Ever felt curious about the behind-the-scenes of animal research and the fascinating technologies being leveraged? Well, strap in as we embark on an enlightening journey, unveiling the intriguing world of animal research and its advancements through the lens of CRISPR-Cas9. We're discussing how a team at the University of Basel is revolutionizing gene-editing to minimize the use of mice in muscle disease studies.
Our discussion doesn't stop at gene editing! We dive into the nitty-gritty of how Harvard Medical School researchers are utilizing cells to control excessive muscle inflammation. We'll unpack how this could potentially assist elderly individuals in maintaining endurance and muscle tone for longer. We spice it up a notch with a captivating study showcasing how rats are trained to visualize routes and tasks in a virtual reality environment. We're not just discussing the science, we're exploring its fascinating implications on animal behavior and focus.
We conclude on a thrilling note, calling out to our listeners for exciting future guest suggestions and more engaging content. Keep your ears open for news about giveaways and bonus content.
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Ever felt curious about the behind-the-scenes of animal research and the fascinating technologies being leveraged? Well, strap in as we embark on an enlightening journey, unveiling the intriguing world of animal research and its advancements through the lens of CRISPR-Cas9. We're discussing how a team at the University of Basel is revolutionizing gene-editing to minimize the use of mice in muscle disease studies.
Our discussion doesn't stop at gene editing! We dive into the nitty-gritty of how Harvard Medical School researchers are utilizing cells to control excessive muscle inflammation. We'll unpack how this could potentially assist elderly individuals in maintaining endurance and muscle tone for longer. We spice it up a notch with a captivating study showcasing how rats are trained to visualize routes and tasks in a virtual reality environment. We're not just discussing the science, we're exploring its fascinating implications on animal behavior and focus.
We conclude on a thrilling note, calling out to our listeners for exciting future guest suggestions and more engaging content. Keep your ears open for news about giveaways and bonus content.
Sign up for the Lab Rat Chat newsletter!
https://www.amprogress.org/raising-voices/lab-rat-chat/
Resources & Links:
Follow us on Twitter! Facebook! Instagram!
https://twitter.com/thelabratchat
https://www.facebook.com/labratchat
https://www.instagram.com/thelabratchat
All Lab Rat Chat episodes are edited by Audionauts: https://audionauts.pro/
This podcast is supported by Americans for Medical Progress and was founded and created through the Michael D Hare Fellowship, awarded annually to support projects that inform and educate the public about the critical role of animal research in furthering medical progress. The Fellowship honors the late Dr Michael Hare, a renowned board-certified laboratory animal veterinarian who dedicated his career to scientific and medical advancements and who was deeply committed to animal welfare and advocacy. Hey, everyone, welcome into the November edition of the Labrat Chat NewsVide episodes. Thanks for joining us today. And look at this we are back to back months now doing NewsVide episodes.
Speaker 2:We did.
Speaker 1:September or we did. No, we didn't do September, we did October and now November. So hopefully we'll be back on track doing this every month, like we had set up last episode last month, and keep bringing you these exciting stories every single month about things going on in the field of animal research and just random animal stories. Danielle has two stories. I have two stories, Turns out we talked before the episode. We're actually like an hour into this recording. We're just now getting to actually starting to record.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we goofed off quite a bit. And I will say so. I read my articles before we started this and I just realized that I already forgot everything that I read, so I'm reading them again now, while you give the intro.
Speaker 1:So you want me to. How long should I make the intro?
Speaker 2:You need like five, ten minutes.
Speaker 1:So my two episodes and I mean usually we'll do some like life update stuff I feel like that much really happened in the last 30 days. I've just been working and it's all boring and stuff nobody wants to hear about. So, I don't have anything fun. My wife and kids are having fun, and Alaina going to the zoo and aquarium while I'm stuck here.
Speaker 2:You're a business owner now. Your life is tied to.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Tied to work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, except doing this podcast. I feel like this podcast is kind of like a. I think it's more of like a hobby than anything else. I just enjoy it. Hopefully it comes out, hopefully it shows when we do this we're not here like no one's forcing us to do these, we're just doing it every month, just hopefully brings some people some enjoyment and some and hopefully a little bit of like learning material, Something low ed, educating Edgy Is that?
Speaker 2:the right word Educational.
Speaker 1:There you go.
Speaker 2:All right.
Speaker 1:Sometimes we go home school and sometimes I really worry what our kids are learning.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, and last month we did the fun little giveaway on Instagram. We got a lot of entries. It was super fun Picked the winner, shipped off the prize. I should probably check the tracking number. I imagine that will be arriving.
Speaker 1:Hopefully it already arrived this week, but yeah, I'll maybe throw some more of those in if I find one little. Yeah, I didn't win.
Speaker 2:You didn't win an entrance, I was real disappointed. You can't win if you don't play.
Speaker 1:That's true. That's true, I think my son. Right before I started recording. My dogs were barking outside and now she's like standing right next to me going nuts. I think she can hear you through the headphones.
Speaker 2:Oh.
Speaker 1:And it's like strange or dangerous in here. For sure, she doesn't know what to do. She won't leave me alone.
Speaker 1:So there's like weird dog noises next to me. Her tail keeps hitting the table. I apologize, but All right, it is what it is. So my two articles are I have one about muscle research and how we can get faster results with fewer laboratory animals, so kind of focusing on the three Rs for that article, which is always always good to do. And then I have another one about kind of rats imagine and rats get to play. Vr video games.
Speaker 2:So I have that same article, but I think it'll be cool because it'll finally be that we've both read the article and we can actually have a conversation about it. But my other article is also muscle related, but not the same one as you. It's about immune cells helping control muscle inflammation during exercise.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So we'll save our, our dual one for last.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like I said, we both read it, but clearly you are reading it while I'm talking about this first story.
Speaker 2:Well, I've read it twice.
Speaker 1:By the time we finished, okay, and then I do have just a completely bonkers research study just to briefly mention at the end. Just it just blows my mind that taxpayer dollars go towards these sorts of things. All right, I'll start off. So my story about muscle research just talks about specifically how they use mice. So mice are a great model organism for studying muscle diseases and these researchers at the university Basel Basel is B-A-S-E-L. Doesn't say where that is. Doesn't sound like it's in the United States, if it is.
Speaker 2:Sorry, sorry but don't.
Speaker 1:I say that Basel, there must be basel, huh or basel, but I don't know. No help here.
Speaker 2:No, I got nothing. Okay, if I knew where it was from, I could turn on my accents and say oh, it is basel, but I don't know if that's French.
Speaker 1:So Right, and it might be American. And then?
Speaker 2:Then it's basel. No, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1:That's Louisiana.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:All right, except you said it way too fast, it's slow but down oh basel.
Speaker 1:All right. So, like I said, researchers use the mouse as a model to study structure and function of mainly skeletal muscle, and so they can study different neuromuscular diseases, aging processes as we age, you know, we lose a good amount of muscle mass, and so these researchers at the University of Basel have decided to find a way to reduce the number of mice, because it takes a long time. As you know, when you're doing any like gene function studies with mice, you know you have to like create like generations of mice to knock out those genes. Right, we've all, if you've been in the lab over and worked with mice or know anything about it. It's just kind of like a process for you're knocking in or knocking out different genes through generations of mice, so to get what you want.
Speaker 1:But now these researchers, with the use of the CRISPR-Cas9 method, they use a virus to introduce the so-called like the Cas9 protein, which can then get into the organism and then into the nucleus, and then it can actually change the DNA where, specifically where they want it to, and that changes that DNA will then allow the gene function to be altered within the cell and then ultimately within the mouse, so they can change the gene function in a living animal, instead of having to breed more and change them through generation of mice.
Speaker 1:And so the researchers the first thing they had to do was breed the mice with that Cas9 protein that's on the muscle fibers, but only on the muscle fibers, because we don't they were, we, I was not involved. They didn't want to change any other cells on the body, obviously. So they did that. They bred it, they got the Cas9 protein right there on the muscle fiber and then they could insert their the virus, along with whatever gene modifications they wanted to make, and it would go straight to those Cas9 spots on the muscle, get into the cells, change the genetic makeup of that cell, and now those animals can all be used to study different gene modifications without having to be bred over years and years.
Speaker 2:And then they can study, does it say, if you then bred those mice, would their offspring have the same genetics?
Speaker 1:It doesn't say I know that's so.
Speaker 1:That's one of the fears about the CRISPR system and altering genes is that if you alter them and one like if you alter them and the one mouse, that now their offspring are going to be affected to it.
Speaker 1:Maybe you don't want it to you because you're doing it for a research or testing purposes that has a negative consequence, and so I know that's one of like the fears about the CRISPR Cas9 system. It's like generational changes that you can't maybe get back. So it doesn't say and I'm sure there's more research out there on that and I'm sure they've they they probably know the answer, but it doesn't necessarily say if those changes are. I think they can keep breeding the Cas9 mice so they can make the changes when they want to with new mice. I don't know if they can let those changes affect their offspring or if they're even breeding them after, so but then they can just make those changes to the genes and they can study those muscle fibers and neuromuscular diseases and they don't need a large number of mice to do it. So I mean that's kind of cool. They can reduce, they can still get what they need accomplished.
Speaker 1:Generations of breeding and yeah, and then we can get data faster and everything too. We're not waiting for a bunch of changes to happen. So yeah, all right, but yeah, so that's it for that one.
Speaker 2:Well, I'll piggyback on that with my muscle one. So a research group. And again, where are they from? I don't know? Harvard, Harvard Medical School.
Speaker 1:See, I read this like an hour ago and I forgot that is in the US. That is, yes, I mean it's.
Speaker 2:Harvard no.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, do your Boston accent for that one, huh.
Speaker 2:Harvard, it's true, kind of so the group in up in Harvard. They did a research project involving mice and exercise to try to figure out why exercising you know people go to the gym. They want to either get ripped or get lean or you know you're working your muscles at the gym why do you not have crazy damage to your muscles and inflammation? And you know, swollen knees and pain? Obviously you have some muscle pain because you've broken down the muscle fibers, but why is it not such severe muscle damage? So they found out that we have the cell group called regulatory T cells which prevent excessive muscle inflammation during and after physical activity by suppressing and I'm reading this so it sounds a little robotic by suppressing the production of a pro-inflammatory messenger protein or cytokine called IFNY, and I don't know if I'm supposed to call that IFNY or IFNI.
Speaker 1:I like the IFNY.
Speaker 2:Because IFNY is a little more fun. So I think I'm going to say it for this article. So by having the T cell, the regulatory T cells, activate, it suppresses the IFNY cytokine cells.
Speaker 1:Is it a Y or is it like the gamma, like that?
Speaker 2:Oh, hmm. Well, it looks like maybe it is the gamma. It looks like a lowercase Y, but now that I'm questioning that, I don't know how to say that.
Speaker 1:then it's like if you're on something gamma. I think that's what IFN is.
Speaker 2:Why is Now IFN question mark oh it's the Insurance Federation of New York.
Speaker 1:Gotcha, that's what it is. Yeah, interfere on gamma, that's IFNY.
Speaker 2:Okay, all right Cool.
Speaker 1:I mean, stick with it me, you know.
Speaker 2:No, because I literally had to zoom my eyeballs in on this website and I guess it is a little gamma sign. See, that's why we have a vet as our co-host on this show. You can pronounce things and determine things much quicker than I can.
Speaker 1:Not always. Not usually. Not usually.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't know that one either.
Speaker 2:But also it shows that mice that don't have the regulatory T cells so they can either turn them off Again it's probably a knock-in or a knock-out situation.
Speaker 2:They create more of IFNY during the exercise and having those higher cytokine levels reduces the animal's ability to gain physical endurance. They did this with short-term and long-term experiments. The short-term they were testing levels, I think day one, three and seven, and then the long-term ones, again, this involved treadmills for the short-term, I think long-term, it said that the mice had access to a hamster wheel, mouse wheel, whatever you want to call it, at all times and they were tested at two, three or four weeks. It's kind of a long-term study because maybe if we can figure out if the T regulatory T cells get turned off with aging and you have age-related tissue damage, maybe different therapies can target it to help elderly people don't stay ripped at the gym, their muscle just deflates what do you call it when your muscle is just deteriorating. They're looking at maybe the long-term of being able to help injuries or elderly people to maintain endurance and muscle tone longer, if maybe something's getting turned off in their system and a different therapy could turn it back on.
Speaker 1:I think you lose and don't quote me I think by the time you're 65, 75, or just as you age in general, I think you end up losing like 35% or so of your muscle mass.
Speaker 2:Unless you're actively trying to work out. Yeah, it doesn't come back. They're looking at. Well, maybe if you can manipulate the regulatory T cells, maybe you can improve. They call it geriatric patients, it just sounds so cruel improve their health without that inflammatory repercussion. So I don't know. Very interesting, I like to think. A little mice just titilling it on a little treadmill.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Living their best life.
Speaker 1:Just hitting the bench press there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:That would be. I mean, it is important to figure out how to maintain some muscle mass as you age, Just because so many injuries are involved around and the elderly just as far as muscle mass goes, and not having strength or stuff in the upper curb and falling and they're like devastating injuries.
Speaker 1:So you know what to maintain. That would be Awesome, and working out every day and hitting the gym isn't always necessarily feasible when you get older. Yeah, that Outlive book that I talked about last time. He talks a lot about ways to maintain muscle mass and the goal of that book is to try to you know how to increase your longevity and health span.
Speaker 2:Well, I know you're obsessed with living forever, so it goes into a lot of that.
Speaker 1:I know when you brought it up, this time I don't want to live, you know, but just making sure you have like that, that good like health span, along with lifespan they actually like can run around and your older age and play with grandkids and stuff. So anyways, that's not good on that road. No, but read the book, the book's pretty.
Speaker 2:This is not a paid endorsement.
Speaker 1:Sorry, it is not at all. He would be a great guest, but he's never coming on our show.
Speaker 2:Should we All right? So our next article is the same one.
Speaker 1:VR time. Yeah, yeah, you want me to start, it All right.
Speaker 2:Let's do it.
Speaker 1:And you just jump in. Obviously, humans have an imagination, quite an extensive imagination. Especially if you have kids, the imaginations are real. Jeff, that stain that I showed you no, this is the side note, or, if you're Daniel, that stain that I showed you on the ceiling.
Speaker 2:Or if you're Daniel, I my son saw it and I was like you know, how could that have gotten up there? And he's like maybe there was a frog that came in the house and he had just finished eating French fries, so he was greasy and he jumped really high and he hit the ceiling and he left a little grease mark on the ceiling.
Speaker 2:And I'm like buddy, that is the best theory of why there's a strange greasy mark on my ceiling and we have 10, we have 10 foot ceilings downstairs, so it's not like like it's up there, like I don't know how I got up there, but I just will forever imagine a frog having just totally gone bananas on a French fry container.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah that, that, that frog.
Speaker 2:Hit the gym getting his endurance up, eating those French fries though, which aren't really part of the gym lifestyle.
Speaker 1:but I mean workout hard.
Speaker 2:You know the word yourself a little bit. So greasy frog left a mark on my ceiling. Maybe it's probably the frog's cheek day.
Speaker 1:That's what it was. Yes, he ate the fries and then he jumped up there and well, I'm glad he's, I'm glad he's still there.
Speaker 2:I just loved his imagination because he was really. It was like a thoughtful like. This is the theory that I'm going to tell my parents of how that mark got up there. But it also begs the question of like did he throw something up there and he was trying to cover his tracks? I don't know.
Speaker 1:It was the perfect outline of a mouse, so they only think he could have thrown us a mouse. Because you have a little mouse toy Many mouse shaped toys in our house because I just love mice.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's true, but none of, none of my mice, none of my little mice are greasy, so I don't know how that got up on the ceiling.
Speaker 1:Well, all the grease hit the ceiling and came out of the mouse.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it absorbed it and cleaned the mouse off, and then he put it back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, you have quite the imagination as well.
Speaker 2:It was where I was getting it going yeah, right right, all your little mouse, my little demented life that I live, yeah.
Speaker 1:Stories. I don't use Instagram a whole lot, but whenever I do, whenever I open it up, it's your mouse pictures. Yeah, it's fun Every time. So anyways, humans obviously have a vast imagination and it's. I mean, I guess we've kind of pondered whether or not animals have that same type of imagination and then we've never really thought that, like mice or rats have it. But the new study out of Howard Hughes Medical Institute, I had to look up what HHMI was.
Speaker 2:Well yes, the story says it right, so.
Speaker 1:I'm on live science, so shout out to live science and science dailycom. So one of the one of the tasks, like if you're driving, you're walking, you kind of you can imagine the route without thinking about it. You're kind of a planning out your route and your head on how you're going to get somewhere. Yeah, I don't think you just have passion for getting your car unless you do it over and over and over to go, but or you just follow GPS, but it's a routine commute to work or a trip to an unfamiliar location. You're using some sort of imagination, and so they tried to kind of recreate this and mice. And so all this imagination, rats, rats. You're right. Yeah, What'd I say? I said mice. Well, we were talking about mice.
Speaker 1:So imaginations controlled by the hippocampus which, as we know, it's involved in learning and memory, and I guess previously they've shown people with damaged hemp, hemp, a camp. This is our hemp hippocampi, I don't know. They struggled to like imagine things. They have problems like figuring out where they're going or or just imagining in general, and so they took on. This article was published in science, by the way, just on November 2nd.
Speaker 1:So we're this is very new, which is great. I know Super current, and so they basically use virtual reality and a brain machine to show that rats can indeed illustrate that they have imagination. I know you want to talk a little bit about it. I was trying to kind of picture it as I was reading they put them on like a sphere treadmill thing.
Speaker 2:So I'm picturing them like running on top of a ball and they're in a 360 virtual reality thing and they can train the rat to kind of run on this ball and run to a specific location in this virtual reality spot and then there's a reward there and then they'll take away the images, like, so the rat isn't seeing it. No, I already missed, missed a part. First they had something hooked up to his brain, that brain machine interface. So they're kind of recording what the hippocampus is. Again, I don't know how, like maybe it's like Morse code, like beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, but they're getting this, this recording of what the brain is, I don't know, thinking and converting it into what the machine, I don't again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think they had them. They had them like run towards the firstly, like trained them they can go towards the goalpost and get a treat, and then they set up the game and the VR system where they were kind of fixed on a spot. And they had their brain hooked up and their brain, they could track it. There's something on the screen that they could basically like imagine getting to that goalpost and when their brain got there they would get a treat.
Speaker 2:And they have like this video. That probably would have helped me understand this a little better.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, it helped me, so they. But basically it's I mean it's some complex like just technology and brain studies.
Speaker 2:I did read that it took nine years to get there and I can't even imagine the science that went into this. It's totally cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so they have like a, they have a goalpost, if you will, and they have like, which is where the rats need to get to get the treat. And they can like see the rat, although they're not actually getting there. They can like see the rat through the hippocampus, planning its route on how it's going to get there, and then when it gets there and the brain it's basically mapped out the route to get there and it hits it via imagination. They get a treat and then they'll move the goalpost to different spots and you can like see this little target which is basically tracking the rats imagination, if you will, and when, whenever that dot hits the goalpost, it gets the treat. And then they even did it for like an for objects.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they had like a jumper task and a Jedi task Moving an object into the goalpost.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, the Jedi task was to use the force, if you will, to move a box toward the goal post and whenever they can use, like harness, their mental map to think about navigating the object through the environment without actually moving, and they get the object to the goal.
Speaker 2:And it also talked about the rat's attention span to that, because we don't know what an animal's attention span is, but they were, you know, thinking of things that weren't there for many seconds. And again, we have no idea what the correct attention span of a rat should be, but it is showing that they kind of stay on the same thought for longer than just a millisecond, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it's kind of. I mean, I'm not reading the science article. I'm sure the science article goes into all these details. I do want all the numbers and statistics and all that stuff to go with it. You could go there to get that, yeah, but just in general, it just shows that they do have this like cognitive ability to imagine and play in.
Speaker 2:I think this just feeds into my brain of like I just picture these little rats going home in the wild and their little burrows and being like oh, what's for dinner? I really wish I could find more acorns. Like. I just feel like it adds to the cuteness of like what's for dinner tonight.
Speaker 1:Right, and then they're playing on how to like get out there and I also think in the lab animal world.
Speaker 2:This feeds into the same thing about all those wonderful enrichment programs that everyone does Like. It makes a difference when you can help work an animal's brain, because they clearly have awesome thoughts going on up there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you definitely got to keep them stimulated, so that thing, I mean I think they get bored, you know, and it would come a long ways over the years with enrichment, so but so that's it for that one. If you want to, we'll have links to all these along when we publish the episodes and we'll try to maybe get the videos now like a super exciting video or imagine like an old, like 1980s, or maybe even like an Atari video game which is kind of even before our time.
Speaker 2:Nice.
Speaker 1:Almost like Pong you know, is what the videos look like.
Speaker 2:Cool.
Speaker 1:So, but we could put them up.
Speaker 2:We could put videos on Instagram right. Sometimes you just have to do like a screen video, like a screenshot video, but I can do that. I'll figure it out.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, since we kind of merged our second article into one.
Speaker 2:You can talk about your. I have many questions on this article.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I don't know why and I mean, listen, love the Navy and but this study was supported by the Office of Naval Research and Naval Undersea Warfare Center. I feel like they've got better things to probably support, but I mean it was out of Brown University, so maybe they were just like supporting it. Either way, this is how it starts. Anyone who's ever done a belly flop into a swimming pool knows it ends with a blunt sounding splash and a big splash in a searing red sting and most people. What most people don't know is why. So this is what we studied to figure out how we could do less pain. We could do less painful belly flops, and these researchers have the answer.
Speaker 2:So wait, so is this human subjects research.
Speaker 1:I don't even want to get into the details on it. No, they didn't even like you think you just? Get like all right line them up and start doing belly flops, you know, and then have them do a pain score and just see whoever has the best technique. But no, I got it got real complicated. They have belly flop like water experiments, they use this blunt cylinder and then they have like this. So this isn't animal research either.
Speaker 2:This is just ridiculous research that you want to talk about because public funds have gone to it.
Speaker 1:I think the only tie to an animal is I think they talk about how so diving birds are able to like do?
Speaker 2:this over and over and without any consequences.
Speaker 1:Well, and it's funny that I saw this article and then there was a whole separate article about how those birds can dive in at like I don't know how fast they're going like 40 miles an hour or something like that into the water, and how can they do that without suffering concussions?
Speaker 2:I'm like well, I feel like they have a long beat to kind of break the force a little bit, you know, ease the force.
Speaker 1:I don't know if we have to do whole research articles but research experiments on that, but hey, someone is. But I guess they're trying to use that information from those diving birds and how they're avoiding concussions.
Speaker 2:Are belly flops in the Navy a big problem?
Speaker 1:Putting it back.
Speaker 2:Are guys jumping off the boat?
Speaker 1:I don't know.
Speaker 2:Totally missing the mark.
Speaker 1:I'll have to ask my dad. I mean, that wasn't the Navy, all right, is this a part of your training? Like, do you have to belly flop effectively to be in the Navy?
Speaker 2:Now I picture a military out there on a boat, just having fun, just belly flopping, jumping up the side of the boat.
Speaker 1:Cannonball Right, just perfecting that technique. Like you have them over at your house, they do a belly flop and it's perfect, doesn't hurt, can't?
Speaker 2:you learn that they just on the other pool put their arms out and just lean forward like a bird, just ball flopping.
Speaker 1:Right, so it's just a perfect little swan.
Speaker 1:So swan dives, swan flop. So I mean I really don't understand all of the implications and I just can't believe we spent so much time investigating this and maybe we did, maybe they did it all in a day. Yeah, maybe it was like the end of the year. You know you got money to spend, but he used it or lose it, kind of thing, and they're like let's do belly flops. And so, anyways, they figured out and there's no real answer, like doesn't tell you the best technique at every like, at any point in this article to actually do a belly flop. They just show like different angles can increase, like impact forces.
Speaker 2:Seems like common sense yeah.
Speaker 1:Seems kind of intuitive, yeah, so they just kept like dropping the cylinder.
Speaker 2:Maybe these were people who, like, didn't take swim lessons as kids and like didn't learn to like put your arms in front of you and dive into the pool, or jump like a pencil where your feet go in first Right.
Speaker 1:I mean, how many people are just belly?
Speaker 2:flopping and just hope for the best.
Speaker 1:Right and they're just trying to figure out, like how can you enter a pool without so painful? You know, they just can't do it. How are these people doing?
Speaker 2:Scientists.
Speaker 1:Maybe there is a whole community of people that, just like, haven't figured out how to get into the pool.
Speaker 2:This has been on their mind.
Speaker 1:So I mean so, but anyways that's that. That's that I mean just. I think belly flop contest was like a highlight of some of my childhood.
Speaker 2:For us it was always cannonballs. It was who could make the biggest splash.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Just going out and being like yeah, I mean that, of course, that too.
Speaker 2:But did you just like? Do you remember canopeners? Did you do canopeners? Okay, I'm glad that canopeners are a jump across the US that people know about.
Speaker 1:Canopeners also.
Speaker 2:Yep, I've heard.
Speaker 1:I believe right. Yeah, jackknife. Okay, yeah, we would do both. Yeah, I've been trying to teach my kids.
Speaker 2:I mean, they're great at cannonballs, but yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like you got like hold the knee and go in, which I feel like this is like. I think you don't need to do that. You know it's just like kids being kids. I'm not sure it's more effective holding like one leg up and going down, going in both legs down. I don't know. I guess you can like pull back harder, but yeah, but then you got to do the belly flop competitions as well, cause who's who's willing to just air it out and go all out?
Speaker 2:I don't think I ever willingly did a belly flop Maybe my brother, but not me. Yeah, no.
Speaker 1:I'm afraid now I'm not doing it now? My kids want me to do it with them. When they do it and it's just, I'm not like. I'm just like, hey, I'm too old. I've way more like massed. Now.
Speaker 2:When my son jumps in the pool he kind of does like a gecko pose Like his arms are kind of like he jumps in on like a diagonal angle and like his knees kind of come up, but one's usually a little higher than the other one and they're kind of like out to the side, and his arms are kind of like bent at the elbow and he makes these little claws and he just like jumps in. And now I picture like a little gecko, just like yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, that's hilarious. There's one more line in here. It talks about how and why belly flops happen, and it just talks about like one of the one of the issues is you're at a pool party and you have trivia and everyone's trying to figure out why belly bops, belly flops, belly flops hurt so much?
Speaker 2:No, no, I haven't have you ever done that? I never have. Are you sure you're not reading this on like?
Speaker 1:These people don't these people are living.
Speaker 2:Is this how the onion or some like joke website?
Speaker 1:Real life.
Speaker 2:Okay, science daily.
Speaker 1:Okay, Science daily. I mean, if science daily is a joke website we've been giving people that information for two years.
Speaker 2:And if we're just for a year and a half, if we're just learning this now, we should not be hosting this podcast. Yeah.
Speaker 1:This will be our last episode. All right, Thanks everyone for sticking sticking with us. I know, like I said, we life's just got kind of busy and we weren't doing this consistently. But here we are back to back months. Yep, Planned on being back every month with some news bites. The interview episodes, like I said, are just harder to schedule and get people to commit and give us their time, because it is all kind of volunteer. We don't, you know, have a huge budget where we're able to pay people to come in or offer anything.
Speaker 2:We've interviewed all of our connections and trends.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know we've tapped out and now people are like, well, it's a lot of commitment. So again, you can email us live at chat at gmailcom. You have ideas or they know anyone or want to be on the show, you know, be more than happy to talk to you about that. And then check us out on social media, and you never know.
Speaker 2:I find some cute little stuff. I'll get extra and we'll do another giveaway.
Speaker 1:Thanks everyone, and we'll talk to you next time, see ya.