Learn how mushrooms are more like humans than plants; why your tongue isn’t a muscle; and ferret-training robot badgers. Mushrooms are more like humans than plants by Grant Currin More from this author. (2016, January 12). How Are Mushrooms More Similar to Humans than Plants?» Science ABC. Science ABC. https://www.scienceabc.com/nature/how-are-mushrooms-more-similar-to-humans-than-plants.html Inglis-Arkell, E. (2012, September 7). Why are mushrooms more like humans than they are like plants? io9. https://io9.gizmodo.com/why-are-mushrooms-more-like-humans-than-they-are-like-p-5940434 Steenkamp, E. T., Wright, J., & Baldauf, S. L. (2005). The Protistan Origins of Animals and Fungi. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 23(1), 93–106. https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msj011 Baldauf, S. L., & Palmer, J. D. (1993). Animals and fungi are each other’s closest relatives: congruent evidence from multiple proteins. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 90(24), 11558–11562. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.90.24.11558 Burki, F., Roger, A. J., Brown, M. W., & Simpson, A. G. B. (2020). The New Tree of Eukaryotes. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 35(1), 43–55. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2019.08.008 Why do people say the tongue is the strongest muscle in the body? by Ashley Hamer (Listener question from Dave) Julia Calderone,Ben Fogelson. (2014, August 15). Fact or Fiction?: The Tongue Is the Strongest Muscle in the Body. Scientific American. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-the-tongue-is-the-strongest-muscle-in-the-body/ Katherine Harmon Courage. (2014, January 10). Octopus Arms, Human Tongues Intertwine for Science. Scientific American Blog Network. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/octopus-chronicles/octopus-arms-human-tongues-intertwine-for-science/ The Tongue - Muscles - Innervation - Vasculature - TeachMeAnatomy. (2015). Teachmeanatomy.info. https://teachmeanatomy.info/head/muscles/tongue/ Wildlife conservationists tried to train black-footed ferrets with robots by Cameron Duke Andrews, R. M. (1989, August 26). “Robo-Badger” Is Scary, But Do Friendly Ferrets Think So? AP NEWS; Associated Press. https://apnews.com/article/3f45b4ae40266310acf8e4fffc70f01a Biggins, D. E., Vargas, A., Godbey, J. L., & Anderson, S. H. (1999). Influence of prerelease experience on reintroduced black-footed ferrets (Mustela nigripes). Biological Conservation, 89(2), 121–129. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0006-3207(98)00158-x Edwards, M. C., Ford, C., Hoy, J. M., FitzGibbon, S., & Murray, P. J. (2021). How to train your wildlife: A review of predator avoidance training. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 234, 105170. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2020.105170 Heim, M. (2011, February). Survival Training, Ferret Style. Smithsonian Magazine. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/survival-training-ferret-style-32562/ Saving the Black-footed Ferret. (2021). Biologicaldiversity.org. https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/species/mammals/black-footed_ferret/index.html Follow Curiosity Daily on your favorite podcast app to learn something new every day withCody Gough andAshley Hamer — for free!
Learn how mushrooms are more like humans than plants; why your tongue isn’t a muscle; and ferret-training robot badgers.
Mushrooms are more like humans than plants by Grant Currin
Why do people say the tongue is the strongest muscle in the body? by Ashley Hamer (Listener question from Dave)
Wildlife conservationists tried to train black-footed ferrets with robots by Cameron Duke
Follow Curiosity Daily on your favorite podcast app to learn something new every day with Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer — for free!
Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/mushrooms-are-more-like-humans-than-plants
CODY: Hi! You’re about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from curiosity-dot-com. I’m Cody Gough.
ASHLEY: And I’m Ashley Hamer. Today, you’ll learn about how mushrooms are more like humans than plants; and how wildlife conservationists are training ferrets using robots. We’ll also answer a listener question about why people say the tongue is the strongest muscle in the human body.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
Of all the produce out there, mushrooms might be the weirdest. They’ve got those weird gills, that spongy consistency, and once they’re cooked, they taste more like meat than vegetables. Well, that might be because they’re not vegetables at all — they’re fungi. And believe it or not, fungi are more closely related to humans than they are to plants.
Here’s how we know. See, people have been preoccupied with comparing living things for a really, really long time. Aristotle thought the differences came down to souls. Later, people like Carl Linnaeus [Lin-NAY-iss] came up with better ways of classifying organisms, and good ole’ Charles Darwin introduced people to the idea that living things might all be related.
Those systems and theories were remarkable achievements in their own ways, but they tended to use pretty superficial evidence, like what organisms looked like or how they acted.
It wasn’t until the middle of the twentieth century that researchers were finally able to really understand how the tree of life has branched over the past 3.7 billion years. By comparing the DNA and RNA of different species, researchers could find out just how related they really were.
That led to a revolution in how we understand the tree of life.
It’s no secret that our closest cousins are other primates. Humans and chimpanzees share a greatgreatgreatgreat grandmother that lived about 6 million years ago. But it was a surprise that fungi aren’t all that far away from us. It turns out that we share a lot more genetic information with ‘shrooms and yeast than we do with the mighty oak or the humble potato.
Here’s what researchers have pieced together by comparing our genes. It looks like bacteria are very, very distant relatives. We haven’t shared an ancestor with them for billions of years. Then, about 1.1 billion years ago, our single-celled ancestors branched off from the organisms that would evolve into plants.
The ancestors of animals and fungi didn’t split up until even more recently. And while we might seem very different from fungi, we have more similarities than you might think. We both digest food — fungi just do it outside their bodies. Our proteins look more similar to each other than to plant proteins. And a mushroom’s cell walls are made of chitin [KITE-in], the same stuff that an insect’s carapace is made of — and something you won’t find anywhere in the plant world.
Of course, I have one more thing in common with a mushroom. We’re both really fun-guys.
We got a listener question on Twitter from Dave, who asks “On what basis was the tongue considered to be the strongest muscle?” Let’s do some muscle myth-busting!
First things first: the tongue is not the strongest muscle in the body. In fact, it’s not even one muscle. It’s eight muscles. It’s also just way different from every other muscle in your body. The overwhelming majority of your muscles attach to a bone, but many of the muscles in the tongue just attach to each other. They form what's called a muscular hydrostat: the same thing as an octopus arm or an elephant trunk. Yeah. You basically have a tentacle in your mouth.
The four muscles in the tongue that don't attach to anything are called the intrinsic muscles. Each one travels in a different direction, which helps your tongue perform such impressive gymnastics as tying a cherry stem or licking the beaters clean. Four more muscles anchor your tongue to your head: One attaches to the base of the skull, another to the throat, one on the lower jaw, and another stretches up to the roof of your mouth. Each of these muscles is bilateral, which means they're partially separated by a center line that helps them work on both sides of your mouth.
So why do some people think the tongue is the strongest muscle? It could be because it does so much and never seems to get tired. I mean, I can talk into a microphone for two hours and then go straight into eating lunch, and my tongue never complains. That endurance has a lot to do with the way the tongue is built — lots of the muscle fibers do the same thing, so if one part tires out, another part can pick up the slack. It’s got subs warming the bench ready to jump in the game. But when it comes to sheer strength, the tongue just can’t stack up next to other brawny behemoths like the quads and the glutes. The jaw muscle is also in the running for the body's strongest, if only because it can produce more force with less energy thanks to the fact that it's attached to a shorter lever (i.e., your jaw). The bicep, in contrast, has to lift your forearm, which is a relatively long lever that requires more energy to move.
So no, your tongue isn’t the strongest muscle, but it probably got that reputation for its amazing feats of flexibility and endurance. Thanks for your question, Dave! If you have a question, send an email or a voice recording to curiosity at discovery dot com, or leave us a voicemail at 312-596-5208.
Saving a species from extinction is no easy task. There’s a lot more to it than just breeding animals and letting them loose. For one thing, animals bred in captivity often don’t know how to behave in the wild. You have to prepare them for the great outdoors, and to succeed at that, scientists will try pretty much anything. In the case of the black-footed ferret, that meant building — wait for it! — robot badgers.
When it comes to endangered species success stories, the comeback tale of the black-footed ferret is hard to beat. At one time, these critters were found all over the plains of the American West. But as more and more of their habitat was converted to farmland and rangeland, they increasingly found themselves homeless. By 1980, the species was believed to be extinct.
But 1981, a colony of 18 black-footed ferrets was rediscovered in Wyoming. Scientists scooped up these individuals and sent them to the National Zoo in D.C. to live in captivity while they tried to boost the population’s numbers.
Restoring a species from just a few individuals is a tough task that is fraught with trouble. Not only do you have to breed them carefully to minimize inbreeding, but once the ferrets are born, you can’t just send them on their way. They have to go to a school in Colorado to learn how to ferret.
That’s because not all behaviors are instinctive. Finding food and avoiding predators are often learned behaviors.
In 1989, a group of scientists devised a predator-avoidance boot camp for their fledgling ferrets. They got a 20-pound stuffed roadkill badger and attached it to a remote-control car. They then chased the ferrets around with this robo-badger while pelting them with harmless rubber bands. This was all in an effort to teach them that badgers, their natural predator, should be avoided.
Ferrets are still being trained today, but the process has evolved quite a bit since then. The robo-badgers have fallen out of use in favor of teaching the ferrets how to hunt prey and navigate the tunnel systems wild ferrets build. Is it just me, or is anyone else picturing a Rocky-style training montage?
Today, there are around 350 black-footed ferrets in the wild with about the same number in captivity awaiting release. It doesn’t sound like much, but it’s pretty good for a species that we once thought was extinct.
Their recovery is a true underdog story. [Under-groundhog?]
CODY: Before we recap what we learned today, here’s a sneak peek at what you’ll hear next week on Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY: Next week, you’ll learn about 3 categories friendships fall into;
How we could use 5G as a wireless power grid;
Genes that activate in your brain after you die;
The newly discovered “Monkeydactyl” fossil — which, as if its name isn’t enough for you, also has the oldest known opposable thumbs;
And more! Okay, so now, let’s recap what we learned today.
[ad lib optional]
ASHLEY: Today’s writers were Grant Currin and Cameron Duke.
CODY: Our managing editor is Ashley Hamer, who was also a writer on today’s episode.
ASHLEY: Our producer and audio editor is Cody Gough.
CODY: Have a great weekend! Eat some mushrooms. Toss ‘em on the grill, weather permitting. They’re vegan friendly. Packed with vitamins. What more can you ask for? I’m hungry just thinking about them. And then join us again Monday to learn something new in just a few minutes.
ASHLEY: And until then, stay curious!