Today, you’ll learn about painkillers made from pine trees, a creature that spits out its old cells, and how the power of positive thinking might not be all that powerful.
Today, you’ll learn about painkillers made from pine trees, a creature that spits out its old cells, and how the power of positive thinking might not be all that powerful.
Find episode transcripts here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/pine-tree-painkiller-cell-spitting-creature-manifestation
Pine Tree Painkiller
Cell Spitting Creature
Manifestation
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[SFX: INTRO MUSIC/WHOOSH]
NATE: Hi! You’re about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from Discovery. Time flies when you’re learnin’ super cool stuff. I’m Nate.
CALLI: And I’m Calli. If you’re dropping in for the first time, welcome to Curiosity, where we aim to blow your mind by helping you to grow your mind. If you’re a loyal listener, welcome back!
NATE: Today, you’ll learn about painkillers made from pine trees, a creature that spits out its old cells, and how the power of positive thinking might not be all that powerful.
CALLI: Without further ado, let’s satisfy some curiosity!
[SFX: WHOOSH]
CALLI: When you get a headache, do you ever think about reaching out for a little bottle of crude oil?
NATE: I can honestly say that has never crossed my mind.
CALLI: Okay well…if you’ve ever used ibuprofen, you are actually relying on crude oil to cure your aches and pains.
NATE: No way. Really?
CALLI: Yeah. Not many folks know that many drugs that we use every day are actually made using chemicals derived from crude oil. And that is a huge problem.
NATE: Yeah! I mean, how can we limit our use of fossil fuels if we don’t even know that they’re in the products we’re using everyday? I’m hoping that you’re going to give me some good news.
CALLI: You know me too well. Scientists from the University of Bath in the UK have figured out a way to create ibuprofen and acetaminophen using a very unlikely source: pine trees.
NATE: Well I always do say nothing makes me feel better than a walk in the woods!
CALLI: I know, right? They were able to convert a bio-renewable component of turpentine into the precursor chemicals for all sorts of drugs, from these painkillers to asthma inhalers.
NATE: Hang on, I thought they got it from pine trees, but you just said it comes from turpentine? Like the stinky stuff you use to clean paint brushes?!
CALLI: I was actually wondering if you’d catch that. So turpentine is actually this yellow oily stuff that comes from pine tar and pine trees. It’s one of nature’s miracle solvents. It oozes out of the tree when the bark is damaged and kinda seals it up, like a scab. It is highly flammable - not great for trees in a drought. But it also has a ton of uses - they use it for everything from paint thinner to cosmetics to perfume…
NATE: …and now pain killers, right?
CALLI: Exactly. And what’s even better is that turpentine is a waste product from paper production.
NATE: I mean…That’s great - that they’re using something that would end up getting tossed to replace crude oil? That seems to solve a couple of problems at once.
CALLI: This could be a pretty big deal, because by some estimates, around 100,000 tonnes of acetaminophen and ibuprofen are produced every year, so making that process less dependent on crude oil could have big impacts.
NATE: So we don’t usually get through a story that’s just all good news. I mean, this keeps turpentine out of our waste cycles, it keeps oil in the ground. Where’s the catch?
CALLI: To be honest, it’s all pretty good. As another bonus, the price of oil fluctuates so wildly that many think using it to make drugs is a dead end, anyway. So this also solves that problem. But there is one thing…
NATE: I knew it. Lay it on me. Why can’t pine trees cure my headache?
CALLI: I mean, they can. But the medicine might just cost a little more, especially at first.
NATE: Okay. That’s the catch? I gotta say I was expecting something much worse.
CALLI: No, that’s it! You don’t have to be such a pain.
NATE: haha!
CALLI: Sorry.
[SFX: WHOOSH]
NATE: What if, hear me out here, you could have your mouth removed, and your mouth grew a new body around it?
CALLI: That is a horrific image! But…what are you talking about?! Um…Please don’t tell me this is a new treatment for people suffering from some kind of disease!
NATE: No, no! Thankfully, this is not a treatment humans will use anytime in the future. But researchers at the National Institutes of Health have found that one squishy little sea creature has this ability. Along with a few other brand new insights about this little fella, they’re learning all kinds of things about the natural process of aging.
CALLI: That’s a lot. So an animal’s mouth can regrow its entire body, and that teaches us about aging? You’ve got some explaining to do.
NATE: Alright. So this little animal is called the hydractinia symbiolongicarpus. It looks a little bit like Beeker from the Muppets - or you might say it looks like a carpet made of Beekers.
CALLI: This image just keeps getting more and more disturbing. I am terrified of Muppets! So a carpet of him sounds a little extra!
NATE: Well, they’re long and thin tubes, and they have these little branches waving off of their tips. They have a mouth at the top, and scientists have been studying them for a long time, in fact, because of their ability to regenerate an entirely new body from their mouth. But in this new study, researchers sequenced its RNA and found signs of senescence just as they were about to begin regeneration.
CALLI: Senescence? Isn’t that…like…aging?
NATE: Exactly. So before I get to why that’s kind of a big deal, let’s talk a little bit about aging in humans. As our cells start to age, they get kinda - I don’t know how to explain it other than to say…rotten. They break down, and they stay broken down. But not only that, their senescence actually causes inflammation and can make the cells around them break down.
CALLI: Oh! It’s like that one moldy piece of fruit in a basket. If you let it sit there, pretty soon all the other fruit’s kinda grody.
NATE: Yeah that’s actually a pretty good analogy. And there’s not much we can do about it. We can slow down that process. We can fight inflammation. We can exercise. All of that is great. But once our cells become senescent, well…that’s kinda it.
CALLI: I think I see where you’re going with this. So tell me if I’m getting this right: This little Beeker sea-creature…
NATE: …the hydractinia symbiolongicarpus…
CALLI: …yeah. That. When its cells start that aging process, it just generates a whole new body?
NATE: Bingo. So for this little creature, aging actually makes it young again.
CALLI: That’s insane!
NATE: And here’s a fun fact: it actually takes all those senescent cells - the ones that are breaking down - and it just spits them out of its mouth.
CALLI: I hope this is the part of the story where you tell us that scientists are working on a way for us to spit out our old cells, because that would come in pretty handy.
NATE: Sadly, not gonna happen. But the researchers did locate the genes that control this little superpower, and it is worth noting that humans and hydractinia share a common ancestor from about 600 million years ago.
CALLI: Huh. So we kinda went our separate ways when it comes to aging?
NATE: Yeah. But getting to the bottom of abilities like this could unlock some of the secrets of aging and regeneration in humans. And that could one day lead us to longer, healthier lives.
CALLI: I’m still going to be afraid of this creature. It still looks like a muppet.
[SFX: WHOOSH]
CALLI: Have you ever heard the phrase “fake it ‘till you make it?”
NATE: Sure. Like…if you just pretend that something good can happen, it will eventually. There are all kinds of sayings like that. What you think you can become. You’ll receive what you expect to receive. Stuff like that.
CALLI: Exactly. Those are all a part of the belief in manifestation. It’s that idea that if you want something good to happen, you need to get it in your mind that it’s going to happen, and if you think long and hard enough, if you believe strongly enough, it’ll happen. Norman Vincent Peale’s book The Power of Positive Thinking is a great example.
NATE: Okay so. You make yourself successful just by believing it.
CALLI: And the 2006 book The Secret by Rhonda Byrne drew from the same ideas, but went even further, suggesting that there are some cosmic forces that you can connect to if you believe in them enough that will bring you all the fame, success, and wealth you can dream up.
NATE: Ok. So…I… I like to think I’m a pretty positive guy, and I think positive thinking is…well you know it’s…positive. But it does feel like there’s a difference between being positive and telling yourself something that isn’t actually true. But I guess…whatever works, right?
CALLI: I’m glad you said that, because a team of researchers have published a report based on a study they conducted to see if manifestation actually worked.
NATE: Wow. It’s funny - it’s not a thing you would think about like actually studying, right? It’s just a belief. I never actually thought you could objectively see if it worked or not. So… like should we all be imagining ourselves sleeping on piles of money in castles on the shore?
CALLI: K, before I get to the results, let’s talk about the study, because that’s important. They wanted to know a few things about their participants. First - how many of those who volunteered for the study actually believed in the power of manifestation. It turns out - a lot of them. At least a third.
NATE: Okay. That is surprising.
CALLI: It’s less surprising when you consider that The Secret has sold over 30 million copies worldwide and was featured on Oprah.
NATE: That… Wow! Holy positive thinking right there!
CALLI: I know. People really really want to believe that they can have anything if they just believe it into existence. So the researchers also wanted to know about the emotional effects of manifestation, and, of course, the outcomes of that kind of thinking.
NATE: So what did they find?
CALLI: First the good. Manifesters, as the study called them, tended to feel more positive about their current level of success and their future prospects. They were obviously more likely to believe that they were going to achieve all their goals.
NATE: That’s kinda the whole idea, though, right?
CALLI: Yeah. But they weren’t faking it. They really, really believed it, and for many of them, that feeling alone felt pretty good.
NATE: It’s gotta be better than feeling like you’re going to fail, right?
CALLI: Yeah…but there’s a downside to all this. First, no matter how hard the manifesters believed in their future success, they weren’t actually any more successful than the rest of us.
NATE: So…it doesn’t work?
CALLI: They didn’t get richer or more educated than anyone else. So by that measure, it doesn’t actually work. And there’s something even worse. They tended to use magical thinking - which is basically the belief that you can control things you actually have no control over. This led them to be more susceptible to scams and get-rich-schemes. They made riskier investments, and they had more bankruptcies than anyone else.
NATE: Yikes. But at least they felt better about it, right? Maybe?
CALLI: Yeah… Not so fast. There’s a risk that having an overblown confidence in something great happening can backfire.
NATE: I get it. If you expect you’re going to be wildly rich, and it doesn’t happen, that can feel pretty bad.
CALLI: And if you believe that you can heal yourself with your thoughts, you’re probably less likely to seek medical help that could actually save your life.
NATE: I’ll be honest. I’m not feeling so positive about positive thinking.
CALLI: It’s not all bad. There are definitely emotional benefits to staying positive - some of those benefits have been confirmed by research. But when you’re positive thinking edges into the realm of magical thinking, at least according to this study, the bad might just outweigh the good.
NATE: I’m still going to imagine my beachside castle.
CALLI: You do that!
[SFX: WHOOSH]
NATE: Let’s recap what we learned today to wrap up.
CALLI: Researchers in the UK have figured out how to make common painkillers like ibuprofen out of waste products from paper mills. In other words, your next headache could be cured by pine trees. And that’s good news, because most painkillers today are made with crude oil.
NATE: Scientists have found that a tiny sea creature called hydractinia symbiolongicarpus that can regenerate its entire body, actually begins that process by spitting its damaged and aging cells out of its mouth. The finding could lead to therapies that allow humans to live longer and healthier lives.
NATE/CALLI: A study suggests that ‘manifesting’ positive thoughts can actually do more harm than good. People who use magical thinking tend to be more susceptible to scams and get rich schemes, and are more likely to file for bankruptcy than anyone else.