We revisit why you shouldn’t lick rocks, dangers of self-experimenting, dark proteins, de-aging cells, and sadly a 1,000-year-old Peru geoglyph destroyed
Joe, Nick, and Georgia are back in the Basement Studio — well, sort of. Georgia is remoting in from the American Library Association conference in Chicago, and Nick is in his office. Joe is holding down the Basement Studio solo. The band is together in spirit.
Past guest Lorena checks in with some unfortunate news from Peru, and in Science Holes, Joe brings three stories. A NYTimes story about self experimentation, rewriting what we thought we knew about the human genome, and can we turn back the clock on aging cells.
The crew closes out with what they have been watching, reading, and playing, a few upcoming announcements, and Season 4 is officially happening (was there any doubt).
Stay curious. But don’t lick rocks or sand (come on Nick!)
Episode 74 – Spider-Man Villains Part 2: Scorpion and the Other ChimerasGuest: Erin C. AnthonyThe crew explores the science of chimeras, genetic splicing, and what it would actually take to create Spider-Man’s most dangerous foes.
Episode 76 – Spider-Man Villains Part 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
A New York Times article about people self-experimenting with unapproved synthetic compounds in hopes of breaking addiction. The story follows a woman known as Becks, a former biology major and chemistry hobbyist addicted to opioids, who discovered SR-17018 through Reddit after users flagged a 2019 study showing the compound helped addicted mice reduce dependence. With no approved human trials, no safety data, and no medical oversight, Becks ordered it online and kept a detailed diary of her experience.
Scientists have long assumed that large stretches of the human genome are essentially junk, non-coding regions that don’t appear to do anything meaningful. A new effort is challenging that assumption, officially naming thousands of previously ignored short proteins encoded by these regions “peptideins” and adding them to major gene and protein databases for the first time.
The first human participant has been treated in a gene therapy trial aimed at coaxing aged cells to behave like younger ones. The company Life Biosciences in Boston is targeting a form of glaucoma, activating three reprogramming genes in retinal cells using a virus delivery system — with a built-in safety switch that turns the genes off if the patient stops taking a specific antibiotic. The bigger question of whether de-aged cells can truly enhance longevity remains wide open, and the crew is already eyeing it as a future episode topic.
Science Terms
SR-17018 — An unapproved synthetic opioid receptor compound being self-administered by people attempting to treat addiction, sourced from Chinese labs and sold online with no regulatory oversight or human safety data.
Peptideins — The name for thousands of short proteins encoded by previously ignored regions of the human genome.
Junk DNA — An informal term for regions of the genome that don’t appear to code for known proteins.
Retinal Ganglion Cells — The neurons that make up the optic nerve, targeted in the de-aging trial as a potential treatment for glaucoma. Unlike most neurons, they are not normally capable of regeneration.
DNA structure — DNA is shaped like a twisted ladder (a double helix), made of two strands of nucleotides that wind around each other and pair up to hold the genetic code
Nucleotides (A, T, G, C) — the four chemical “letters” of DNA: adenine (A), thymine (T), guanine (G), and cytosine (C). A always pairs with T, and G always pairs with C, forming the rungs of the DNA ladder. The order of these letters provides the instructions for building proteins
DNA sequencing — the process of reading the order of A, T, G, and C letters in a piece of DNA, allowing scientists to compare genetic codes, identify mutations, and trace ancestry
What the Crew is Digging:
TV
Widow’s Bay (Apple TV+)— Joe and Georgia finished the series, and Nick has two more episodes.
Spider-Man Noir (Amazon)— The crew finished the series.
Afterparty (Apple TV+) — Nick just started the second season.
Books
Wrong Place, Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister
The Pools by E. Lockhart (advance copy)
Video Games
Resident Evil: Requiem — Nick finished it. No spoilers, so reach out to Nick if you have questions.
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Transcript
joe: [00:00:00] Hey, welcome back to The Rabbit Hole of Research down here in the basement studio I am feeling quite lonely here in a basement studio. It’s just me, Joe, down here
Nick: Oh, well, hey Joe, it’s you got Nick,
joe: got Nick
Nick: I’m all alone in my office too, if that makes you feel any better.
georgia: Hi. I’m here too.
Nick: Who’s that?
georgia: Do you know who I am?
joe: You know, we got Georgia.
Nick: Doesn’t introduce herself.
joe: introduced I know. Yeah. It’s like she’s off
at the ALA
conference
georgia: I need no introduction. No, I’m kidding.
joe: Yeah. All right, Tera
Nick: in, thank you.
joe: I know. That was like Tera, right? She did the same thing. Like, “Oh, you guys know who I am.”
Nick: And they didn’t tell you
joe: but yeah, Georgia, you’re at the ALA. You wanna talk a little bit about that, what you’re doing there?
georgia: Yeah the American Library Association at conference here [00:01:00] in Chicago. So not too far away, but because I have a nice friend that let me stay at, and they live within, like, a 10-minute walk of the conference center, so that’s been nice.
joe: Mm-hmm. Cool
georgia: so I’m missing the basement studio
joe: Missing the basement studio but we’re here.
georgia: Oh, I was gonna say, it’s been really cool. Like, it’s just been this amazing experience. And I was, just before we started recording, like I said, it’s kinda cool that one of our guests was one of the authors at the ALA conference, so. Grace one of our, one of our soon to come guests
joe: right.
Yep. Part of our… Will be part of our horror series in I think it’s before October. So be in there.
We got a few fun episodes, so yeah. Yeah. No, Grace was a good guest, so [00:02:00] excellent. All right, so yeah, last week we talked about lab safety and our kickoff to the Spider-Man villain series, so part one.
It was a fun episode. We learned all about how to be safe in a laboratory and not to lick rocks, so.
georgia: or how not to be safe
Nick: No, it’s how to lick rocks.
joe: Yes. Licking rocks You don’t.
Nick: tell them to
joe: a golem. You don’t lick the rocks. But yeah, it was a
georgia: gotta be a little risky, you know, sometimes
joe: It was a fun episode. We will be two more one on chimeras and one about Spider-Man himself and how the villains have influenced him. So yeah, it should be neat. But yeah. Any thoughts on that episode?
Nick: I can’t wait. I loved it. It was a lot of fun, and Tera’s always a fun guest to come back to. Yeah. What about you, Georgia?
georgia: No I really, I enjoyed it. But I do [00:03:00] have to be honest, I’ve been at this conference and stuff, I haven’t been checking on any of the comments or anything.
joe: Yep
Nick: Can’t believe you.
georgia: I know.
Nick: Alex says yay me for licking rocks.
georgia: He encouraging you to lick rocks?
Nick: Yeah. ‘Cause rocks are cool looking. And if you lick the sand, it’s like licking, like, hundreds of rocks at the same time.
joe: Oh, boy. Let’s not, like… No,
let’s
georgia: That sounds horrible.
joe: That sounds boring. Yeah. Yeah, it does. That sounds like a
georgia: You were at
joe: a fun time
georgia: you were at the beach today.
Did you lick the sand there? I
Nick: was. Always. It just gets in your mouth sometimes- Well- … and you’re just like,
georgia: Yeah.
joe: All right. All right. That’s enough licking stuff. Don’t do
it.
Nick: Stop licking.
joe: Did get something from a past guest. It wasn’t the lab safety, it was from the Nazca Lines Lorena. She sent me an article about the Peru [00:04:00] geoglyphs and how there was a total destruction of the triple spiral pre-Hispanic geoglyph.
The figure is more than a thousand years old linked to water worship, and it was located within a protected archaeological zone in the north of the country. But unfortunately, it was destroyed, so
kind of sad.
georgia: horrible
Nick: Man,
that’s awful
georgia: I mean, here it’s been there for that many years, and then, I mean…
Nick: Humans come by and they’re like, “Oh, you know what?
joe: Yep
Nick: W- let’s just get rid of this.”
georgia: Ugh. Yeah, it’s heartbreaking
joe: and was protected, right? But it was just a bunch of illegal occupants that had built makeshift structures in the zone, and then, “Oh, we accidentally didn’t know,” but now it’s like, “Oh, we can put some pipelines in,” right?
So it’s kind of you know, since it’s gone now, oh, since it’s gone
georgia: that seems suspicious. Mm-hmm
joe: but yep. Yeah. So they’re investigating that and, was it all a big ruse? [00:05:00] But yeah, unfortunate. Very sad. So but it was
Nick: I hate when corporations do stuff like that. It’s just so shady
joe: Always nice to Hear from previous guests on episodes, but then it’s like, oh
georgia: And you don’t wanna hear something like that. No
Nick: we only want good things.
joe: That’s right. We’ll take the other things,
georgia: good news.
joe: Stay aware and stay curious, right? This type of thing came up and now I knew about the Nazca Lines and knew about the geoglyphs, so I was…
You know, when you see something like this, it makes you think about it, whereas before I might have just overlooked this article or, you know, if someone sent it, be like, “Yeah, okay.”
georgia: Yeah, right
joe: cool. Anything else? You guys wanna go on to the Science Holes?
Nick: I I messed up. I di- I didn’t read anything this week. It’s been a
joe: Oh boy.
Nick: I was very very much in planning stages with things.
joe: I know Georgia’s been at the [00:06:00] conference, so I do have three things maybe we could talk about. And two might be… Well, one’s probably related to the episode. It was people using new and unpredictable synthetic drugs to experiment on themselves in hopes of becoming free of addiction.
So this, there was a story in The New York Times about a woman who’s been struggling with addiction and, heard about this drug called SR-17018, and it was on Reddit. People were talking about it. It was synthesized in China and then sold online without any, a- approvals or shown to be safe for potential side effects or dosages.
So you just kinda get these compounds.
georgia: wrong?
joe: Yeah, right. That’s , the thing about it. But you have people on Reddit who are saying, “Oh, there was a 2019 study and it suggested it could [00:07:00] free drug addicted mice of their dependence on the drug. And so you have this woman she just goes by the name Becks in the article, kind of a chemistry hobbyist, a former biology major, in
georgia: Oh my God.
joe: And so she was writing a lot of stuff in her journal and talking about statistics, like 80,000 people died from drug overdoses in the United States in 2024, more than Americans died in the Vietnam War. So she was just really concerned that she was gonna,, wind up dying from her addiction And she was addicted to opioids. So she had a accident, and so that kind of, triggered her addiction. But you know, she struggled with that even in high school, college but this really was the thing. So she kept this diary, and she got the drug just say, call it SR, instead of SR17018, but I’ll refer to it [00:08:00] as SR as they did in the article.
And so she took it, a dose, measured it out, and then she felt really good. Day one, day two, she didn’t have any… The typical withdrawal symptoms, and so she just kinda thought this was working. And then,, she kinda kept recording. And then like day nine-ish, day eight or nine, she kinda started having anxiety and high blood pressure.
So she decided to skip a dose because she didn’t have medical insurance and didn’t wanna go to the hospital being uninsured. And so– And then, day 10, she completely relapsed and
then
georgia: many days?
joe: It was about 10 days.
georgia: Okay
joe: And then after that, she kind of just was spiraling and, she would take SR the drug, and that would ease the withdrawal symptoms.
And then she would just go on these benders, not only to opiate, but heroin, cocaine, and she kinda did this, for several months until she finally went to [00:09:00] rehab. And then through rehab, she finished the whole process.
And then about a year later now she’s relatively sober. She found a partner, fell in love moved to Europe, I think. And so she says that a lot of this, her lifestyle changed, so she only does, drugs maybe five times over this last bit of time. So that’s why I said relatively sober.
But she changed her environment, changed her diet, and like she said, had a lot of luck that she’s still there. And then in the article, the interviewer asked if she thinks SR helped, and she said, yeah, she thinks it did help her go through the rehab process. So really fascinating and,
Nick: I mean, that’s also really good to see someone make it out of there and
joe: yep
yep
Nick: successful
joe: But the, it, I don’t know if taking this SR was the right thing, right? ‘Cause it really didn’t help
her. She really…
georgia: I really don’t think you should
ever take something that you’re, [00:10:00] like, I don’t really get how you think taking a drug is gonna help. I mean, I know that there are drugs that help you…
joe: With withdrawal symptoms, yep. Mm-hmm
georgia: Yeah, and giving up other drugs. But just the thought of taking this totally unknown drug
joe: Well, there,
georgia: try to stop addiction
joe: a paper in 2019 on mice that it said it helped them with their withdrawal symptoms. So that’s the only study you have that
georgia: not enough
joe: Right. Right. Right. It has potential, right? And this is the thing we talked about in the episode, that a lot of the villains, they go from, it kinda works to let’s do it.
Like, there’s no testing or they don’t wait for that. They kinda are desperate. I mean, she’s desperate and, you know, it’s “I’m gonna die if I don’t do something.” And then you read, oh, here’s some examples. People are trying it. It seems to work. They have success stories.
I think you never think that probably you only see success stories because maybe the non-su- r-
yeah, [00:11:00] the non-successful stories, they might have died or not, journaled it. So that’s the problem. Without a peer review study, you don’t really know what the failures were and things like that, so.
But it is, it’s a growing problem that they’re now seeing, that you’re having these science to street pipeline for novel drugs
georgia: Reddit should not be your source of in- info on that.
joe: And he’s like like these these Chiney lab- Chinese labs are scouring science papers for these new discoveries and then pushing them out and building the hype.
Nick: Very cool
joe: Well, the other thing we had touched on, I think in the last mini. Losing track of which mini we talked about
Nick: a lot of minis. I don’t–
joe: they’re starting to build up. Yeah, but it’s nice that they’re building ’cause this shows…
But we were talking about sequencing and finding differences. I think, Georgia, we touched a little bit on forensics, like how do they tell between two people? And I said, “Oh, there’s this, there’s a lot of DNA that we have that don’t really code for [00:12:00] working proteins.” So proteins that we need all the time , and so those areas, can have mutations, and they mutate faster so that, that .01% difference between us humans, something like three million base pairs, it’s usually in those areas.
And so that’s what they sequence and look in these unique areas. And they usually call that “junk DNA” because it doesn’t play a role potentially. And so there was this paper just came out where they’re starting to classify these, junk, quote-unquote, genes, junk genes. And so there are about 20,000 genes that have been considered essential but these thousands of unclassified and ignored, junk DNA and dark proteins with unknown but potentially important roles in cells are being reclassified and studied .
Like, we don’t know what they do. We kind of consider them junk because they don’t seem to do anything in major [00:13:00] processes. And so in a lot of these genes that encode have been excluded from databases. So these tend to be very short in amino acid length. They lack evolutionary relatives in other organisms, which is probably why they’ve been omitted.
And so now they’re making an effort to include these thousands of molecules encoded by the human genome, and they gave it the name pep- peptidenins. And start including them in the major gene and protein databases as something that might have a role in biology.
So it’s interesting that you have these things, and we were just talking about these kind of areas in, that people don’t study or look at because,
georgia: I mean, and then that feels like pretty presumptuous to, I don’t know, is that the right word? To say, “Oh, these are junk.” Like, just ’cause you don’t really know what they do, you’re just assuming that they don’t do anything?
Nick: And that everyone else follows them with that [00:14:00] logic
joe: Yeah, and some of the junk DNA too is non-coding, so I don’t wanna say all the junk DNA is… Gonna be in these peptides. But they’re kinda picking out the stuff that potentially could code for a protein and going, “Oh, hey, this thing might be important.
Maybe someone should look at that.” But yeah that’s how it starts. You rethink about these things. But that’s… Science isn’t, you know, isn’t complete, this study also shows that, where we have a good idea of how we think things work, but we’re still learning how these systems, including us, our cells, work and , go together and make us who we are and what we are.
So I think that’s fascinating ‘ cause I think a lot of people think science is done. Like, you go to school, you learn a textbook pop, and then okay, that’s it. But, you know-
Nick: Wait, there’s more after that?
joe: There’s more after that, a lot more.
Nick: What? I’m shooketh
joe: So yeah, it’s [00:15:00] really cool. It’s kinda cool seeing studies like that and thinking about the implications, so… Yeah, and then the last one I had, which was pretty interesting, and we touched on we, in that episode but there was a trial to de-age cells. And so the first person is a company called Life Biosciences in Boston.
They are- got approval to treat their first participant. And the goal… The idea,, de-aging cells . Maybe we need to think maybe a episode might come out of this. But you wanna take a cell, and coax it back to make it seem like a younger cell?
And so can you-
Nick: respond as one as well,
joe: or
Nick: would it just look like
joe: that’s the idea. That’s, these are all the things that can you turn on certain genes to make the old cell behave as though it was young again? And the idea, if you can make it think it’s young [00:16:00] again, is then you can rejuvenate cells. In this case, they’re testing treatment for a certain form of glaucoma.
You know, glaucoma is an eye disease that can cause blindness. And so if they can rejuvenate the optic nerve, then cells, then that could actually help grow and form, healthier cells, regenerate the neurons because these neurons aren’t normally capable of regeneration.
So that’s the idea. Can we trick it and then nudge it think that the restorative features of the young cells and then, but not too far back. Like, you don’t wanna, you don’t wanna push it back to where it doesn’t know what kind of cell it should be, right? ‘Cause that’s the beginning of our cells, they were you know they didn’t know what they were, and then they, they get signals.
And okay, I’m an eye cell. I’m a nerve cell, optic nerve cell. So you you’re playing in that sweet spot where you want it younger so that it’s healthy and rejuvenating and regenerating, but not too far back. So- Yeah,
Nick: Yeah, you want like a 15 to 20 year gap.
joe: [00:17:00] Sure. And so it’s… Oh, go ahead. Yeah. Yeah.
georgia: No, I was just gonna say, yeah, I’d like a lot of my cells to
do that
joe: Yeah. That was something. So one, we touched on this in another mini is that they’re using a virus that they, it, that’s been used in gene therapy. I forget which study we talked about where they used a virus system to put in these three reprogramming genes into the retinal cells and that would then kind of function.
And what they’ve added a safety feature that the system, the genes are only switched on when the participant takes an antibiotic. And so if the antibiotic is stopped, then the genes all switch off. And so it’s this little control that they have built in. And to your point, Georgia, that was something that came up in this article was that, , when you’re modifying cells, are they truly younger and can they be reprogrammed to enhance longevity is also a larger question.
So these are, [00:18:00] and I think, Nick, you were touching on that also, that they don’t know. And then this is just focused on the eye, so also, you don’t wanna get too ahead, right? Because if, things like this, if it doesn’t work, then that could freak people out and then research dries up or money because it goes, “Well, that was a, you know, it didn’t work out.”
And if it works really well, then people are gonna get really crazy and go, “Oh, can we do this for the whole body and, this tissue?” So I think there’s some measured optimism, and I think they’re trying to expand it to, like, 12 people to really getting it. So
Nick: to do, go on.
joe: Yeah, so
Nick: I f- can already think of a few movies that are
joe: Mm-hmm.
Nick: this vein
joe: Yep. Aging in general is really fascinating, and I know we’ve talked about telomere length and other episodes it’s come up, so yeah. So as season four, I think we’ve been teasing it. We’re starting to think about it and,
Nick: We’re thinking about recording it.
joe: Yes, we’re thinking about a season four now. There’ll be… Oh, pretty sure there’ll be a season four, so . We’re-[00:19:00]
Nick: I think we were already greenlit, right?
joe: That’s right.
Yeah, we got it. We’re there. So, yeah, so that, those are my three science holes. I think they were really cool, and they were relevant to the the episode, which sometimes doesn’t always happen, but yeah. Yep, yep. So cool
georgia: Yeah.
joe: All right
Nick: of media have you guys been consuming lately?
georgia: Oh, that’s a good question.
I mean, I have a plethora of to-be-read books now. Yeah. And I’m super excited because one of my all-time favorite books is We Were Liars. I know I’ve brought it up before. And We Were Liars came out, about 10 years ago, and I read it then, and then there’s the Prime TV series, and I loved it so much.
I just love it. So I got to meet E. Lockhart at ALA, and I got [00:20:00] an advance copy of her new book- Okay, yeah … that’s in the same kind of universe. So, I was t- A- actually, I was trying to start reading it last night, but I was so tired. I did fall asleep ’cause I was just so tired. But I’m excited about getting to read that.
It’s called The Pools. And, yeah.
Nick: Very cool
joe: Very cool. And we finished watching Widow’s Bay, so that was really I don’t
georgia: so good
joe: I don’t
think we-
Nick: How many episodes are there for that?
joe: Eight, I think
Nick: Eight?
georgia: I think
Nick: so Okay. Then I as well finished it.
joe: Yeah. Yeah, it’s like
georgia: you didn’t realize it was the finale of the-
Nick: Well, it felt like it could keep going.
georgia: Yeah. And- Well, I, really hope they, I, well, I can’t remember. Did I read that they for
joe: I think season two is g- is green-lit, so I think that’s happening
Nick: Oh, wait. There’s 10 episodes,
joe: Oh, was there 10? Okay, sorry. We watched all of them. I don- I thought there was eight[00:21:00]
Nick: Oh, then I lied. I have two episodes left.
georgia: Yeah.
joe: See, that’s why it felt like it. It felt like there was a
solid conclusion, but it felt like they
could keep going on with the story. Mm-hmm.
georgia: Right, you could really feel like it could keep going, but it also gets pretty you know.
Nick: Like I, I figured it was gonna be
georgia: like-
Nick: There’s a climax … that’s where season two would be picked up, you know? Like it felt like- Yeah
all right, this is your your end. Oh.
georgia: Yeah.
Nick: Sorry, I didn’t mean to cut you off there, Joe.
joe: Sorry, didn’t mean to cut you off. No, you’re fine. The other thing we finished watching was Spider Noir, so that was, Oh my gosh, it’s so good
georgia: Oh my gosh, it’s so good. I can’t even tell you how good I think it is.
Nick: I have not finished it.
joe: Mm-hmm. Yeah, it was good. I
georgia: Are you enjoying it?
Nick: Yes and no. Like, it’s good. It’s not my favorite. It’s… I w- I would grade it as good.
georgia: Is that because-
Nick: Not
georgia: great … like, I think maybe because I almost don’t even think [00:22:00] of it as Spider-Man.
Does that make sense?
Nick: Yeah.
joe: Yeah
georgia: I think- Like, like of its own thing, I think it’s really good, and I love Nicolas Cage’s performance, and I really love the filming of it, the… And I I like the story, but I have to remind myself that it’s Spider-Man.
joe: Yeah.
Nick: And I keep wanting more of Spider-Man, and-
georgia: Yeah
Nick: it’s just, like, I don’t know. It… Oh, I’m gonna finish it. I just haven’t
joe: And I didn’t read that comic line, so it
was… I think one of the jarring things is that if you know the Spider-Man story, and some of them, and there’s a couple different universes, but they all have similar parallels.
But the Noir storyline was just… It’s so different than the traditional Sp- how Spider-Man became Spider-Man, and then some of the villains, how they became, who they are. So yeah, it was really… That was fascinating, so I think that’s where you get that, is this really a [00:23:00] Spider-Man or just kind of another superhero
movie?” …
Nick: it sort of feels like a knockoff
joe: right. Exactly, yes.
georgia: I guess the
joe: That’s a good way to put it in it, it looks great, and
Yeah. It’s a good story too. I mean, yeah, it’s, if you called it anything else, you would be like, “Oh, that’s a great superhero story,” and, but it’s like Spider-Man, right? It’s like you know?
georgia: Yeah. I don’t know. That’s interesting.
I didn’t read the comics s- at all either, so it’s like, do you feel like the comics of the Spider-Noir gave you more Spider-Man?
Nick: Yes.
georgia: Okay.
Nick: Yes, I
georgia: do. Okay.
Nick: And Georgia, I think you would enjoy those ones. I don’t know why.
georgia: Yeah. I feel like- I have to check those out
Nick: I guarantee at your local library they’ll have ’em.
joe: Yeah, right.
Nick: In a nice collection book.
joe: Yeah,
georgia: I will have to check that out. Yes.
joe: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm[00:24:00]
georgia: Maybe, or even on Hoopla
joe: Oh, and Hoopla definitely probably has it. Yeah, they have a lot of that stuff. Yeah. Speaking of books, I did read, Wrong Place Wrong Time. It was a really good thriller. A little bit of time displacement, it had this kind of l- a sci-fi-ish element to it, but it was really well done.
It was a good book, so. Gillian McAllister is the author, so yep. But
georgia: Yeah, I, and then kind of to that point was I did read a little bit of that book, and I just wasn’t in the right head space to read it because it does… He, she deals with, it’s a mother dealing with her teenage son, and I think it was just, like, in that way, just a little too hard for me to, read it.
And it, which is kind of like a play on words. It was the wrong time to
joe: wrong time, yep. [00:25:00]
Nick: Oh.
joe: So. Cool. How about you, Nick? What have you been up to watching, listening, playing?
Nick: I have recently beaten the la- latest Resident Evil game,
And I thoroughly enjoyed it. I think the ending Wasn’t trusting itself enough to do what it wanted to do, and so I think they held back on that.
joe: Yeah
Nick: But overall, I thought it was a great game.
joe: Oh.
Nick: But yeah. W- I just don’t wanna spoil the game
joe: right, right, ‘
right, right
Nick: I don’t know, someo- someone out there might be
joe: Might be playing it in the middle of it. Write Nick? Offline if you want more Okay. Apple
Nick: on Apple TV.
joe: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm
Nick: We even we enjoyed that one. It was a good murder mystery. Kind of always feels like the game Clue. But yeah, [00:26:00] they they I haven’t started season two yet, but season one is yeah, that, that was good. We’re, I think we’re gonna start season two soon ’cause, it’s already available.
Might as well. But yeah, that I really haven’t been doing much. Been trying to do some new work on things. So i- if I can get it to work out the way I want it to, I’ll bring more information about it.
joe: Nice.
georgia: Intriguing.
joe: I know, right? A little teaser. Yeah. Cool.
georgia: All right.
joe: a few things. One, I will be at Shore Leave 46Con in Lancaster, PA, July 10th to the 12th. So come out if you are in that area and say hi. I’m giving a talk on what electron microscopy and cell biology can teach us about zombies.
So something to to come and hear
Nick: you see what I sent you about [00:27:00] zombies on Instagram?
You might need to watch that before going there.
Just for you.
joe: Okay. I’ll check it out and see what you sent me. So yeah, that’s going on, and then don’t forget, if you haven’t already, Georgia and Jim Siergey they have a noir calendar coming out. Pre-orders are up. We’ll get the link. It’s in the newsletter. But yeah, you can find that.
It’s gonna be really nice. Speaking of
noir
Nick: those pre-orders? Can-
georgia: Oh, they’re only $15. Oh,
Nick: wow. $15.
georgia: It’s g- yeah, like, it’s a wall calendar to put on your wall. It’s, like, full of art and- You can see all
Nick: the hottest artists.
georgia: Well, just the two of us artwork, but.
Nick: Okay, maybe I was wrong. You get just two of ’em.
joe: Cool. All right. Well, thought I’d just mention some of the [00:28:00] stuff we’re up to. And Nick’s got a secret project. Maybe he’ll be announcing that, so
Nick: Yeah, hopefully soon.
joe: Coolio.
Nick: cool
joe: All right, well, I think that’s a wrapper
georgia: All right
Nick: You got Joe.
joe: You do have, you, the, no one’s here, so I just feel like I’m floating in the ether. Yes, you have me, Joe.
Nick: You got Nick
georgia: And Georgia And
Georgia
joe: georgia
Nick: we went down some holes
joe: Some mini holes. . Stay safe. Don’t lick rocks. Stay
Spider-Man’s villains are a case study of OSHA violations. We break down the science of lab safety, what goes wrong, and why fiction can’t stop Handwavium-ing the guardrails.
In Episode 72 of Rabbit Hole of Research, Joe, Nick, Georgia, and Mary are joined by returning guest Tera Lavoie, PhD, cell biologist, electron microscopist, and the Advanced Electron Microscopy core facility’s lab safety director. This episode kicks off the 3 episode Spider-Man Villain Series, and we’re starting where it all goes wrong, the lab.
It turns out many of Spider-Man’s villains are a catastrophic series of safety procedure failures. Some intentional and some not, but could have been avoided with proper safety training. We dig into what actually makes a safe lab, why those guardrails exist, and the very real, and sometimes very dark, history behind modern research ethics.
We also get into DIY biohackers, CRISPR self-experiments, the original Superman’s meteor rock ethics violation, prions, hantavirus, the Radium Girls, Madame Curie’s radioactive notebooks, and whether Nick can lick various elements from the periodic table.
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
Want to support the show? Tell your friends. Follow us on social media, Discord, share the podcast, and let us know what topics you are excited about. Leave a Comment. And for email alerts sign-up for the Substack newsletter and never miss an episode, exciting updates or the bonus images we talk about on the episodes.
We want to Hear From You (leave a comment):
Have you or would you participate in a clinical trial?
Do you think biohackers are bold pioneers pushing the boundaries of human potential, or walking lab safety violations? Where do you stand? Would you experiment on yourself?
And the question we all need answered: Would YOU lick a rock for a superpower?
Drop your thoughts in the comments. We read them all, and your ideas often shape future episodes.
Episode 74 – Spider-Man Villain Series 2: Scorpion and the Other ChimerasGuest: Erin C. AnthonyThe crew explores the science of chimeras, genetic splicing, and what it would actually take to create Spider-Man’s most dangerous foes.
Episode 76 – Spider-Man Villain 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.
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Show Notes & Fun facts
Books and Comics Mentioned
The Reign of the Superman (1933) — Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster’s original fanzine story, Science Fiction: The Advance Guard of Future Civilization, Issue 3
Goodnight Lab (2017)— Chris Ferrie’s book recommended by Tera as an alternative to Goodnight Moon
Guinea Pig Zero (2002)— An Anthology of the Journal for Human Research Subjects edited by Robert Helms, which documented the experiences of human medical test subjects. Mentioned by Mary
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH (1971) — A children’s science fiction/fantasy book by Robert C. O’Brien, with illustrations by Zena Bernstein. Mentioned by Mary
Planet of the Apes (2011)— James Franco / John Lithgow version
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989)
Gremlins (1984)
The Martian (2015)
Iron Man 3 (Extremis) (2013)
A Brother From Another Planet (1984)
Argo (2012)
Fun Facts to Impress Your Friends With:
The first Class III biosafety cabinet was built in 1943 at Fort Detrick, Maryland during World War II biological warfare research, essentially because researchers kept getting sick and needed a box to work inside.
Madame Curie’s personal notebooks, lab equipment, and clothes are still so radioactive they are stored in lead-lined boxes, and will remain dangerously radioactive for another 1,600 years due to the half-life of radium-226. But they have been recently digitized, check it out here.
The axolotl, not the lizard, is the animal Dr. Curt Connors should have studied for limb regeneration. Unlike most reptiles, axolotls can fully regenerate entire limbs.
CRISPR gene editing kits are legal to purchase with no regulatory oversight. In 2017, former NASA scientist Josiah Zayner livestreamed himself injecting a CRISPR solution at a biotech conference in an attempt to edit his own muscle growth genes.
The FDA does not regulate most nutraceuticals, meaning the vitamins and supplements on store shelves may not contain what the label says, or in the amounts listed.
The Radium Girls were female factory workers who contracted radiation poisoning from painting radium self-luminous paint onto watch dials and hands.
The Untreated Syphilis Study at Tuskegee — The U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS) Untreated Syphilis Study at Tuskegee was a study conducted between 1932 and 1972. Researchers did not collect informed consent from participants, or offer treatment, even after it was easily available.
Episode Highlights
00:00 — Basement Studio Roll Call: The full crew plus returning guest Tera Lavoie, PhD.
01:09 — Tera introduces herself: as a cell biologist, electron microscopist, and lab safety director who joked about working alongside Joe for 19 years.
03:54 — Curiosity And Lab Safety Monologue: Joe delivers the opening monologue on human curiosity, the guardrails of modern science, and a Jeff Goldblum quote.
05:41 — Spider-Man As Safety Violation: The crew breaks down how Peter Parker’s origin is itself a lab safety disaster.
09:54 — Safe Lab Basics And Rules: Tera walks through what actually makes a safe lab.
11:57 — Licking Rocks And Superman Origin: Joe talks about the original 1933 Superman story.
16:05 — Human Research Ethics Horror Stories: The crew covers the dark history behind modern research ethics including Nazi experiments, Tuskegee, Henrietta Lacks, and Project Sunshine.
21:55 — Do Safety Rules Hinder Science: Nick asks the scientists if lab safety regulations actually slow down discovery.
26:19 — Back To Spider-Man The Lizard: Dr. Curt Connors skipped animal trials and injected himself with an untested reptilian mutagen.
31:30 — DIY Biohackers Rise: Joe introduces the world of biohackers.
32:35 — CRISPR Self Experiments: Former NASA scientist Josiah Zayner livestreamed injecting himself with a CRISPR gene editing solution.
34:52 — Why IRBs Matter: Joe and Tera break down the Institutional Review Board — the ethics gatekeepers.
37:49 — Spider-Man Villain Logic: The crew compares biohackers to Spider-Man villains, smart, curious people who bypass institutional infrastructure and shortcut their way to catastrophe.
38:51 — Gene Therapy Cautionary Tales: Tera recounts the tragic story of Jesse Gelsinger.
46:25 — Biosafety Levels Explained: Joe walks through BSL-1 through BSL-4.
49:57 — BSL4 Suits And Movie Mistakes: The crew breaks down how most fictional labs are decorated like BSL-4 but operated like BSL-Zero.
52:32 — Real Lab Safety Culture: Tera and Joe share what real lab safety culture actually looks like day to day.
54:15 — Outbreaks, Hantavirus, And COVID: The crew discusses the hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship and working with COVID in their facility during the pandemic.
56:54 — Prions And Weird Hazards: Tera explains prions — misfolded proteins that cause other proteins to misfold.
58:28 — Fictional Lab Safety Fails: From Gremlins to The Stand to Contagion, the crew runs through pop culture’s greatest lab safety disasters and the rare examples that actually got it right.
01:00:39 — Lab Bench Snack Talk: High school chemistry students melting Reese’s Pieces in beakers leads to a broader conversation about why food and drink have no place at the bench.
01:01:18 — The Stand Miniseries Pick: Mary makes a case for watching only the first episode of the mid-1990s Stand miniseries and calling it a day.
01:04:48 — Mythic Safety Fails: Joe traces fictional lab safety violations all the way back to the oldest cautionary tales in fiction.
01:06:32 — Can Nick Lick It: The crew runs through the periodic table testing which elements Nick can safely.
01:11:20 — Radium Girls: factory workers who licked their paint brushes to keep a fine tip while painting radium watch dials.
01:14:39 — Lab Safety Done Right: The X-Files is a rare example of fiction that actually handles quarantine and containment protocols with some degree of accuracy.
01:17:48 — Animal Facility Lockdowns: Joe and Tera explain why animal research facilities have become increasingly locked down and why letting research animals loose — as in 28 Days Later — is a genuine biosecurity nightmare.
01:21:04 — Curie Radioactive Legacy: How Madame Curie processed tons of pitchblende with bare hands, and the radioactive notebooks that still can’t be put on public display.
01:23:35 — Final Thoughts And Plugs: The crew wraps with a reminder that curiosity is good, peer review exists for a reason, so please be careful out there and don’t lick rocks.
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Transcript
joe: [00:00:00] Hey Welcome back to the Rabbit Hole of Research down here in the Basement Studio. We are all crewed up down here. Even got a guest in studio.
nick: Everyone, every chair
is
joe: chair, every mic. This is the place to be. You’ve got me, Joe.
nick: Yeah, I got Nick.
You got Nick.
geo: Georgia.
joe: We’ve got Georgia.
mary: We got Mary. We’ve
joe: got Mary, and our very special guest.
tera: Tera You
joe: Tara, that’s it? Nothing either, right?
tera: It’s
nick: that up for the whole
tera: hello. Tera Tara, we’re happy
geo: to be like that.
nick: episode has to be like that.
I mean, but
joe: what’s your-
geo: You have to introduce
joe: and things like that in,
yeah …Well,
tera: everybody should know me if they’ve listened to the podcast
nick: been a guest before.
She
geo: a
joe: dun. No. Well, there may be someone-
tera: Oh, no But there
geo: be someone
tera: is true. I mean, God forbid you didn’t like Doctor Who and you skipped my
nick: you still come
tera: I might forgive you
mary: Who’s the best Doctor?
tera: Oh, it’s a… [00:01:00] Oh, it’s hard. Top three would be-
nick: If you don’t say Eccleston,
tera: nine, and 10.
mary: 10.
nick: Ten.
mary: All right. Right
joe: Heard it There and go.
back and listen to that episode. Yeah, Tara was a guest with us before, last season,
tera: Yeah.
joe: seasons
geo: But w- but
nick: two seasons
joe: know.
geo: we need your rundown again.
joe: So yeah,
tera: I’m Tera I’m a scientist. I am a cell biologist and electron microscopist. I get to see Joe five days a week at work, and he doesn’t hate me yet, so it’s great.
mary: All
joe: you’re, and you got a PhD.
I
tera: do have a PhD in molecular medicine.
joe: and in our facility- In-house-
tera: am the assistant director.
geo: And how long have you guys-
tera: I
am
joe: right? I mean, you
tera: safety
director.
geo: How- How long
tera: How long have you worked
geo: together?
nick: Officially
joe: worked
tera: or sort of worked in the lab worked? ‘Cause we’ve worked in the lab worked for, like, 19 years-
Wow … ’cause Joe was on my thesis committee.
joe: yeah. Mm-hmm.
tera: But we’ve worked… Actually, my [00:02:00] workiversary is coming up May 15th. It’ll be nine years.
geo: Wow. Nine years. Very
tera: Thank you.
mary: cheers. Here we go.
tera: to nine.
joe: Yay. Oh, you know what? We should’ve had the world’s second strongest beer.
mary: beer. Well,
geo: that’s okay.
mary: with that.
This one’s eight and a half. It’s fine. Yeah,
joe: this, um, Equilibrium.
mary: Mm-hmm. Equilibrium, very
joe: It
tera: to be able to drive home
yeah,
geo: that’s a good one … it has a very cool label and-
nick: And every cup in this studio is filled with it.
joe: Yes, that’s right. Yeah, well, and
today
tera: thank you. Ooh.
geo: We’re … Yeah,
mary: consistent.
We’re on
joe: We are consistent. Yeah. We’re gonna be
talking about, This is part one of the Spider-Man villain series.
Yes. And we’re gonna kick it off with lab safety- Woo
geo: Woo-hoo.
joe: important to the Spider-Man universe,
as we’ll see here.
geo: Oh, 100% … very qualified
joe: right. She is the
lab
tera: very
qualified to talk about lab safety. I am probably less qualified to talk about Spider-Man
villains.
joe: We
got it. We’ll,
nick: you covered,
joe: there.
tera: we
geo: got you covered, right, [00:03:00]
joe: we got
Nick. I’m a Spider-Man
fan. What’s a villain?
nick: I only know Spooderman.
joe: your favorite
tera: in the movies? Tom Holland ‘Cause that’s… Holland?
joe: All
nick: Hands
down.
tera: I agree.
nick: Yeah. He just brings the whole package of Spider-Man to the screen.
geo: I like Tom Holland.
joe: Yeah.
I I have nothing. I got no beef with him
geo: I was kind of sad I didn’t get invited to the wedding, but … Oh.
nick: Oh.
joe: Oh, you…
nick: I didn’t know you were holding out for that one. Right. You didn’t get your invite?
geo: I didn’t.
nick: M- did you check your spam?
joe: your spam? Yeah, right. That’s where it was at
tera: it was
geo: Anyway,
we digress.
joe: yeah.
Let me… Let’s get… Let me do my bit, and then we can,
nick: bit it up
joe: I go. So, yeah. So I do my little monologue, as everyone know if you’re just listening.
tera: It’s like I’m at work all over again.
nick: He does this all day,
doesn’t he? call me, does he? The let me start with the list.
I
joe: do have a list, though. I do have lists on this episode.
Us humans are curious creatures. We question, poke, and taste things. We [00:04:00] are drawn to picking up the weird rock, the strange mushroom, the glowing beetle, and we experience and discover the world through our senses. And that curiosity is the scientist in us all asking what would happen if. But isn’t there a saying about curiosity and a cat?
The warnings are baked into sayings and the oldest stories we tell, but we would ignore them every time because the wanting to know is louder than the warning. Modern research, laboratory safety, and regulations didn’t kill that instinct. It just built a system around it. Protocols, peer review, safety cabinets, training seminars, ethics boards, institutional reviews.
These are all guardrails around curiosity’s most dangerous quality, the compulsion to find out what happens next. But fiction tears all of that down. Because drama lives in the moment someone decides to handwavium the guardrails. Norman Osborn, Otto Octavius, Curt Connors skip straight [00:05:00] from what if to let’s find out.
And we love them for it because some part of us understands that impulse completely. Nick, don’t be licking those weird rocks. You
nick: I,
you were supposed to bring some
joe: the title of the- And as you explore the world, remember what Jeff Goldblum, the Rabbit Hole of Research Award winner, said in Jurassic Park, “They were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”
And curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction, or should I say lab safety, brought it back.
nick: back. So I-
geo: did
joe: I- Or did it?
Or did it? Did…
geo: First off-
mary: I thought you were gonna talk about the other Jold- Jeff Goldblum … yeah.
nick: dad … Jeff Goldblum- Yes
geo: Okay, so without labs, with lab safety, we wouldn’t have Spider-Man, right?
joe: labs… With lab safety, we wouldn’t have Spider-Man, right? You’re absolutely right.
Spider-Man probably is the original lab safety violation comic. I mean, you know, it’s, so many things wrong and Tara and [00:06:00] I, she’ll… We go through so many trainings. So one, that class, they were all minors going through a lab. So there, there’s all sorts of, you know, kind of paperwork. Parents are notified A radioactive spiders were loose.
So now not only do you have poor animal management, which we’ll probably get into that, you also have radioactive kind of training. Like so that’s double. Two violations right there. Escaped experiment. No one noticed anything. No one reported anything. He just went home. He kinda slept it off.
No one told the parents. I mean, it was just really like,
nick: That’s because he doesn’t have parents, Joe I
joe: so or the a- or the aunt, right?
Well, I mean, it’s his parental supervisors, let’s say that,
Yeah. I mean- Yeah … but no one told all the other kids. I mean, how we know some of those other kids didn’t get bit by spiders if
nick: One of them did
joe: right?
Right. So yeah, so it’s-
nick: One of them did, and that was, Yeah
tera: So- At that point, you don’t know if anything was contagious human to human.
joe: Yeah. And so there’s trainings that we have that are required to work in a lab, and we complain about it ’cause they’re pretty much the same [00:07:00] every year after you do it the first time.
It’s just like refreshers. But you just get a ton of alerts, and it’s like, “Take your refresher. Take your refresher.” And that’s from everything from lab stuff to dealing with minors in, in, in
s- in spaces. In the case of working with minors. Right. Yep, so Yep.
tera: I was gonna say gun safety, but not quite gun
joe: safety. No, it’s the, um, the- ‘
nick: Cause You
guys use guns to
joe: shooter. Active shooter. yeah … active shooter.
nick: the cells, right? Yeah, we- Yeah. You guys are just sitting there-
tera: Well, our see if I can hit
actually does have a
joe: gun.
tera: Yeah.
nick: yeah.
joe: So no, that’s… So Spider-Man really set it up, and I think you have, Stan Lee, I don’t know if he knew that, but he really wrote cases for the scientific regulation and guardrail.
I think almost every villain in Spider-Man, I got a whole list of it. He is- Where are you going?
tera: perfect- Every scientist is a villain.
joe: villain. Yeah, right. Right. Well, there’s a few, but-
nick: but- … Mysterio isn’t a scientist, and he’s not-
geo: It’s the perfect setting for something like this
nick: Oh, yeah.
geo: Oh, yeah. You can explain away so many things,
tera: You know?
Yeah.
joe: But you have the Lizard, you have Electro, Sandman, Doctor Octopus, the Green Goblin, [00:08:00] Vulture. And Vulture was kind of stolen
alien tech. Yeah. But still it was, there was no regulation there. He was just doing some stuff in his garage.
mary: Can I share a sweet Spider-Man story?
joe: Sure.
mary: My nephew, when he was a little boy, he was, he had to have an MRI at one point, and he was very excited about this because he thought that this would give him special powers like Spider-Man.
geo: Spider-Man. That was me-
mary: He was very
nick: every time.
I had to go to the
geo: it’s like, “Stay really
nick: can I start
joe: can I
mary: now?
He was so into it ’cause he was thinking maybe through this, I don’t know. yeah.
joe: It’s My dad asked the same question. Sh- shout out
mary: out to my sweet nephew, Bridger. Yeah. Yeah.
geo: Yeah. Awe.
joe: Aw. Yeah. Yeah, Spider-Man, no, I think Spider-Man, it’s, that’s why we’re doing this series, ’cause I think he is one of the most The fame popular characters in comic book Absolutely maybe S- Superman,
nick: I think it goes
joe: Wonder Woman Right.
Yeah, I mean,
that would
be- … Batman. Yeah.
tera: Yeah, probably those three.
nick: Yeah.
joe: is in mine, okay. Yeah.
nick: in
pop culture-
geo: there been a vote?[00:09:00]
tera: Probably.
geo: we’ll have
mary: in the footages.
geo: edit.
nick: we’ll have it in the
joe: We’ll see how, w- the show
nick: me,
geo: they didn’t ask me, so.
Well, who’d you, who do you have? What’s your ranking? That
nick: with the face.
tera: That one
nick: other… I think it’s a woman,
tera: Oh, stop it.
nick: Oh, stop No fair. I have- It’s
tera: parents. I have-
Definitely the one without parents
Yeah.
geo: have
to say Wonder Woman.
joe: Wonder Woman?
geo: Yeah.
joe: See, she was involved in no lab safety incidences, so she was a
geo: right
was wonderful. ‘Cause she was from a very highly intelligent other planet, which was… Yeah. Planet? Planet,
joe: Planet, no.
No. Like the Amazon.
nick: Yeah.
geo: Oh. She was Amazonian. Earth.
joe: Yep. Like, it was like a isolated-
geo: Oh, yeah. That’s- … a land
mary: Thucydides or
joe: right here.
mary: So
I wanna bring this, I wanna sort of pivot a little bit, so I wanna tap into
joe: Please pivot.
Georgia’s like,
mary: wanna get the heck away from this.
joe: this.
mary: To pivot from, more from Spider-Man and Tim, back into your subject matter expertise, what is a safe [00:10:00] lab? What are some characteristics of a safe lab?
tera: A safe lab will have, will be clean.
nick: be clean. Mm-hmm.
joe: Mm-hmm. Clean.
tera: Will have no razor blades. That is probably the biggest thing we have to look for are rogue bla- razor
nick: Oh, so just not laying
around. That’s right, yeah. Is
So you’re saying my house is
tera: That is a thing.
joe: That is a a thing, like l- with razor blades laying around? Really? Interesting. Well, I mean,
geo: do you cut everything. Okay. do you have, like, a special box, like Sharps, like you do in the
tera: when you’re done, you’re supposed to put them in the sharps. Mm-hmm. But you shouldn’t leave them around, ’cause if someone doesn’t know that the razor blade’s there, then they’re gonna grab it and cut
mary: themselves.
Ooh, yeah.
geo: That,
nick: Ooh, man, I’d be a major problem.
joe: Labels?
nick: everything
Oh
tera: should be labeled appropriately.
If it’s flammable, it should be in a flammable cabinet. There’s only a certain amount that you can keep out of the flammable cabinet. Okay. Acids and bases should be separated and away from the flammable material. Mm-hmm. No food or
drink. No food or
No
joe: lot of- No
geo: no cosmetics.
joe: Yeah.[00:11:00]
nick: All right, so this is gonna sound weird.
tera: no shorts, no open-toed shoes.
nick: These all just sound like kitchen safety rules too.
tera: In a way. Okay. Except- Like- … you’re probably more apt to die in the lab than the kitchen.
nick: I
tera: not the
geo: you haven’t seen When Nick does it. He’s- it’s like, “Is it a challenge? Let’s do it. Let’s go.” Wild. I’ve
nick: had some really close calls, guys. I’ve had bacon grease just go down my arm. Perfectly fine,
though. Ah.
geo: You didn’t even have a scar.
tera: I feel like the biggest rule for Nick is-
mary: the the big rule for Nick.
nick: Nick-
tera: Don’t put it in your mouth
nick: No, that’s what you’re supposed to do
mary: Oh, no.
joe: Yep.
geo: no.
nick: Like- … as I said, you guys were supposed
tera: been warned about this
okay? You
mary: rocks
joe: know. He’s coming, so yeah.
But yeah, so many-
geo: be a special feature when we do video.
nick: it’ll be behind a paywall.
tera: There you go. If
joe: Hey. He doesn’t. If he’s no longer on the episodes, we have a new co-host, you know what happened.
nick: c- rock.
tera: gr-
mary: he’s grown superpowers.
But,
joe: and,
so I wanna be- hold on, I wanna take a little [00:12:00] step back, then we can come back.
But the rock bit actually stems from, I forget which episode. Oh. Oh.
nick: It
was
joe: I think the Telekinesis episode … telekinesis
one. I think that was
geo: one,
joe: But
what was interesting is I did all the research for that and I don’t think I forget the who was on that show with us, the guest, but it was, like, the original Superman.
And so Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster when they were teenage boys, they created Superman eh, that we know. But the original Superman they created was a short story in a sci-fi zine called Science Fiction: The Advance Guard of Future Civilization, and they made it on their, , the high school copy machine in 1933.
, it was a zine, if you think of that. And Superman wasn’t this hero. He was this bald, telepathic villain that was going around,
like, getting his- way.
geo: point do we say that can’t be the
joe: And so, Right, it’s
not. ’cause and so the
thing
nick: set up Lex Luthor
joe: this this professor, the scientist, finds this meteor.
He analyzes it, and then he starts testing it on lab animals [00:13:00] with no regulation and sees these strange effects. And he goes, “You know what? I should test this on a human.” So this story in ’33, gotta remember, that’s Great Depression time, so he goes to a soup line and he offers some guy a suit and a meal if he will lick the rock or ingest it.
I did read it in the comics. It’s actually behind Tera
nick: tera
joe: And he goes and there was no consent that this rock could do something weird to you or just, he just mixes it. I think he m- he even mixed it in his food. It was like a whole weird
nick: was the hot
joe: like, “Yeah, right, a hot meal.”
geo: soup.
joe: then this guy, he gets the telepathic powers, and then he just goes around and he’s like, “I can dominate the world.”
And then the scientist is jealous ’cause he gave all of the rock, he used it all, and now he’s trying to make new, more. Well, maybe not
geo: smart.
joe: And yeah, and then he goes- Yeah … and so he, but he kills the scientist. And then the power wears off, and he needs more of the rock. But the
scientist is dead And he can’t
get it, and so he just, then he has to return to the breadline in a fancy suit.[00:14:00]
So that was the story.
nick: a fancy suit is the moral of the
story. He
joe: He might have sold it, like, to get the breadline. I don’t know. Right. So but that was the
original Superman story. You know what,
tera: when you first started telling this story Before the superpowers part came up, that could’ve been a real-life scenario.
Oh. No. Because sadly- Wow … that’s the other- Yeah … outside of the lab- Yeah … but human research and the horrors of
geo: Oh, yeah. There’s been a lot of,
mary: Well, Joe-
tera: I’m telling- … of even that, and so anytime you’re doing even human research, now you have even more trainings.
nick: even
joe: Here it is. I got The
Reign of the Superman.
I’m
mary: or- Okay, Joe- … a copy of it … yeah, Joe is holding-
joe: ’cause that’s, like, worth,
geo: He’s holding,
joe: The facsimile. I got a facsimile of
the
mary: a co- you’re holding a comic or- Yeah,
joe: it’s orig- it’s the zine that they had written-
mary: The, oh, the original zine that Siegel and Shuster did.
joe: regular, a re- a replica of that, that I found. It had that story, ’cause I didn’t believe it either. I think it was like, “Is that… Are you real?” I’m like, “Yeah, I did this research and this came up,” and no one talks [00:15:00] about this story which is kind of-
tera: Well,
geo: I think it’s good they went a different way.
joe: I, well, yes, they went-
you know,
with an immigrant
nick: don’t know. I think it would’ve been more, more
popular going this
joe: From another planet,
tera: planet. From another planet, right. Unlike-
joe: And no lab safety violations, it’s just … There’s some maybe adoption law violations, but other than that that’s,
know. I mean, if you’re coming from another planet, how many laws?
I mean, it’s like A Brother From Another Planet.
nick: from another planet. Where
mary: Where did he come How that.
joe: many people will get that?
nick: look at that. Tera It does it’s a movie.
You haven’t seen that?
geo: You haven’t seen that? No, I
joe: A treat. It’s it’s pretty good. I mean, it’s not… Yeah,
it’s-
tera: the only movie I’ve seen with the word brother in it might be Undercover Brother.
nick: the word brother
in
joe: Oh, okay. Any similarities? No. No. No. Brother From Another Planet isn’t a comedy. It has comedic bits, but it’s a social commentary for the most part, you know.
tera: When did it come out?
nick: [00:16:00] ’80s, I want to
mary: Maybe early ’90s. ’80s I think.
joe: Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. That feels right.
mary: right.
joe: But yeah,
Like Tera was saying, we have these kind of guidelines because human experimentation, , through time people, they do weird things. We have the Nazi medical experiments,
tera: Yep, the Tuskegee. The Tuskegee
joe: syphilis study. Mm-hmm. Henrietta Lacks her cancer cells.
The HeLa cells, which has kinda become the foundation of molecular biology in a lot of the studies we have. They were actually taken without her consent in the ’50s. Mm-hmm. So we do have… We have these instances where you put
geo: And I’m sure, I’m not trying to be
tera: to be,
geo: You know, pessimistic, but I’m sure it is still happening.
But not in an official, from like a university point of
joe: not, but I know Tara, she was telling me about the, building we work in, we’ve renovated a very historic space. Some people may notice University of Chicago had the first self-sustaining nuclear reaction- happen on campus underneath some football bleachers. Then they went to [00:17:00] what’s now Argonne National Labs. Reactor 1 was built, and they moved. On campus though, they built a new building the FMI Building, and in that building they put the first cyclotron, betalinear tron, gammatron, in the early ’50s.
And then Tara, I tell the story about this, but, about… And then Tara was like, “Oh, you know, I heard this program.” So-
tera: Yeah, I actually heard well, it was a YouTube video, but I listened to it like a podcast, about how they did all this study post-nuclear bomb about looking at radiation and they had to compare, like, what was in your bones.
But everybody was on the Earth, and depending on where you’re at, they can kinda measure, and if you die, they can take your bones and check. But they needed fresh bones, and so basically anybody who gave birth and the baby didn’t survive, they would take the baby, and they wouldn’t let the mother have the baby or see the baby.
They would cut off the legs and send it to someone, and they had these mass graves.
mary: Oh,
tera: called it Project Sunshine. It was
nick: crazy. I
[00:18:00] love the name of that. That’s- Like, it just it is-
joe: on top of these- You would know …
tera: It’s e- and- and- Oh
nick: feel like I have, but
like-
mary: Hang
on for a second. Okay, go,
tera: please. Yeah … a lot of women, like, finally were told what happened to their babies’
mary: Oh, my God
tera: and where the locations of the mass graves were so they could finally go and pay respects. Yeah, sure. Like-
geo: And when was this?
tera: this? Probably late ‘
joe: 50s,
’50s, yeah. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
nick: The amount of mass graves that the world has from just shitty people-
tera: Yes
so many.
joe: Well, yep.
geo: yeah. Like,
nick: we won’t go into that ’cause that’s a history podcast right there. But yes, they are just the amount.
tera: the intersection of in the name of science, I’m sure, is bigger than we would like to admit. I mean,
nick: take solace in knowing that it’s not as big as the stuff done in the name of religion that have mass graves. Yeah. Like that one, yeah. [00:19:00] Yeah.
geo: And
joe: Or in
the name of I’m right,
and you’re wrong.”
geo: wrong. The name
nick: of-
Well, I have a lot of those
ones too, Joe.
geo: A name, In
the name of
senseless- Yeah … leaders thinking that they’re… Anyway, okay.
joe: Let’s pivot back to, yeah
nick: I do have a
joe: and the macabre really
fast here. I don’t know what’s going on. Science. Science. Let’s get
nick: Science,
morbid,
joe: and
death.
geo: death related to
mary: to science. But what, but but also why th- why we have all of these why safeguards are in place for when you have human subjects is because of if we, if you don’t, then you have s- things like this
tera: And it’s so easy to take advantage of people. Like, when you look at like children, very important to be able to do research on children, but very difficult because they’re not able to usually make their own decisions.
mary: Yeah, they can’t consent.
People-
joe: People
in prison,
tera: prison, another very he- heavily regulated because now you’re kinda holding an advantage over them, and they’ll [00:20:00] take- Right … whatever they can get, and you’re- Yeah,
nick: you hold their life over them being
geo: like- Mm-hmm
nick: Yeah … “Well, you could get a reduced sentence, but you have to go through these-” Right …
you
know- really
terrible
joe: things. Right. That was, like, the Tu- the Tuskegee kind of experiment. So, I was gonna say, yeah, people in p- poor economic situations. So the Superman, the Reign of Superman, that, that’s an example
nick: a very fitting-
joe: Right. Right. Also,
geo: also, not just hard science, but, like, psychological studies. I mean, think about
joe: the- That’s true
geo: the, was it, what’s his name? S- Stanford.
nick: Oh, you’re not going with the
geo: Yeah, the one where you have to give someone a shock, and then you keep giving it, increasing it.
And they didn’t actually shock the person, but the person
joe: thought they were Right.
That’s right. They were being shocked. Right. Right …
geo: That kind of thing is, like, all
joe: Psychological kind of
geo: laughable … all these traumatic,
tera: yep.
geo: No,
nick: It’s not the one I was thinking of.
joe: are you thinking? Are
geo: you thinking of
nick: the- The Stanford Prison Experiment.
joe: Was one was that?
that?
nick: That’s the one where they divided the students up,
tera: So- Oh, yep, yep
you had
nick: prison [00:21:00] guards. You guys are prisoners.” Yeah. And
joe: they all consented to that, right? I mean, was they were
nick: I think
joe: so.
18 or… I mean, they were, right, college kids. They weren’t, like, high s- Lord of the Flies kind
geo: but they had s- They…
It feels like they did do that in, like, elementary schools and stuff. Like, they had people pick because of eye color, what
joe: that was, but that was a teacher. But I think that experiment was a teacher explaining discrimination, and she separated them blue eye, blue eye and brown eye or black.
It was
like some- Yeah, no, same Yeah When you exclude people based on some arbitrary phenotypic feature that it’s not fair, and you feel it there. So it was an example. You’re right, it’s… That’s a psychological experiment. I think you still need rules, and there are rules about that.
But Injecting someone with radioactive materials to see where… Or bio- a pathogen to see how they respond, but mental stress is also a stress, so I don’t wanna discount that. Mm-hmm. But you’re absolutely right.
geo: But yeah, you’re right then.
Mm-hmm.
nick: So question for the two scientists in the room. Do you guys feel [00:22:00] that lab safety, it hinders at all or no?
joe: I’m
gonna go no. Yeah. I think that I- like I said, the protocols are in place. So if you have an experiment that you need to do that involves patients humans, animals of any sort of animal you have to then, go and get protocols
approved.
Um-
tera: why you’re taking that specific subject over a…
geo: right
over a- A different-
tera: only word I’m thinking is lesser, you have a hierarchy. You know, m- a mouse versus a
joe: Yeah, right
nick: Yeah, right … Mm-hmm
tera: versus
a human. Like, as you go up to the more complex, you have to justify why you can’t do it in a simpler organism. Why do you need an animal versus a cell?
joe: animal versus a cell? Mm-hmm. Yeah. The IACUC, the institutional animal ca- IACUC. There it is. Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee. And so, the three Rs replacement, reduction, refinement. So replacement, as Tara was saying, is can you use a different model besides an animal?
Reduction. Use the [00:23:00] fewest animals possible. Like, don’t… We need thousands, and you really can do it with a few. Mm-hmm. And then refinement. Minimize the pain and distress, right? So y- through anesthesia-
Exactly … and housing and things like that. Right. And sample size, all that stuff becomes important.
So, you know, the big one was, like, cosmetic testing. Yes. I think there was a lot in the ’80s and ’90s. That
was a big
tera: they still do it in China. It’s one of those things ’cause I’m also very into beauty YouTube if you can’t tell from my eyeshadow, sorry users. She
mary: It shows a gorgeous
joe: pictures. We’ll have that on the-
mary: It’s very
joe: we’re in studio.
mary: Yeah. Eyes.
tera: And
a lot of especially independent brands are vegan and so no testing on animals, and you can’t sell in China because China regulations, and I think they’re slowly changing, but they require to do their own animal testing before they’ll allow you to sell in China.
joe: in China.
nick: Interesting.
joe: Interesting.
geo: that’s because they’re afraid something would affect…
I mean,
yeah. Yeah.
nick: if you’re gonna sell an eyeshadow and you need to put it in the eye of a rabbit, [00:24:00] then maybe you don’t need to be selling that eyeshadow, if you can’t test it on a person.
geo: Yeah.
joe: I think also too it’s about-
industrial,
Regulations.
Right. And if you’re a little loose on that, can ingredients sneak in that are harmful to humans? And so if you know this happens- … in your, country, then you go, “We need this test done.”
We need it. “Right, because we need to make sure your processing, your manufacturing is really good.” It’s something we take for granted here in America that we are at a point where all these guardrails, and people complain about it. Yeah. But they do actually-
geo: I don’t know, but then- They do more than you, you think …
joe: they do more than you, you
geo: right now … then other countries,
mary: They’re probably being dismantled
geo: I think they do more in some areas. Yeah But look at food.
joe: why I said we take
it for granted
because- we
geo: all kinds of crap in our food- Yeah … that other countries won’t. So,
mary: Paula Poundstone has a little bit in her routine. Paula Poundstone, she’s a comedian.
nick: Oh.
joe: Oh.
tera: And,
mary: you know,
where the cosmetic, where, [00:25:00] “Caution, eye irritant.”
Well, yeah What isn’t an eye irritant? I mean, seriously
geo: an eye irritant
mary: is an eye… Whenever you say caution, eye ir- it’s, yeah, you put cosmetics in some poor animal’s eye, of course it’s gonna hurt. Well, yeah. You know? I mean, ’cause it hurt, …
tera: this eyeshadow on my eye- Yeah
says, “Not for use around eyes”- … on the packaging because the US and the FDA won’t, the FDA won’t pay to test more eye pigments. Mm-hmm. And so they have certain eye pigments, especially pinks and reds, that are banned for use here around the eye, but are perfectly safe in the EU ’cause they’ve been tested.
Okay. And so they have to say it’s a, not an eyeshadow, but a pressed pigment that is not safe for use around eyes so that- you use it as you want. Use it as you want.
joe: Wait, So
nick: wait, So
joe: it, but the US
doesn’t. Right. Because the US
nick: The EU approves it, but the US doesn’t because the US doesn’t wanna spend the money to do it. Correct. So that-
tera: bothers me And [00:26:00] they won’t use the EU’s- Like-
research, or maybe they don’t have access I don’t know. But they have to,
nick: louise.
mary: put ’em…
tera: They, yeah, so they need the testing to make it legal, but they won’t pay. They say that the companies have to pay.
joe: Yeah. Yeah,
mary: Yeah.
geo: To pay. Yeah.
nick: That’s a red
joe: So I’ma, I wanna I’ma touch back. We can get back in the real world, but I’ma go Spider-Man.
geo: We can get back to eyeshadow.
joe: wanna cover a few- I, like I said, a couple lists, but this is the, maybe the villains.
I mentioned a few already. But let’s just go through some. The Lizard, Dr. Curt Connors. He was trying to regenerate his arm. And decided
geo: a doctor?
joe: He was a PhD scientist in a lab. Did his trainings, but he ignored them all obviously. And he was trying limb regeneration and thought you could take a reptile and use their regenerative abilities.
I, I think there’s a little faulty science. I think we [00:27:00] touched on this in another episode. He probably picked the wrong animal to try this with. But there was no institutional review, no animal trials. He just injected himself with some sort of mutagen, and
nick: I thought he did have animal trials, and that’s why he was- confident in
joe: I don’t think he did.
I think it was slim. It was very scant trials.
geo: We may have
nick: we also don’t get the whole backstory
geo: we might have to do
nick: everything he’s done,
joe: still- Pretty sure … It’s very, in most labs, it’s, you don’t just go from animal trial to injecting yourself.
nick: So is it illegal to inject yourself?
joe: It’s not necessarily illegal.
geo: it’s yourself. I
joe: But you are
tera: But you are an N of one.
joe: Yes, that’s right. Yeah. Well-
tera: And you might be dead.
joe: yep.
nick: But, like, if it’s, if you’re already on the brink of, like, dying and you’re like, “I need to test this,” ’cause what,
joe: But he wasn’t dying. He
just- I know, even wanted to regenerate his arm.
I mean, that’s a very… Couldn’t use the prosthetic thing, the little hook. You know,
he couldn’t…
I mean, people-
geo: more advanced things
joe: I’m just [00:28:00] saying that he
nick: when it
tera: when they
wrote that, they did not
joe: Potentially,
tera: I don’t know,
geo: year was that?
joe: I think when Dr.
Connors came online. Early villain. He was, yeah. I mean, he was one of the earlier
ones. Yeah.
geo: probably had something other than the hook.
nick: than the hook. A wood pan?
joe: You know,
tera: if hooks are good enough for a pirate, they’re good enough for him.
mary: good enough for him.
Thank you.
geo: him. We wouldn’t have Lizard Man,
tera: wouldn’t have
joe: Man.
tera: Man. Oh, right. So question for someone who is more into the movies of Marvel and not into the comics, this sounds almost similar to Extremis.
joe: to Extremis.
Nice. Yep.
tera: Yeah. Is that kind of similar to, like, the Iron Man 3, Extremis
joe: regenerating-
Yeah,
I think he was trying gene editing in 1963. You can imagine the state of gene ed. There was no CRISPR. Yeah. There wasn’t really… DNA was just being understood.
So this was really fascinating in what you could do with it. And like I said the science is a little wrong. I mean, reptiles can. They have some regenerative properties, but a axolotl would have probably [00:29:00] been the better pick because they truly can regenerate full limb-limbs.
geo: I see a new super villain coming.
joe: Axolotl man or
woman.
tera: Yeah,
geo: and that would be so
nick: The Axolotl.
tera: Axolotl.
Axo Man. They
nick: have axes. And his sidekick, Lot
joe: Axo. Hey, we need
tera: Lotl Boy. Like
joe: a little flappy face thing.
nick: aren’t really good with the axes, so they end up chopping off their own limbs.
But they can regenerate them. It’s
a really- Can
joe: off and throw them at people.
nick: God, I would love
to
joe: You could do it. There we go. So we need to like– Yeah, we got a lot of ideas on these podcasts.
nick: lot of ideas on this podcast.
geo: this podcast. Somebody write- Yeah … take a note. Take
joe: but
I mean, I, I’m just gonna… I’m trying to point out the scientific lab safety regulations. Like, the way he got to injecting himself, it was… That’s not the way. You just don’t inject untested mutagens into yourself, no matter how desperate
you
geo: not advised. A
joe: should– I mean, it’s, there’s kind of regulation about self-doctoring yourself. If you’re [00:30:00] a doc- like a physician and things like that, in clinical settings or lab settings, there are rules around you prescribing medicine to your… All sorts of things like that because you?
can get desperate and- Well, that’s… Yeah. No, it’s
tera: your name on the prescription- Right … and your name on the to
geo: I guess that
joe: prescription. So Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. Someone
looks at it.
geo: could be a problem.
joe: Who is
tera: And now it’s all digital, so it’s literally coming from you, for you.
joe: Yeah. Right. So yeah, so there are– these things are in place to stop that because you are desperate.
You do wanna try something. You think you have something that’s meaningful. We can look at, once again, Jeff Goldblum in The Fly. Ooh. That’s
mary: That’s right.
nick: I
joe: right. I
geo: that is.
joe: that movie. Yeah Hey.
yeah. And trying to test, he was desperate to prove his technology worked, and he got into the pod after, you know, doing what he was doing.
And
mary: himself, by the way. So yeah, that’s a
joe: no one else. And so like- uh, that’s the other thing. A lot of times in labs, you’re not supposed to be there by yourself. Like, [00:31:00] you’re supposed to have a partner or people know you’re there, or you are staying by yourself and what are you gonna be doing exactly, checking in.
So these are the kind of rules and things that are in place to stop that kind of thing. But I digress a little bit because Jeff Goldblum. But, Yeah.
tera: I mean, and to be fair,
th- this- Yeah. In a real-life setting, how many people do you think are just injecting themselves with
joe: something Right.
I don’t think it
tera: a lot.
Right? Yeah. Yeah. Well,
joe: oh
tera: I
mean, maybe if you’re doing clinical research- Like- … but if you’re in the lab.
joe: So I was gonna, I b- th- nice jumping around here and then
nick: a fly’s jumping around here. So many
holes to
joe: a while … biohackers. So biohackers are one of these things where you have PhD scientists non-PhD kind of citizen scientists who are taking it upon themselves to improve their bodies.
And so you have people like grinders they’re inject- implanting magnets, RFID chips, LEDs under their skin. [00:32:00] harmless to some extent. This body modification, like kind of extreme body modifications to the more DIY biology folks, optimizing diet, supplements, sleep kind of aids.
And, they’re trying to improve their health and, but they’re trying to hack how they work all the way to probably the more serious and more concerning, when I was reading, and I didn’t think about it, but gene editing and CRISPR. You can buy CRISPR kits. There’s no regulation. Like, if you just wanna order one, you can get a CRISPR kit.
You can start-
nick: We’re gonna keep the
link in the bio, right? Or in the footnotes, right? That’s right. Terror your logs.
joe: this person, 2017, Josiah Zayner, he was a former and NASA scientist injecting himself with CRISPR gene editing solution at a biotech conference- Yeah … on a live stream. He was attempting to edit his muscle growth genes.
You know, no clinical trial, no IRB, no follow-up protocols. But then he later came out and said he regretted doing that because he didn’t want other people to try it-
’cause someone could get hurt. [00:33:00] But he has publicly said he wants to be the first person to give himself a superpower. So I’m sorry, Nick, I know you say that a lot on the podcast, but he got there first, so.
Yeah. 12,
geo: you still have time … And
joe: and then
in
nick: open that box. …
joe: you had Trey, Aaron Traywick. He was a biohacker, hacker COO, CEO who injected himself on stage, once again, with a unapproved herpes treatment. He did die shortly after, but in, it was unrelated.
tera: I mean, nothing like calling yourself out o- on stage.
geo: calling
nick: on stage.
geo: on stage.
joe: I mean, that’s more like dying from like a stage
geo: but yeah,
nick: Yeah,
joe: But yeah but this stuff you can have these garage lab setups and they work outside of the regulatory framework. So you have people here who were scientists or science affiliated, probably did trainings and all this.
NASA, I don’t know if he was a biologist. So you have this, engineers, safety is a little different. Like, there are different trainings for people. How do you handle that? Biosafety levels, we n- we probably will [00:34:00] touch on that in a little bit. But you have this whole thing where you don’t have sterile, containment,
No contain- no secondary containment if something goes wrong.
No regulatory kind of protocols in place. But yeah, can you
tera: no sterility of-
joe: Right … your
tera: you’re injecting yourself with.
joe: yourself
nick: So there is a chance that t- they are, there are people out there still experimenting on just random folks. Well,
tera: there were the CRISPR babies. For
joe: themselves, right? I mean, yeah, or the CR- The CRISPR-
right.
tera: Yeah. The CRISPR the scientist who, oh- China, right? Yeah, I think it was, I was trying not to pick on China, so I didn’t wanna say it ’cause I wasn’t sure.
But yeah, he he gene edited to, for certain traits, correct?
joe: Yeah, that was it. Right. Yep. Huge.
nick: Oh, Tara, I just got an email. Jesus. It said that you’re uninvited to China.
joe: said
that you’re uninvited to China.
Yeah. Your visa’s not been
approved.
tera: It’s been revoked.
joe: I threw around IRB, like, and no one here said, “What is IRB?” But that’s the Institutional Review Board, just wanna make sure.
So you have these, [00:35:00] like, ethics gatekeepers that review your protocol. So you write up what you’re gonna do. I’m gonna inject Nick with X, Y, Z, you know, gene editing- Here’s his new- … solution. Nick thinks it’s cool.
and then…
nick: they… don’t care what- The- … Michelle says
tera: committee- They
joe: And then the committee-
tera: says Michelle says it’s not.
joe: the committee… A- and so the whole thing, a committee reviews that. So they go and they look at it, and they go, “Well, what is Nick’s…” You know, they go through all the levels- Which coffee
do you like? … especially if it’s federal funding you have, they have to approve it. They review the science, they review the
tera: the
whole peer review that Joe was talking about to make sure it’s up and up
nick: Do they have to, like, do a mental stability check to see if they’re in the right of mind,
joe: or- Well, they’re checking if the research is ethical- Well- … and, right?
So
tera: but there are regulations on, you know, if you’re in treatment for major mental instabilities, you can’t consent to be a subject.
nick: So, like- someone that has dementia wouldn’t be able to-[00:36:00]
tera: Now, it gets tricky, because if it’s a specific dementia medication, then their next, you know- Okay
their power of attorney
joe: or right, the, the person responsible for
tera: be able to sign, kind of like children. But it has to be very specific, very well planned out, because that person is incapacitated in even more of a way than the average
joe: person.
nick: ‘Cause I was thinking of the Planet of the Apes film with James Franco and John Lithgo- Lith- Lithgow
Lithgow, where Franco was a scientist who was doing
geo: on- Mm-hmm. Which
joe: of the Apes is this?
nick: the Apes was this? This
joe: Oh, the n- the new ones?
the, Yeah, okay. the new ones … Okay. I
nick: With James Franco and John Lithgow. Yeah.
joe: John Lithgow is of age. He could’ve been in one of the many Planet of the Apes you know, Planet of the Apes, Meet the Planet of the Apes, so I was just wondering was he back then or was he more- Recent
tera: It
geo: It was fairly recent.
joe: John Lithgow, right?
geo: Right? I mean- It wasn’t the most No. It was- It was the first one that they started for the new
the r- right, right, the first of the more recent.
Yeah. Yeah.
joe: Louise,[00:37:00]
geo: Trying to
nick: Yeah. Are
joe: You’re trying to get on John Lithgow’s Christmas card list or something?
nick: Yes, I am. He’s a young- John Lithgow … vibrant man. He’s a- he’s old,
joe: ancient. I’m just saying that- … he could’ve been in one of the Planet of the Apes adjacent movies. They went into, like, the ’80s, all those… I mean, it was, like, eight or nine of them, so-
nick: There were
joe: so many …
nick: Now there’s so many more.
joe: There are
nick: I
love them. Hayley, what
joe: what
was- your point?
tera: What was
Did you have a point?
Yeah.
nick: So
he-
tera: ended up-
nick: Franco ended up,
joe: so- So
anyway,
nick: testing the drug on his father without-
joe: Oh, right. Yeah, the memory- Without his
tera: his father? Yeah.
Yes.
Yes. Yeah.
geo: yes.
joe: Young and vibrant, hey? Yes.
tera: Hey, Dad.
joe: Hey, Dad.
nick: were the same age.
joe: same dude.
Frankel was, like, alive. Hey, Dad, I really need, I need the TRITA-SLD to see if we can get you some fat foot.
Yeah, I was gonna, I was gonna say, I had a note in my notes here that biohackers probably are the version of Spider-Man villains. You know, they’re not [00:38:00] necessarily evil to start. Oh, yeah. They’re not stupid. They’re really smart people. They… And they’re curious people, and they have tools.
But they just ignore all the institutional infrastructure and kind of go outside the system to get to their own means and try to shortcut it and then,
geo: But then they-
nick: say
tera: would say
they also have major
joe: That’s right, yeah.
E- except I think in… Oh, go ahead.
geo: Oh, no. Sorry.
joe: No, I was gonna say, just finish that thought.
I think in the comics, they get superpowers and become villains, and they get angry because they feel they’ve been wronged- … by the thing that they’ve done to themselves. But I think in real life you probably just die a painful, horrible death. So let’s not do it.
nick: Wow, you really just dampened that mood. I’m
joe: I know, I’m gonna get, I’m, I’m-
nick: Louise. I
can’t wait till they
joe: we’re not getting biohacker sponsors. We’re not getting- Yeah. The Biohackers … Inc. At the
nick: a
geo: guest.
tera: it’s one of those things you really have to be careful.
When they first started with, , gene therapy and Jesse Gelsinger, , they had all sorts of research to try to use v- an adenovirus to edit your [00:39:00] genes, and this poor- What happened? I’d say kid, but I he might have been an adult, barely, but, died a painful death because it just went bad, and they halted it for a long time.
And really, CRISPR’s the big up and coming for gene editing again because nobody wanted to touch it ’cause they had jumped in so fast and- Mm-hmm …
it was just horrible.
joe: We just talked in the mini about the lentivirus-
nick: Oh, yeah
joe: gene editing for sickle cell anemia- Mm-hmm … they have for bone marrow. So that was, you know, you’re right. The virus models, that was supposed to be the next big gene editing, editing thing. But yeah, it had a slow start.
mary: Did anybody here ever read the zine Guinea Pig Zero?
joe: No.
mary: No. This was a while ago, but yeah, this he you know, wrote a zine about his ex- his adventures in participating in human clini- clinical trials.
joe: Oh, right. Yeah. Yeah. I think I’ve heard about people. I mean, you can make a good…
You can almost make a living doing clinical trials.
like-
if you … really say whatever- I actually did- one … you can- We did that They’re, [00:40:00] I mean- Yeah.
some of them pay really well, like the sleep study ones, and they’re not invasive. You’re not gonna die, but they go somewhere and you sleep for a while and-
tera: veins. I was supposed to have IVs in both sides when I was young. As a technician, st- signed up for, like, a four-night stay in the hospital. They wouldn’t take me.
mary: Oh.
joe: Yeah. Yeah, but there… I remember I read a story. I don’t know if it was- the same
person, but I’ve read stories where you make 40, 50K a year just doing studies, like going around and signing up and saying, “Yeah, you need, you wanna strap some electrodes to my head and watch me sleep, go for it.”
Speaking of electrodes Electro, Max Dillon. Yeah. He was electrocuted while working in the power lines during this lightning storm, and this whole thing
and-
geo: that’s not really lab safety.
joe: Well, I
geo: might be workplace safety.
nick: you’re saying
joe: OSHA
Yeah.
But yeah, so
tera: But
joe: mean- Typically
Nick is thinking about
nick: So the, I mean, they have different iterations of Max, where some of them he is in a lab where, he [00:41:00] falls into something and- Right
a pit, and others he’s that. But yeah,
joe: Yeah. He was alone. He was kind of-
nick: like he’s
joe: I feel like he’s always alone
yeah, he’s always alone. He’s… That was the big thing I had. He’s alone. He has nobody. He’s doing something seriously dangerous, and it’s “You know, I’m just gonna do it by myself,”
nick: I don’t wanna have to come back tomorrow. Yeah.
joe: Yep. And there’s some lightning, and then he gets all these electrical
nick: these, electrical- … Cardiac
joe: arrests and lightning, he gets the whole thing, and then he’s he’s like a biological capacitor essentially. And falling in pits. Sandman- Yeah
fell into a particle accelerator.
nick: Which I think they had a fun part in the last Spider-Man movie- Yeah … where Sandman and Electro were talking about, “Oh yeah, you really gotta watch where you
step.” I mean,
joe: Yeah. I mean,
the thing about it and it was, he
nick: they both fall
joe: running from police. Like if you’ve been to Argonne…
I mean, I don’t know if, I mean, people listening has been to Argonne, but there are so many
nick: Wait, where that movie takes place? [00:42:00]
joe: Which movie? Which movie? Oh, the one with Keanu Reeves and,
nick: No,
geo: was at U Chicago.
joe: Yeah, that was at U Chicago. Yeah. With Keanu Reeves and Morgan Freeman. I
nick: it was,
joe: What was that? called? Ben Affleck. Ben
nick: Yeah, Ben Aflax.
geo: Is
tera: Is that the new sponsor? Aflac. Yeah, Ben Aflack’s.
joe: gonna
nick: Aflax. He actually sponsors us because he’s sponsored by Aflax.
joe: know where Oh, yeah I don’t know I don’t know what’s happening now
nick: licking
geo: funny.
nick: rocks,
joe: Nick was licking rocks, and so now he’s a,
he’s
in a
different dimension We
tera: children.
Please don’t lick rocks.
geo: lick
nick: you lick rocks
joe: you- You gotta call Ben Afflax
nick: With Ben
joe: us
nick: Aflax.
tera: for…
joe: You, you- but yeah, if you go there, it’s staffed. There’s big red buzzers. You’re not allowed when the doors close, things like that. –
tera: You’re not allowed to run …yeah. You’re
joe: from police. You’re not falling into anything. And so yeah, it’s a very weird , thing there, so. But you have, like, Green Goblin, Norman.
You know, he did testing on himself. [00:43:00] Self-administers solutions. He you know, he has… He’s, he was
nick: But he- …psychologically unstable
he did have other people in the lab with him.
joe: He did, but I mean, he was also the funder of the research, so no one was gonna
stop him. He was tied to the-
tera: of interest
geo: I
mary: I think
joe: do you got pictures of?
nick: of- Nothing. Ar- Argo is what I was
joe: Oh. Argo. Oh.
nick: Ben Affleck.
tera: Affleck Argo
geo: That was at Argo?
tera: the same
nick: I realize that now.
geo: Oh.
joe: quite the same. No. No, it wasn’t. It was the other mo- It was the one, I can’t think of the name of it. Cold Fusion?
Yeah. Was that it? Cold Fusion? I
think that’s it right.
there. It was… Yeah, don’t watch it,
people. It’s really bad. Yeah. it’s like I think
geo: got Keanu, but yeah.
tera: Wait,
was
joe: Morgan Freeman
tera: at U Chicago,
joe: Yeah, he was a scientist. Him
and Morgan
tera: did he film- I think he- At
joe: it was. Yeah, it was
tera: outside Man, I
joe: It was
like, south side of Chic- it was, like, an offsite lab, and so they were there and…
But
it was in- But they were
already seen at U Chicago … yeah. They destroyed
Hyde Park, I think. Like, it went, nuclear and just-
geo: Yeah.
nick: I’m not trying to knock Keanu, but [00:44:00] I don’t ever see him as a scientist.
joe: as a scientist.
tera: Oh.
nick: Like- Whoa
mary: No, definitely not.
nick: He’s not…
I like him.
He’s just- Yeah,
he was
geo: I
joe: doctor in As Good as It Gets,
right? Seemed like- No, uh, no. a
geo: He was that in the ’90s though? No, it wasn’t it wasn’t As Good as It Gets. It was the other one. Not
tera: as handsome as in
joe: was…
tera: It wasn’t As Good As It Gets.
geo: Oh, yeah. Something’s Gotta Give?
joe: Yeah. Yeah.
Well
geo: was- I was gonna say, it seems like a lot of the villains in Spider-Man, they get more villainous as they go on, right? I mean, they, it seems like they were more like a balanced human being, but then as they have these powers,
nick: Yeah, they have m- a little bit more of a psychological break
where- you
geo: see them go, “Oh, maybe I should rethink this,”
tera: Georgia, think about it.
In order to inject yourself with something or to do that, you’re probably already close to that psychological break. And so it just pushes you to the
joe: edge. It’s either accidental, like Nick was joking- Yeah … you fall into
something- Or you’re- …Or you’re doing something …experimenting … or Spider-Man accid- it was [00:45:00] accidental. True Like, it wasn’t your fault. Now, you didn’t intentionally plan on-
Getting bitten encountering a poor lab safety. So they fell into or wandered into a poor lab safety situation. Or you were desperate in some, or mentally unstable, and just decided at some point, you know what, the hubris of it and your ego gotten away and you said, “I’m, this works. I’ve tested it.” Like you were, we were talking earlier about Dr.
Connor. “Yo this worked. I tested a few things. I’ma go for it. I’m just gonna go. I can’t wait another day with my
nick: I’ll get the approval once they can see that it’s worked.
tera: Yeah.
joe: And my money. It’s like, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. I mean, he’s building a shrink ray machine in his, attic or whatever, so
it’s,
geo: or the
joe: anyone, yeah. watch it My miniature wife.
tera: Yeah. That looks good.
nick: Oh, yeah.
geo: Yeah, don’t leave their little shrinking device- Right … just in your kitchen for somebody to
joe: plot device. If I wanna, write a good story or have a good show, I’m gonna mix the [00:46:00] shrink material in Nick’s hand putty so that No, put
tera: No, just put it on a
joe: that’s,
yeah.
nick: rock. Yeah. Leave it- “Hey, Nick, you want a suit?” Yeah. “
Yeah, I’d love a suit.”
joe: and a loaf of bread.
tera: Yeah.
joe: Some artisanal
tera: And a little bit of soup to go with that.
geo: so what are some of your favorite
joe: of cheese to go with that. What are some of your favorite lab accidents? Favorite
nick: or fake?
mary: Or just, like, ones that really- It- Not like, “Yay,” but like- Before
joe: we touch on that, are you guys familiar with the biosafety levels? ‘Cause some of this is what we talk about.
So
bio- Low, moderate,
high.
nick: high. Really, really- So no
tera: two,
joe: three, and four … yeah. really? low, scary. I was close. Yeah. So,
so you
nick: I had four of them.
joe: So I just want… Because it was interesting, ’cause this was all… I mean, the first kind of idea of even biosafety levels was back in World War II biological warfare research at Fort Detrick in Maryland where they created some of the first Class III biosafety cabinets in 1943 because they were working with [00:47:00] this, and they said, “You know what?
We need to work inside a box because this is kind of dangerous.” And then in the Asilomar Conferences in 1975, that kind of brought this kind of attention to biotechnology as it expanded into kind of start, the start of molecular techniques, and it was like, we need to actually regulate this. And then in 1984 was the NIH published the first edition of Biosafety in Microbiology and Biomedical Laboratories, and that defined four kind of safety levels. Safety level one, BSL1, you’ll hear referred to, is a basic lab. There’s a wet bench.
geo: what is your lab? Low
joe: risk.
tera: Two.
joe: We are technically a two. I’ll get there. Harmless E. coli strains and protections would be lab coat, gloves, hand washing, open benches.
tera: No
joe: goggles? BSL2. Not, yeah not that I saw.
I guess you could have goggles, but… And two, moderate hazard hepatitis B, salmonella restricted access, biohazard signage, [00:48:00] biosafety cabinets and for pr- procedures generating aerosols goggles would come in here.
tera: All gene editing would
be
joe: BSL2.
tera: a BSL-2
nick: editing
mary: at least- BSL- … a BSL-2. Mm-hmm.
tera: Oh,
geo: Even though you could just buy it
joe: buy it. Buy
it in your garage.
Probably.
nick: its way to my house
joe: know. Nick’s like- “Do
not enter my garage. This is a BSL-2 facility. Thank you.”
nick: Don’t worry, I have lab
joe: goggles. He’s like, “I’ve listened to the
episode-” Yeah,
geo: some
joe: several times.
It’s just like a kitchen. BSL three.
nick: is
joe: Serious potentially lethal agents, so TB, West Nile virus, SARS.
You need negative air pressure rooms, respiratory protection, decontamination of all waste, two door entries, so you’re cleaning in, out.
tera: Tightly regulated. Tightly regulated. Not everybody has access.
joe: cards. And then BSL-4 is the highest level. Deadly, no treatment at all.
Ebola- Well, un-treatment, like
tera: treatment. Like, it’s, it’s- Yeah … if some- When Ebola first happened it was BSL-4 [00:49:00] because they didn’t know what it was, they didn’t know how it was transmitted, they just knew people died. I think
joe: I think it’s still B- BSL-4, yeah. Yeah. I think
tera: But I’m just saying, like, that’s how things start. Yeah. Mm-hmm. If it’s that deadly- Wait, was, was- … it can be a
nick: So is that, was it found in a lab or was it-
tera: it… Ebola?
nick: Yeah. No. So y- you said that would be under that condition, right?
tera: Yes.
joe: Ebola, yes, and Marburg. Yep, Marburg. And they were studying
it. Marburg
And they were
geo: it.
nick: Okay. That’s what… Like, they were actively looking
joe: bring it into the lab to study
tera: for it or looking at it?
nick: At it, for it.
tera: were trying to- ‘Cause they weren’t looking for it
They were Looking at
it. They were looking at it because people were dying. Right.
So So they were trying
geo: to figure out what it
tera: anything emerging at first is probably, it’s going to be a three or a four.
joe: Yeah. Yeah.
nick: Okay. So-
mary: the safeties?
tera: on how- So what
nick: On current events-
The hundred- … as of when we’re recording
tera: this.
mary: this.
nick: What’s that virus?
tera: I was gonna bring that up. Yep. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Let
joe: me… I just wanna go through- The hot zone virus?
Before… Hold on. Pin that, because in the BSL-4, [00:50:00] full body pressurized suits. If your suit is damaged, pressurized air forces outward, preventing any inward contamination. So it’s complete isolated facilities, full shower, out
protocols. That’s from
geo: Hoffman in Outbreak, right?
Outbreak
joe: which poor lab safety because of the centrifuge scene.
Oh, yeah. that’s how it
spread. They got this deadly… They were kind of loosey-goosey with it. It should’ve been immediately a BSL three, four level. But they were in there with their technicians,
goofing- Two … yeah. the,
mary: z- The centrifuge. Yeah.
joe: it w- didn’t stop, and they tried to stop it ’cause they were being rushed, and then it, they get splattered.
And then they don’t say anything. I mean, you get splattered with blood contaminant generally you usually fill out a form or something like that, and you move forward. But here they did not. And so yeah, that led to the outbreak. But right, that’s where you’ll see it. In most movies and stuff they have BSL-4 agents, but they work like it’s a BSL zero.
nick: You know who also has really bad
lab
joe: it’s got,
nick: Yeah. Plubris. Oh, yeah. Oh, [00:51:00] that’s a
great example.
Plubris,
joe: The, uh, P-
geo: And then they’re like, euh, they’re licking.
tera: Oh, yeah. Oh,
nick: Pluribus. Plurbus? I thought it was
joe: Pluribus
tera: I was gonna bring that up, too.
geo: the
mary: Pluribus is one. You
tera: can say it by letter … yeah, at the very
joe: I say blada
tera: I was thinking about it this morning. I’m like, “What was…” I’m Googling. Mm-hmm. What was the- “What movie or show had bad lab safety where they pass the virus by kissing?”
joe: Whoa.
nick: I think that was a hole research after dark. show.
tera: It was-
joe: is. What’d you get on your list? Oh, you got a
geo: we wa- Nothing … we wanna Nothing oh. Was it- We wanna
tera: Contagion is the only thing that came up Well,
geo: Contagion, I did think of Contagion ’cause w- she was at, she worked in a lab,
joe: But there was no… I don’t think there was no poor… Actually, it was a really good movie, and there was no
poor lab safety. The pig ran loose Um, The-
geo: was the sushi chef
joe: The restaurant in-
And
geo: animal. It was transmitted through an animal and then- It was
joe: virus, yep, that, that jumped. So it was [00:52:00] probably a flu that jumped, and they were at the restaurant, and the pork was poorly cooked. Like Nick said, like in a kitchen. You know, BSL-4. I ne- I- Yeah
nick: I’m gonna go on record saying I never got anyone
sick. And
geo: I- That’s
joe: you
nick: My kitchen safety-
joe: have not started a pandemic is what you’re saying? Exactly.
nick: My
kitchen safety was top tier.
joe: How many days without starting a pandemic?
mary: How many days
tera: It
nick: days without hurting
tera: in his household.
nick: was always really low.
joe: But yeah, no. Contagion was that.
But yeah, kissing.
Oh, that’s a good
geo: have a thing in your lab, like however many days since an accident?
nick: accident?
Without- That’s awesome … contamination?
joe: really had no
accidents. yeah.
tera: We’ve… I mean, we had
nick: I don’t think they wanna
discuss that. We had a few.
geo: used properly. But
tera: I
geo: I’m thinking of the actual
tera: nitrogen and accidentally
joe: gotta say what PPE is Uh, personal pro-
nick: Yeah,
tera: protective-
joe: Yeah, equipment. Yep. Mm-hmm. PPE? PPE.
tera: I figure after the pandemic, everybody
knows what PPE is.
joe: It’s a PPE
[00:53:00] thing
tera: You down with PPE? I think, I think-
joe: actual- Yeah, you know me.
It’s that with PPE . Every- Is that
nick: my PPE. Is this-
tera: whole
joe: though that you have
geo: actual thing? They- There’s no PPE. Is that- Is that an actual thing,
tera: No.
geo: you have to have a
tera: No.
geo: No. No. No.
nick: What? There’s
tera: think in some
joe: no s- That’s, yeah. I think it’s like workplaces. The, I can see the
safety.
tera: think- … total haughty derision. No.
joe: the In
some
workplaces. I
nick: I think that’s more warehouses and
joe: I
geo: gonna say I think in some workplaces they
joe: that. Our safety inspector comes in- And the food
where is your sign at? Monsters Inc., Monsters Inc. Joe,
tera: Monsters. You, Joe, we failed. Mm-hmm. We don’t have our
nick: our
tera: No, the signs we have to have are, “No food and drink allowed in this refrigerator.”
joe: That
is.
one. Or microwave. Or microwave or- Yeah …where the eye washes are at, how often they’re tested
so that they, you know,
tera: tested
nick: Labeled everything. Yada.
joe: And
tera: And other things get tested that we don’t. Like, we have the shower, and they test that once a year. They make sure the flow in the safety cabinets are- Mm-hmm … up to par once a year.
nick: to par [00:54:00] once a year.
Mm-hmm. So back to my question.
joe: Oh, what
tera: Which one?
joe: You did ask a few questions. I
nick: know. I had a lot.
geo: That’s all
joe: That’s all right. We’ll get to
nick: the new virus that’s
joe: Oh,
geo: yeah, on the
nick: that be
tera: Which new virus are
geo: the cruise ship.
tera: On the cruise. The
joe: The hantavirus? The hantavirus, yeah.
tera: That’s not new.
nick: Well, it’s new to me. It’s in
joe: to them. Yeah. It’s a
nick: It’s
geo: It’s in
nick: I’m not someone that’s like, “What are these
tera: The new outbreak of the
joe: virus. yeah. Yes. Yeah.
geo: currently being s-
tera: In another lifetime, I would’ve been one of those virus cowboys going out and studying the outbreaks. Oh,
nick: could
still be that. Yeah. No one’s stopping you.
joe: I’m a cowboy. I wanna steal a horse I ride.
nick: is that gonna be, like, a higher level or no?
tera: So they know more about it, although this gets interesting ’cause I just saw today that this is the version that actually can be transmitted between people.
joe: There– I mean, they were trying to decide that because they were saying it might have been a couple that came on, and then they [00:55:00] spread it.
tera: it.
‘Cause normally it’s through rats. It’s through
joe: feces and urine, most strains. But there are a couple that can be passed, and they don’t pass… They’re not transmitted human to human. But this one they thought might be, but it’s still-
tera: don’t know if it’s aerosolized, if it’s- Yeah …
like, something like smallpox, for instance, is, like- Very
crazy contagious.
nick: So what lab safety is this gonna be under?
geo: Oh, four. Wouldn’t that-
joe: Yeah,
probably Three. Yeah. That’s four times.
tera: But they understand it. It’s not unknown.
Oh, okay. All right.
It’s not, it’s, I don’t think the death rate is as severe as- No … Ebola. I mean,
joe: like,
geo: Could be a game, guess the safety level.
joe: Yep. Or even COVID. I mean, you think the cruise ships with COVID. I think everyone on the ship got COVID eventually. Well, they
didn’t clarify
geo: as?
tera: it
joe: it’s interesting ’cause we had conversations about all that, ’cause we had some imaging- Oh,
mary: a good
tera: I think if you, like, true reproductive COVID was
joe: Yeah … it’s a three.
If you’re actively growing it in cells to study its replication, it became a three. But if you were just studying, like, the [00:56:00] spike protein or kind of non– You’re not actively growing it, you just have some in a tube that,
it became a
tera: It was a two
joe: just
geo: So you coulda had it in your lab?
tera: We did.
You did
geo: have it in your lab. We had it. Oh. Okay.
joe: Yeah,
mary: Oh.
joe: did. Oh. Yeah, we did. Yeah.
nick: So how…
joe: There was some work we did during the pandemic. We were in there. We
weren’t wearing the main labs, but
geo: letter, and it got all like worn.
joe: It’s hanging on the
wall. The– It’s right there on the wall in the studio, basement studio.
geo: That means
nick: I
tera: to have the letter because Joe had to come down with COVID himself. yeah. And so then I had to go into the lab instead of him.
joe: then I was like, “You need to go check on equipment and
projects that were going.” Yeah.
geo: right?
It was called an
joe: yeah,
it was an essential. I had to go in
and
tera: so essential for once in my
joe: life.
mary: No, I went, I had, I had
joe: No, I went. I got– I had to go in and, yeah, anything that needed to be loaded or, and, yeah, samples. Meetings, a lot of meetings with safety and how we should handle these samples as they came in. Okay. And we work with other people with BSL2. We haven’t worked with anything BSL3, but we’ve, , I’ve worked with mouse prion samples.
tera: Would [00:57:00] human prions be three?
joe: Oh, maybe almost four. I don’t know. Yeah,
you’re
nick: can you
geo: you a
nick: what that
geo: right?
tera: a prion is? a
mary: humans
geo: think
that makes you a zombie. Kind of prions. Yeah, that’s
joe: Yeah, and
the prions, that is there.
tera: the most common one if you hear mad cow. It’s, like, a misfolded protein that can cause other proteins to misfold, so it almost, like, is contagious in a way. And if it’s in your brain, then it takes over and damages that part of the brain.
joe: So that’s what mad cow was. It was a prion. And they’re really– They’re interesting because why do they cause the other proteins to misfold?
And there’s no cure.
tera: No. And so in a way it’s like con- a contagious protein.
joe: they go two or three. G- I think if you’re like in other species, mouse, ’cause they don’t jump, so, or that we know of. But yeah, so yeah.
Yep,
tera: yeah. Yeah, there are things that I’m surprised are only two.
joe: No there’s all sorts of weird stuff, like, somehow like a one of the flesh-eating bacteria strains, and it was like, oh [00:58:00] yeah, this is a… And I, I started working with something, they were like, “Oh, yeah, this is flesh-eating.” What? Oh, time out. What are we doing here?
tera: But then you have a
yeast that just you’ve put something in there so it just makes less of one protein, and that’s also a two because you’ve genetically modified it.
mary: Oh, I see. Okay.
joe: genetically modified it. Oh, I see. Okay. What do you bring up? The Plubris Pl- Pluribus
Pluribus. Plubus? Pluribus. Oh, really?
nick: Pluribus.
geo: so we won’t know.
joe: Pluribus. That’s right. Let’s say it really quick.
mary: Pluribus.
joe: but yeah, but they had a BSL-4 scene in there. They started it the right.
It looked like They were doing
tera: going- But then they did a terrible job, yeah.
joe: punctured herself, and then it was a whole… It was like, I’m gonna take you out of containment as you’re having some sort of disease episode.
Now, generally, you wouldn’t do that because you know once you take that person out, you would then contaminate every… You know, you could potentially start an outbreak.
So it was really- the
nick: What they
did …I
geo: was gonna say The Stand is a-
joe: In The Stand,
tera: …but
at the same time, they were under very strict guidelines.
If [00:59:00] this happened, you do not leave.
joe: They could not leave. Well, that was the green light. Yeah. The sniffer. And so that was, yeah, if you haven’t read The Stand, and it’s older than 20 years, so- No, but
geo: No, but don’t spoil this.
nick: beginning.
tera: but yeah. Well, I
haven’t finished it. It was a little-
It’s a
little- much for me. I had to step away, but the beginning
joe: but yeah, so Stand was poor. But it wasn’t the lab safety protocols. I think The Stand points
tera: out that- … everyone around the
joe: if you have the best lab safety protocols, if one or one person- Well, I think- … breaks containment
of something very- I think
geo: back to human error- That’s right
you know? Or human stupidity,
joe: Or human
tera: Well-
geo: or I mean, you might just like…
joe: Yeah.
geo: You know
what I mean,
tera: be fair- You know,
you- … his thought was, “I wanna save my family. Crap’s going down.” Right. “I need to get out of here and get my family out of here.”
Right. That’s it. But
that- You
joe: and get my family- That’s right
out of here. Yep. Yep. Right. Definitely. Well, you had the, well, you had the nurse also at the facility, and they had the signs that if you feel sick, right, that you should say, you should report it. So she was a trained professional and had a little [01:00:00] sniffle, and they said, “Oh, this is seasonal allergies,” and didn’t report.
So the whole CDC
tera: I had
joe: went down, right.
nick: Was it from him?
tera: No, I felt like seasonal allergies, and it was COVID.
mary: Yeah.
nick: Yeah.
geo: Well,
I wanna say what it wasn’t really a lab, but one that I find super funny ’cause we talked about it in the Gremlins.
nick: the Gremlins.
geo: Remember the high school science lab, and he’s
joe: sandwich All right, yeah.
That’s right, he’s got his sandwich there. He’s doing an experiment. He’s got the… And yeah, we had a whole conversation. We did the Gremlin episode with Chris Guzman who’s gonna be back for ET. He’s coming back to talk
nick: you- Man, you’re doing spoilers already?
joe: am.
tera: I’m dropping spoilers.
BT. Do
joe: you
follow us along.
geo: It’s a teaser
joe: I know,
nick: even recorded yet. Well, we
joe: I really can’t
spoil it, but yeah. But yeah, we did talk about that scene with the science teacher, and he had his sandwich, and he’s doing the
geo: just
joe: experiments. He had a sandwich. But yeah, then he’s got his sandwich.
He just sits… So you should not eat at the bench while you’re doing,
tera: when I was in high school- … the guys would go in the [01:01:00] back chemistry lab, grab a beaker, take their Reese’s Pieces- Mm-hmm … put them in the beaker, melt them- and then chip them apart and eat them out of the beaker.
nick: them out of the
beaker. Oh yeah.
joe: do that …They
tera: have
superpowers right
joe: they could. They could
be there, Nick. They could’ve beat you there.
geo: other way.
joe: the other way. Yes, that… Right, they could not be,
mary: not be. Before we move too far away from The Stand, I… Well, I read a long time ago, but the… Did anyone ever see the miniseries that came out somewhere in the mid-’90s?
joe: I think we started, but I have not.
geo: The…
mary: Well, you
joe: read the book many times, so.
mary: can s-
Well, sorry, guys, but you can, whoever’s involved in this, but you can skip the o- everything after the first episode because the first episode- That’s good
is
nick: an
endorsement.
tera: Yes,
joe: watch the
geo: But- But definitely
joe: we’re going. If you haven’t watched it-
mary: here, let me- No.
geo: Watch the first
joe: first
episode and the last, and you got
nick: it. Let
geo: Mary finish.
mary: the love of God.[01:02:00]
joe: Jesus Christ. Okay.
mary: Jesus Christ. Okay. Anyway, but it’s cool because for the for two hours it’s you know, you have the massive container breach, and you got the guy that’s
like,
he sees all the stuff going down in the lab, and he’s like, “F this, I’m leaving.”
And, he s- sneaks out of the gates and causes this worldwide… And some people are getting sick, and the very end of that first episode is the scariest scene in the whole thing because all this time, one of our characters is being monitored in this lab that is, looks like BSL 10 or something.
You, you know what I mean? Everything is s- completely locked down. And at the very end, I’m not spoiling anything because this is part of the miniseries.
geo: And it’s only the first
nick: And how many episodes are there? There’s
mary: four, and y- and you can miss all but two, three, and four. But the first…
And then at the very end, the doctor that’s been very very scared of this [01:03:00] guy because, he was exposed and he’s totally fine, and then the doctor walks in and
very obviously sick, and he has something behind his back, and he’s just smiling. You know?
And he’s just… Oh, so scary. Oh, my gosh. It’s good stuff. But, because at that point, like, all pretense of lab safety and containment and, “We need to study you,” and everyone’s gone. It’s just our main character and this doctor who’s getting ready to j- to drop. But, ooh, it’s so…
Ugh. Anyway, d- treat yourself. Just treat it like a whole movie. Right. Right. And just watch that one episode, and you can skip everything else ’cause it’s good stuff.
geo: And then you can read the book. Yeah. But you gotta, like, allow for some time.
joe: it.
Yeats.
mary: It is it is a bit of a doorstop.
Yeah. And
joe: in The Stand, the one military guy who’s making decisions and realizes that the containment, this super- Mm-hmm … this bioweapon has breached. He [01:04:00] was talking about his daughter gave him a book, and he goes, “Have you ever read the Yeats?”
It
mary: Center Cannot Hold.
joe: Yeah. Right, yeah. So that’s right, yeah.
mary: Mm-hmm. you know,
joe: you know, this guy Yeats.
geo: guy Yeats. Anyway.
joe: But yeah I
geo: have
joe: I have a few, you know, kind of,
nick: Joe, did you ever get to your list?
geo: Yes, he’s been going through the list. I have
joe: haven’t
nick: that what he’s been doing?
joe: haven’t got to a list.
I have a couple
lists.
geo: listening and like- I
joe: a list of villains, ’cause this is the Spider-Man villain. Did I miss… I think I hit all the villains. If there’s any you wanna go over. They all breached safety and- No. Handwavium
nick: was experimented on, wasn’t
joe: he, but by someone else though, right?
Yeah. So, right. Yeah.
nick: for by J. That’s right. Yep. So yeah. So that was consent issue.
Know- Yeah … he
joe: up and did it, taken advantage
of.
nick: he definitely wasn’t in his right mind at all.
joe: I was gonna say some of the earliest maybe lab safety in fiction. Mm-hmm.
I was gonna say Icarus.
tera: Oh. Yeah. He tried to build- Oh, yeah
mary: yeah. Oh, yeah.
joe: Feathers and [01:05:00] wax.
He didn’t really test it and- Oh, Daedalus …You know?
uh, Daedalus? Daedalus. That’s right.
Builds the wings of wax and didn’t test it. There was no trials. No. He just kind of take,
you know …
tera: they were trying to escape, so I mean-
joe: saying.
tera: Have lab to test. It was-
nick: Now or never. Yeah.
joe: Prometheus Took fire, didn’t understand it. Dangerous technologies, right? That’s a whole, that is a, that’s still a when someone’s doing something, you know, that goes, and that leads right to Frankenstein, right?
That’s in
the title, right? So you have it and, you know, there was
geo: no- Mm-hmm. A lot of, lot of- The
joe: mother of science
fiction there … Oh, Mary Shelley. And, um, You go through
nick: There weren’t any lab safety
joe: There was no laughter right then.
nick: they
were, no-
purely in the clear. And
joe: we talked about that in episode one, how they would- Yeah … they would take cadavers and just take it into the parlor, and you would try to, they were trying to revive the cadavers.
And it was like a show. Like, you would just have this, the cadaver-
geo: the
joe: and it would go,
right. And it was a whole… Yeah. And at, and Mary Shelley, they [01:06:00] said, had got inspired ’cause she would go to these performances some, nice Sunday afternoon, and we’re gonna see if they can revive the criminal that just got hung and see what happens.
And yeah,
nick: If they revive him, they hang him again.
joe: That is what they s- that is, did we… Yep. Mm-hmm. That they made laws- Yeah … that if they came back to life, what do we do? Well, we hang them again. We kill them again. So yeah, so it was but yeah, that was it. No, I had the list I had,
geo: That wasn’t a list?
joe: It was kind, it wa- that was as a,
nick: a
geo: a- … that was a comment. That
joe: list … there’s a lot of lists. Okay.
But the list I had is can Nick lick it? I was thinking about the elemental the periodic table.
geo: Mm-hmm. Different
joe: And so-
geo: like can it, can we waffle
joe: it?
Can he… So
nick: Isn’t there
already like a outline of the stuff that you can mess with,
and then it gets to the stuff that you c- shouldn’t mess with, to the stuff where you absolutely should not mess with?
geo: with?
So none of it
joe: I don’t think that’s how the periodic
table is
nick: I’m pretty sure it is[01:07:00]
joe: Sure
tera: pretty sure it isn’t.
joe: So I had-
geo: We need to make a
joe: I have,
geo: I think
nick: a-
joe: I got things you
can- lick. You’ve of science before, right?
nick: before, right? Yeah, it’s the stuff that you just do in beakers.
joe: Can s- things you
can lick
very safely. Gold.
tera: Oh, I thought you were gonna quiz them. Like, you should mention things and then-
joe: Oh, you
want me to do it that way?
Yes. Yeah.
mary: Oh, yes,
joe: please.
Oh, okay.
nick: Is it a round table thing or is it just me?
joe: no. I mean, I don’t have a, I don’t-
I
think I- I didn’t have the
whole- I think
tera: I should abstain and let you three.
nick: if he can
lick this
mary: if he can lick this thing.
All right. Yeah. Okay. Okay.
nick: Can Nick lick it? Cadmium.
tera: Cadmium.
mary: that’s like in batteries too. Batteries. Yeah, I’m pro- I’m thinking probably no. Yeah. He’s gonna
nick: gonna say
geo: would say yes.
nick: everything.
geo: He’s gonna say yes
joe: what. Yeah, that’s right.
tera: Is that related to Cadbury? No. It’s not. “
‘Cause that you can lick.
nick: No, thallium.
tera: Wait. Wait.
Is it? Are
you gonna tell them if they’re right?
joe: Thall- I don’t
know.
mary: you gonna wait till we get to
joe: We can.
mary: and see? Okay. And then say
joe: And
nick: okay … we can’t know, Nick’s dead.
joe: Thallium? Thallium,
mary: Oh, no. Oh,
joe: yeah.
tera: Oh,
joe: Absolutely not.
Listen.
tera: Okay.
[01:08:00] You wanna see your daughter grow up,
right?
You
nick: said is it safe to lick, it’s can you lick it.
You can lick
it. You
can lick
joe: You
geo: you lick
nick: go around.
geo: Can you lick it and survive? Thank you.
mary: Thank, oh, okay, thank you for spelling all of that out, Georgia.
joe: Yeah,
tera: Otherwise,
joe: didn’t think I need to. It is… You
lick a
tera: lick the second
one. You’re right.
nick: second one. Right. So
mary: you have to-
joe: how about polonium?
nick: No.
tera: No.
joe: No, yeah. Sure. You shouldn’t. Yeah. And Alexander Litvinenko was famously killed it was a assassination, by this.
A tiny amount. It’s a radioactive. So anything with uranium,
tera: Plutonium
joe: plutonium, you probably should stay away from. Um, how about,
mary: How about, Mm-hmm. Yeah. Oh, my gosh.
This is-
joe: Oh my gosh. Let’s…
How
nick: How about
joe: how about cesium? I was kidding. Ooh,
geo: I was kidding.
nick: Ooh, that one doesn’t sound
joe: sound as bad. Cesium. Which
tera: That-
nick: Which one’s that the, where is that on the periodic table?
joe: It’s in the, like, soft metal area. If [01:09:00] you
nick: gonna say you could lick it. No.
joe: it. No.
No I
wouldn’t. How about, how about, you know-
geo: can
joe: this one? Here, this one here. Little balls. How about sodium?
nick: Yeah.
geo: Yes.
joe: Okay, you guys, you do not wanna lick sodium. So- It’s got to
mary: pure sodium,
geo: what-
tera: Pure sodium … Caesium. Like, what
joe: yeah … cesium- what is it These are,
These elements violently react with moisture, so the minute your tongue touches them, you’re gonna s- yeah, your tongue’s gonna, like, melt off. It’s gonna ex- Oh. It’s
very- Very
bad
mary: table salt
geo: is made so that we can ingest
joe: and
tera: about magnesium? That’s the
joe: chloride. So sodium chloride, that is table salt.
geo: And I’m thinking of
tera: chlorine- Chlorine … you should not lick
joe: Chlorine
nick: But You- could just sniff that
joe: You
You can smell
geo: swim in it …
joe: should not sniff it.
mary: it.
joe: Do not sniff chlorine.
tera: Pure chlorine?
joe: Don’t,
nick: no one said pure chlorine.
geo: Just like the
mary: But
joe: chlorine are we sniffing?
geo: Like the swimming pool
nick: Yeah.
mary: but you said
nick: It’s diluted
mary: magnesium,
joe: that either.
nick: Don’t sniff
joe: let’s not huff chlorine.
Please [01:10:00] don’t.
tera: it out.
geo: Please, no.
nick: there … The most unscientific science
portion we have
joe: that are safe, like gold, silver, carbon- Hydrogen … Silicon, platinum, I mean, you can lick those things pretty…
Yeah, you can- Hydrogen … yeah, go away. Hydrogen, I wouldn’t-
mary: I was gonna say … lick hydrogen, but-
joe: it’s
nick: can huff
it, right?
mary: I heard you say that,
joe: you get it was
mary: that we could do, and I thought- You can lick
joe: can take- “
mary: No, I don’t think
joe: Huff… Well, it’s a gas,
nick: you have to.
joe: you can- I’m
tera: I’m licking nitrogen
joe: atmosphere is, like, 70-some percent nitrogen, so pretty safe. The noble gases, argon, helium, neon, yeah, go for it.
nick: See? I was right. There are portions of it that are safe.
joe: I mean,
it’s safe yeah. But- But you can’t lick those. Those are smellies.
nick: You get enough of it in the air, you
joe: that stink? I mean,
tera: I
guess technically nitrogen you shouldn’t lick because if you’re licking it, then it’s probably liquid.
joe: probably liquid. Oh, yeah. That’s probably pretty cold. Ooh. Yeah. Same thing with carbon monoxide. Right.
geo: monoxide. Brain freeze. Dry ice. So you
joe: Dry ice is carbon monoxide. That’s about minus 80
nick: Tear [01:11:00] your face. Liquid
joe: nitrogen is about negative 196 C. Yep. So you
tera: C. Yep.
joe: shouldn’t lick it. All right.
nick: it. All right.
geo: That- I think you’re dead,
joe: Nick. Nick is very
nick: I’m
joe: dead.
No
superpowers. Maybe some of the the, the eums, the
uranium, plutonium, polonium, maybe you’ll get some sort of a superpower out of that, but,
tera: can guarantee you the radium would not because we have a test sub- Oh … a whole test group of women who licked
joe: That is true …
tera: right …their, That’s
joe: That’s right, yeah … Radium
mary: Paint brushes.
tera: not thank you. I’m like, it’s not a pencil. They made it like- And they licked it constantly and- … like watches- Yep … like clocks. To keep it nice and fine-tipped.
nick: Wait, what?
joe: Yep.
What is it? You know, the, the- glow in the dark, the glow in the dark lettering on the watches.
mary: Mm-hmm. And
nick: And then- And they would lick it?
geo: they worked
tera: their paint brushes
geo: they worked in, like, a factory. They were ‘
tera: cause they’re drawing the
nick: They
joe: to skip the contaminant
geo: out, yeah.
But there’s a book called Radium Girls. But
joe: yeah. And
mary: they didn’t know it was-
geo: Yeah … yeah, they didn’t know. Same
joe: thing as lead.
Lead, [01:12:00] Lead Lead was the other thing. Lead was in,
geo: they had
joe: was in makeup. Plates, makeup, you talk about
mary: about the kids toys.
joe: toys. Kids’ toys,
geo: That’s right. Well-
joe: And that was, some people say that was, were you telling me that, Georgia? But they think the incidents of people in carnival sideshows were because of- Yeah … lead. Mm-hmm. You know, the,
how much lead- that’s right … was in our environment.
mary: Or how much when we reduce the amount of lead exposure- Right … that we have we’ve also seen the decrease in violent crime over the years. Right, right. And people think that maybe that may be possibly something that contributed to that decrease.
geo: a very real thing because the- Mm-hmm.
Yeah … they’re, they have to go in and test the paint in
joe: Soil. I mean- To make
geo: to make sure that they don’t have lead. Yes. That’s, like, a huge thing for kids growing up, having that exposure, you know? And
joe: those, all those heavy metals, lead, mercury- Lead
thallium, cadmium, those are all, osmium- We’re
geo: about Joe, you have this m- this tell- telescope Microscope I mean microscope.
I knew it was a
joe: Yeah, you’re right. In [01:13:00] the ’50s, ’60s, like they would give microscope kits or other kits about and it would have little pieces of, uranium ore, things like that in it.
So
tera: think- A- and little vials of mercury … and
geo: and I think the one
joe: we didn’t talk about mercury. Yep. on
geo: our shelf right now has some, right? Didn’t it have little things when
joe: I don’t know if I wanna be announcing that on the radio. But yeah, no, it
does have a
nick: Oh.
tera: no, I know.
joe: a very little piece.
Very little. So uranium,
I mean,
like radium salts, this probably is uranium salts. We work with that a lot. They’re very low emitters. They’re not high energy emitters
like-
some of the other
ones. oh yeah. Um,
right. You don’t want kids because the… You’re probably fine if you don’t-
tera: grind it and huff
joe: if you don’t eat it.
nick: lick it.
joe: you don’t eat it or inhale it- Yeah … you’re probably fine,
tera: grind it and huff it
geo: Or, and then- Yeah … and then there’s also the sc- the woman scientist that, why am I
tera: Madame Curie? Yes.
joe: Yeah.
yeah.
geo: Oh, yeah. And she would just have, like-
joe: She did, yeah. mean, her- On her desk-
tera: Yeah
she
nick: the,
what are you… Wait
joe: the,
nick: Plutonium?
geo: or what was it that [01:14:00] she had just, like-
nick: like-
tera: Was it-
joe: Was it plutonium? Yeah.
geo: it was plutonium.
Yeah. Just,
nick: was. Oh. You’re just mou- you’re
motioning like it’s a big mountain.
geo: Yeah. On her desk she had this big mound of
tera: her lab books are still so hot they can’t be put in like a museum or anything.
nick: Oh,
Shit.
tera: Like for view because they’re so hot.
geo: Right. Really?
mary: Mm-hmm.
tera: Mm-hmm. Dang.
nick: Just ’cause she just…
tera: Because
they didn’t fully
mary: was working- It wasn’t
geo: wasn’t known that was a- Yeah …
mary: Know what that was. So I wanna ask, because I think we’re at, like, at an hour and a half right now, so it’s
joe: It was like radium and, and polonium.
mary: To wind up … to,
joe: It, that’s what she had. Polonium. Ore,
mary: you know- But- Quickly
joe: looking it up.
tera: up …
mary: I have
a question for you, Tera so what is there a an example in popular culture of lab safety done right? It’s more fun when it’s done wrong I would imagine. But is there
tera: interestingly- Yeah … I was thinking about this because I saw when you’re scrolling through your streaming services and they advertise newly added, and they had X Files. [01:15:00] And I was just a little too young to watch X Files when it first came out. Mm-hmm.
We lived in the middle of nowhere. We only had one TV, no cable. Yeah. We had a giant satellite dish, and so I didn’t watch X Files. And I was like, “I wanna watch X- X Files.” Mm-hmm. And so I’m on the second season right now, and they’ve quarantined them pretty well actually- … twice now, and it’s pretty impressive.
Cool. Yeah, so that was one I actually thought of while watching it just a few days ago.
mary: Awesome. Well, la- later on Scully gets a little fast and loose with her use of gloves, and she’ll clap her…
Yeah. You’ll see this a lot in movies, the actor, express shock and horror will clap their gloved hand over their face.
tera: And so I
mary: always love when they do that, so. I think the
joe: I think the the thing in X-Files that w- you know, I watched it when they were out, was that molecular biology is extremely fast. Every experiment is accelerate… In there they have it right. It is actually what you will do.
Yeah. But then it’s like it only took, what, an experiment that would take you a couple hours is, like, 15 minutes later they [01:16:00] got it. And it was like, hold up.
mary: No. It was like- I
joe: Ho- I hope my PI isn’t watching this, ’cause I can’t do it that fast. Like, that’s not how
mary: Hey, wait a second. Sorry … Scully did this in 15 minutes. How come it
joe: a whole day. That’s right, Yeah. It’s
geo: like a cooking
joe: Yeah. That’s right,
yes. That’s
geo: magic of TV.
joe: Yeah, they
mary: they were-
joe: there. No but X-Files is a really good example. think
nick: feel like they do- Oh, God … spend time, like they, in some episodes they do be like, “All right. We’re gonna go away for this, and then
joe: No, not, it was still not… It was still, everything was- Like- … super fast. No, it was… Even that was fast, right? That would take you many days maybe. It was, like, kinda, you know, yeah,
nick: I was like
joe: I feel like I, I- yeah.
We used to, I used to watch it with a other friend. We were… I was in grad school really when that was at its heyday, so we would all get together on Sundays, and we would go, and this… We were all in the lab. We were all, biochemists, molecular geneticists, so we would all just pick apart that ass, you know.
And, yeah, it was a party. Yeah, we would make baked goods. It was a fun time.
mary: fun times.
nick: Yeah- I think she was making fun of you there, Joe …
joe: gonna say
Contagion was
geo: kidding
nick: I
joe: I think the science in Contagion was really good. Mm-hmm. And touching face, you talked about [01:17:00] that. Touching the
face and things. Yeah. that
came up, That’s right. That came up, and they were trying to contain and you watch that- I think the last time I watched it was actually during the COVID pandemic. It was- Oh, no
it was
like, “Oh, this is it’s radio,” right? It
was- yeah. But that one,
That one did have really good… But you’re right.
In like superhero comic land, I really can’t think of many
tera: I think the point of it is things went wrong … science.
joe: right. Like
nick: Mm-hmm.
mary: Yeah. Yeah. trying to think of what was good science.
tera: Like, I feel like The Martian was good science. Martian, yeah. Even when they put together the probe, they were, you know, in the clean room, in the suits, trying to keep it as sterile as possible. Yeah. Like, they did a pretty good job there.
joe: Yeah. But that wasn’t the plot wasn’t
driven-
tera: Wasn’t driven through the science
lab accident. Like, right, and I think that’s the whole
point of a lot of pop culture is it’s driven, you know, it’s make catastrophe, and now let’s look at the- Mm-hmm
geo: Or think about 28 Days Later.
joe: Oh, right. The animals… Yep. Go ahead.
geo: Oh, no. And the, it was the ki- the kids.
I say kids, I don’t know why. The protesters, and they [01:18:00] wanna free the animals, and it was good intentions, but-
joe: think about… And that’s real serious, too, because there’s a lot of-
tera: I mean- Oh, yeah …
joe: You’re… Well, I mean, the, it’s serious in terms of real practical, so animal facilities are locked down, limited access, and that’s part of our training- And there’s a-
is that- Like
tera: of IDs … yeah … like one ID to get in, and then where the animals are kept, at least one or two more scans,
joe: And you’re not supposed to let people in. Like you’re
tera: to- One scan, one person
joe: so
you’re not supposed to… And you’re trained these things
because of that instance.
So it’s- That’s right.
geo: La- Later
tera: and it’s because of that, but also because, like, you, we have multiple animal facilities, and there’s different levels of cleanliness. And so if you go to the dirty one, you have to wait a certain amount of time before you can go to the cleaner one.
Mm-hmm. So you have to start from the cleanest and go down if you have to visit multiple. Mm-hmm. And so you have to keep track of how many times you’ve entered and left and everything as well.
joe: And fac- animal facilities have [01:19:00] changed over the years. Oh, yeah. So probably in, I mean, the last 10 years, 15, I mean, they’ve gotten much more strict with access and things like that.
So there were periods in time where animal facility, each lab had their own cages, and they would just take care of them. They would feed them, whatever. Which
that would- It was
geo: thing where, like, protesters
joe: They would-
yeah. Yeah. It happened a lot,
tera: I’ve even heard- Let out
joe: out
tera: the university, I don’t know if this was real- Yeah … but they, I remember hearing when they would do the scav hunt on campus for the undergrads, that sometimes one of the things would be to get an animal from one of the facilities.
nick: Oh, damn
tera: And to really be alert.
joe: Yeah. Yeah, I know U- University of Pennsylvania, ’cause, I, I mean, I grew up in Philadelphia, I remember they let out all of the animals, and they were talking about how, like, traffic was snarled because there were, like, lobsters and sea creatures-
like,
tera: kind of- I will
joe: acro- It
was, like, kind of, it’s kind of cruel because a lot of these lab animals- They
tera: suffering and dying
were-
joe: Right … were kind of,
their development, their genetics- Oh, yeah
nick: scared in the wild
tera: for, like,
joe: Albino mice, I mean, they [01:20:00] stand out so much that any predator’s gonna pick ’em off.
So really what kind of life then? And these lab animals, as I said, especially with the conditions, why do you need them? How many do you need? Why are you raising them? But they are, treated as well as possible, and
so-
tera: certain types of food. You can’t have so many- Right … you can only have so many in a cage, but you have to have at least so many in a cage because they are social animals.
So if you need to isolate them, you have to have a very good experimental reason why. I
mary: I see.
nick: Interesting.
mary: M- what’s that Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH?
tera: Oh, I loved
mary: I love that. Isn’t it? You know, I read it I reread it again a couple years ago. Definitely stands up. Stand, you know? Y- yeah, it’s-
tera: should find that
mary: it’s a, yeah it’s a good one. Yeah.
tera: But I was gonna say every once in a while we’ll be walking through the tunnel, and we’ll find a rogue little crab
joe: we’ll be walking through the ‘
tera: cause it’s food for the octopuses, I believe.
nick: Oh. Wait, you have octopuses there?
I
joe: food
for the
tera: There, there’s
nick: why haven’t you [01:21:00] showed me
these? ‘
tera: Cause
they’re not-
joe: I want
tera: He’s
geo: not allowed
tera: an
nick: not- Oh wink.
mary: I’m
joe: So I was gonna, I, I wanted to, I was gonna go back
to, um- Okay
quickly circle back to Madame Curie, ’cause I did look it up.
And so 1899, 19- 1902 was when she did a lot of her work the Nobel Prize-winning work. She just had a pile of pitchblende, which was this radioact- the more radioactive than uranium alone. It was this pile of ore. To isolate one milligram of radium, so she i- identified two new elements, radium and then polonium, which is named after Poland.
She processed multiple tons of pitchblende, P-I-T-C-H-B-L-E-N-D-E ore through boiling, dissolving, filtering, and crystallization. And so they didn’t have proper shielding.
Oh, boy. Uh, they handled the radioactive material with bare hands. They kept samples on their desks, in their labs, in their lab coat pockets.
That’s nuts. It was very- He-
It
was heavily contaminated with radium-226. The research did lead directly to the 1903 Nobel [01:22:00] Prize in Physics and the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry which was, caused her exposure to radiation. Her work did pave the way for cancer treatment and modern atomic physics.
And as Tera was saying, due to the 1,600-year half-life of radium-226, most of Madame Curie’s personal items, including lab equipment, clothes, and notebooks remain highly Radioactive and are stored in lead-lined boxes in
geo: And how long did she live? Like, I mean, I’m sure she had a lot of health consequences
joe: consequences from, from-
tera: she’s probably lucky she lived long enough to win two Nobels. Right. Because you have to be alive to win a Nobel. and she’s… Yeah. It’s pretty incredible she lived.
nick: And she’s still alive today,
correct?
geo: As long as is sh- Yes, she is. She-
joe: 66
years
old.
nick: she was 66
tera: She was 66.
geo: was
joe: she was 66 years old. Wow. Her death was caused by aplastic anemia a condition resulting from her long-term exposure to radiation during her pioneering
geo: she really lived [01:23:00] older than I would’ve thought. Yeah …
joe: I mean,
a lot of her work, and it’s always- Yeah … joked about is that it was just who can get enough material, who can build a better scale because the measure, kinda the radioactive material, she was in a race with other labs around the world, and they all had big piles of radioactive material, and they were trying.
And so who could build, who can measure the kind of very small, like I said, a milligram of material. I don’t know what’s happening over there. Nick is licking something.
nick: it-
tera: Nick is
geo: is licking something.
joe: but yeah, no, su-
super
tera: an ice cream. Yeah,
joe: Yeah. It’s not ice cream. It’s… And it’s not a
rock.
nick: so-
It was just red wine.
joe: Yeah. So I think this was…
geo: final
tera: thoughts?
geo: Very interesting. Mm-hmm.
nick: I think The Hulk does the best job at, The
joe: Hulk,
I mean, definitely lab violations there,
too.
nick: the initial one, yes. Yes. But after that, I think he learned his lesson.
joe: After the initial one?
tera: think a
joe: I don’t think He
did because even, so-
tera: Captain America was a major lab, you know- Captain America
violation. Was it? Ethical.
nick: [01:24:00] ethically? Yeah, but- he
joe: was… Yeah, I don’t know. His
nick: was a whole
team
tera: there was… Yeah.
joe: Who’d they test that on?
tera: on? Nobody. what are they
joe: at? It was just like, “We got a super serum. Let’s go.”
geo: I
nick: thought they did test it before.
joe: Oh, they didn’t? ‘Cause they wanted to have
nick: Oh, no, it was after that they started testing it … the super soldier
joe: yes. Yeah, after it worked, then they wanted to make it again. Yes. So yeah no.
geo: So there’s
joe: Cap was-
geo: We need a new superhero called Lab Safety Man.
joe: Oxo- Oxalato Man
nick: This guy sucks already. I’m… It’s already
tera: Man and his sidekick Lotl Boy.
joe: Lat-O Boy.
geo: That’s right, Waddle
joe: They did science right.
tera: I’m trademarking that. Nobody’s allowed to take that.
joe: that.
geo: Lab Safety Man. Oh. We did
joe: did science right, and now we’re gonna cool as superheroes.
tera: We should have ended this with a reading of Goodnight Lab.
joe: Good night lab, yeah. Do you got it?
Go.
tera: It’s, that’s in-
nick: How can you offer something up and not-
joe: we should end this episode
We should end this episode. Oh, wow.
tera: Oh. Not to recommend will recommend to anybody with [01:25:00] children, you know, if you get very bored of Goodnight Moon, you should find a copy of Goodnight Lab. Yeah.
mary: I like that. That’s a good way to, Well,
tera: Well- … wrap
joe: and don’t do self-experimentation.
We talk about on the episode, there’s been a few episodes where we talked about the underground caves, the, what Strife went under there and participated in you know, kind of time,
nick: isolation. Leave it to the professionals.
joe: You had Barry Marshall who won a Nobel Prize for drinking H. pylori to prove it caused ulcers.
So people have but that was controlled. It was documented.
geo: not recommend.
joe: yes.
tera: of all of the ones we’ve mentioned- Yeah
that’s probably the only one I’m semi-okay with.
That’s one.
joe: he had a whole bunch of, he documented it. He was, it was a controlled experiment.
He went into it with consent. It was, but yes, most of the
time it’s not.
geo: but don’t- Yeah … take
nick: Lick the
joe: Taste the tape. Yeah. Don’t lick it. Yes.
nick: Just lick the cat … stay curious. You’ll be fine
joe: yeah. Taste
mary: and recklessness. Latex
tera: is your friend.
joe: Yeah. Especially now, I mean, I think nowadays where people [01:26:00] are
trying to- Or not
reject science or science fact and , “Oh, I’m gonna do this, I’m gonna do whatever, and I hear about this drug or whatever.” yeah I think it’s good to be curious, it’s good to be and ask questions, but, , just don’t start testing things on yourself ’cause the consequences
nick: someone
joe: are- Talk to people.
Yeah, I mean, and get opinions, and that’s what peer review is about kind of
tera: does make me wanna put in a plug of, you know, the whole health conscious people and whatnot, that the FDA does not regulate a lot of the nutraceuticals. And so a lot of your vitamins and other supplements are not regulated, so whatever they say is in it may or may not be, the amounts may or may not be accurate, and just please be cautious.
joe: Yep.
geo: There we go.
mary: Very true. There you go.
joe: you go.
nick: Tera do you have anything else to plug?
joe: Besides
what you just said?
tera: said?
nick: That’s why I said anything
else.
tera: No, I mean, my hair’s pretty good. I don’t need any of, hair plugs. Yeah. So I think I’m good.
joe: Nice. Nick, any final questions? I know you guys have a-
nick: I think we’ve we’ve covered pretty
joe: did it? Yeah. Yeah. Awesome.
nick: yeah, like, ’cause what you said [01:27:00] that the X-Files was … Yeah.
mary: Yeah.
joe: yeah
nick: Yeah. But thank you for being here again with us Tera
tera: i, anytime. Just-
joe: a fun time.
nick: We’re gonna have you back all the time now.
joe: We’ll have you there. We- I love it. We have, we, we like having return guests here. On that note, you have me, Joe.
nick: You got Nick.
joe: We’ve got Nick. Georgia. We’ve got Georgia.
mary: got Mary.
joe: We’ve got Mary.
nick: And we went down some holes You guys stay curious.
Some safe holes. Stay safe. I say that every
joe: episode. Stay safe. There you go. And we love you.
