Today you’ll learn about lab-grown meat, a world hundreds of feet below a West Antarctic glacier, and a new discovery about the mysterious behavior of ants.
Today you’ll learn about lab-grown meat, a world hundreds of feet below a West Antarctic glacier, and a new discovery about the mysterious behavior of ants.
Find episode transcripts here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/stem-cell-meat-antarctica-cavern-and-ants-playing-dead
Stem Cell Meat
Antarctica Cavern
Ants Play Dead
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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 lab-grown meat, a world hundreds of feet below a West Antarctic glacier, and a new discovery about the mysterious behavior of ants.
CALLI: Without further ado, let’s satisfy some curiosity!
[SFX: WHOOSH]
CALLI: It is officially barbecue season, and researchers might have something new for you to cook up.
NATE: Ooh yeah!! I already cleaned my grill. I’ve got like a pile of mesquite, and I’m one match away from a feast. So…what do these researchers have me cooking?
CALLI: Cultured meat grown in a lab using something called “immortal stem cells.”
NATE: Yay… that’s what everyone asks for at the 4th of July parties.
CALLI: Really?
NATE: No. Lab grown meat? Immortal stem cells? This sounds like something a vampire would serve to Frankenstein at a dinner party.
CALLI: That is…oddly specific. I don’t know if Frankenstein would want it, maybe his monster would. But that’s beside the point. That said, many believe lab-grown meat could be the future of food.
NATE: Okay. But…why?
CALLI: Well a few reasons. First of all, the world is getting pretty crowded. By some estimates, there’ll be almost 10 billion people on the planet by 2050, and they all need food. And that means protein.
NATE: Okay so we need more protein. I get that, but why does it have to be grown in a lab?
CALLI: Growing animals for food takes up a huge amount of space.
NATE: Okay yeah, that makes sense. So it’s a space issue.
CALLI: Well and not just that - but to make the space to raise all those animals, you need to clear out forests. Forests soak up carbon dioxide. And animals like cows…
NATE: … they release a lot of carbon dioxide…
CALLI: …yeah. And methane, which is an even more powerful greenhouse gas. And look, lab grown meat might not be the answer, but because of the growing population and the environmental toll of feeding all those people, food scientists have been looking for alternatives to the same old system, which probably won’t be sustainable.
NATE: Right - we’ve done stories on the show about other food innovations - like protein made from mushrooms…
CALLI: Exactly. Food is an area *ripe* for innovation.
NATE: haha. Okay…What is lab grown meat?
CALLI: It’s basically what it sounds like. Scientists use stem cells from animals to grow muscles in the lab - it’s like growing steaks without having to cut down a forest to graze a herd of cattle.
NATE: Okay, so is it vegetarian?
CALLI: That is a tricky question, and it depends on who you ask. Some people become vegans because they are opposed to animal suffering. Lab grown meat eliminates that problem altogether. But…you know…a big, juicy steak is still a big, juicy steak.
NATE: Alright…I’m curious. Where can I try this Frankensteak?
CALLI: Well you might be able to try it sooner than we thought, if this new technique for production is as good as they think.
NATE: Alright, tell me about it.
CALLI: Well, remember when I said they use stem cells to grow the meat? There’s a problem. Stem cells divide about 50 times before they become, basically, useless. That means that to make enough meat to be viable, they need to constantly source new stem cells. So far…that’s been the biggest reason we aren’t all eating lab grown meat already.
NATE: I mean…it could also be because it’s…lab grown meat.
CALLI: Okay, yeah, good point. So a graduate student in biomedical engineering at Tufts University Center for Cellular Agriculture named Andrew Stout and his team developed a way to take regular bovine stem cells and make them…immortal.
NATE: Like they…live forever?
CALLI: I mean, sorta. The study claims that they’ve been able to double the immortal stem cells over 120 times, and that through all of that, they keep their ability to make meat.
NATE: Okay. So…how does it taste?
CALLI: Interestingly, it’s not exactly like mature muscle that we usually think of as meat, but it’s incredibly similar. They think they can replicate the flavor and texture of natural meat, but there’s more research to be done.
NATE: I guess for now, I’ll stick to the other proteins.
CALLI: Yeah, like you know, crickets.
NATE: I was thinking more like chicken. But okay…
CALLI: See there’s a whole world just available out there to you that you don’t know about yet. It’s going to be great!
NATE: You know if you think about it, Dr. Frankenstein would be way more interested in synthesized meat than his monster would.
CALLI: You know, you’re probably right, actually! Now that I think about it. In fact, does Frankenstein’s monster even need to eat?
[SFX: WHOOSH]
NATE: Now I want to take you to Antartica.
CALLI: No!… I’m gonna need a sweater!
NATE: Maybe some mittens too? So when we think of Antarctica, we think of ice and snow, right?
CALLI: [dramatic] A frozen, lifeless white-gray void where only the boldest can survive, and only if they’re lucky.
NATE: Yeah. Okay. That was very dramatic. But also accurate! But the thing is, Antarctica is actually the land that sits hundreds of feet below the ice. And as long as scientists and explorers have been going to Antarctica, they’ve been desperate to know what’s underneath the ice.
CALLI: But… I mean, isn’t it just…ice? If something was underneath it - other than land - then…what is the ice sitting on?
NATE: That’s a great question. NASA satellites have used lasers for years to measure the rise and fall of the ice in certain locations along the continent, and from that data and other clues, scientists know that there is a considerable amount of flowing water underneath the glaciers.
CALLI: Whoa. Cool! Okay like…rivers?
NATE: Exactly. And huge lakes. The thinking is that the warmth of the Earth actually melts the lower layers of the ice, and the resulting water eventually flows out to the sea. Researchers have actually drilled holes in certain spots to have a look for themselves.
CALLI: Alright, what did they find?
NATE: In the past, sorta what you’d expect. Cold water, silt, some fossil matter from millions of years ago when the climate there was warmer. In some places, they’ve found what amounts to…basically…a seabed desert. In other spots, they’ve found microbes thriving. But nothing prepared them for what they recently found on the coastal plain of the Kamb Ice Stream - which is a glacier in West Antarctica.
CALLI: I’m.… am so curious. What did they find?
NATE: So, it all started with meticulous radar mapping and data from NASA and a research team led by Craig Stevens, a physical oceanographer at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research in Wellington, New Zealand. They knew that there was some kind of structure below the ice in this particular spot - maybe a cavern. And they knew there would be water. So they used a warm water drill and began drilling. Down down down they went in the ice, until just after about 500 meters, the space opened up.
CALLI: Was it a cavern like they thought?
NATE: More like a cathedral - but even bigger than that. It’s high enough to fit the Empire State Building, and about half the size of Manhattan.
CALLI: Holy cow!
NATE: And it’s basically filled with water. So they lowered the camera on the end of the drill down into the water, and as they got to the bottom…what they saw stopped them in their tracks.
CALLI: What was it?
NATE: Life. It was teeming with life. And not just life. Animals. It was a bustling ecosystem, hundreds of meters below the surface of the ice, 500 kilometers from the nearest open ocean.
CALLI: Like…fish?
NATE: Marine life. Lots of them were these orange animals scurrying through the water near the bottom, that were later identified as crustaceans called amphipods. Sorta like shrimp.
CALLI: What? Okay… So…what were they doing down there? Like, how did they survive?
NATE: That’s kinda the coolest thing about this. They think the glacier, itself, is what’s keeping them fed. Silt and microbes and bacterial life from millions of years ago create this incredible ecosystem where life can thrive. And that has even bigger implications for…
CALLI: …other planets?
NATE: Exactly. If life can find a way here, there’s hope that we’ll find it underneath the icy surface of Europa or other moons of Jupiter.
CALLI: Well…if they do find life on another planet, you’ll hear about it right here on Curiosity Daily.
NATE: Nice shout out.
CALLI: Thank you.
NATE: For ourselves.
CALLI: Yes!
[SFX: WHOOSH]
CALLI: Wildlife ecologists in Australia made an accidental discovery on Kangaroo Island when they were checking on pygmy possum and bat nest boxes.
NATE: This sounds like… sounds like the start of a crazy episode of a nature show. So…what did they discover?
CALLI: Okay. A colony of dead ants… Except they weren’t dead!
NATE: Those aren’t possums or bats at all! But wait, what?
CALLI: Okay, so Associate Professor S. Topa Petit opened up a box only to find an entire colony of which he thought were dead ants…but then one of them moved.
NATE: So…were they faking it? Playing possum, I believe it’s called?
CALLI: That’s exactly what they were doing, or so the researchers think. If so, that means that when these ants sense danger, they basically play dead.
NATE: Well other animals do this, too, right? So why is this such a big deal?
CALLI: A couple of reasons. The first is that it’s the first time a colony of ants was observed doing this behavior, which is groundbreaking.
NATE: Alright that’s pretty cool, actually. Who knew we’d still be making discoveries like this about ants?
CALLI: Exactly. But the second reason this is a big deal is because it wasn’t just one ant playing dead. The entire colony collaborated to play dead at around the same time. Imagine if everyone in your town sensed danger and just fell down and pretended to be dead at the same time.
NATE: Alright, that be both a little creepy and super fascinating. Do other species of ants do this, too?
CALLI: Researchers aren’t sure, but they think it’s likely that there are others out there that do something like this. This particular ant is called Polyrhachis femorata. They described it as a beautiful, shy arboreal ant.
NATE: A beautiful ant? Sure! Gotta love wildlife ecologists.
CALLI: Listen, I looked up a picture-maybe don’t! This is one of those accidental discoveries that could lead to more research and more discoveries. Not much else is known about this species, but researchers now know that’s probably because they just didn’t think to look at it more closely.
NATE: That’s a great theme for the whole show - sometimes if you want to know something, you have to look where you least expect it. And it helps if you’re curious.
CALLI: Stay curious, my friends.
[SFX: WHOOSH]
NATE: Let’s recap what we learned today to wrap up.
CALLI: Researchers have developed a method for creating stem cells that last longer than typical stem cells, which could lead to a breakthrough in the production of lab grown meat.
NATE: Scientists drilled deep into a glacier in West Antarctica and uncovered a thriving marine ecosystem over 500 meters below the surface of the ice. The surprising discovery helps researchers better understand the arctic ice, and gives hope that life could be thriving on other icy planets.
CALLI: Wildlife ecologists made an accidental discovery when they uncovered an entire colony of dead ants. Except…they weren’t dead. In a first, they observed a whole colony feigning death as a defense mechanism. They believe other ant species likely use the same behavior, and now they know to look for it.