What if you could rewrite your DNA? The science behind Spider-Man’s chimera villains, CRISPR, genetics, and Handwavium.

In the 74th episode of Rabbit Hole of Research, Joe, Nick, and Georgia are joined by guest Erin C. Anthony, an evolutionary ecologist and science communicator, to continue their Spider-Man villain series with a deep dive into chimeras: part myth, part Handwavium, and recently part reality.

The crew kicks off explaining what a chimera is? And is Spider-Man one? They explore the science behind why you can’t just inject someone with scorpion DNA and call it a day, looking at you waving those hands J. Jonah Jameson.

Along the way they get into CRISPR, epigenetics, xenotransplants, and the very real, and ethically complicated, efforts to grow human organs inside animals. They also talk about the axolotl and salamander research behind limb regeneration, debate whether Frankenstein’s monster would have survived immune rejection?

They also touch on the ethics of brain chimeras, clones as organ banks, and the comic run Flowers for Rhino, a riff on Daniel Keyes’ Flowers for Algernon that asks what happens when a supervillain gets too smart for his own good.

The episode closes with the crew’s answers to the most important question of the night: if you could splice your DNA with one animal, what would it be?

Pre-Order: Touch of Noir 2027 Wall Calendar —

12 months of all-original art by Jim and Georgia; pre-orders open now, with mailing expected in September

Joe will be at Shore Leave 46 — Lancaster, PA (July 10-12, 2026)

Lancaster Wyndham Resort and Convention Center

Check out what the RHR crew is creating:

Joe:

Named by the Guild Literary Complex as one of the 35 Writers to Watch!
Red Line: Chicago Horror Stories Anthology featuring a story by Joe!
Joe’s Sci-fi physiological thriller Novel: Will You Still Love Me If I Become Someone Else?
Joe’s Rom-Com Novella: Tomorrow May Be Too Late
Essay by Joe: From Beyond Press: Specific Knowledge: Jotham Austin, II, PhD on Transformations in Fiction

Future Events to Hang with the Crew:

Podcast Cross-Appearances

Joe on GoIndieNow: 21grams with Joe Compton talking about villains.
RHR Crew on This Podcast Will Change Your Life with Ben Tanzer

Events & Conventions:

Shore Leave 46 — Lancaster, PA (July 10-12, 2026)Lancaster Wyndham Resort and Convention Center
Dragon Con — Atlanta, GA (September 3-7, 2026) – Joe attending as Professional

It’s Science for Weirdos

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We want to Hear From You (leave a comment):

If you could splice your DNA with one animal, what would it be and why?
Would you accept a lab-grown organ grown inside a pig using your own stem cells if it meant saving your life?
Scientists have drawn a hard line at brain chimeras. Do you think that line is in the right place?

Drop your thoughts in the comments. We read them all, and your ideas often shape future episodes.

Future Episodes

Three Part Spider-Man Series continues to get ready for the new MCU Spider-Man: Brand New Day

Episode 76 – Spider-Man Villains Series 3: What His Villains Reveal About HimGuest: Comic YouTuber, Alex Hanes (@Hanes4Heroes)The conclusion of the Spider-Man trilogy takes a step back to ask what the science of his villains tells us about Spider-Man himself.
Episode 78 – Briar East Woods – Urban DeforestationGuest: Anne Sedlacek
Episode 80: Magic: the Power and Cost of Magic SystemsGuest: B.L.Mostyn
Episode 82: Climate Change and Data CentersGuest: David Pincus, PhD

Show Notes & Fun facts

Stuff crew said they’d put in shownotes

Episode 1: Take Me Down to Electric Avenue — Frankenstein, reanimation, and the history of electrifying corpses: https://jothamaustin.substack.com/p/episode-1-take-me-down-to-electric
Episode 14: Exploring Regeneration from Wolverine and Deadpool — axolotls, salamanders, stem cells, and regeneration science: https://jothamaustin.substack.com/p/episode-14-exploring-regeneration
Episode 49: The Heart of a Superhero — with guest Dr. Rengasayee “Sai” Veeraraghavan, referenced during the heart chimera discussion: https://jothamaustin.substack.com/p/the-heart-of-a-superhero
Human cells grow in mouse embryos — Nature (June 2025):https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01898-z
Human heart grown in pig embryo — Nature (2025):https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01854-x
iNaturalist — app Erin used to track the Portland scorpion sighting:

https://www.inaturalist.org

Radiolab episodes on CRISPR — mentioned by Georgia:

CRISPR part 1 (2015)

CRISPR part 2 (2017)

Comics

Amazing Spider-Man — Scorpion origin (Issue #20, 1965)
Amazing Spider-Man — The Lizard origin (Issue #6, 1963)
Flowers for Rhino — published in Spider-Man’s Tangled Web #5–6 (2001). Written by Peter Milligan with art by Duncan Fegredo, it pays homage to Daniel Keyes’ sci-fi classic Flowers for Algernon

Books

Flowers for Algernon — Daniel Keyes (short story and novel)
Never Let Me Go — Kazuo Ishiguro
Scorpion House — Nancy Farmer (YA sci-fi novel)
The Island of Doctor Moreau — H.G. Wells

Movies

The Fly (1986, dir. David Cronenberg) — Jeff Goldblum
The Fly (1958) — Vincent Price original: Help Me!
Jurassic Park (1993) — Reptile DNA, should have been bird DNA.
Spider-Man: The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)
They Live (1988)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

TV

X-Files — The Salamander referenced by Erin
BoJack Horseman — referenced during Minotaur discussion
Spider-Man animated series (1981) — The Lizard episode the crew watched before recording

Fun Facts to Impress Your Friends With:

Scorpions glow in the dark — and not just under a blacklight. Scorpions fluoresce blue-green under UV light, including natural moonlight. Scientists still aren’t entirely sure why. One hypothesis is that the glow helps them detect light levels. Another is that it helps them find each other.
Your body can reject your own skin — Skin grafts taken from one part of your body and moved to another can actually be rejected or fully reabsorbed. Your immune system uses a lock-and-key system of antigens on cell surfaces to identify what belongs where, and sometimes even your own tissue in the wrong location doesn’t get the key.
A rat pancreas was grown inside a mouse — Scientists knocked out the gene a mouse needs to build a pancreas, injected rat stem cells into the gap, and the rat cells built a functional pancreas inside the mouse. When transplanted into diabetic mice, it produced insulin and reversed the disease. The blood vessels threading through it were still mouse, but the organ itself was rat.
Baby humans can regrow fingertips — Very young children, within days of birth, can regenerate amputated fingertips. The ability disappears quickly as stem cells deactivate. Salamanders keep this ability their entire lives, and scientists are actively researching how to switch it back on in humans.
CRISPR won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2020 — The molecular scissors technique that can clip out a region of DNA and replace it with another was awarded science’s highest honor just five years after the NIH imposed a moratorium on human-animal chimera research that relied on it. The tool and the ethics have been racing each other ever since.

Episode Highlights

00:00 — Hello From the Basement Studio

Joe, Nick, and Georgia welcome evolutionary ecologist and science teacher Erin C. Anthony, met at MarsCon in Virginia Beach.

01:46 — What Is a Chimera

Erin sets the record straight: a chimera is an organism composed of cells from two or more distinct organisms, not just DNA splicing.

03:48 — Is Spider-Man a Chimera?

Erin drops the verdict: Spider-Man is not a chimera, his radioactive spider bite is closer to a mutation than a true genetic mix.

05:48 — Jurassic Park DNA Detour

The crew questions why Jurassic Park used reptile DNA when the movie itself said birds are the closer evolutionary relatives of dinosaurs.

07:14 — Scorpion Origin Story

J. Jonah Jameson paid $10,000 in 1965 to have Mac Gargan experimentally fused with scorpion traits, because scorpions are natural predators of spiders.

09:30 — Why Adult Chimeras Fail

Erin explains why the Scorpion serum wouldn’t work on an adult: chimeric modification only really works in embryos, before cell paths are set.

10:56 — CRISPR Explained Simply

Joe breaks down CRISPR as molecular scissors that can clip out and replace regions of DNA, winner of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

13:37 — Ethics and the Deafness Case

Erin recounts the real legal case of a deaf couple who wanted CRISPR used to give their unborn child a hearing impairment to share their cultural community.

14:27 — Minotaur Thought Experiment

The crew works through how a Minotaur would actually develop, each cell carrying both horse and human DNA, developmental signals deciding which genes to express where.

16:39 — Growing Human Organs in Pigs

Joe explains how CRISPR knocks out a pig’s organ-development gene, human stem cells fill the vacancy, and the pig’s body becomes an incubator for a human organ.

31:46 — Xenotransplants Reality Check

Erin reports on the two real pig-to-human heart transplants (2022 and 2023), the recipients survived two months and six weeks respectively.

36:09 — Clones as Organ Banks

The crew discusses Erin’s high school read Scorpion House and Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, fiction that asked whether clones could ethically serve as personal organ reserves.

39:26 — Back to Spider-Man Villains

Nick steers the crew back to the rogues gallery: Tarantula, Rhino, Scorpion, some biological chimeras, some purely mechanical.

40:30 — Atomic Age Comic Science

Joe connects the radiation-and-DNA origin stories of 1960s Spider-Man villains to Cold War atomic anxiety and the dawn of genetic science.

43:22 — Heart Shock Origins

Erin notes that electromagnetic pulse revival of hearts, the science behind defibrillators, first appeared in science fiction before becoming medical reality.

43:56 — Frankenstein Electric Revival

Joe ties it back to Episode 1: Mary Shelley attended parlor events where scientists used electricity to animate corpses, inspiring Frankenstein.

45:56 — Spider-Man Lizard Science

Joe and Erin unpack the Lizard’s origin, Dr. Connors chose reptiles for limb regeneration, but lizards don’t actually regrow limbs; salamanders do.

49:10 — Stem Cells and Limb Regrowth

Erin explains that salamanders keep their stem cells active their whole lives, humans have the same genes, they’re just switched off after infancy.

53:44 — CRISPR Switches and Pathways

The crew debates whether CRISPR could flip the regeneration switch back on in adult humans, or whether the answer lies at the epigenetic level instead.

56:35 — Scorpion Venom and UV Glow

Joe reveals that scorpion venom compounds are being researched as anti-cancer, antifungal, and antiviral agents, and that scorpions fluoresce under UV light, including moonlight.

59:41 — Trench Coats and Chimeras

Doc Ock and Scorpion both hide their modifications under trench coats, a fact that sends the crew down an unexpected and spirited detour.

01:05:30 — Pick Your Animal Splice

Nick asks the big question: if you could splice your DNA with one animal, what would it be? Axolotl, mantis shrimp, pig, bald eagle, and photosynthesis all make the list.

01:09:15 — Xenografts and Farewell

Erin drops one last term, xenograft, the grafting of animal parts from one species into another.

“Stay curious, stay safe… Love Y’all!”

“Stay curious, stay safe… Love Y’all!”

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Transcript

joe: [00:00:00] Hey,

welcome back to the Rabbit Hole of Research down here in the basement studio. You’ve got me, Joe.

nick: You got Nick.

joe: got Nick.

geo: Georgia.

joe: We’ve got Georgia. We’re all crewed up. We have a… Well, no, we’re not all crewed up now.

geo: Now. We’re missing Mary.

nick: Mary.

joe: we’re three-fourths crewed up now. We, the old- Yeah

this is old school here. Mary is not with us, but we do have a special guest. Would you like to, introduce

erin: I’m…

Yes. I’m Erin Anthony. And I am a evolutionary ecologist but now I am a middle school science teacher. I do a lot of science communication and interpretation for the general public

joe: Awesome, yeah. And we met at Mars Con in Virginia Beach, so we were on a panel. I think I moderated the panel we were on. I can’t remember if that was the case or, yeah. Oh, well. That

was

erin: we were on a couple, we were on a

joe: yeah, it feels feels [00:01:00] forever ago. But always a f- it’s a fun time, so if you’re in the Virginia Beach area, or even if you’re not, just take a trip over.

It’s usually pretty nice in January, so. But yeah, we’re here. We’re continuing our

Spider-Man

villain series and- What’s

nick: what’s our episode today, Joe?

joe: we’re gonna be talking about in particular maybe a little bit of Scorpion and the other chimeras in the Spider-Man universe. So we’ve got an evolutionary biologist and, so yeah we’re kind

nick: See I figured this was gonna be the Pokémon episode.

joe: Yeah, that’s you’re right. Pokemon also have a lot of

nick: of chimeras

joe: or chimeras. I don’t know. What is that, like a potato and potato? Sure.

geo: I know

nick: I know the exact definition of the two of them.

joe: Yeah, so I, I can, you want me to get into it? I have my little-

geo: Oh, please … cheat

joe: guide us in.

So every cell in your body contains the same DNA.

Your liver cells, eyes, brain, feet, skin, the same code, identical instructions. What makes them different is which [00:02:00] instructions they’re allowed to read. Cellular machinery silences some genes and amplify others, following their section of the blueprint. All the cells with their different blueprints come together and make us work.

But what if your cells could ignore their blueprints and you could rewrite those designs? Sounds like science fiction or handwavium, but it’s actually not. Scientists have done it. They’ve deleted genes a pig needs to grow a pancreas, injected human stem cells into the gap, and coaxed a human organ to grow, using the pig’s body as an incubator to create organs that could potentially be used for transplant back into a human.

And Spider-Man villains have been riffing on this technology unwittingly since 1963. A man fused with the scorpion traits specifically and why? Because scorpions are natural predators of spiders, of course. A surgeon who lost his arm and decided lizard DNA was the answer to regenerate his lost limb.

A Victorian geneticist who spent over a century building [00:03:00] organisms assembled from the parts of multiple beings trying to guide evolution, and he named his creations chimeras. The Greek used the same word for creatures assembled from parts that weren’t meant to go together, and they thought of them as monsters.

But is that what they are? Or is that just what we call something before we understand it, before we learn to build it ourselves? And as Richard Feynman once wrote on his blackboard, “What I cannot create, I do not understand.” So

nick: Interesting. So, if he couldn’t make pasta, he’d be like, “I don’t

joe: make pasta, he’d be like, “I don’t-“

geo: right.

Well, he didn’t say he had to make it well.

Right. He

joe: is not Mrs. Doubtfire.

geo: This is witchcraft. But,

joe: he would be he would probably be a villain in the Spider-Man universe. That’s a that’s-

geo: So Spider-Man is a… And I’m always afraid of the pronunciation. Can you say it again?

joe: Chimera? Chimera. Or chimera.

I don’t know. Erin do you have

erin: I say Chimera,

nick: [00:04:00] yeah.

geo: Chimera. So Spider-Man’s a chimera, right? Because he’s part Spider-Man?

nick: I think you’re right.

erin: No.

nick: it.

erin: No.

he is

nick: N- what? Okay.

Whoa.

erin: because the… It’s not even possible, but his

DNA was altered with venom, and it’s not that he has another set of DNA

in his

joe: Yeah.

nick: Even when he became the h- Man-Spider?

erin: Yes. So it’s technically like his DNA. It’s not

spider DNA.

So it- people think, or I was reading a little bit about it earlier today and they think it’s more like equivalent to an, a radiation mutation

joe: and that was one idea that it was radioactive. They say a radioactive spider bit him, so that would be DNA, DNA kind of mutation

geo: fact that he’s able to throw webs and- That’s like- And his-

nick: That’s [00:05:00] web shooters.

geo: Oh, it’s not? He isn’t actually.

joe: it depends on the-

geo: I thought,

nick: Eh, th- that one stems off a lot.

Okay. So it’s- not he gets to Man-Spider, that’s when he can do the webs from his body organically. Every other time, he is creating that in a lab.

geo: Okay. Yeah.

joe: So a chimera is a organism with cells from two or more genetically distinct organisms, not just DNA spliced, but generally mixed cell type organisms, is a rough definition. Is that fair to say, Aaron, or

erin: Yep. I was trying to come up with a good definition that would be understandable. So I wrote down an organism composed of cells from two or more distinct organisms

geo: So

nick: Jurassic Park?

erin: the same species

nick: Would that be Jurassic Park then, or no?

joe: There, Yes, Ah.

geo: Ah,

you got me. Yes.

joe: Yes,

Jurassic Park would ’cause they… [00:06:00] Well, I, well, we’ve been, we need to do a Jurassic Park episode ’cause I

nick: of- ‘

joe: cause I still don’t know why, and this is, we’re getting a little off track so

geo: we’re getting a little off

joe: But

geo: I- Already?

Already? Damn them. But I

don’t

joe: I don’t know why they used lizard or reptile DNA because even in the movie at the beginning they go, “Oh, birds are the evolutionary cousins of dinosaurs.” And then they go, “Oh, we couldn’t have the whole sequence so we used reptile DNA.” So I think something nefarious was going on from the start, and because it really didn’t make sense why they made this kind of weird jump.

So it was, like, I don’t, so that’s one of many problems.

geo: pretty successful though.

joe: They were

pretty successful though. They Yes. A

lot of handwavium in that. Yes, they were.

geo: But yeah, so-

joe: but yeah, that’s,

geo: now not all of Spider-Man’s villains

this

fall in this category, right? No. No,

joe: no not all

geo: But, like- Scorpion

a good number of them?

joe: is one. The Lizard probably is another.

nick: I’m trying to remember what The Jackal was. What was [00:07:00] his

joe: I don’t

nick: spliced with? ‘Cause I know he ends up having, he starts doing a lot of cloning. We we’re doing some po- pre pre-talk about, and yeah. Like he… I can’t remember.

We’ll have to go back to that one.

joe: Yeah.

nick: But

joe: know the other ones. Yeah, so

geo: Scorpion

joe: was, like I said, he was made Jameis Jenison, Jane Jenison, Jameson, James

geo: Have another-

joe: a tongue twister there. Am I… Yes. Yes. He wanted to find a rival that matches Spider-Man, and so he was like, “Oh, so a natural predator to spiders are scorpions.” And he said, “Oh, let’s make this a scorpion hybrid.” And tried to create that chimera so that you would have the scorpion with the tail and…

Looks like you wanna jump in there

erin: yeah, I went down my own rabbit hole of research with that because I was like, okay, they said Jamison [00:08:00] paid to have Scorpion participate in a human experimentation. And I, come from an experimentation background, as I know that Joe does as well. I don’t know as much about you guys, but

I was like, hold on. You don’t pay to be a part of a human experiment. You get paid or you just volunteer. And I was like very excited. I was like, yeah, what I think is true. And I was like, how much did Jamison pay for this random man to go join a

human experimentation study? He paid $10,000. And I was

like, Oh

my God.

And that was in what was it, like nine-

1960s?

nick: I think so,

joe: or, yep. yeah,

think so, yep.

erin: What’s the inflation?

joe: you had, Yeah, I

nick: really wanted to keep the menace Spider-Man.

joe: did move ahead though, right? ‘Cause then at the Depression, it was a meal in a suit was the going rate to get experimented on in the Reign of Superman, that was the- The hot

nick: was a- Was it- … hot meal and a

joe: yeah. That was , [00:09:00] Jonah Jameson,

nick: J. Jonah Jameson

joe: get it all straight there.

geo: there.

joe: Had that, and this was ’65, that’s before technology, so now one would probably lean on CRISPR, ’cause I think it was like gamma, I don’t know they, it was like injecting DNA.

So a lot of it was either we’re just gonna inject random DNA and then make something work, or we’re gonna use gamma radiation to alter your DNA and fuse. So it was, you know-

erin: I looked a little bit into that ’cause I was like, “Okay, how did he even do this?” And it was ra- a mix of radiation and chemical therapy. And I was like, “Okay, does this even work?” and so I started looking into it, and it really only works when you’re starting to form a embryo. And I was like, “Oh, so it wouldn’t work anyway on a full-grown man to

to all that.”

nick: Wait, so I can’t become the Scorpion? Yeah. What?

geo: But

joe: When you’re in an adult, you’re-

geo: in [00:10:00] adult, in, in- you’re an adult Oh. When

joe: you’re in your adulthood, or even in child… Yeah, every- everything after embryo,

Your cells are reading their instructions and they’re doing what they need to do. So to come in and to make modifications there becomes extremely difficult throughout the entire body. So-

geo: you would just fight things off as a foreign… Is that right? Or…

joe: Well, not nec- A, how do you get all your cells now to adopt this new DNA and replace your original DNA functionally?

Right. Right? So how do you- So- How do you do that? So that’s, you know-

geo: When you were talking about scientists that are doing things like this- Yeah … they’re ta- you’re talking about Embryos

joe: generally.

yep. Yeah. Yeah, embryos where you have fewer cells you’re earlier. So, cell paths aren’t, have not been set.

So a lot of the stuff with correcting genetic defects that’s, a lot of that’s been done in embryos. And so they go in and they use CRISPR. It’s this, [00:11:00] the new technology

that can go in and-

geo: what CRISPR is?

joe: CRISPR I guess best is molecular scissors. So they can go in and they can clip out a region of DNA and then replace that with another piece of DNA that would encode a gene or a correction gene that

geo: That’s just amazing.

Would you say CRISPR’s been around, what 10 years or five years or- Geez … do you know?

joe: I think in the

mainstream

nick: Oh, damn.

geo: I just remember probably, like-

joe: I don’t think… So it’s like a lot of research in science, by the time it makes it to mainstream, there’s been-

Right, many years of…

I, I wanna say like the ’90s or

the- And when was it actually successfully is… You know what I mean? It was probably in- Development … for quite some time,

geo: so

erin: It won a Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2020

geo: Okay. I just remember, this is my background for CRISPR, listening to a Radiolab episode. Yeah. And it was really- Yeah … it was [00:12:00] really cool. I was like, “Whoa.” But that was probably six years ago or something. I remember listening to that, so. Interesting.

nick: Interesting. Yeah. I wouldn’t have thought of when it came about, ’cause I know Joe has mentioned it before, but I’ve

joe: I-

nick: just like thought…

It was a thing. It’s always been a

geo: right? Oh, no, I knew it was pretty cutting edge,

joe: yes.

geo: It is pretty amazing. I can’t imagine how exciting they would it be that worked.

nick: so with CRISPR, i- is it… I don’t know how to put it. So

CRISPR, do they do it for th- people and things that are like actively living or only embryos?

joe: Well, embryos are technically living.

nick: Well, I mean ma- mature.

geo: It be a

joe: Yeah …

geo: can it be a later

joe: that’s a … I mean,

That’s an interesting question. You

know-

erin: it… They do it with bacteria which are already capable of changing their DNA as adults. So they, attach to another bacteria, and they exchange DNA, and then [00:13:00] instead of reproducing with that exchange of DNA, they just change their own DNA, which is how they can adapt so quickly to antibiotics.

joe: Right

erin: So that’s… And their DNA kind of forms a circle before they undergo their cell divisions, so it’s a little easier

joe: Yeah. And smaller genomes but for a fully mature, developed organism, I think is the question. Yeah. Applying CRISPR, it’s targeting to the place you want. And I don’t remember the research, but was that the hearing defects? That was done in children, I believe,

and that wa- but that was a

very specific

erin: there was a really interesting case where someone wanted to reverse that and actually give a child hearing defect because they were in the deaf community and they wanted to have a the child that they were they had in womb. They’re like, “Can I please have this child also be deaf? Because if they’re not deaf, then they wouldn’t be part of my community,” and it’s a cultural thing. And that went [00:14:00] up into the court systems. I don’t know what the outcome of it

geo: That’s, that is fascinating. Yeah.

Wow.

nick: was not expecting that

geo: Wow. Yeah.

nick: I thought you were g- you misspoke and I was gonna be like, “Wait, You wanna purposely make someone deaf?” All

joe: Yeah. Yeah, so you, you can start,

geo: you know- Yeah, who

decides what-

there you go … what is good and what is bad at that point?

joe: But these are very targeted, you’re not affecting whole organism. You just need to affect the cells that, are involved in hearing.

geo: Okay, so a manataur. I know manataurs aren’t real.

But I mean- Sure … that be,

joe: real world to

Do we

geo: they share DNA, or do we ever

never-

joe: they’re all one, it’s one organism

geo: one organism. One organism, right. But it has DNA of a horse and I don’t know, a human.

joe: Y- I presume so, yeah.

Yes I

nick: thought it was just a specific DNA- Yeah … that is horse-human.

joe: horse-human. Horse-human. Yeah, so the way it would work if I had, it’s a manatar. I didn’t, wasn’t

prepared

geo: didn’t- Sorry.

nick: I

joe: But like any of these, I guess, you would need, so you would [00:15:00] what changes would physically need to happen?

So that means that during development there was some mix. You’ve included now a second or a copies of the genome of a horse, so those genes are there to be turned on and off. And then once those genes are there to turn on and off, then you can have developmental programming go and turn those genes on and off.

So for the rear horse butt, leg, hind legs, and midsection, those developmental genes would kick on, and then you would form that. And then in this soup of development, the human cells would then turn on and send their signals like, “Okay, all right, horse stop, cell stop growing, and let me develop now the human part of it.”

And so that’s that’s how you would think about it. But all of the DNA would be in each cell, so each cell would have horse and human DNA, and your, the same, the way your cells are all Georgia cells and DNA, or Nick or Erin or Joe, they just turn on what they need to turn [00:16:00] on developmentally. So as an embryo developing, the cells literally reach out into the space and start to lay the body plan.

And as they lay down, they send signals to the other cells and say, “Okay, you guys, this isn’t, you’re not doing this. You’re not being feet. You now need to be the ankles. You need to be the

legs,” you

geo: then could you have a manataur where it was a human, like a human legs and a horse head? Yes. So isn’t

joe: isn’t that Bo Jackman?

nick: Oh. Isn’t

joe: isn’t that, what’s his name?

Bo something.

nick: Arnett’s character. BoJack Horseman.

joe: Horseman, yeah. Okay. But yeah, that’s how it’d work, and it’s interesting ’cause some of less … So real, let’s go back to the real. I had mentioned in the open the the example with the pig where they’re trying to grow human organs in there.

So what they do with that, they take CRISPR, they knock out the genes that would make, let’s say the, a pancreas or a heart, whatever organ you want to y- fully function, and you replace that with human genes, so you can

geo: it a little- In the pig

in the

joe: pig, in the embryo. So you’re [00:17:00] functionally remove something, so don’t make a pig heart, and you replace that with a human DNA and said, “Make a human heart .”

You, and then you raise the pig up, and it starts making a human heart. So in human research like that, they usually have to stop at day 28 or something early. You’re not allowed to do genetic work or chimeric work on embryos. And so they stop it, but they can see the new organs starting to form.

But they do this in mouse and rat, so two different species. And you go, “Okay, so knock out the mouse. Let’s add rat, and then grow a pancreas.” One of the interesting things is that because you just told the cells to, the mouse’s to grow the pancreas, the rat pancre- pancreas, you gotta remember, organs are very complex.

And so where do you get all the other genes and structures from, the arteries, veins that deliver blood and take away, the used, the deoxygenated blood? They find that those are actually still mouse so the host organism’s cells. So when

you have it, So

geo: but they’re [00:18:00] doing stuff they wouldn’t normally do.

joe: normally do.

Well, they normally would make a pancreas. So it’d be a mouse, 100% mouse pancreas. So that’s because you tell it

geo: make a human pancreas- But it may be a human pancreas

joe: a human pancreas … but

geo: veins and everything … might need different structures than, right

erin: So, that was one problem I was finding with implanting human tumors in mice,

was that eventually the stroma, which is that membrane that attaches the organs to the rest of the body and the blood vessels that attach to it, those are still my stroma.

And they will eventually change the behavior and the drug response of the tumor. So there are some effects

geo: So

joe: a, and one other layer I should mention maybe-

nick: maybe Wait,

joe: as we get into this. Okay, go for it.

geo: So

nick: you’re growing th- like a human heart in a pig- Yes … wouldn’t that have, don’t know side effects for said pig? Well-

I’m

assuming-

geo: I don’t think the pig ha- a different… Yeah. [00:19:00] the pig’s gonna come out of this a-

joe: the heart would still function normally. T- as normal can be

geo: for- Up until the

point, up until the

joe: Yes, when they need to take the heart out and

put it

geo: th- they’re

not gonna save the

pig.

nick: I- I-

joe: That’s right. Yeah

nick: Like I was just saying, i- having that in a pig, like pumping things, pumping the blood- Right

is a different, muscle than what it would be

joe: No, it’s the heart,

erin: pigs and

humans have Very. similar organs. That’s why we use them

joe: Yeah.

nick: Okay. I was And you’re using the

joe: pig- size-wise. Are you thinking more like- Yeah … size-wise? Yeah. Yeah.

think, ’cause the heart- Size

erin: and structure

joe: factor

yeah, and the heart’s a muscle, and this is where I was gonna say this second layer. Because what… the other thing that can… that happens is something called epigenetics, and I know I mentioned this on ep- other episodes. Epigenetics is this a feature- A little

geo: mistress

joe: that your, genetics is a cruel mistress, right?

And so we have the instructions of the cell, I was just saying, on what gets turned on and turned off. So you have those instructions, but you also have then epigenetic kind of [00:20:00] overlaying that. And so that also then can add an extra layer of information to tell certain genes to turn on more, to turn on less.

And you can inherit these kind of factors, and so you go. And so any of your environment can cause certain genes to be turned off or turned on. So when you’re growing these chimeras and you’re trying to do that, not only do you have the situation where you have the cell types, ’cause those other…

You didn’t replace all the genes, so you also have the host actually imparting its, its instructions on that new DNA. So we were saying about size. You could have a case where in the pig there is instructions already, epigenetic instructions, that even though you have replaced this, making a human heart it would probably form it like it would in a pig.

And to Aaron’s point, we use pig because that heart and size is probably close to… You would grow the pig to a certain size. If you need a heart for a [00:21:00] child, you would have a little pig. If you want an adult, you would grow it bigger. But the pig probably would override and make the organ into its, what it needs.

So if you grew it to maturity, the heart probably would function like a normal pig. It probably wouldn’t know the difference ’cause, a heart cell in a pig, a human, a dog, th- they’re identical,

geo: And the like- … in, in how they function … yeah. Like the m- The amount of beating like the times,

joe: be, I think the overlay would

start to control that.

erin: Yeah, they did a l- this is old research now, but with Drosophila, the the fruit fly, they moved different genes around and they put genes from other animals into the fruit fly to see what would happen. So they put a cockroach leg gene on the fruit fly’s back

a- and replaced it with a wing. But what grew was not a cockroach leg.

What grew was a fruit fly leg in that spot where they said, “Hey, make a leg.”

geo: Oh, wow.

joe: Yeah. Yeah

erin: So

even though it’s from a different animal those [00:22:00] instructions it’s gonna be like, “Well, I am a fly. So you gave me a leg gene, I am making a leg

nick: Interesting

joe: Yeah but you do have… There’s the pictures where they can grow human ears on the

geo: Okay, so, so the example of The Fly.

joe: Temple

geo: Je- Jeff Goldblum. Yeah.

joe: That’s a chimera.

geo: that is a c-

joe: Yeah. See, got mixed. Yep. The DNA- DNA

human DNA and fly DNA

geo: But it was only the head that was

joe: That’s the original. In the Cronenberg ’86 version, Jeff Goldblum- Oh … He turned into a complete fly, remember? Yeah.

geo: it’s just the Vincent Price.

joe: Vincent Price one was the head like, “Help me.”

nick: “Help

erin: actually hilarious ’cause I was talking to seventh graders about The Fly today

as we talked about meiosis and they were like, “Oh, could this happen?” And I was like, “One, I’m so proud of you for knowing what The Fly is, but two, it- they- you

can’t breed them together ’cause the chromosome number is different.”

So I don’t know [00:23:00] how that would work for adding in fly genes where you have, the head is a fly. If their chromosome number is different, like how are you splicing those genes in, and what’s being turned on and what’s being expressed? And I don’t know.

That would be more into your ball court, Joe

nick: Yeah

joe: yeah, that’s make it work. Yeah you’re right. We didn’t mention… With the Minotaur, that’s, that was something also. Where does, where do these horse, new horse genes go?

And you could make it where you add chromosomes in, so you just, you wholesale in chromosomes, so you could have multiple sets of… And this happens with fraternal twins, I believe, that they, in during development, they just take in, so they have two sets of genomic DNA. And then they’re essentially a chimera of, their other…

their twin, and so they actually have both copies of DNA in there. So you can have multiple copies, and there’s organisms like a lily, I think. [00:24:00] They can have many copies of their genome. So you can… It’s not metabolically taxing to have more DNA. The problem is when you get to cell division and things like that.

This is… These are finely calibrated systems over millennia of evolution, and so when you’re trying to divide the cell, your machinery’s expecting a certain number of chromosomes, and now if you got more, then you will start to get mismatches where some chromosomes are left behind or, move to different places.

You- then you would develop mutations and probably death. And so probably a lot of these early embryo, you try to do it in embryo, you lose a lot of them because of these issues that they didn’t really… This didn’t

work out

geo: just like, “This is not the way it’s supposed to

joe: yeah. Yeah. So

nick: to be.”

Right. Exactly, yeah. So what about with the horse and donkey, the jinny? W- are they- Yeah … just so similar that having them

geo: Reproduce?

joe: Yeah,

nick: without using any[00:25:00]

geo: Horse

joe: donkey makes a mule. Yes. Mule. Yes. Yep.

geo: A jinni?

nick: I thought it was a jenny

geo: I’ve never

heard that.

joe: Never jenny. I was like, “Do you… Are you…

It’s, like, a pet or something?”

nick: might’ve been someone’s pet. I don’t know. Pretty sure it’s-

geo: I’m

joe: like, I was thinking, I’m like, “What are you talk… A Jenny? What is that?” it might be some term for a female donkey I don’t know. Okay. Yeah, they’re just really close in, in… two close species, but they’re sterile

geo: you know- so then the mule will not

joe: Yep. Yeah. The mule cannot reproduce, no. So you go, and this is… I think it’s a mismatch. I think the chromosome number is close enough that you can-

geo: Oh, interesting

joe: can line up properly that you will get appropriate crossing. But yeah. Yeah. The same thing in some flower specie- plant species.

If they’re close relatives, they can, they can do it. Their chromosome number, like Erin pointed out, that’s close enough that they can actually… Everything can line up, and then you can get division, and so you can actually make the appropriate, cell division and grow into a plant.

But usually [00:26:00] they’re sterile or other issues crop up. They don’t make it to adulthood or, certain things like that.

nick: So doing it in s- CRISPR and stuff, would something be able to reproduce or no?

joe: That’s a good question. No, you probably could… If you really wanted it, could you try to add back in the

genes that were taken out,

the reproductive genes, you might be able to.

Yeah. I… Right. I don’t know if you should, but

geo: I don’t think you should. I-

nick: They said that the dinosaurs wouldn’t reproduce.

joe: reproduce.

nick: because they used Reptil

joe: joking.

nick: DNA.

erin: I teach a class on the evolution of dinosaurs in the summer, and when we get to my genetics unit, we we talk about Jurassic Park, how that can’t happen and why it can’t happen, and we look at then a Paleocene park or Pleistocene park. Blah, sorry. So looking at mammoths and things. But the dinosaurs, we don’t know exactly how they reproduced.

We would [00:27:00] have to use their closest living relatives, birds, to figure it out or just, make assumptions, inferences

nick: What were your assumptions?

erin: the assumptions are that they court like birds do with displays to determine physical fitness. That might, be like you gotta dance for a long time. If you dance for a long time, you dance for the longest you obviously are physically fit more so than the person who had to tap out in five minutes.

nick: I would love to see a T-Rex dance like that

joe: T-Rex dance.

geo: T-Rex dance.

erin: the feathers or the skin color, the more vibrant

they are, the better they are at avoiding predators, or that is even an indicator of how well-fed they are, if they can get certain nutrients that would create those bright colors. So those are what birds do today

joe: Yeah. But I was gonna say to Nick, your point about, trying to modify and use CRISPR this way, I th- I think someone who was ahead of the game is Mister [00:28:00] Sinister because he- Yes … he had the Chimera program where he was trying to create these genetically… He was trying to force human evolution, and so he was– he created and used his wealth from Victorian era into modern times and tried to create, take superpowers from other mutants and then recombine them into-

geo: a Frankenstein?

joe: Exactly like a Fran- yeah, like a Frankenstein,

except- A genetic Frankenstein? A

genetic Frankenstein, right, that would do that, yeah. So ’cause Frankenstein was a Chimera at some level also because he, they, I think they used animal parts in there. I think it was, like, not– I don’t think it was 100% human.

I think they had the–

geo: I think

joe: Dr. Frankenstein had to get some bits, so it’d be Frankenstein’s monster. But yeah, Frank- Dr. Frankenstein. But yeah.

Frankenstein. Frankenstein. Maybe

geo: they were friends ’cause that sounds like we’re about the same time period. Do you think

joe: Y- you’re right, yeah. They

geo: may- [00:29:00] maybe they were, like, buds.

Like-

nick: What was it

erin: body does reject things even from your same species if they, you don’t have the same blood types.

joe: Yep, that’s right.

erin: so Frankenstein’s monster, like the, he would’ve had to figure out, okay, what blood type did this body have? What blood type did this body have?

don’t think they had discovered at that point yet

nick: on

that, like, if something

something is completely drained of blood, does it have a blood type still, or can you just start pumping whatever in there?

erin: your T cells, B cells,

I don’t know if they’d already begun then too, but you still have an immune response, and what you’re really looking at is the antigens on the outside of your cell. They’re like keyholes on a door, and you have your own antigens and w- and they recognize each other, and then if your antigens don’t unlock the door, then you’re not allowed in.

You’re not allowed in this body. They need to kick you out and destroy you. So your whole immune system kicks in, [00:30:00] and that’s when you get limb rejection or tissue rejection if you’ve had a skin graft. You can even have rejection of your own skin.

That’s a whole thing.

nick: Wait, what?

erin: but for…

nick: What was

that?

erin: If you… All right.

So if you have, something happens to your face, say a monkey bit you and you have missing face you might have a part of your thigh taken and then re-grafted onto your face so that you have that skin there. What can happen is your body either rejects it or it’s “Oh, that’s not supposed to be there.

I’m not taking that.”

Or it can absorb it completely, where it’s just “Oh, that, I’ll just take that back into the body,” and then suddenly you don’t have it there anymore either but you just wasted part of your leg up on your face. But it’s still it’s a gamble. You can do certain things to, to try and help your body accept it, but ultimately it’s up to your body whether

it’s going to

or not.

joe: Just, well, as you develop, early in development you develop self and so your cells [00:31:00] know self and so they won’t respond to you.

geo: this, And

joe: that that’s why like with cancer it’s so hard to treat because your body sees that as self even though it’s now you

geo: Fighting

against it … the cell

joe: is- Yeah

you It’s just, there’s a genetic mutation generally and that’s causing kind of a runaway cell proliferation and so you have this kind of issue, but your s- your body’s “Eh, this is us. We gotta live with it.” and that’s why it becomes– A lot of the work is to actually, use it against itself and say, “Well, if it’s growing so fast, can you put signals out that will tell your body I think this is wrong,’ and so go start to attack it and clean it up or to get rid of it?”

But yeah that’s why cancer is such a hard

geo: Disorder, disease. So when you grow the human heart in the pig-

joe: pig- Mm-hmm … how,

geo: what are the chances of that to be successfully transplanted? Ha- you know what I mean? Have they had really good success rate of that?

Or [00:32:00]

erin: guy they did, I don’t know,

joe: But I think that was a- I don’t

erin: follow through has been going though.

joe: follow very much … Was that a pig heart, though?

That, it wasn’t, it wasn’t, no one’s… Yeah.

erin: few

joe: Yeah. They haven’t I don’t know if they’ve grown a fully mature organ yet, human organ

in- But,

geo: that they’re just experimenting with and it ha- isn’t really a

joe: practice?

In, yeah, because in, just the rules, ethical considerations, they they, it’s embryo research in, especially in America, is pretty limited, so you can’t have, you can’t do a lot of embryo research, especially with human cells and human kind of work past a certain day in development. And so when it’s pretty ear- it’s like 28, 30, I forget.

It’s really early on in development. But you can see a lot. You can say, okay, you are starting, the cells

geo: then in other countries, are they doing that?

joe: Sh- I don’t, sure. Maybe. Maybe. Hopefully not. Yeah.

erin: did a quick

joe: Go for it.

erin: There have been two people who have gotten a pig heart transplant, but it is the actual pig [00:33:00] heart because they were not eligible for a human heart transplant. Don’t know why. There was one in 2022 and then one in 2023. The person in 2022 only lived for two months after this transplant. And it was linked to possibly a virus that was from the pig. And then the other person survived for six weeks after the transplant.

Yeah, even

nick: these are not

erin: died, Yeah

these not great. Definitely better to have a human heart

transplant. However, I guess they were working with what they could.

And it’s still good for science to be like, “Oh, cool. Well, now we know

what can go wrong and what can go right.” But, not great for

humans.

joe: I think there was, um- It

geo: that it worked for six weeks

joe: but you had, then um,

I think it was in China recently, they had the a liver, a pig, they used a pig liver temporarily. So this kind of a xenotransplant. So they used the liver temporarily instead of using external equipment, they connected a pig liver up until human liver became available I think, and then they transplanted,

geo: then they [00:34:00] transplanted that- And how did that, that

joe: I think That

went well. Yeah, I think that’s, that person was living and

nick: How long did it

last?

joe: did it

last? The-

geo: Or you mean how long was the temporary? Yeah.

joe: Yeah, I think it was, yeah, I don’t know, I

geo: Like weeks?

joe: or something like that. Yeah. It was it’s, it was in lieu of external equipment kind of filtering blood, right?

‘Cause your liver is fl- filtering your blood out, the capacity of your body. So this is instead of having, there’s external equipment and that’s been tested, but this is the first-

geo: a liver would be easier to do that than a heart?

joe: I don’t know if it’s easier, but yeah.

geo: maybe the function of a liver wouldn’t be as- Yeah.

Well, I know, I think there’s still- I don’t know. I’m just-

joe: I think there’s still this kind of issues with that, ’cause you’re putting the pig heart in. The idea of trying to do it with human, and particularly the person who needs the transplant to use their cells, is that, as Erin was explaining, all of these kind of cell factors and external kind of lock and key search and destroy things would be removed, because now this is you essentially.[00:35:00]

But that gets into this other part I was saying, that when you do it that way, you still have all pig… I think it’s still, I think the one study I saw, it’s one human cell per a hun- 100,000 pig cells, so it’s really like a low, is it really human or is it mostly… It’s not even mostly human, it’s mostly pig.

‘Cause a lot of the other superstructure that makes the organ, the veins, the arteries, they are all from pig. And so the epigenetics is all pig. So you have this kind of, yes, it’s human, it was seeded with human cells. It was, you’re trying to grow a human-like heart, but it’s not, so yeah, I think there’s, it, there’s a long way to go.

It’s not like this is… But this is where the field is headed especially when you talk about Chimeras, that’s,

nick: All right, hypothetical.

All right, so say that I want to

joe: Then I go.

nick: a liver in, just a r- a liver ready for me.

Right.

Would I be able to go ahead and be like, “Hey, here are my cells. Can you put this in a [00:36:00] pig and grow this for me?” would it would it-

geo: You look that

joe: there’s a number- I mean, yeah. Are you… Yeah.

nick: book Who do

call?

joe: island of Dr. Moreau? What are we doing here?

nick: a…

erin: somebody played around with this as a fictional concept with a children’s book called Scorpion House,

and I read it when I was in high school. But the concept is a young boy who had a lot of siblings, they guessed they were adopted. They live in this old man’s house. Suddenly, it’s every so often his siblings disappear, and then he figured out, “Oh, we’re all clones,

and we’re just… As this old man needs organs, he’s taking them

from us.” it was a really

interesting concept and like hypothetically probably because he’s genetically identical to the old man, his organs wouldn’t be rejected by that body. But of course, there’s always a chance that they could. It would be a very low likelihood of that

geo: Huh?

erin: I know that they are trying to grow organs [00:37:00] in labs. I don’t think that is

financially sustainable for… ‘Cause you do have to grow like a specific person’s organ if they

wanted to like have an organ bank for just themselves to make sure they could live longer. Because that also doesn’t guarantee a longer life anyway.

That’s just oh, you have one specific organ that fails. Luckily, you have six of these cloned and growing in this lab. And, but like you have other issues with growing old, like your telomeres can issue

joe: Yeah, and in growing organs in a lab is also, once again, they’re complex three-dimensional structures. And so how do you get that to grow without all the other information that’s feeding in? So as your body’s developing, like I said, there’s a bunch of other cells coming together, giving a bunch of kind of-

geo: And it all has to work right and work together and- If you’re

joe: a cell, you just got a pile of cells, those are … You go, “I want a heart.” So if you just take heart cells and you just try to grow a heart you won’t… You’ll just get a mass

geo: I have a hard time tr- [00:38:00] growing a turnip. Come on.

joe: need

all the other cells. Like I, I keep mentioning veins and arteries, like there’s a bunch of other connective tissue in there. There’s a, there’s a bunch of other cells that form the structure as we know as a heart. So I think that’s also, how do you make the scaffolding? How do you

Didn’t … So they’re trying to make 3D-printed with biomaterials that you can seed with different cell types that then they may talk to each other and send the right signal and form the organ. So forming a whole organ is difficult, so really it’s probably easier

geo: So hypothetically, no. …to

joe: the person.

So you would clone … It’d be little mini Nicks running around, and then you would just off them when you need them.

nick: Can I just keep them in like test tubes

joe: or something. When there was … And there’s a, there’s also a book, Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo

geo: Ishiguro.

joe: And so that’s the premise was similar, where the clones, they’re, they don’t realize that they’re clones of other people, but they actually have jobs, and they go out.

They’re like, and do things. And then they’re,[00:39:00]

geo: then

joe: they

nick: Is that what doppelgangers are? Am I a

clone?

joe: You’re really a clone,

nick: Oh, I knew it.

geo: But remember that children’s book about the- Old

joe: the- Old McDonald’s- Yeah

geo: Did you- Yeah … yeah, then he made like a dog boy, and

joe: are all chimeras. Yeah.

geo: Old

joe: Yeah, was it like Old McDonald’s Far- No,

geo: I don’t know. We probably have it over there … I

actually

joe: looking. I was seeing if I

geo: see if I

joe: my eyes on it

geo: a

joe: But

geo: long time ago.

joe: No, that was fun. It was-

geo: k- kinda creepy, but… Yeah.

nick: So I do think that going back to Spider-Man stuff, there are different iterations where More of the villains are chimeras.

joe: Yeah. We have, like Tarantula, Rhino, Scorpion.

geo: That’s just the thing

joe: And I, yeah-

nick: Some of them, they are more mechanical, where others- Yeah

Like Doc Ock?

They… Doc Ock is

joe: Doc Ock’s mechanical,

nick: he’s not-

geo: He’s not octopus

nick: Not at all, no.

joe: No octopus.

nick: Breaking here, Doc Ock is not an

joe: But that’s like s- the Scorpion though too, [00:40:00] because in some iterations he is a chimera.

It was a genetic kind of DNA, radiation, chemical mutagenesis, DNA. But then another iteration, I think like in the movies, he’s like mechanical. Yeah. Like he has a mechanical s- cute. It’s more technology-based. They wanted to get away from the handwavium of,

geo: Well, maybe they just wanted to… They thought, “This is fun to draw,”

joe: yeah. I guess, or- Yeah … you wanna explain it the science. You’re like, “Let’s get the

science

geo: think maybe they wanted to do the drawing first and then, “Okay, can we explain this?”

joe: Well, maybe that’s… Well, you also had, a lot of these comics, they were done, Spider-Man in the ’60s

erin: Mm-hmm.

joe: so you had fear of other communism,

geo: Fear of science maybe?

joe: You had, well, you had the, at that time, you’re right, the atomic age was in full swing. Mechanical DNA was just starting to be understood as this kind of hereditary kind of, kind of thing, manipulation of that. So you really did have this, and this was being [00:41:00] shown up in comics, as you have across…

We’re picking on Spider-Man a little bit because the Spider-Man series, getting ready for the movie that’s gonna be coming out soon. Yeah. But you do have, in other comics, you see similar he- villains and superheroes that are created the same way, and this kind of let’s mix together the best traits from all these things and create this superhuman or super- villain or to go up

against

geo: Spider-Man Now, Spider-Man’s in the same universe as the mutants.

Yes.

joe: Yes.

Yes. Mm-hmm. Yeah that’s why Mist- Mr. Sinister was,

um, he was trying to yeah. He was recruited by Apocalypse and then

nick: then

joe: to

erin: No, there was a a whole thing. I don’t think… It wasn’t Civil War. It was or it may have been a spinoff of that. I can’t remember. I didn’t read all the comics. They were doing mutants versus everyone else

essentially, but it was- Okay … yeah it wasn’t X-Men. X-Men were a big part of it, but it was across all Marvel Universe, and so, Spider-Man was technically a mutant. And so he was on that side, but he,

Had his [00:42:00] relationship with the Avengers, and it was a really interesting concept. And I was like, “Oh, how are they identifying mutants?” And they were like, “We’re, we identified the X gene.” And I went that’s not a thing.” you get mutations on tons of different genes. And,

Everything can be technically a mutation. I’ve got hazel eyes. That can be a mutation if you compare them to brown eyes or other eyes. So it’s a little iffy. Stan Lee did an interview where he, with was asked “How did you come up with these concepts?” And he came up with some of them, but sometimes, writers would be like, “Hey, Stan I think this would be really cool if this character, the way he got his powers, let’s just say he was bitten by a radioactive spider.”

And he’s “That sounds science-y. Let’s do

joe: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well,

geo: the scorpion,

joe: obviously like the scorpion, like I said, it, it’s a natural predator of spiders, so we went, “A villain, let’s go with that.” A rhino, it was like, “Oh, they got their tough skin like armor,” which really is just their skin’s just really thick in, in [00:43:00] its composition.

But it was like, “Oh, how do… We can make a fusion, chimera with a person, and they can then have it, and this structural thing.” But it was, like, the science where it was at and what was known, there was a lot of hand-waving between that and the actual factual,

erin: But there

are, like, hidden little science-y

nuggets within science fiction. One of the coolest things that I’ve learned doing all these deep dives is electromagnetic pulses of the heart. We figured out… We didn’t figure out, but yeah we had to eventually, but it first appeared in science fiction as an idea of restarting hearts with electromagnetic pulses

joe: Yeah.

nick: Do you think that’s because someone tried it and then they were like, “Hey, word is that if you use electricity it’ll help you get in.”

erin: No idea.

but

geo: Which came first?

nick: Exactly. It’s

joe: Exactly. Yeah. No, them Frankenstein, that was all based on the, they were trying to [00:44:00] revive bodies on…

That was episode one of Rabbit Hole of Research. You can go back and listen to it, y’all.

nick: Wait, I don’t remember

this episode. Was I in

this

geo: You weren’t on that. Oh,

nick: don’t

geo: know.

That was before you.

nick: I don’t

joe: one’s the only episode without Nick, so.

geo: You probably didn’t even listen to episode one, did

you? No, you made me do

nick: Joe forced me.

Okay. Well,

geo: but

joe: talked.

It’s, it was a really interesting time where they were doing a lot of experimentation to revive bodies, and that understanding of electricity was there. And a lot of people think that Mary Shelley had… She was friends with all these kind of… Because it was all this kind of elite kind of thing to do.

You would have a dead corpse in your

geo: parlor- It’s a theater

joe: then you would try to revive them with electric shocks and they would move. Laws were created, like what happens if… ‘Cause a lot of times the bodies they had were criminals that had been hung or… And they said, “Well, if they…” And so they made laws like, well, if the body gets re- revived, then they would get hung again.

Like we would we went, it was like, Yeah, and it was

geo: stink? Oh my

God. [00:45:00]

joe: God.

yeah.

erin: thing to do for the elite.

joe: That’s right, yeah.

Not too

nick: Not too

far off from how we are now.

joe: “Come on over. You’re gonna watch us revive this corpse.” And so yeah, there was like these kind of scientists and even was like, different people who, became…

geo: They

joe: stopped doing it and they were like, “This is kinda dumb, but hey this electricity thing is really cool. Let me

experiment with that.”

geo: are some other things we could do?

joe: But yeah, Mary Shelley would go to these events, and a lot of people think that she might have, that’s where the inspiration for Frankenstein came from,

nick: That would make sense,

yeah. So,

joe: Yep. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But yeah,

just kind

geo: can’t quite get over how a monkey bit your face.

nick: I like to just stick my face near I know. What are you doing?

I was trying to get the rage

erin: I was using a real example

geo: Oh my gosh Yeah. was trying to find the rage virus. What can I say?

joe: Oh, no, the rage

virus.

erin: Monkeys are just full of rage regardless. Terrible pets

joe: Yeah. So.

nick: What other villains you got for us, Joe?

joe: Got The Lizard. We [00:46:00] just watched the 1981 Spider-Man animated cartoon about The Lizard and

geo: And he let out the other reptiles from the zoo

joe: had a, he built a weather machine The Lizard, and he was gonna turn New York into a swamp, and he released all the reptiles.

Oh,

nick: this

geo: But it got resolved pretty quickly.

joe: quickly. It did,

erin: He was my favorite super villain. I was like, “Oh, I would love everyone to be lizards.”

joe: I know.

erin: I stand,

with you

nick: So is that where the plot for The Amazing Spider-Man came from then?

joe: Maybe

nick: ‘Cause didn’t he try to do to go up in the air to make everyone lizards?

joe: every- Well, then yeah, I think he’s done a few things. Yeah, and I think that was his idea.

geo: that devious guy.

But he was the,

joe: the, he was one of Spider-Man’s earliest reoccurring villains, was the Lizard.

He was a surgeon, lost his arm in combat. He was distraught. He wanted to grow limbs, and so they picked, reptiles, which actually reptiles don’t really regenerate their limbs. And so

erin: can still read through it

joe: that was [00:47:00] …that’s that’s why it was one of the science things where they thought, ’cause they will regenerate their tails, but they don’t regenerate limbs

nick: Don’t some of them?

joe: Don’t they? Salamanders do. Oh, okay. So that kind of … Right, yeah. Lizards and salamanders are, they look similar, but they are- So- …

erin: and their limbs can

completely regenerate, and it looks exactly the

joe: Yep.

geo: So it should’ve really been-

joe: It should’ve been- Salamander … Salamander. That’s right. Which I think there is a villain called The Salamander.

nick: like there is. There might be like a D-list villain somewhere named the

Salamander.

erin: yeah, I think that was an X-Files.

joe: Oh, what’s

geo: oh.

nick: You are correct. That was, like, early on in the

joe: the X Files.

erin: My husband has maybe watched

X-Files all the way through twice at this point

geo: Oh, my

nick: Only twice?

geo: And now we’re gonna maybe

erin: preparing for a third

geo: we might get a new X-Files, right?

joe: new

Ryan Coogler’s got the new X Files coming

geo: I’m excited about that.

joe: The other thing with the … Oh, go ahead, Erin

erin: Sorry, go ahead. You were explaining something and we were all interrupting,

and

joe: no, you’re

fine.

No,

erin: stem cells.

joe: this is what [00:48:00] happens. No, I was gonna s- I was gonna say the lizard, the other thing is that he had he can control the other lizards.

geo: Right. He was

sending out

signals- He was

joe: then- Right … Spider-Man did something with the power plant to

disrupt

geo: the radio, the radio- Like a

joe: or

something, and he was like, “Oh, I can’t control

geo: was like, “Oh, I can’t control them.”

erin: what would make more sense is if it was like a pheromone

thing

joe: Yes, that would, yes.

geo: no, that’s

joe: but no, that’s,

geo: tongue-ing

nick: Was he tongue-ing the air the entire time?

joe: No, he wasn’t. No. What? No. What am I, Hannibal Lecter over there? With some

nick: don’t lizards talk with their tongues?

geo: I don’t think he did that once. No? Yeah.

nick: believe it as a lizard

then. No.

joe: but that would be a snake. A reptile, but- Aren’t

nick: snakes reptiles?

They

joe: are.

yeah. Right. But not a lizard.

nick: Reptiles.

geo: Okay, well. He’d be a

nick: Okay.

What is a lizard other than a snake without arms?

erin: That’s true.

I would know it the other way around.

But

nick: Flip it, reverse it,

joe: it.

reverse

erin: they’re both squamates. They’re very closely related, and snakes do have [00:49:00] vestigial hip bones

geo: Boom.

nick: Thank you.

geo: That’s

exactly what

joe: Yeah, that’s what

nick: that’s, I said that verbatim.

joe: know. Do

geo: to

erin: Oh but going back to the lizard

as a villain, if he wanted to regrow his limbs, he should have been looking at stem cells, and I think he was just looking at genetics and not, the very basic cells. And salamanders can regenerate limbs because their stem cells are still active. Humans, our stem cells deactivate.

They’re still there, but they’re not turned on.

So current research to try and regrow limbs is like, how do we turn on these stem cells? How do salamanders keep theirs turned on? There are instances of very young children, like couple days

joe: Yeah, fingertips. Yeah.

Yeah.

geo: Oh.

erin: their stem cells are still on.

joe: Yeah, they can.

nick: how long does it take to regrow that?

Does

it like-

erin: her fingertips were small,

joe: Not gonna be a fingertip anymore.

geo: kid. We’re talking like an infant, I guess.

nick: Still, like [00:50:00] a fingertip’s a fingertip.

joe: Yeah.

A lot of the, and I was gonna say a lot of that research is in the ox- oxalots. Ox- axolotls. There it is.

geo: it is. Come on, Joe. Yeah. That’s, that’s- I

joe: Hey,

you know

nick: gonna let you flounder with that one. I know how to say

joe: gonna go. Well, say it

then. Jump in

geo: you have a young child and all children- Yeah.

joe: But that’s one of the model organisms for limb regeneration, and at this idea that Erin was just saying about that turned on. So they do have pathways. There’s different genes they know that come on.

Yeah.

geo: And- Aren’t they cool?

joe: and to that point, humans have all those genes and responses, but they just don’t…

They ignore that. So if you lose a limb, it’s like, “Eh, I’m just gonna make scar tissue instead of regenerate the limb.” So it there’s pathways there, and it just says, your body goes, “Nah, you know what? You had a hand. You got it chopped off, so live with the consequences.”

nick: That’s really weird that we have the ability to, but we, our body just stops. Like-

joe: Yeah. And it could [00:51:00] be it could be some evolutionary bits in that,

nick: It would make sense to keep it going then.

Like-

joe: if you had it, if

geo: you- If it was happening a lot, I guess

joe: you… Right. If something, if you lose a limb and you have to keep going how long can you stop and actually heal?

So is it better just to form a scar, peel up, patch up, and then move on? Or are you gonna really attempt to try to reform a digit or a hand or a limb that, won’t work properly or

geo: And how many Big

joe: long will it take to… Right. So how long will it

take

erin: it takes a lot of energy too, and we already divert a ton of energy into keeping us warm and to our brains

joe: So that could be, that could be part of it, that it’s more like the healing process. Let’s just go ahead, cells, get this over with as quickly as possible so that this person can keep moving, can procreate and keep their genetic lineage strong [00:52:00] in moving forward.

nick: Wolverine could do it,

joe: If Wolverine

could do … Yes, Wolverine is our,

nick: Which we’ve already done the episode with him and- Wolverine

joe: do, and Deadpool. Yep.

nick: Yeah. So I feel like that’s something that w- would be cool to see come back, like if science was looking more into the stem cells to be like, “Oh, yeah.”

joe: are. No, I people are studying that. There’s a lot of

nick: I would be willing to cut off a hand to try

joe: like in, like lamprey. So lamprey is this little eel, and so I know people that work on that.

But it’s an invertebrate. It has a, notocord that is like a primitive spinal cord, and it can be s- it can be severed, and then it will fall to the bottom of the ocean and get covered with sand. And then sometime later it will regrow its– It would make another functional spinal cord or notochord is the term for it.

It, and then it will live on, but it needs time to just stay inactive. All it’s doing is just laying there and then healing itself and [00:53:00] regenerating. So

nick: it doing for the energy, though?

joe: It’s n- it’s

geo: it’s just standing still

joe: to go

nick: and

eat as much as it can before dropping down or?

joe: You don’t- It can … you can’t predict when

you…

erin: a different organism. They don’t have endothermy. The, so we are endothermic. We create our heat from the inside so endo, inside, therm, heat. And they are not. They are ectotherms. They get their heat from the outside, ecto, outside. So they’re not eating as much as we are ’cause they don’t need to generate all this heat.

You spend… You eat three meals a day partly because you are a an endothermic animal

joe: Yeah.

geo: You really are.

joe: Thanks.

nick: Thanks? I… Is th- is this an insult, Georgia?

geo: I don’t know.

joe: just a human in you.

geo: good. Oh. But yeah.

nick: Oh.

joe: But yeah, so that’s, there, like I said, people are working on it, and I think it’s since we know how it works in here, can we figure out, and we have all the bits, can we just figure out how to turn it on?

How can we switch all the levers on to get this to work

nick: Can CRISPR help? Do…[00:54:00]

joe: This isn’t, I mean-

nick: Hypothetically, going into the embryo and then being like, “All right, just keep this one turned on.”

joe: I think it’s, right. So I think what CRISPR-

nick: Or would that

like- How

joe: is to add, I think, is, so is to add in functionality.

And what I’m saying is that you have the functionality but it’s not turned on.

nick: Yeah, but if you have to add something in to keep that functionality on.

joe: But it might not be at

the ch-

erin: code, so

joe: Yeah. It might not be

at the,

erin: about it, but

you could possibly splice in an on code

joe: You could, but it might not be at the genetic level. So it could be at this epigenetic level where now you’re having something external click off, which CRISPR it in, so then could you modify that but not screw up all the other developmental stuff, right?

‘Cause now we’re talking about developmental pathways so that f- ’cause at some point in time early on, all this stuff is on ’cause you need to develop, and then it all turns off when you’re done, your body plan is formed, and now you’re just filling [00:55:00] out. Let’s say filling out. And then something happens, an accident, and then now you gotta regenerate.

Now all those signals, now you’re telling it, so it’s a very particular case that you need these signals to come on to now reform a digit, to recreate the body plan. So go, “Okay,

nick: this

joe: what the body plan’s let’s get these certain particular instructions out and build it.” So that’s kinda where you’re at.

So could you have CRISPR come in, get signals to say you’ve lost a digit and now turn on all this pathway? Maybe, or is there another easier way? Just go, what’s the, what is really, what’s the, what is that on/off, and can you control it via drugs or chemically? Can you just dip your hand into some solution and then that will activate the cells and tell them, “Hey, you should be in this state, not this state”?

I don’t know. And right, it’s not my area of research, but yeah. So I’m not gonna s- CRISPR, it could be a way, but then what’s t- I guess you gotta… What’s the mechanism of on/off in that? I don’t know that answer, [00:56:00] so

nick: Willpower

joe: Yes.

nick: Yeah. Yeah,

I’m

joe: Yeah, I’ll use my lizard telepathy to

turn

nick: just will it

joe: That doesn’t work. People always go to reptiles, like anything. Jurassic Park, reptiles. Spider-Man, reptiles. I think they’re just cool. Reptiles

erin: They are

joe: are neat. Yeah, so-

nick: Yeah, they’re crazy

looking. Look at

joe: and,

nick: with their little tongues going…

joe: We need some chianti and fava beans over here.

What’s happening? Yeah

nick: like

seeing snake’s tongues go, “Kill you.”

joe: But yeah, a lot of these organisms too are really cool. Like you, like scorpion venom, it’s like compounds. They’re, have properties, maybe anti-cancer, antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral. When I was diving in, it was like, oh, you read about the scorpion and

it can do.

geo: it can also kill you, right?

joe: There are. I think it’s very few. I think it’s I think it’s a hundredth of the species. It’s not that many. So there’s thousands of species, and I think it’s just in the [00:57:00] 20 20 or 30 of

them that can actually kill you,

geo: the most

spiders.

joe: Most bite, right. There’s so many that they’re not all venomous to you,

geo: Oh,

nick: Oh, I definitely didn’t know that not all scorpions were venomous.

joe: that not all scorpions were venomous. No, I th- Well, they all have, they have venom, but are they dangerous? Will they kill you? Or are they lethal? I think that’s the question, right, so.

Right. Yeah.

geo: They could be lethal to if a dog gets bit

joe: a- Stung, yep

geo: or stung versus a human. That’s right. You know what I mean?

joe: really different and things like that, so,

erin: I was not aware of how widespread scorpions were in the

United States. I look for reptiles and amphibians wherever I go, and I was outside of Portland two years ago, and I flipped a rock, and under there was a scorpion, and I was like, “H- hold on. This is in Portland.” And I was talking to the people there.

We had no idea we had scorpions, and I looked on iNaturalist, and it was the second most northerly record of a western forest scorpion, and apparently they’re … That’s when they’re out anyway. So I [00:58:00] talked to an entomologist, and they’re like, “One, it’s an arachnid. No, you don’t talk to me.” And I was like, “I’m so sorry. I am a fool.” I said, “Talk to somebody else.” And they were like, “Yeah, we don’t care.” That’s when they’re coming out to roam around anyway

joe: Yeah

nick: was not aware that they were not just in the Southern Hemisphere

joe: I think they’re, like, in every-

nick: Or

geo: They were

joe: say they’re, like, in every, on every continent except

geo: they were very prevalent in Arizona.

nick: They were

geo: Yeah. Arizona,

nick: prevalent in

geo: Like you had to check your, you have to check your shoes.

nick: desert areas That’s why you had to check your, you have

joe: You can. And so that’s a fun thing that the scorpions will they have, they will fluoresce their their exoskeleton will fluoresce under UV, under moonlight. It’s really interesting that they have this fluorescing compound,

nick: Now, I don’t think Spider-Man has tried this

erin: Yes, that would be the way to look for scorpions.

nick: it’s

very easy

joe: easy.

And

nick: prevent

[00:59:00] any

joe: Who’s here?”

geo: go to the nightclub and

s- like

nick: You just see him glowing. I

joe: I just think a man-sized creature with a long, oversized… A misproportion. I think that’s the other thing. The scorpion in the comics, his tail is much larger than per body area to a scorpion.

I think it’s, I think

it’s-

geo: You think it’d be hard to hide?

joe: I think barely hard to hide yes. I don’t know. Thinking doesn’t he wear a trench coat and is kinda be walking around? That’s what I think. Yeah. He’s

nick: See? And that’s when you need it- Walks outside … that’s when you need to know.

geo: don’t trust those Is

joe: drastically- It’s at They Live. He got glasses. He’s “Put on these glasses, you’ll see the scorpion.”

geo: No.

joe: Yeah, cool. That’s Chimeras. We

can do it

erin: It was incredible how Doc Ock also wears a trench coat and his back lies flat

joe: Oh, right. Yeah

nick: A lot of people like trench coats

geo: They’re convenient. I

nick: don’t

trust

anyone in a trench coat They’re

joe: A trench coat

geo: Benny Hill. I

nick: I don’t trust them Columbo, didn’t he

joe: wear a

geo: yeah, Columbo did. But I trust

joe: Columbo. [01:00:00] yeah

nick: It’s either a super villain or a flasher, and I don’t wanna see either of

geo: of them. Or Columbo.

Or Columbo.

joe: Or Columbo

erin: Could be both.

nick: Still stands

erin: be, or s- flashers are not considered supervillains

nick: I wouldn’t consider super

villains

geo: might be just a side gig.

nick: Yeah.

joe: know if they’re-

geo: Yeah.

joe: I don’t know if they’re be villains.

nick: be villains Perverts, not villains Yeah,

joe: perverts. You could just have a trench coat on with nothing on underneath.

geo: always have a trench coat on

nick: up-

Are, are you… Hold up, Hold up.

Please

geo: it up, could be. Hold up. Please, oh. Is this

joe: got to

nick: Joe, is this something you’ve tried, like you

joe: No, I didn’t say once again, I didn’t say I tried it. I’m just saying that why do you… All right.

geo: Why are you… ‘Cause the

erin: You can wear it without opening it,

joe: Right.

erin: No one’s judging you, Joe

joe: You can go

geo: you’re not a flasher unless you flash, right? If you keep the trench coat closed and nobody knows you’re

joe: I, I was just saying- that- … flash … you don’t, you [01:01:00] not, you’re not suddenly a villain.

geo: a villain.

nick: Does Joe… Do you have your own special trench coat? Like I don’t

joe: a villain. I don’t own a trench coat. That’s honestly true,

nick: can confirm or deny

this.

geo: As I know.

joe: own one, no.

nick: I

joe: I always

think of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I wonder if they were, I wonder if they were chimeras.

’cause they became the alien, like the, thing, I think they are they chimeras? They take over. Well, they take over every cell, so they no longer are chimeras.

geo: So you’re now both.

joe: with

the Invasion of the Body Snatchers, you get infected

geo: But I think they’re similar to The Thing, where they take over that.

Well- But then, no, you’re right- Yeah … ’cause they keep, they stay a human.

joe: stay human. They just infect you. So are you now a, the pod person? But that’s because they’ve infected, and that’s one of

geo: And is there any way back? Is there any way back?

joe: A lot of research, I looked, when I was looking this up, they really, there’s a lot of there’s a lot of rules and some of that they won’t like neuro chimeras. So with the pig hearts or [01:02:00] pancreas or other organs, they are fine. There’s… But when you start saying, “Oh, we’re gonna make chimeric…”

Chimeric that sounds like a s- a spice or something.

nick: I was thinking limerick when you said

joe: With with neuronal tissue, brains, then that’s kinda where the big line is at “Don’t cross this line.” And a lot of that’s because of consciousness and things like

that. So if you make a pig human brain and then it’s is it human?

Does it have human

geo: or

joe: or emotions?

nick: interesting. And then- And then you put it in a human body. Will it start

joe: talking? Oh, my gosh. Or will

nick: Oh, I love this idea

erin: That gets into an interesting h- where are your memories stored? And if

Take some of that but then you replace it, will you remember being a pig

joe: Right.

nick: Or will you just start reverting back to your pig-like self? But,

joe: like we s- like I said earlier, that you, the pig to human ratio in these chimeras are, is small, so you don’t have a lot of human cells there. So what cells are important? And I think there was a [01:03:00] episode I saw, Flowers for Rhino. It was the Flowers for Algerron

nick: Alderaan,

joe: the Daniel Keyes story about the mouse who was given super intelligence and then it, and then they gave it to a person who was had learning disabilities and then he became super smart and then they realized that the…

I’m st- I don’t want to spoil it. Maybe people- It, this is a pretty old story,

erin: It’s a very old book, but it’s so good

nick: I don’t think I am aware of this.

geo: it is really good.

Is it Flowers

nick: I don’t think

joe: yeah. You

should. and

there’s

erin: you want a good cry, a

geo: And there’s a good … And the movie

joe: And the movie, like

geo: movie, a

nick: could get me to cry.

Hold up. It’s

geo: So, so-

joe: so-

nick: real easy

erin: the short story version that was in

geo: it’s really good.

joe: the novel? They lengthened it and

then they made

the movie. Yeah, Yeah, it was pretty good. Yeah.

erin: like a 40-page short

joe: movie. Yeah, that’s right. Yeah, it’s like a novella. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. And then the movie was good-

geo: movie I thought was

joe: based on a novel, so they extended it. The more about the relationship, so they they, yeah, they just stretched it out a little bit so you really felt [01:04:00] bad at the end. But yes, it was really good, but they, the, there was a comic run Flowers for Rhino, and that was his whole thing.

So I think part of his thing was to get super smart. That was his- Yeah … that was the goal. Like it’s always like some goal, I guess like you want to do this thing. Is there revenge or some Faustian bargain you’re gonna get super smart or, live forever, so.

nick: always a bargain- … unless you’re a supervil- or a super scientist and you’re like, “Mah, I need to control the world.”

joe: Oh,

nick: Is that you, Joe?

No, that’s I

think I did a spot on Joe impur- impersonation.

joe: coat. I think you got a trench coat.

nick: I

don’t.

geo: A, a science coat’s a little bit like a trench coat. Oh.

nick: indeed.

joe: Yeah. They are indeed. It’s the

scientist’s

geo: probably frown upon flashing.

nick: Are you allowed to go without clothes underneath those coats?

joe: there’s like the safety videos. You’re not supposed to… Yeah, you gotta wear pants and socks and closed-toed shoes. It’s a whole thing.

geo: That makes sense. We’ll

nick: that in lab safety.

joe: That’s right. We, [01:05:00] that, that episode.

erin: at a, I worked at a lab in New Orleans and it was so hot

outside, but then when we got inside it was so cold, and we

only wore the lab coats if there were people we didn’t want to give us money were

around. So we had a separate drawer for every person, and it was just full of cardigans and sweaters and closed-toed shoes

geo: That’s

joe: same thing in, in– I went to grad school in Arizona State University, so it was pretty warm, so we wore shorts and yeah, T-shirts. Yeah. So- But yeah,

nick: question for everyone. If you can splice your DNA with one animal, what would it be?

geo: Ooh.

nick: Joe, you wanna start us off?

joe: I don’t wanna start off.

You you’ve been thinking about this for a while. No. What? No. You in your trench coat.

geo: coat.

nick: I think I’d go axolotl.

joe: You’d go axolotl. Yeah.

geo: And did

nick: I want

the an axolotl … and did you think of that before, or just since this conversation?

Oh, it’s been a long running.

geo: Oh, so you’ve been thinking about that for a long What are you

joe: gonna do as an axolotl? I mean-

nick: gonna become a superhero [01:06:00] and possibly what? I can lose limbs, Joe, and regenerate

joe: but that’s… That’s just a part of it, right? I don’t… What else?

nick: I’ll deal with everything else later.

joe: I don’t know.

nick: That’s the only part I want of it.

joe: Okay. Oh, boy.

nick: I can reg- I- Regeneration, come on.

joe: Aaron, what do you got? Anything?

erin: I don’t know. I was gonna go salamander, and then I was like hold on a second. Let’s think a little harder.” I, don’t know. I, if I was like a full other animal, I would choose bald eagle because then anyone who shot me would be, persecuted and I would owe the avenge.

I’d be

joe: are you

under th- safe bird. it right. Are you in the threat

nick: of being

joe: yeah. What are you, what are you doing? Like you’re a secret agent in your trench coat? That’s a…

erin: But I

nick: a… Another person I don’t trust in a tr- trench

geo: Are you also in a, do you lose a lot of

nick: I will.

joe: know, yeah.

Well, Reese from Terminator. Oh, Mantis. Oh, yeah.

erin: Mantis

joe: Mantis shrimp. Oh. Yeah.

nick: Oh,

wait. Is that not the one that does the snapping that, like-

joe: [01:07:00] Yeah.

erin: That could be my power.

I wanted it

for the vision. I wanted to see.

all these different

joe: see.

nick: yeah. I thought you were like, “I wanna snap at people and make them hurt.”

geo: Interesting. I think

maybe-

erin: be like really psychedelic life.

We’ll see what’s going on

geo: I think maybe a cat.

joe: a cat. Cat.

nick: So you could just lay in the sun all day? You can do that now

joe: I know. Yeah, no.

nick: Just go outside,

Georgia

joe: the

cat?

geo: are cool.

joe: Cats are cool. Not a dog?

geo: I was actually thinking a pig because I th- I really like pigs. Yeah. And they, yeah. A

joe: Yeah. A lot

of-

geo: And we talked a lot

joe: you can go. Yeah, we did talk a lot about pigs, yeah.

geo: yeah. All right. Choke him.

nick: Got it.

geo: got it

joe: got it there. Okay.

joe: I don’t know. That’s a weird question.

geo: All

nick: my questions are

weird.

joe: about the trench

geo: if you needed to fight Spider-Man, what- If

joe: If I had to fight Spider-Man. Fighting Spider-Man. I know. Why am I now a

nick: Lady Pig? Well, because

geo: m- most of these

joe: the villain?

the villains in Spider-Man-

geo: are the villains of Spider-Man, so maybe you could think of it

joe: way. That’s true, yeah. But I, like we talked about, a lot of these mutations don’t [01:08:00] work the way, they don’t work the way we want them to work, so. I don’t know. What am I getting from all this? Maybe I’ll be Octopus and I’ll be like the real Doc Ock.

nick: Ock.

joe: I can

geo: I

nick: I could see that.

joe: I can have more arms maybe. Yeah. You go and you’re like, doing stuff. And I can squish myself into little spaces.

nick: You can

geo: probably- Even camouflage.

joe: Camouflage, that’s right. Got the skin. I

geo: probably have to get a custom-made trench

coat.

joe: But I, you know what?

I’ma go, okay, I’ma go with a plant. I would like to photo- do photosynthesis. I think that’d be cool.

nick: Interesting.

erin: adaptation

joe: Just go, yeah.

nick: So then eating you would become, be vegetarian.

joe: Well, you can’t eat me. I’m part human still.

I’m just, yeah, right. It’s…

erin: and you eat, aren’t you a cannibal?

joe: Am I a plant? Yeah, right. Maybe I can eat plants.

Maybe I can eat you then.

nick: then.

erin: But also you have photosynthesis. You can make your own

joe: That’s right, yeah. You know what? I’m set. I don’t have to eat anything. I

geo: No Big Macs. I

joe: just go. I can have a Big Mac if I [01:09:00] want a Big Mac, with my lettuce. Eating my people.

nick: Eating my

geo: people.

nick: people.

geo: Hold the lettuce.

joe: lettuce. Yeah.

nick: lettuce. Yeah.

joe: Just, mayonnaise. Give me that.

nick: that.

geo: All right, well- Well,

nick: thank you so much for being here with us. Do you have anything to plug?

joe: Or add to the conversation if you’ve… Some research bit that we didn’t get to, you wanna just mention it right now really fast, but yeah

erin: I think we got to everything except for xenografts.

That

joe: are xenographs. Xenographs.

All

erin: to, go. It’s grafting animal parts from one species into another.

joe: yeah.

Yeah,

erin: but I don’t have any plugs for any future events doing some, like maybe some trivia with a science association, but I haven’t fully gotten that sorted out. I’m gonna be at Mars Con next year

joe: Nice. Yeah. I’ll hopefully be there. And I was gonna say with that that, isn’t that if you put pig heart into humans, wouldn’t that cla- wouldn’t that be grafting an animal organ into

erin: you’re right. [01:10:00] You’re right. We d- I just didn’t

get to

nick: so. It’s a

erin: I learned

joe: word,

geo: is a, it’s such a

cool

word. You

joe: say

the fancy word.

That could become the word of the season, like

geo: know. It’s pretty cool. Yeah.

nick: Georgia didn’t actually say it this se- this episode.

geo: Joe did.

nick: Just ’cause he was bringing it up, well, thanks

joe: for joining us. It was a lot of fun and talking about cimeras and Spider-Man and then all that, but you got me, Joe.

nick: You got Nick.

joe: We’ve got Nick. Georgia. We’ve got Georgia.

nick: Georgia. And we went down some holes

joe: mixed up holes, half holes, Chimera holes.

nick: Bye-bye. We love y’all

Author: Jotham

Jotham Austin, II lives in Chicagoland with his wife and two sons. He has his PhD in Botany, and can be found taking electron micrographs of cells at The University of Chicago. His Rom-Com novella, “Tomorrow May Be Too Late” will be published as part of the romance anthology, “Askew Ever After,” January 2021. His debut novel, a sci-fi psychological thriller, ‘Will You Still Love Me, If I Become Someone Else?” will be released February 2021. Jotham recently started a newsletter that explores the science in science fiction (signup at jothamaustin.com). Preorder books and Follow Jotham on social media at https://linktr.ee/Jothamaustin View all posts by Jotham

Newsletter and Transcript of Rabbit Hole of Research Episode 74: Spider-Man villains series 2: Scorpion and the Other Chimeras

Episode 74 Transcript

Pre-Order: Touch of Noir 2027 Wall Calendar —

Joe will be at Shore Leave 46 — Lancaster, PA (July 10-12, 2026)

Check out what the RHR crew is creating:

Joe:

Future Events to Hang with the Crew:

It’s Science for Weirdos

We want to Hear From You (leave a comment):

Future Episodes

Three Part Spider-Man Series continues to get ready for the new MCU Spider-Man: Brand New Day

Show Notes & Fun facts

Stuff crew said they’d put in shownotes

Comics

Books

Movies

TV

Fun Facts to Impress Your Friends With:

Episode Highlights

“Stay curious, stay safe… Love Y’all!”

Subscribe and Share our Substack newsletter to get email updates, never miss an episode, and spread the word!! Don’t forget to give us 5 stars or a like!

Transcript

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Episode 74 Transcript

Pre-Order: Touch of Noir 2027 Wall Calendar —

Joe will be at Shore Leave 46 — Lancaster, PA (July 10-12, 2026)

Check out what the RHR crew is creating:

Joe:

Future Events to Hang with the Crew:

It’s Science for Weirdos

We want to Hear From You (leave a comment):

Future Episodes

Three Part Spider-Man Series continues to get ready for the new MCU Spider-Man: Brand New Day

Show Notes & Fun facts

Stuff crew said they’d put in shownotes

Comics

Books

Movies

TV

Fun Facts to Impress Your Friends With:

Episode Highlights

“Stay curious, stay safe… Love Y’all!”

Subscribe and Share our Substack newsletter to get email updates, never miss an episode, and spread the word!! Don’t forget to give us 5 stars or a like!

Transcript

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Like this:

Author: Jotham

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