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hey everyone welcome to this Premier
episode of let me clarify I'm Gus here
with Rooster Teeth and I'm joined by uh
Sally leage hello so we we've had Sally
on a couple of podcasts and it's been a
joy it's been great having her on to
talk about science uh why don't you
remind everyone what your uh what your
science pedigree is Sally my pedigree uh
so I'm an evolutionary biologist doing
my PhD at Oxford and I also am a science
Communicator making YouTube videos as
well great so uh we're here so that I
can embarrass myself and ask you a few
science related questions that have been
bugging me and it's not embarrassing to
be ignorant you should relish it should
be like wow I'm ignorant and that means
I get to learn something we have our
first shirt 30 seconds into the episode
it's not embarrassing to be ignorant I
can't wait to buy that shirt and uh yeah
down the road uh after we've had a few
episodes we'll of course open it up to
the audience and we'll be taking the
best and the worst questions from them
and also talking about them in future
episodes but for now let's go ahead and
and Dive Right In I'm going to confess
this is one I came up with okay and it's
I wanted to ask why don't animals cook
food and are there an any animals that
come close to cooking food because I
think about it and I think that it's
really weird that humans you know will
Slaughter an animal and then put it over
fire to eat it and other animals would
just eat another animal I mean have you
heard of the myth of Prometheus yes like
there is a reason why fire and the
bringing of of fire to humanity is
ingrained in mythology because it is
such a big deal and no other animals
have fire therefore no other animals can
cook their food so I mean so the reason
that animals other animals nonhuman
animals I should add don't cook their
food is because they don't have cooking
they don't have the equipment the tools
the fire to do so I'm going I'm going to
throw a wrench in your in your answer
here while you're still going what about
like a really hot rock like in the could
like a lizard kill another lizard and
throw its body on a hot rock so these
animals if they're going to be out near
a hot rock then the proteins are going
to denat on the Rock that's what cooking
is but I don't know I just don't think
that a lizard would be able to do that
because the lizard would have to be in
the same place so the eating lizard
wouldn't be able to say stay out in the
sun without slightly cooking itself and
dying of heast heat EX exhaustion gotcha
but you could say that some animals like
prepare their food in a sense so you've
got ants for example that like you've
seen leaf cutter ants the one that haul
the massive leaves on top of their heads
and then drag them around yeah they're
so cool they are not eating the leaves
they are eating fungus growing on the
leaves so they take their leaves back to
their ant's nest and then they Farm the
fungus and then they eat the fungus so
in that sense they're kind kind of
cooking because they're not eating
directly what it is that they take from
the environment is that almost kind of
like agriculture then cuz is the fungus
on the leaf when they harvest it or does
the fungus grow once they take it back
okay I don't know if you know about
aphids or green fly they're the little
tiny bugs that you get on your plants if
you're growing in a greenhouse they suck
the sweet juices that are flowing up and
down plant stems the um the flm and the
sap I suppose and then they excrete a
load of it but they're so the aphids are
so bad at processing the sugary water
that their pee their poo it's all the
same thing is also sugary water and then
ants will eat that and then they will
guard their aphids from attack from
other Predators so that's like farming
cattle but the ants are farming aphids
wow that's uh that's really complicated
I didn't realize ants were so
industrious they're farmers and they're
ranchers yeah ants are amazing ants
should rule the world really they should
no they shouldn't and I I for one will
reject our ant overlords okay I'm not
sure what would happen to you if you
rejected them though that's the problem
humans first humans number one um well
here actually you talking about that is
a nice segue into our next topic one of
the other questions I had here but
before we get to that uh I just want to
give a shout out to our friends at
audible.com uh I want to remind everyone
Audible has an unmatched selection of
audiobooks original shows news comedy
and more if you want to listen to it
Audible has it you'll find what you're
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listen to uh when you're driving stuck
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doing chores uh whatever whatever you're
doing just listen to an audiobook and
for our audience audible is offering a
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just go to audible.com letme sign up for
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they have I'm positive they have
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they've had it uh so go check it out get
a free audiobook with a 30-day free
trial go to audible.com letme that's
audible.com slet me okay back to our
next topic here so you were talking
about apids and the way that they
interact with plants uh this is another
question I thought of I'm a little
embarrassed about this one we all need
water both plants and animals you know
what is it what is this the magic thing
about water so water is pretty amazing
stuff and it's only because we're so
used to water that we kind of forget how
weird it is it's so to State the obvious
water is a liquid at room temperature um
or air temperature I should say and
that's pretty important because when
you've got a liquid it can act as a
solvent and dissolve things and when
things are dissolved they can react much
more easily cuz they can move around
like they could in a gas and they
couldn't do that in a solid but also
they're still in a fairly high density
whereas in a gas they're floating apart
so much that the collisions are less
likely to happen and also water is like
a super amazing solvent like when we
think of solvents we think of like nail
varnish remover or something like that
but actually water like if you imagine
like how think about how fast water can
dissolve table salt water is an amazing
solvent because it's called polar it's
um it's basically got a charge
separation over the molecules don't know
how sciency you want me to go no this
great this great I'm I'm I'm fascinated
I'm listening yeah so so even though
overall water H2O is neutral there's no
overall charge one end the oxygen end
becomes quite negative and the hydrogen
end becomes quite positive which means
that it can dissolve things that are
slightly charged so it can dissolve like
ions like salt um like sodium ions and
pottassium ions and things like that and
so because it can dissolve things and
it's liquid at the temperature that we
see on Earth and weirdly enough most
liquids when they solidify you can
imagine all these molecules floating
around then they come closer and closer
together as they solidify so normally
the solid is more dense than the liquid
but just because of a weird freak of how
water works when it um solidifies it's
slightly more spaced out so ice floats
on top of water which when you think
about it's like well yeah of course ice
cubes float to the top of my glass but
that's like different to nearly every
other chemical so are you saying almost
almost any other chemical when it's in
its solid form would be more dense and
sink in the liquid form yes interesting
so but it's just because we're so used
to water that that floating on top seems
normal to us but if you think like a
liquid is everything's more spread out
and a solid is it's closer together so
closer together more dense things should
sink to the bottom but it's just because
ice forms this special spaced out
structure and it means that icebergs
float on the top of seas and so like the
Titanic wouldn't have sunk if the
iceberg that the Titanic hit was
actually denser than the water when had
sunk to the bottom of the ocean so
you're seeing it's all water molecule's
fault it's all water molecule's fault
that thousands and thousands of people
died and that it took so long for lited
decaprio to get an Oscar it's all water
molecues fault you said that uh you know
when you were talking about it you said
one side of the molecule is really
positive and one side's really negative
and now all I can picture is like The
Odd Couple it's like two roommates who
don't like each other living together
like one super negative one super
positive and then you got to play the
except that they're chemically bonded
together right they're like they're like
it's like it's like a uh the premise for
a comedy movie it's like they don't like
each other one's positive one's negative
but they're stuck together and they got
to make it work and we're all depending
on them so the POS the negative one is
stuck with two positive twins it's even
worse for the negative one awful yeah
that's terrible I feel like I live that
every day so I was reading the other
week about uh an era that is passed on
Earth called the Carboniferous era which
had much higher concentration of oxygen
in the atmosphere how important is it to
us that we live on Earth in this time
when the oxygen amount is just at a
perfect percentage for us you say that
it's a perfect percentage at the moment
but I'd say it was better in the
Carboniferous I mean have you seen those
giant dragon flies that sounds
terrifying their wingspans are meters
and meters across because the thing
that's restricting the size of
dragonflies now is diffusion they don't
have lungs the oxygen just kind of has
to waft into their inner body the
Carboniferous period was better for
dragonflies but would it have been
better for humans would we benefit we
also be would we have giant meter wide
or multimeter wide uh arm spans if we
lived in that period would would humans
be affected by more oxygen rich
environment so humans are a bit weird
because we have evolved an oxygen
transport system so we have lungs we
have a beating heart and we have red
blood cells that pump our body around
and so we don't rely on diffusion for
our oxygen as much and it's diffusion
that relies on the concentration of
oxygen which is why the concentration of
oxygen in the atmosphere affects
diffusion so it would affect our lungs
but all of those plants evolved before
the Carboniferous era when there wasn't
just more carbon dioxide but there was
less oxygen we're trying to grow more
efficient plants because there are going
to be 10 billion miles to feed and so
far we're only feeding about six billion
of them so we need to get plants as
efficient as possible if humans are
going to survive so if we wanted to if
we wanted to grow super plants right
like you're talking about going from
feeding 6 billion to 10 billion would it
be ideal to to build like airtight green
houses that are just super rich with
carbon dioxide yes and oh
really so this is the problem is that
the enzymes that plants need to suck up
carbon dioxide is blocked by oxygen okay
because they evolved this enzyme when
there was lots of carbon dioxide in the
air and not lots of oxygen and so they
didn't have to worry about oxygen
getting in the way because the two
molecules look quite similar so they
both fit in the same protein rabisco so
if you know if there was this special
ideal environment to grow like lettuce
for example would would we end up with
giant heads of lettuce or would it just
be easier to farm out like traditional
lettuce we have faster growing lettuce
so we could choose how big it grows and
some plants um will just keep on growing
on and on forever they have
non-deterministic growth they'll just
keep on growing but in general they'll
grow faster they'll be more efficient
well thanks for joining us Sally I think
uh I learned a little bit today
hopefully our audience did too I'm glad
you learned something so thanks for
watching and we will see you guys next
week
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