Neil Shubin is back to talk about the viruses lurking in your DNA. You’ll also learn about whether it’s true that turkeys are so dumb that they drown in rainstorms, and why domineering people don't rise through the ranks any faster.
Neil Shubin is back to talk about the viruses lurking in your DNA. You’ll also learn about whether it’s true that turkeys are so dumb that they drown in rainstorms, and why domineering people don't rise through the ranks any faster.
Additional resources from biologist and author Neil Shubin:
Turkeys Don't Drown in Rainstorms by Ashley Hamer
Despite the stereotype, selfish, domineering people don't rise through the ranks any faster by Kelsey Donk
Subscribe to Curiosity Daily to learn something new every day with Ashley Hamer and Natalia Reagan (filling in for Cody Gough). You can also listen to our podcast as part of your Alexa Flash Briefing; Amazon smart speakers users, click/tap “enable” here: https://www.amazon.com/Curiosity-com-Curiosity-Daily-from/dp/B07CP17DJY
Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/do-turkeys-really-drown-in-rainstorms
ASHLEY HAMER: Hi, you're about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from Curiosity.com. I'm Ashley Hamer.
NATALIA REAGAN: And I'm Natalia Reagan. Today, Neil Shubin is back to talk about viruses lurking in your DNA. You'll also learn about whether it's true that turkeys are so dumb that they drown in rainstorms and why domineering people don't rise through the ranks any faster.
ASHLEY HAMER: Let's satisfy some curiosity. I don't want to freak you out, but not all of your DNA comes from your ancestors. Nearly 8% of the human genome comes from viruses, viruses in your DNA. But according to today's guest, those viral genes have a silver lining.
Neil Shubin is a biologist and bestselling author, and his latest book is entitled, Some Assembly Required: Decoding Four Billion Years of Life, from Ancient Fossils to DNA. And I asked him, how the heck did viruses end up in our DNA?
NEIL SHUBIN: Well, good question. So I think a bit about viruses. I guess this is very relevant. Viruses are a little piece of genetic material, either RNA or DNA. It's a tiny little piece of genetic material surrounded by a shell, more or less. And there are huge diversity of viruses, I should say.
The estimate, just in the ocean of viruses, there are 10 to 31st power of them. That is a 10 with 31 zeros, number of viruses in the ocean. That's more viruses in the ocean than there are stars in the observable universe. So just let me just put that down there for a second. There's a huge virus.
ASHLEY HAMER: Oh, my god.
NEIL SHUBIN: And viruses, basically, they sit at the margins, at the edge of how we define living things. Because for the most of the time, they're kind of inert. They just sit there as little pieces of genetic material that do nothing on their own.
But then when they come in contact with a host cell, like a whole chain reaction happens. They attach to the host cell. They go into the host cell. They commandeer the genome in different ways of the host to make more copies of themselves. And they can produce about-- each cell can produce. Host cell can be like a little factory that makes viruses about a million of them before it dies.
So basically, they're the ultimate parasites, right? And so throughout evolutionary history, throughout eons, viruses have continually invaded the genomes and cells of our distant ancestors. Some of them have made it actually into our own DNA. As I said, 8% of our DNA are these-- there's ancient viruses that attacked DNA, entered the DNA, only to be knocked out.
And so you see these ancient viral structures, it's almost like a graveyard of ancient viruses inside of our DNA. It's a huge amount. But the story gets more interesting still.
There was a team a few years ago-- recently, at the University of Utah. And they're not virologists. They didn't care about viruses at the time. They were studying memory, genes that are active and control memories in humans, how they work.
And so as good biologists, they started to look at the structure of the gene and the structure of the protein the gene makes, just to know how it works. And they were studying it, and they popped it under the microscope to take a peek at what it looks like. And the lead researcher looked under the microscope, looked at the protein of this memory gene, and he swore he saw it before.
And he saw it before. He saw it when he was a student taking an infectious disease class. He recognized it as a virus. It turns out that this gene that makes memories was originally a virus that was repurposed to play a role in memories. And so there are viruses that have attacked our genome.
Some of them have been knocked out and sit like corpses inside the genome for eons. Others have been repurposed to do new things, in this case, this memory gene in humans. And indeed, some of the proteins that work in the human placenta actually also have a viral origin.
So viruses-- we live in a balance with viruses, which obviously sometimes goes awry. But sometimes, viruses can be fuel for evolutionary change. But either way, we are part virus. Almost 8% of our genome are ancient viruses.
ASHLEY HAMER: Again, that was Neil Shubin, a biologist and author of the book, Some Assembly Required: Decoding Four Billion Years of Life, from Ancient Fossils to DNA. You can find a link to pick it up in today's show notes.
NATALIA REAGAN: When it comes to stupid animals, turkeys are generally ranked near the top of the list.
ASHLEY HAMER: Natalia, how dumb are they?
NATALIA REAGAN: Well, Ashley, they're so dumb that when it rains, they stare up in the sky in fascination until their mouths fill up with water, and they drown themselves. Well, that's the story anyway. It turns out that that's all it is, a story.
Let's take this myth apart piece by piece, drumstick by drumstick, wishbone by wishbone. Do you want me to keep going on? I'll stop. First of all, even if turkeys were that dumb, this doesn't make sense from the turkey standpoint. Turkeys have monocular vision, which means that their eyes are set on opposite sides of their heads.
That gives them a wider field of vision. So they can spot approaching predators. While you or I would look up to examine falling raindrops, turkeys would tilt their head sideways to point one eye toward the sky.
Second, turkeys aren't really all that stupid. Charles Darwin once praised their acute powers of observation. He noticed that they could recognize friendly dogs they'd seen before. And the naturalist, Joe Hutto, wrote a book about the experience raising a group of wild turkeys.
He got particularly attached to one he named Turkey Boy. He wrote, quote, "Each time I joined him, he greeted me with a happy dance, a brief joyful display of ducking and dodging, with wings outstretched and a frisky shake of the head, like a dog with water in its ears, " end quote. Turkeys have a lot going on upstairs.
OK, then how did this myth get started? Do turkeys make a habit of looking up in rainstorms? Actually, yes, If they're unlucky enough to have a specific genetic condition. Some turkeys have inherited a neurological disorder called tetanic torticollar spasms.
The condition causes muscular spasms that make a turkey bend its neck back so far that its head rests on its back with its beak directed toward the sky. The spasms can last anywhere from a few seconds to more than a minute and are sometimes triggered by sudden loud noises, like the under of a rainstorm.
Even with its beak open though, a turkey won't drown after a minute in the rain. Let's hope it's not El Niño. While turkeys are no ornithological Einsteins, they're not brain dead either. So it's time to gobble up this holiday myth and put it to bed.
ASHLEY HAMER: There's a stereotype that everyone who succeeds in business is, at their core, selfish, domineering, and not so nice. Think the Wolf of Wall Street and the Devil Wears Prada. But recent research suggests that that's not necessarily true.
According to a new longitudinal study, combative and manipulative people don't actually get ahead at work. Over the course of 14 years, a research team tracked people to see what happened to the ones who are the most disagreeable. These people fit the profile of a winning competitor on The Apprentice, stereotypical hustlers who do anything at all to get ahead.
Researchers first met the participants when they were in college and analyzed their personalities. Then when the people were solid members of the workforce, the researchers came back to see how well the most aggressive people did at work. The participants who showed the most signs of aggression, political maneuvering, and selfishness when they were in college did not have any more power 14 years later than the friendliest among them. That finding was true regardless of the participant's age, gender or ethnicity.
The takeaway, not all selfish mean people are destined for workplace success. In another study, researchers looked more closely at people's behavior at work. They divided possible behaviors into four categories.
The first was dominant as measured by statements like, I'm willing to bully others to achieve important goals. Political behaviors were rated with statements like, I build alliances with important people. Statements like I care about other's well-being measured communal behavior. And competence was measured with statements like, I make important contributions to my team's success.
For this study, the researchers collected the participant's ratings of themselves in these categories and the ratings their coworkers gave them. And the two ratings tended to match. The results, people who were high in all four types of behaviors tended to have more power. So yes, dominant people do get further in their jobs, but only when they're also good at their jobs and get along with others.
So according to this research, at least, nice guys don't always have to finish last. They can get to the top as long as they have the right combination of personality traits and good old-fashioned skill.
NATALIA REAGAN: Let's recap the main things we learned today, starting with, we learned from biologist Neil Shubin that almost 8% of the human genome comes from viruses. And some of these viruses are dead and gone, like a virus graveyard. And some of these genes have actually been repurposed to do new things like genes for memory. And some genes in the placenta also come from viruses.
I found this to be absolutely fascinating. I love this idea of viruses being repurposed to serve a fantastic purpose in humans.
ASHLEY HAMER: Right. It's like the ultimate, what does not kill me makes me stronger.
NATALIA REAGAN: Oh, yes.
ASHLEY HAMER: We're just holding on to those viruses that we did battle with long ago. That's great.
NATALIA REAGAN: Yeah, I'm interested to see how other viruses, newer viruses will take hold and maybe change over time too. I don't-- God, especially with COVID, the strange-- the really strange virus that we're now contending with.
ASHLEY HAMER: Right. I would just jump in a time machine, go a few billion years in the future and find out how those-- that COVID virus turn out.
NATALIA REAGAN: We might be on Mars or on some exoplanet. But hopefully, we can find us.
ASHLEY HAMER: And we learned that despite the myths, turkeys are not the dummies of the animal kingdom. And they don't drown themselves in rainstorms by mindlessly looking up at the sky. But this myth may have some basis, in fact, because some turkeys do have a neurological disorder that makes them tilt their head back in a spasm when they hear loud noises like thunder.
So it's time to cut those turkey lurkey some slack and show a little respect. They've got stuff going on upstairs.
NATALIA REAGAN: Be good to our turkey friends. What did they ever do to you? We also learned that being aggressive is not a surefire way to be successful in business. And in one study, it appears that the most successful folks seem to have a really good balance of being self-assured, but also being incredibly competent in their field, and having a sense of kindness and sort of communal behavior, making sure everybody in a team was taken care of, which sounds kind of ideal to me.
I think there's a lot of emphasis in our species and our closest genetic relatives about this sort of idea that aggression and competition are what kind of fuel our behavior. And it's actually cooperation that really-- I mean, if you think about a city like New York City or Chicago or Los Angeles or London or Paris, if it wasn't for cooperation and being good to each other and taking care of one another and being competent, these cities would never exist. Or business would never exist
ASHLEY HAMER: I mean there's a reason why some people fear public speaking as much as they fear death. And it's because rejection from the group is just as big of a risk for us as death is. Because it basically is death you. Need cooperation. You need people to accept you in order to thrive.
And I feel like that right there is evidence of how cooperative we are as a species. We just need each other.
NATALIA REAGAN: Yeah. That's absolutely true. That's why I think things like quarantine have been so hard as we need each other. And also, although a Zoom call is nice, it's not the same as being all together. I
ASHLEY HAMER: Actually saw friends for the first time in eight months this weekend.
NATALIA REAGAN: Oh my God, how was it?
ASHLEY HAMER: It was great. It was a socially distanced, outdoor barbecue, just with six people there. And we all sat on separate sides of my friend's yard. And we enjoyed the unseasonably warm November weather. And it was great, but I really missed it. Yeah.
NATALIA REAGAN: Oh that sounds lovely.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah, it's definitely a time that it's making us really appreciate our friends, I think, and our family. And all those times that we've been like, oh, I'm not going to go out tonight. I'm going to stay in. We're like, oh, wait a minute.
NATALIA REAGAN: Yeah.
ASHLEY HAMER: Maybe I should make some more time to actually get out there and see folks.
NATALIA REAGAN: Exactly.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah.
NATALIA REAGAN: Today's stories were written by Ashley Hamer and Kelsey Donk and edited by Ashley Hamer, who's the managing editor for Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY HAMER: Scriptwriting was by Natalia Reagan and Sonja Hodgen. Today's episode was edited by Jonathan McMichael, and our producer is Cody Gough.
NATALIA REAGAN: Join us again tomorrow to learn something new in just a few minutes.
ASHLEY HAMER: And until then, stay curious.