So you know how to call a howler monkey? I call howler monkeys. Sometimes they call back. Let's hear it. Sometimes they don't and I'm sad. Let's go. Okay. Sound like Eddie Murphy laughing. Wait, wait. So does this make them horny or something?

Have you checked the book on that sound? You know, I... What you're doing to them? The translation guide, the Google Translate's not that great. Again. But no, that's how they wake up in the morning, and they'll just kind of let one group know, like,

hey, guys, we're here. Oh, so it's a wake-up thing. Well, not just... Well, they do it in the morning. It's their morning show. So if you travel to Central America or South America, any area, you know, southern Mexico, where they have heller monkeys, a lot of people hear them in the morning, like 5 a.m., and they're like, what the hell is that? Like, what is that?

They think it's a jaguar. They think they're, like, getting attacked by something. It's just you. On spring break. Yeah, right? In Cancun. It's just this little monkey making its loud, and they have these great throat sacks, and they're the followers. So what they do is they let people, or let people they let the other uh howler monkeys know hey guys we're

over here just just so you know and they kind of communicate that way so so i read correct me if i'm wrong that we speak we have the power to create language because of a genetic defect in whatever it is that makes apes make sounds. That's what I read that recently. I actually do not know that. I'm going to have to look that up. Yeah. I don't know because that actually, I mean. A genetic mutation.

It's a single mutation. One single mutation. That enables us to speak. Separates us and allows us to speak. Right. That's awesome. That is really. It allows us to then communicate more complex ideas,

figure out how to put it in a book, so now you don't have to know everything in order to move civilization forward. Absolutely. You can stand on the shoulders of those who came before you. Well, there's been, you know, looking at speech, if Neanderthals actually were able to talk, and there's a great special where they actually,

they think that they might have been able to, but because of the way their, the vocal cords or the, the, the, just the morphology of their, their throat was, they basically had this fairly high pitched voice. It would be very,

even very nasally and very high pitched. Yeah, Mike, Mike Tyson. You know what I mean? I don't want to get punched. So he said it, not me.

And that's why they went extinct. Absolutely. That's exactly, yeah. It didn't intimidate anybody. And that's why they went extinct. Absolutely. That's exactly it. It didn't intimidate anybody. It's great. I'm so glad that we got together like this. It's awesome. Oh, God. It's awesome.

It's a high pitch with a list. That's the Neanderthal. So Chuck, you've got questions on this topic, on primates. On primatology. It came in through the internet from Facebook and other sources. Absolutely. So bring it on.

Okay, so here we go. I'll defer every one because I don't know Jack about, you know, I mean, other than humans being apes ourselves. Right. You know more than the average bear. I don't know very many bears that know a lot about primates, so maybe that wasn't a good analogy. You know more than the average primate.

There you go. Okay, so what do you got, Chuck's start off with jared kellogg coming to us from facebook and jared says this are primates still evolving are there findings that show human interventage whether habitat change food change etc has changed how they interact with each other and with us? Nice question. Great question. Well, first of all, everything's still evolving. Nothing has stopped.

We're still evolving. Humans are. And as far as monkeys and apes, yes. I mean, in fact, we talk about- Well, I have a rebuttal to that. Sure, okay. Can I wait or should I put it in right now? You can put it in right now.

Right now. So my rebuttal to that. So I agree that evolution is always a force at work but that doesn't mean you're speciating and here's here's here's my point you can you can split a species strand both branches from one another now they can move independently you come back in a million years they're different right i get that yeah okay but right now all humans all over the world can make babies oh yeah and if we're all making babies sure then we are not stranding any one branch of ourselves and if we're all making babies at all times doesn't that ossify who and what we are in the tree of life yeah because we have the coelacanth that hasn't changed for, how long?

Millions. Millions of years. It's roach. I don't think it's changed for much. Which they thought was extinct, by the way. They thought it was great. Big old fish. Right.

We got one at the Museum of Natural History in a cabinet. Oh, yeah. You see the cartilaginous, bony remains after somebody, I don't know, ate it. Ate the flesh. My point is that you think of a speciation when you isolate branches. This is how you get the exotic animals in Australia, Madagascar in Australia. So if we're not stranding ourselves, unless we put a colony on Mars, why would we think that one day we're going to be something different? Well, it's not that we're going to be something different. It's just evolution does not necessarily mean we're becoming a new species.

It's just the way that we are exchanging genes is causing perhaps different, you know, it's the genotype metamorphs itself or is expressed in the phenotype sometimes differently. And as we, our populations, and as we're becoming this very globalized world and populations are mixing with other populations that didn't in the past, you know,

we're going to see, you know, different expressions, you know, whether it's, you know, in the way we look or the way that we actually are genetically. But we'll all have that together, right? Yeah, we're not necessarily becoming a new species. And I'm not saying that chimps will become a new species as they're, you know. Well, let's get back to them. So now we're in their becoming a new species and i'm not saying that chimps will become a new species as they're you know let's get back to them so so now we're mess we're in their environment you know you know we're spreading yeah have they do they have to adapt uh yeah of course of course

i mean and that's kind of the the idea that i'd sort of adapt or or die or die out you know and and that's why we talked about briefly um i think last time was macaques, for instance. You know the last time to say that. Oh, sorry. There's a species of monkey called macaques, which are really interesting because as far as a primate goes, they're the second most widely distributed primate in the world, second to us, to humans. And what they're able to do is eat anything. They're like humans. Yeah, we're like human little... Is that the big dividing line?

they're like humans we are like yeah we're like human little we're not the big dividing lines being able to and in fact um there was a really great study coming out at nyu uh a grad student alex uh alex uh decason i hope i'm saying her last name right um but uh and james hyam and another researcher basically found that what you eat is actually what um is affecting brain size it's not necessarily a primate's social skills. And so diet has a lot to do with not only... So as a matter of fact, isn't that when, of course, when we started using fire and then roasting meat and then getting bigger sources of protein that caused our brains to become larger?

Yeah, but not just meat, because if you think about it, brains take a lot of calories to function. yeah but not just meat because if you think about it uh brains take a lot of calories to function and so it's not just about eating protein but also even eating like carbohydrates like so being able to cook tubers and roots and things like that so the actual ability to eat just to keep eating yeah eating things that are high just keep eating in front of you um and and to thrive anywhere like humans are amazing i mean we can live in the arctic and survive off and do um and the more specialized your diet the more you are in danger the more susceptible you are especially when it comes to interaction like with your environment if say for instance spider monkeys the ones that i study

with deforestation uh there's not a lot of fruit available so it's problematic you just go to whole foods they can go to right exactly they can go hit the farm. Well, that's the thing is. Farmer's market in the forest. But that happens. Primates will actually forage on other people's, on people's property and eat their food at farms. And farmers will get mad and will attack and kill them because they see them as a threat to their livelihood. So we're threatening their livelihood. When really we came in and took over their territory.

Oh, that's cold that ain't right and it's you see it with orangutans in fact you know farmers have killed orangutans in the past because of just them foraging for crops because they're hungry I mean you would do it too we gotta eat aren't orangutans like highly

intelligent creatures oh yeah I mean they're great apes so like us and they're really good at imitation. So, they'll see somebody, like, using a hammer and nail, and you'll look over later on, and there's the orang, just sort of...

You're not really necessarily hammering anything or doing anything. Oh, okay, when you say imitations, I thought they were, like, you know, doing... I thought they were doing impressions, like, here's my Jay Leno. Imitation.

I would pay good money to see that. So, when I was a kid, I'm old enough to have seen Planet of the Apes in first run theaters. Okay. How old I am. I did not see Planet of the Apes again until like 40 years later. Right. Oh my gosh, that's a deep movie. Yeah, it is.

Oh my gosh. And in it. With the best ending in the world. Oh my gosh. And in it. With the best ending in the world. In it, the different lines of primates have different roles in the society. Yes.

So the orangutans, if I remember correctly, they were the diplomats. And the big thinkers. And the big thinkers. And the gorillas were the security guards. Okay. And guess who the scientists were? They were the chimpanzees. The chimpanzees, yeah.

The ones closest to the humans. The humans. So I didn't, they were just all apes when I saw the movie. Right. The Planet of the Apes. Right.

And so they actually did some, some thinking, some dividing and splitting. Yeah. Because I think, I mean, even in the most recent one, I remember watching it

and because, The most recent Planet of the Apes movie. Planet of the A I mean, even in the most recent one, I remember watching it and because... The most recent Planet of the Apes movie. Planet of the Apes movies, yes. And they had the same sort of, you know,

the different groups of great apes, but I almost wish they could take it a step further and I know I'm just being a little too, you know,

pointed and, you know, particular, but... What would that step be? Well, that step would be because they have

different social groups. So like, orangutans don't usually live in social groups. They live, you know, it's a single mom with her infants and then a single dad. And they both are kind of like solitary. But of course that doesn't make for a very good movie

if they're like, where are the orangutans? But if they're clever screenwriters, they could possibly build that in. Once you have a variation in something, do something with it. A loner orangutan, you talking to me? Yeah, right? I don't see anybody else here.

You must be talking to meer, orangutan. You talking to me? Yeah, right? I don't see anybody else here. You must be talking to me. Brooklyn orangutan. Oh, God, it's him again. Okay. That's another bit of trouble. We've got to take a break. We'll come back and we'll get a bunch more questions in on primates as the topic with our special guest, Natalia Reagan. Anthropologist and primate expert when we return

we're back on star talk neil Tyson here. Sometimes with a Degrass. It's Degrass Greener. Yeah, Degrass is greener. Neil on Degrass. Nice, always good to have you as co-host. Always a pleasure. Natalia Regan. I keep calling her Regan.

It's Reagan. Natalia Regan. Okay, I'll answer it. I'll answer to it. So you're an anthropologist and you've worked in the field specializing in spider monkeys but we assume you have some osmotic knowledge of other uh members of the primate community world yes primate universe the primate averse so uh what do you have chuck this is all right let's jump right back into it it's a quasar query so you know we have your questions here let's uh let's get right into it uh john

clemens uh wants to know this he's asking you specifically, Natalia, do you have a favorite primate? Oh, gosh. I feel like I would be a total jerk if I didn't say spider monkeys. Just because you studied them? Well, here, I'm going to say a couple cool things about spider monkeys. It's a lame reason. That is a lame reason. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

I can't let you know. We can't let you off the hook on that. Just because you wrote papers on it. Right. What? Well, actually, spider monkeys are pretty, I think, fantastic. Not only do they- Okay, so then here it is. Yep. We can't let you off the hook on that. Just because you wrote papers on it. Well, actually, spider monkeys are pretty, I think, fantastic. Then here it is. What distinguishes them to make them high on your list from all the other primates?

Well, okay. So I love the fact that we talked about the frugivore thing, that spider monkeys eat primarily fruit. The ones that I studied in Panama were so tenacious. As far as the deforestation problem in Panama, it's bad. And I saw spider monkeys groups living in what should be a corridor between two huge fragments living in just the corridor. So they were able to scrap together a living and by living, I mean, food, and still had infants, you know, on their back and on their front. You know, I1 and I2, those are the different stages of infancy. And so they were still able to make it in this really degraded.

So they reorganized their civilization to still survive in spite of what humans are doing. Yes. And they also, so like one of the cool. Actually, they're working on nuclear weapons. Oh, my God. A spider monkey With the codes With the codes The launch codes

Oh god And they have They have the prehensile tail So all they had to do Is just kind of like Boop Prehensile means it can grip It could actually

Prehensile And only new world monkeys By the way have that And not all of them Only a few do But also This is an interesting fact Spider monkeys

I'll be the judge of that I think you'll like it Female spider monkeys Have the hypertrophic clitoris. I don't know what that means. I know what one of those words is. Yeah. The other one, I don't know what the word is. Yes, I certainly don't know.

I certainly know what hypertrophic means. What is this other word you said? Should I get a map? Does someone need a map? Well. So what is, so these are spider monkeys. These are spider monkeys. And females. Female spider monkeys these are spider monkeys and females

yes they have it basically looks like almost an index finger hanging down it's a dangler uh it's a pseudo penis and it looks like it would be the first time i ever saw a female spider monkey i thought oh those are some male spider monkeys to which i was told no no no no no so these were so hypertrophic means bigger yeah well it's extending from the body. Extending from the body. Okay. By the way, what is the purpose of a hypotrophic clitoris, a dangling clitoris? You know, that's the thing is there's different ideas of what that could be, but there's no actual accepted theory about why there is the hypertrophic clitoris. One of them is that it makes it easy to identify females from a far distance because it really does.

I mean, it helps us researchers. I know from, if I have binoculars, I see the dangler. So what does the male penis do then? The male penis actually, I mean, it's actually not too shabby itself. I actually have seen some copulations in the field. And by the way,

spider monkeys have very long copulations compared to other. Star talk. Yes. Yes. Welcome to monkey porn. Right? Exactly.

So no. No, they have very long copulation. Because I actually had to write an entry in the primatological encyclopedia that's coming out on intromission pattern and copulatory posture, which is basically monkey sex positions for the layperson. But I had to talk about how long spider monkeys will engage. And it's usually on the upwards of like 20 minutes. Really? can be for a very long time oh i have to uh oh yeah look at that that right there is a hyena uh pseudopenis that's a female that's a female

hyena right there and actually hyenas give birth through um their clitoris so for those of you who are do not have the benefit of startalkallaccesscom, right now we are looking at a picture that is up on the screen. It is a female hyena who is just dating right now. She's pregnant, and she has a hypertrophic clitoris. Clitoris, yeah. And the clitoris doubles as the birth canal. Yeah. I mean, so when men say, like, oh, I could never have a child because, how could you imagine, you know, giving birth through a urethra?

Meet the hyena. That can't feel great. Okay. Maybe it does. Maybe. Yeah, you're right. You know, maybe. Maybe, yeah, right?

Maybe it's like, whoa. Maybe that's nature's reward for them. I'm just saying. Hey. Right, right, right. Okay. So she's giving some arguments there. I'm going to give you some arguments.

All right. All right. We'll give you that. All right. Well, let's move on. Let's go to um uh juco van nanen or van nanen okay from helsinki finland uh what's your guess uh are there primates in the trappist-1 system that's to you neil and i think he just wants he's just trying to find a way to get to

ask you about trappist-1 that's so the trappist uh one is a star system it has seven recently discovered earth-like planets three of which are orbiting in the goldilocks zone okay where there's not too hot not too cold you can sustain liquid water that's about all we know right now these planets do cross the front the surface of the cross between us and our sight line to the host star there's a cottage industry ready to blossom where we will study the ingredients of the atmospheres of these planets by analyzing the light of the host star as it passes through that atmosphere and so then you can say oh does it have oxygen is there methane is there any of this other stuff so so what we don't know we can't look at the surface yet but

we are in search of biomarkers okay so what we would do to answer that question take it seriously is we would ask you natalia is there any effect that primates have on their atmosphere so that when we study the chemical composition of the atmosphere we can say it's got primates that would be the question wow because if it has methane for example maybe there's a farming industry because methane is a byproduct of farms. Or Mexican food. Or Mexican food. Mmm, beans. It is a primary ingredient of flatulence. Does it have termites? Maybe it's not uniquely implicating them,

but it could be suggestive of it. So from what you know, do primates have any special impact on their atmosphere? On their environment? Well, what they do, I mean, it's not so much, much i think the atmosphere as far as air air but so for instance we talked about spider monkeys eating fruit or other monkeys eating fruit that is a way they are actually distributors of those seeds so the same way bees pollinate flowers they carry the the seed the

fruit and actually they eat the whole fruit including the seeds you can't digest the seed right so that comes out and they poop it out and and that so this is the plant's diabolical plan right to spread their seeds right yeah yeah well amazing there was one theory that i read years ago about how um you can imagine the plant scientists saying okay we're going to produce this fruit. Now, how do we get it? Let's put it through the entire digestive system of a bear. We have to make the casing strong enough so it doesn't resist the digestive things.

Then they'll poop it over here, poop it over there, and we can spread. These are like... I hosted a Bigfoot show years ago called Bigfoot Bounty, and we found, and we'd had the contestants going out looking for biomaterials that could be Bigfoot's poop, basically. And there was one turd that I found, I'll never forget this turd. That is a sentence I'd never thought I would hear in my life. That was a sentence. Yep. It was gleaming.

It was one of these never before spoken sentences. There was one turd I never thought I'd find in my life. That was StarTalk history right there. It was a beautiful turd. It was purple, and I just looked at it, and it was clearly was one turd I never thought I'd find in my life. That was StarTalk history right there. It was a beautiful turd. It was purple and I just looked at it and it was clearly a bear turd

but it was all just blackberries. It was just like it was just all seed. It almost looked like it was like a candy confection thing but it was a turd.

I did not Stop there. We don't hit that for the rest of the story. Don't please whatever you do don't ruin candy for me. I have very few things left in

my life yeah i'm sorry about that okay but as far yeah so seed distribution and um you know obviously what we'd have to do is we would need more than the atmosphere we would need some other uh geographic data yeah well also uh environmental dna is very interesting like they'll leave behind like or uh if something say for, bites or stings them, well, not bite, stings, but more bites, like a blood-sucking insect, we could dissect their blood meal and find if there are primates living in the area. I saw that movie, Jurassic Park, I saw that. No, that's amber.

This is actually, no, no, you can do ecological surveys now like that. I'm not kidding. So this is their DNA remnants from various things that happen. Well, it's just blood that's in the, like say if a mosquito bites a chicken. That's what I'm saying. Right, right, right. Okay. So your DNA signature is outside of yourself.

Yeah. In some way or another. Marumental DNA. Okay. All right. That was very cool. What else you got, Chuck? All right.

Here we go. Let's talk about Antonio Rodriguez, who wants to know this. Are there primate hybrids? Yes. Ooh. Very good question. It is a very good question. That's an anime hybrid.

If there are primate hybrids, what is the hybrid? Who's been hybridizing? Who's been hybridizing them? Baboons. Actually, back to baboons. They do hybridize, and they are able to produce offspring. With? With other baboons.

No, that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about like a centaur. They're different species. Oh, God. Like a minotaur. No, that would be so weird. Like a baboon minotaur, like some kind of chimera, man. Like a chupacabra, like a baboon chupacabra.

You know what's funny? The centaur, it's half horse, half man, okay? And the minotaur, this is weird. It's half man, half bull, but the rear, it's a human butt. Yes. That's just weird. Yeah. It's all human up to the waist.

So it's got a human butt. It's so weird. That's just, they'll. It's all human up to the waist. So it's got a human butt. It's so weird. That's just, that's just, they'll think that through. I know. It's very top heavy too. Like I would,

I know. You just like fall over all the time. It's difficult to walk around as a minotaur. Okay. So no, but we're talking about blending genes, of course. Yeah.

Yeah. So are the, are the great apes close enough to one another genetically that they can cross breed? I think that's what they're saying. No, no, no. And that's the thing. So baboons are able, there's multiple species of baboon that are able to do that. Okay, but we still call them all baboons.

Well, yeah, but they're different species of baboons. There's the olive baboons. There's homodrius. There's gelada baboons, which are fantastic. That's not interesting. I know. Okay. I know. Okay. I get it.

As far as like of a chimp and a gorilla. Oh, God. Like what we want is a chimp-boon. A chimp-boon or chimperilla. A chimperilla. That's even better. No, that having viable. I mean, I'm sure they could mate.

A lot of things can mate with each other, but I don't think they'd actually produce viable offspring, no. Okay. And we haven't seen that. Now, how about chimps and bonobos? Well, that's the thing. Chimps and bonobos probably could. They haven't seen any, I think, hybrids coming out of them. Geographically, where do we find them?

Well, that's the thing is they do have some overlap. Bonobos are only in DRC, Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly Zaire. Chimps are in multiple places throughout Africa. DRC, they're in the Republic of Congo and just various places throughout in Western Asia. DRC, by the way, is a very famous wine, just so you know. Is it really? Domaine de la Romani Conti.

There's too many syllables for Americans. We just call it DRC. Wow, is it produced in Burgundy? Okay. Yeah, yeah. Nice, well. We said DRC, I said, wow. Good wine.

Wow. They're winemakers, the Novos. That's also probably why they're making love all the time. Yeah, there you go. See? By females. They want their wine and they want their sweet love. But as far as them mixing with chimps,ps in an area of DRC that they were so

large that they thought they could be a hybrid of gorillas and chimps. It turns out they're just chimps. But at the time, a good friend of mine actually studied them. They were just like... Dude! What are you, juicing?

They're crossfit chimps. They're literally juicing. Juicing their fruits. Yeah, they are. You got to do what you got to do. Give me one more. You got time for one last question. We have to be quick.

All right. So that's too much there. That's too much. All right. That one was funny. Natalia's looking over your shoulder. You're not supposed to do that. All right.

As humans, are we progressing? No, let's forget that one. Wait was funny. Natalia's looking over your shoulder. She laughed at one. Yeah, you're not supposed to do that. All right. Surprise me. As humans, are we progressing? No, let's forget that one. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Wait, who, what? Okay, okay. As humans, are we, Chris Schneider, as humans, are we progressing forward or are we idling with all the technology that is so easily available? In other words-

That's a great question. Are we going to evolve because of our technology like will that turn us into different humans and thereby different further separating us from our primate so we can do we can turn ourselves into super humans and then turn chimps into humans they can do all the human work we can go to the bah we can go to the Bahamas. I love it. Oh, I think there's an ethical question there. That is probably not a good idea. Okay. No.

I don't know. I was just balling there. I don't know. Although, yeah, I don't know. I mean, chimps are really aggressive. I don't know if I want them taking out my trash. Well, is there any attempt to, in the spirit of that question, is there any attempt to modify their DNA to make them more capable of surviving their environment in one way or another? not that i know of no not i mean like modifying their dna no i mean even

like the the new gene editing we have in humans like crisper and there's a new one that i i read about recently that's even you could actually inject a living person with um edited genes that are supposed to take effect it worked on lab rats but um that's run into a lot of ethical questions but as far as trying to change living primates to better adapt no it's just mostly trying to change human behavior so they can live longer you know hopefully push you know for instance like in orangutans with deforestation we're trying to get people not to use palm oil because that's a big problem there so things like that we're trying to get people not to use palm oil because that's a big problem there. So things like that. We're trying to amend our behavior rather than expecting them

to just sort of like change your diet, become a new species. What's wrong with palm oil? Well, palm oil plantations are basically a big cause of deforestation in... For whatever was there before.

Yes, exactly. So it's not... The palm oil itself is not a bad thing. It's just the way it's being produced. We cut it down. We cut down a bunch of trees so that we can actually raise palm oil.

Yeah. But I love me some coconut. I'm not getting on my oh yeah no no i'm gonna go way back coconut coconut's very good for you we gotta take a break you've been listening to and some of you may have even been watching this episode of star talk cosmic queries primate edition with anthropologist natalia re Reagan when we come back. We're back on StarTalk Cosmic Queries Primate Edition. Yes, humans are primates, just in case you didn't know. We're animals. Yes. And even if you didn't know You're animals Yes

And even if you didn't Know we were animals Your mama told you At least once in your life What are you Some kind of animal Exactly As a matter of fact

Yeah Well yes I am Yeah Isn't that what they say What the parents What the teachers say To Kids who don't yet know

They're going to be Professional comedians They'll say something in class and the teacher says, what are you, a comedian? I wish I could go back to every single time that happened to me. I kid you not, Neil. I actually dream of being able to get into a time machine. Chuck, the first thing, if I invent a time machine,

we'll get that squared out. Please. Then we'll solve world problems. And believe me, it would go just like this. What are you, some kind of comedian? Just wait, bitch! Sorry. Fast forward.

So Natalia Reagan, so you're here to help us answer questions on primates. It came through our social media network, so give me more. Okay, here we go. Don Rim from Facebook says this. Judging from the study of Coco the gorilla, do you believe that primates and other animals are capable of higher learning? Good question. It is a good question.

So not just Coco. There's multiple examples of non-human primates. Coco was a gorilla. There are also some chimpanzee ones, too. Yeah, Washoe. What was the name of that one? Washoe. Washoe, yeah, that's right yeah so yeah there as far as cognitive uh abilities there's a lot that

non-human primates can do and there's been studies uh not just uh having to do sign language and things of that sort but um actually being able to understand and remember patterns they found that chimps were actually better at doing some of those pattern memory tests than actual humans were. So there are a lot of abilities that I think non-human primates have in terms of cognition, but we also have to remember

that measuring cognition in animals is not just about being able to do algebra or calculus. It's about social intelligence and being able to communicate in ways that works for them because it's not about adapting and surviving in our world. It's about adapting and surviving in their world. Maybe if they had a need for algebra, they would actually understand and develop an understanding of algebra. They don't have a need for it. That would be scary.

I don't want no ape doing better on my math test than I am. They're better on their SATs than me. So do you know Carl Sagan's famous quote? I think it was in reference to dolphins, but it could easily be applied. no ape doing better on math my math test than i am it's still better on their sats than me so do you know carl sagan's famous quote i think it was in reference to dolphins but it could easily be applied to chimps it was uh we have found some uh dolphins that have managed to uh make gestures that make it clear that they understand what we're talking about, but we have yet to find any human that can speak dolphin. Right? Wow.

I mean, we are so species-centric in so many ways. Wasn't that good? That's good. I try to talk to cats, man, but I don't know if they get me. You know, like I try to understand what they're saying. Oh, they get you. They're just ignoring you. That's a cat, right?

Did you see the XKCD comic about about that no okay so i gotta laugh first before i even say it okay so the this guy comes home right and there's a cat sitting on the edge of the couch right then obviously just came home from his day and the the caption is if cats could talk okay so he comes in hi kitty w Hi, kitty witty! How are you? And the cat looks up and just goes back to what he was doing. Doesn't say a thing. If cats could talk. That's a perfect

That's appropriate. Perfect. The best comic ever. If cats could talk. That's perfect. It just looks up and then just looks right back down. There you have it. I 100% agree. So give me some cosmic queries. Alright, here we go. Evolution 100% agree. So give me some cosmic queries. All right. Here we go. Evolution is at a cellular level.

This is from Michelle Tapia. DNA writes our shape. Adding it here and there can change you. Okay. Thanks so much, Michelle. That was the end of it. She was just like, there you go. Is that really what evolution is, though? I'll just like there you go that's what is that really

what evolution is though i'll ask the question is that indeed what evolution is uh the change on a cellular level yeah well i mean it's it's it's the passing down of different genetic material and it does it starts at a cellular level but it also you know it doesn't necessarily manifest itself immediately you know the genes are passed down and might actually be seen generations from now that had been in your family for generations. But it's also not goal-driven. Wait, wait. But if I'm born with six fingers, that sixth finger is not just a cell. That's a whole thing in my body.

And now I got the sixth finger gene. It's a weird mutation, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now I got the six finger gene. It's a weird mutation. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And if I start making babies with other six fingered mateable partners,

we can start a new base 12 arithmetic system. That's right. And you'll be the most awesome piano players in the world. Oh my gosh. Stand up bass. You'd just be the fastest, fastest. Yes,

exactly. I play the sitar better than anybody you've ever seen. All right, here we go. Why do apes retain or perpetuate? Yeah, right? I play the sitar better than anybody you've ever seen. Six-fingered man. All right, here we go. Why do apes retain or perpetuate the kindred instinct, no signs of actual hate or feud against each other, and us humans appear to have lost this identity? But is that true about other apes?

I wouldn't say that. I think apes and... Is there ape homicide? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, chimps will kill one another. So... Are there ape muggings?

Right, exactly. That's so funny. Give me your banana. Give me that banana. Give me that banana. Give me your banana. Hey, man, I don't want no trouble. I don't want no trouble, man.

I just want the banana. Just the rest of what's in your wallet. That's right. Your money's no good here. Give me your food. Well, that's the funny thing is, like, for them, currency is food. Like, I actually, I've done a video on this about how, you know, chimps will give gifts of fruit in hopes of getting a little extra side nookie

just because that's what that is. Food for nookie. Well, it's kind of like buying your sweetheart a necklace or something like that it's an exchange it's an exchange but anyways um back to the question it's cheaper than diamonds i was going to say bingos these guys got it good if only these guys got it good man i wish i could come home hey baby here's an orange i wish i could hey how you doing here's the arms and you know what here's an orange. I wish I could. Hey, how you doing? Here's an orange. You know what?

Here's a few grapes on me just to make it even sweeter. Oh, my God. Only life for that simple man. Oh, gosh. But, yeah, as far as altruism and kindness, there is that in the animal world. We see that in multiple species, not just in primates, human and non-human. But there is aggression. Chimpanzees are known for a lot of you know in group fighting they'll have you know alpha male they gang war too yeah they do gang war you know but the thing is we we don't like

to get lost in the blood right oh my god you don't wear blue in this part of the forest we're right there i'm just trying you know I'm a fan of the West Side Story the movie I just can't come out and they start dancing boy boy

crazy chimp boy cool boy oh god you've got the monkeys in the trees as a chorus that's so great

no but they do so they are violent yeah I know so they'll have coalitions where they actually they'll circle their territory. And if they see a chimp from a nearby group that shouldn't be there, they will attack and they will kill. And sometimes they will do things like eat that particular chimp.

All right. Yeah, it can be pretty bloody. Eat them. This is like, yeah, this is, I will eat your heart and get your strength that you had. Like, yeah, I will eat your heart and get your strength that you had. I don't know who my favorite primate is, but I'm quickly finding out who my least favorite is. But also we have to remember, even though they can be very aggressive, so are humans in some ways. But we are way more cooperative as our chimps than aggressive, I think. On balance.

Yeah. I mean, because otherwise they would all be dead otherwise it would just, they'd all be dead. We'd be killing each other all the time. Yeah, exactly. Cooperation is a big part of who we are and other primates. You can go a whole year and not want to kill anyone. Whoa. I don't know if that's possible right now.

All right, let's get this one in before our lightning round because Guy Zachary, Aaron Klossner wants to know this. As Guy Zachary Aaron Klossner wants to know this. Can you explain some of the stranger mating dominance rituals that various primates do? I'm thinking about silverbacks as well as baboons. Talk about some of these rituals. Top three primate mating rituals. Way to break it down.

Top three primate rituals. Mating rituals. Mating rituals. I don't know if there's so much a ritual, but there's just the way they go about it. Orangutans, one of the things that people don't know is it's males or solitary females forage usually alone with whatever infant they have. And it can get a little rough. If a female's not interested in a male, males will do, well, forced copulation. And so that, yeah, which is, I mean, it happens.

Ape rape. That's terrible, too. Or just rape. That would be their combined. Is that what they, oh, God. It is, I mean, it happens. Ape rape. You know, it, yep. That's terrible, too. Or just rape. That would be their combined. Is that what they, oh, God. It is. It's forced copulation. So this happens.

It does happen. And it, yeah, so, so to romanticize. Does that mean the male is stronger than the female? Yes. And so there's sexual dimorphism. Sexual dimorphism means that there's a size difference between males and females on average between, you know, in a species. Depending on the species, yeah.

Yeah, exactly. Like, you know, black widows, I mean, have you ever seen a male black widow? Probably not because they're so small. They're itty bitty. They're completely lame. So lame. Oh my God. So any other, like, very unusual primate rituals?

I'm trying to think of actual rituals. I mean, like, you know, funny rituals. So now what about the, okay, is this the baboon? Whose butt gets inflamed and red? So, yeah, in fact, a friend of mine. You're looking at a baboon butt. Yeah, no, baboons. And my friend is actually right now on her way to Zambia to do research, Megan Petersdorf.

And she actually will be, she's at New York University. But she will be looking at sexual swellings of baboons. And my friend Todd DeSotel, also of NYU, they developed a laser system so they can actually measure the size of her swollen vulva. Laser metric system. Yeah, to measure the size of the swollen vulva. And it's a signal to the opposite sex that they are ready to get down. That is a scientific term. You can tell your friends and family. Okay.

But yeah, chimps have the same sexual swellings Bonobos as well. We'll get these sexual swellings when they're in heat. Yes, well. They don't have humans We're not ever it's not a heat thing. Oh wait. Well. We have ovulate. We have concealed ovulation Which is a whole nother? That's a whole nother show which is very interesting and there's different theories of why we have you can't unless you really know your partner Or you you know you can huff it on them. You can smell like, oh, something's up. You don't really know.

There's no man who knows when his woman is ovulating. Okay. What anybody, there's not a man alive. What the damn research says. Not a man alive who is like, honey, it's, you know, I would say let's make love, but I'm pretty sure you're ovulating. No, we do not know do not know people that do the whole you know the rhythm method and they know this kind of stuff but it's i'm intrigued that

among primates counting us with this group that they have concealed we have concealed ovulation and others don't right that's intriguing that is because the other primates do not have child custody cases well it's interesting and a lot of those those uh uh primate do not have child custody cases. Well, it's interesting. And a lot of those primate species that have the sexual swellings, they do live in large groups. So if, for instance, somebody does give birth and you don't know who it was, it's Steve, Jim, Bob, who knows. The village or basically they take care of their own. They're cool with it. They're cool.

It's okay. They don't necessarily. It's a village. There's no paternity. There's no Jerry Springer. Unlike us, no guy wants to answer the door. Hey, what's up? Hey, man, yeah.

Here to pick up your wife and kids. Yeah. All right. We got to go to the lightning round. Let's go to the lightning round. All right, here we go. Mubeen Ahmed wants to know this. Can monkeys be lunatics?

Yes. Next question. Monkeys can act a little crazy. Oh, yeah. And go off the ranch. Yes, they can be. There are those outliers that, you know, and there's even freeloading monkeys, monkeys that take too much and don't give back that other monkeys will kind of spurn

and ostracize. Oh, okay. Good. Next one. Go. Alright, Petros in Zuzulath wants to know this. How can all Homo sapiens be nearly genetically identical to each other when not all Homo sapiens interbreeded with Neanderthal? Just to put it clear, as I remember it, there are, Europe especially, but there are branches of the human species that have more Neanderthal than others. Yes, so if you're only of African descent that have more Neanderthal than others. Yes. So if you only have, if you're only of African descent. You have no Neanderthal.

No Neanderthal. But they also have a new, there's Denisovans, which are a group that lived in Asia that basically are found in populations in Asia and Melanesia. And then there's also a new unknown DNA uh, DNA that they don't know. They don't have fossil evidence for that also admixed with, uh, humans, but they're found in like Australia.

And what does it mean for us to be close to one another? But some have Neanderthal and others don't. Um, well, basically it means where there's a founder population in Africa, there's more genetic diversity between those with living within, or that are from Africa and then those, uh, that have spread out.

Okay, so we are different on the level that these differences manifest. Yes. But we can all still interbreed. Of course, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's a small difference. It was a very small sample of humans that had mixed with Neanderthals. It was not a lot. It was not like it wasn't happening every, you know, as Todd, I had a Neanderthal show this weekend. He brought up the fact that they think it was, you know, only several thousand or maybe several hundred.

It's not like thousands of thousands of instances of a mixture. So it's not a ton of DNA that got into our system. So for some people, you get to say, stop being a Neanderthal, because they got actually some of that in them. Right. But Neanderthals weren't all that bad. Oh, we have a Neanderthal sympathizer. Exactly. I mean, they weren't like—

If you love them so much, why don't you marry one? Hey, I might. We got to bring that to a halt here. Natalia Reagan, thank you for being on StarTalk. Thank you for having me. And Chuck. Hey. Always good to have you.

Always good to be here, man. And when you're not with me, you're with Gary O'Reilly, okay? Well, it's not really like that. It's not like that. You're playing with science with Gary O'Reilly. Can I leave you two alone? Just call me sometime, okay?

You're listening to StarTalk Radio. Stay tuned. More up next. Hi, and welcome back to StarTalk All-Stars. I'm your host, Natalia Reagan, and you're experiencing an extension. Yep. all-stars i'm your host natalia reagan and you're experiencing an extension yep and joining me now is co-host chuck nice my hilarious comedian friend yes i'm actually still patrick melton no one knows change no one knows it i don't know what it is but something's a little different well what it is is my credit rating went down.

Jesus. Well, we're going to talk about what makes us human. And we've been talking about that, but we're going to talk about something a little bit different now. We're going to talk about cloning, cloning primates. Because with the whole cloning going on in the news, there's been talk about human cloning. But let's talk about actual primate cloning. We have a biological anthropologist, Dr. Ryan Rom from Lehman College here to weigh in on the subject. And most recently, there's been some cloning done in China of macaques. Oh, thank you for having me. Yes, indeed. So published just this year, looking at crab-eating

macaques, why they're eating those crabs, who knows. Why we need more of them, who knows. But they've successfully cloned two live, viable crab-eating macaques. It's not efficient. They had 40 embryos, 20 pregnancies, two live births. Oh, my goodness. But it's a step towards human glowing. I got to tell you something. Those are pretty much house casino odds.

Right? Yeah, no, I don't like those odds. Yeah, so only two survived of all this whole process. But mind you, that's much better, right? So Dolly was 275 to 1. Oh, wow. Getting better. Here we're like 40 to 2.

And that was 1997. It's called progress,'re like 40 to 2. And that was 20, that was 1997. It's called progress, I'm going to say. I find it funny that of all things that Scotland cloned, they cloned the one thing that they have an excess of, cheap. I never understood that. I never quite understand that. Dolly was special.

She was special. Dolly was, no. Can we all just have a moment of silence for Dolly? Anyways. moving on. But cloning of primates, it's controversial because obviously, you know, we're much more related to them. And close to home, right? Yeah, right. It's a little funky.

So wait, let me ask you as a primatologist, Natalia, how close are macaques to homo sapiens? Oh, I mean, our closest genetic relatives are chimpanzees and bonobos. We share about 98%, 98.7% of DNA. I don't know. What is macaques? I don't know the exact percentage amount. It's still pretty high. Yeah, we diverged far back.

The common ancestor we have with chimpanzees is about 6, 7 million years ago. Macaques, I... 25? 25, yeah. the common ancestor we have with chimpanzees about six, 7 million years ago. Right. Like, how can I say? 25. Yeah. Like, yeah. Cause new world monkeys about 20.

Yeah. So 25, 30 ish. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. So not, we're not super,

super close, but at the same time they are primates and that is a little, that's close to home. It's close to home. It's close to home. But we learn anything, um, Ryan from when we clone a primate, do we learn anything um ryan from when we clone a primate do we learn anything about cloning

us and is that the purpose of cloning the primate to get closer to cloning us i mean i think the some of the main purposes there are you know macaques are a big biomedical research animal and that if you can introduce some genetic changes in a macaque that predisposes it to heart disease or diabetes or something, then you could perpetuate that. Right. Then you can cure it. I'm going to clone you so that you get heart disease right away.

No, it's. Then I'm going to cure you of your heart disease. Yeah. This sounds very cruel. We do that all the time. I mean, that's like super common with mice, right? There are all these lines of mice that are, they're not cloned, but they're so,

like they just inbreed them incredibly until they're genetically homogenous. Right. And then like make a change and they just all get cancer. We give them cancer, right? Yeah. So the idea is that, you know,

there's a lot of things, we've cured cancer in mice like a hundred times, but mice are really distant from humans. So you try and take the thing that you've cured cancer in mice, you take it to humans, it doesn't work. Right. I mean, there's even arguments in terms of animal welfare and medical research that because even chimpanzees are distant enough where some of the same things don't affect us the same way. I mean, they get certain illnesses that we don't. I mean, there is zoonosis, which is the transmission of disease from one species to another, but sometimes it doesn't always work that way. And macaques are even further removed from humans. So it seems like a lot of work and a lot of pain and suffering that we're inflicting on individuals

that i i personally don't feel comfortable with it putting that to the side i mean the motivation for the a lot of macaque stuff is biomedical and yeah because okay yes they're distant but nobody's particularly comfortable with doing this stuff to chimpanzees right no and i um and mice are super distant right so the cats happen to be the happy medium. I know. Closer. Kind of sucks to be a macaque right now. Interesting thing about macaques is they're the second most widely distributed primate

in the world. So they're, and that's another thing. You would think like we don't eat anymore macaques are everywhere, but that's the thing is they are like humans in the fact that they are generalists. They can kind of almost thrive in any environment. They're the ones that you see. Remember in the hot tubs? We talked about the Japanese snow macaques.

Yes, exactly. You love those guys. I do. You've got the temple monkeys. You've got, you know, I mean, macaques. You've got the Barbary macaques on Gibraltar. So there's macaques all over the world. And they're the kind of animal that will eat.

They're like humans, like little trash compactors. They'll just eat anything. So they are similar to us in that in that regard you know they're not like a specialist where they only eat leaves or fruit or insects exactly and as far as like cloning in terms of human cloning like different mammals have slightly different sort of reproductive you know their eggs develop at different rates and there's different sort of sort of slightly different processes there that affect the technical details of cloning. Okay.

So, um, you know, the, the way that you would clone a mouse or a sheep is technically a little bit different than the way you would clone a primate. And probably the process for the Macac would be closer to, if you were going to try and clone a human, you'd probably actually be learning something from cloning the Macac. Speaking of which I want to, I want try and clone a human, you'd probably actually be learning something from cloning the macaque. Speaking of which, I want to jump into a little, something a little more controversial,

bringing back Neanderthals, because we actually do have... Shared DNA? Well, we have DNA signatures within us from Neanderthal. Yeah, I mean, there's many that have, you know, anywhere, you know, minuscule amounts, I think about 4%, you know. So, and we have the ancient DNA, viable ancient DNA.

That's why we've been able to sequence the genome of Neanderthals. But just there is talk about wanting to bring them back. But there's a lot of ethical, of course, dilemmas with bringing Neanderthals back. Well, we have a problem with chimpanzees. With bringing Neanderthals back. Well, we have a problem with chimpanzees. But you want to bring back a Neanderthal, which, by the way, we used to kind of. We used to.

I mean, there's funky scientific evidence that, you know, Neanderthals. I'm saying I feel like I should. You know, I need to clone my husband. I need to like. This is what I'm going to do. I'm just going to make myself a Neanderthal and just, you know, Oog and I are going to settle down. We're going to have some nice hybrids and it's going to be fantastic. And you can laugh while you want, but we're doing it. I'm doing it.

But there are some real ethical dilemmas about just, you know, because again, why are we doing it? Is it so we can have like a freak show? Where are they going to live? Are they going to be considered humans? Are we going to give them rights? Well, first of all, are Neanderthals humans? That's a good question. Yeah.

I mean, by the criteria, which is one of the major criteria that people use for limiting a species. A species, species, yeah. We're considered. So, I mean, there's, they're definitely on that sort of line where you argue about it. Okay. I gotcha.

I gotcha. I mean, we've done StarTalk episodes about this, about just, you know, whether Neanderthals were these sort of brutish, oafish, kind of, you know, just sort of cavemen that had no artistic value or didn't communicate or couldn't. Worst looking versions of Robert Pattinson. With man buns. I don't know if you've seen the recreations. It's kind of cool to the Neanderthals. Right?

That's, yeah. And they also, you know, they didn't have the mental eminence. They don't have a chin. This is unique to humans. So it'd be a bunch of chinless dudes and ladies, which I could get used to. Listen, I know a couple people without a chin, so. I do too. Absolutely.

And that's okay. What would we learn if we were able to bring back a Neanderthal? I mean, what would be the big takeaway? I mean, there's lots of, there's lots of arguments about, say,

Neanderthals, do they have language? Right. Are they capable of language? Okay. I'm not sure. Which, by the way,

I'm not sure the, the other sort of moral complexities of cloning Neanderthals would have, but if you could actually do it, you could kind of solve that problem. Well, if they were not capable of language, I could understand why the human man had to make out with a Neanderthal woman. Hey, oh, wait a minute.

She doesn't say much, but she's pretty cute. She doesn't have a chin, but whatevs. These are jokes in Italian. I don't really mean it. I know. And my wife, if you're- Although there is suggestions that it went the other way. Yeah.

What? Yeah. Really? Because if it was human males and Neanderthal females, there seems like there should be a reasonable chance of Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA. That's right. Humans, because there's that part of your genome

or part of your DNA that comes from the maternal line. That's right. That's a mitochondrial. We don't have any of that. This is why I want to clone my husband. Oh, gotcha. Possibly. I mean, it doesn't necessarily have to be exclusively that,

but it kind of suggests that at least it was even, if not biased the other way. Right. Okay. And the interesting thing is, obviously, the behavior is going to be different because they're going to be living in the 21st century. I mean, they could be playing on their iPhone and adapting to our way of being.

Because soft tissue doesn't preserve, we don't know exactly how advanced they were, sophisticated they were. We might find out they might be the next Mozart or Francis Ford Copis ford coppola or you know just doing their thing i don't i mean who knows so i don't i'm not advocating for it but it would be interesting all right how about this then uh ryan is there enough since we do have uh dna signatures within us that are neanderthal is there enough dna within us to selectively breed out so that we can just have a Neanderthal? Yes. I mean, like, so populations outside Africa have about 2%, but it's actually not distributed randomly across the genome, right?

There are parts of your genome where there's just no Neanderthal in anybody. Oh. Because, you know, for whatever reason, it seems like the gene variants or whatnot that Neanderthals had there just don't work very well in human populations. And there are parts of the genome where basically the variants that everybody has or many people have are the Neanderthal variant. So if you go across the genome, it's, okay, none, none, a little bit, a little bit, none, a bunch, a little bit, a little bit, none. Gotcha.

So it's not just evenly across. It's not evenly across. So within modern humans, there's parts of the Neanderthal that we have, but there's big chunks that just don't exist in modern humans. Gotcha. Interesting. Well, thank you so much for being here, Dr. Ryan Rahm, talking about cloning and Neanderthals and extinct things. Bring them back. Thank you so much for being here dr ryan rom talking about cloning and neonatals and extinct things come back thank you so much this has been star talk all stars extension with chuck nice yes better known as patrick milton well with a lower credit

you said it i did thank you and stay curious and keep looking up and don't clone yourself.