Science Magazine Podcast

Transcript, 15 July 2011

http://podcasts.aaas.org/science_podcast/SciencePodcast_110715.mp3

Music Host Stewart Wills Greetings, and welcome to the Science Podcast for July 15th, 2011. I'm Stewart Wills. Host Kerry Klein And I'm Kerry Klein. This week: Internet search and human memory; the stresses of being the top baboon; and changing science in post-revolutionary Egypt. Host Stewart Wills All this, plus a wrap-up of some of the latest science news from our online daily news site, ScienceNOW. Promo Support for the Science Podcast is provided by AAAS: the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Advancing Science, Engineering, and Innovation throughout the World for the Benefit of All People. AAASthe Science Societyat www.aaas.org. Music ends Host Kerry Klein Three years ago, a celebrated cover article in The Atlantic asked the question: "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" Since then, the Internet's effects on memory and cognition have been hotly debated. A paper published online this week by Science suggests that the easy availability of Internet search may indeed be changing our mental strategies for memory and recall -- but in much the same way we've always relied on external networks of friends and colleagues as informal places to store information. The paper's lead author, Betsy Sparrow, talked with Stewart about the study from her office at Columbia University. Interviewee - Betsy Sparrow Well, it actually started out, I was sitting with my husband one night watching an old movie on Turner Classic Movies, and there was an actress in the movie, and I knew Id seen her before. But, I couldnt remember where. I was watching TV with my laptop on. So, I just went onto IMDB and typed in the movie and looked up the actress and looked up what else she was in. And then, my husband and I started talking about, what did we used to do before we had either our smart phone in our hand or our laptop on our lap when we wanted to know something. And then, we talked about how we used to go to other people who might know, or we used to have this book called the Video Dog where we might look it up, but really we didnt, we didnt know like where we used to find out things. Our guess was that we would just forget about it. And so, I just went into work

the next day and talked to my advisor, and he had had this old idea about transactive memory about how we have these external memory systems that are located in other people. And we know what they know, in general, but we dont know specific things so that we go to them when we want to know the answers to specific things. So, for example, if I wanted to know who was the last person who had 3,000 hits I would go to my husband because he knows everything about baseball. So, I know that he knows those things, and so I dont know them myself I dont bother to remember them myself. The two questions I had was, Do we think about the Internet when we dont know the answers to questions? Is that just the automatic thing that comes to mind, so when we dont know something do we want access to our computers? And then, the second thing was whether we remembered the things that we looked up, or we just allowed them to continue to be a memory source or a storage source for us? Do we look things up and then not particularly remember them because we knew we could always access them later? Interviewer - Stewart Wills So you were looking at the Internet and whether it had essentially become one of these transactive memory Interviewee - Betsy Sparrow Exactly. Interviewer - Stewart Wills sources that that used to be represented by friends or groups or whatever. But, you know, the Internet has become so ubiquitous in our lives that it seems like it must be kind of difficult to tease out its effects relative to the effects of other factors. How do you go about setting up an experiment like this? Interviewee - Betsy Sparrow So, I mean, I did set it up so that it was a desktop experiment, but I set it up so that the type of thing that they were learning or that they were being asked about was the type of thing that you would look up online. So what I did was in the first experiment was gave them these really difficult trivia questions that they wouldnt know the answer to, which they basically guessed and they were at 50% so the answers were yes or no, and they didnt know the answers to them. And then, I just wanted to see if the automatic association happened. So, if they were given computer terms, would it take them longer to identify colors? And we found out that that was the case. So, it does seem that when you dont know the answer to something the thing that pops to mind is, Where is my computer so I can look it up? Interviewer - Stewart Wills So there you were using computer terms as a proxy for essentially how they would depend on the computer to get answers to questions? Interviewee - Betsy Sparrow

Yeah, so really, so probably the pathway was that we gave them these questions, and what they wanted to know was what the answers were, because thats kind of what everybody wants to know they wanted to answer questions correctly or they wanted to actually know, Is an ostrichs eye bigger than its brain? So Interviewer - Stewart Wills Is it? Interviewee - Betsy Sparrow Yeah, it is. Interviewer - Stewart Wills I guess Ill have to look it up. Interviewee - Betsy Sparrow It is. Yes, thats the kind of thing we asked them so stuff that they would be curious about. Interviewer - Stewart Wills So, in addition to this notion that they would have a different response to computer terms which might suggest that they were sort of thinking, I wish I had my computer to look this up, what other approaches did you take to get at this notion of the Internet as transactive memory? Interviewee - Betsy Sparrow So, that second kind of idea of transactive memory is not only that other people know things, but that we allow them to continue to know things. We might ask them a question, and theyll give us the answer, but we dont bother to rehearse it enough or encode it enough to make it part of our own memory, most of the time because we know we can just keep going back to that person. So, that was the second thing that we looked at is whether when people expect to have access to information later do they remember it as well as people who dont. Interviewer - Stewart Wills So, in this case, you were telling some of them that they could look it up later and some of them that they couldnt or? Interviewee - Betsy Sparrow Yeah, exactly. Interviewer - Stewart Wills And what did you find in that? Interviewee - Betsy Sparrow Exactly that that people who thought they wouldnt have access to the information later remembered it better than people who did.

Interviewer - Stewart Wills There was something interesting also about the memory of sort of where something was stored Interviewee - Betsy Sparrow Right. Interviewer - Stewart Wills versus what the actual answer was. Could you talk a bit about that? Interviewee - Betsy Sparrow Yeah, so one of the things that seems to be, you know, in this idea of transactive memory is whether its a person or a computer is knowing where to go. So, if were kind of moving away from memorizing the things themselves, the important thing to be able to do is to know where to go to find information. So I wanted to see if that kind of adaptation had happened. And, I basically turned those trivia questions into trivia statements and had them read them and type them into the computer just to make sure they were paying attention. And then, every time they clicked on the arrow so that they could read the next statement it just very discretely on the bottom said this statement was saved into the folder things or something. Theyre very generic sounding names. And then, we gave people a piece of paper, and they just had to write down as many things as they remembered. Afterwards we asked them, What folder was the statement about the ostrich saved in? And we didnt, you know, remind them, we never told them how many folders there were or anything like that. And they were much better at remembering the folder names than remembering the statements themselves. Interviewer - Stewart Wills Thats interesting. So, in essence, here what was happening was that being given sort of the opportunity to go back and essentially look something up later if they needed to, they were in essence kind of limiting their memory load to just where they would go to look it up. Interviewee - Betsy Sparrow Exactly. I did a, a more detailed analysis of that. So, they did tend to do one or the other. So, if they remembered the thing itself, they didnt remember where to find it; and, if they didnt remember the thing itself, they did remember to find it, they just happened to remember much more of the second where to find it. Interviewer - Stewart Wills Id sort of like to back out here and talk a little bit about the clearer, larger implications of what your work is saying. Certainly theres been a lot written in the past few years about what the Internet might be doing to our brains. What do you think your results are actually suggesting on? Interviewee - Betsy Sparrow

Well, I mean in some ways its suggesting exactly what people are worried about. But, I think what I have been trying to say is that the Internet is really no different from how weve always done things its just weve done these things with other people. And, in some ways, the Internet is more available than other people, and we dont have to worry about it say divorcing us or dying on us or something like that or moving jobs and now having to know how to do this specific thing that this other person used to always do. So, I dont necessarily think of it as a bad thing. And the second reason I say that, I dont have data on this, but my suspicion is that at least in our day-to-day lives we are moving past memorization, as the thing to do remembering movie quotes and batting averages and what not. Theres still people who do that, but I think especially the younger generation doesnt bother to do that quite as much. And I think the upside of that is that once you get beyond worrying about the details of things you can think more about the implications of things. Interviewer - Stewart Wills In some sense, though, what youre findings seem to suggest the Internet has become sort of a giant friend, if you will. Interviewee - Betsy Sparrow Yeah, I mean it has. I mean think about it if you try to use Microsoft Word, and its not opening or if your document is corrupted, what do you do? You used to have to wait for your IT person to be able to see you, and now, if youre sophisticated enough, you can go online and type in what your problem is somebody will have posted like heres how you go into the registry to take out whatever is corrupt, and you fix it yourself. Or like if you have a statistical analysis that you need to do and maybe you dont do it that often so youre not really quite sure exactly how to set it up, most of the time you can find the syntax, you know, and stuff online. So, theres just a lot of information, and I think its much more democratic. Some of us have people in our lives who have been educated to high levels, and so theyve always been around us and been able to help us and mentor us and help us to think about things in certain ways. But, some of us havent had that. But, at least theres information available for everyone, regardless of what kind of upbringing theyve had or what kind of people they have around them. So I dont think of it as, Oh no, I dont remember phone numbers anymore, because I dont see much value in remembering phone numbers in the first place. Its not really a, an intellectual skill. Its just something our brains do automatically as chunking seven, seven things. So we havent lost the skill it isnt some part of our brain thats atrophied, its just that we dont need to do it anymore. Interviewer - Stewart Wills So, if the web were to go away tomorrow, we would just start remembering things the old way again. Interviewee - Betsy Sparrow Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I mean it definitely hadnt been long enough that weve evolved a different brain. I teach big classes, and I can tell you for a fact that even todays Internet generation is still very much into the memorization mindset. Thats what they

expect to be tested on, and when you test them on whats the meaning of this they get all like, Oh no, I just wanted to regurgitate this without really kind of understanding what, what it all means. Interviewer - Stewart Wills Betsy Sparrow, thanks very much. Interviewee - Betsy Sparrow Well, thank you. It was a pleasure to talk with you. Host Kerry Klein Betsy Sparrow is lead author of "Google Effects on Memory: Cognitive Consequences of Having Information at Our Fingertips." You can find the paper online at www.sciencexpress.org. Music Host Stewart Wills Human and animal societies are replete with hierarchies often intricate social structures, in which the animals at the top of the social heap enjoy a variety of benefits. But a study published this week in Science that looked at the changes in a wild baboon society over a period of nine years suggests that life at the top may not be all it's cracked up to be. Kerry has the story. Interviewer - Kerry Klein Being alpha male in a society of baboons certainly has its perks: ample access to mates, high paternity rates, and easy access to food. But are there also drawbacks to holding such a lofty position? It's a question that intrigued Jeanne Altmann, a professor of biology at Princeton University. Interviewee - Jeanne Altmann We were particularly interested in how an individuals position in a hierarchy, in a society thats structured by having a top dog, somebody whos next, and somebody next down on the hierarchy, how that kind of structure which many animal societies and human societies have how that affects physiology and then, ultimately, affects wellbeing and survival. Interviewer - Kerry Klein To determine those effects on physiology, well-being and survival, researchers commonly focus on two hormones: glucocorticoid, a class of stress hormones, and the sex hormone testosterone. The common wisdom holds that levels of these hormones in individuals depend on their social ranking and whether that ranking is vulnerable to change. Interviewee - Jeanne Altmann

The major hypotheses suggested that high rank, high social status often referred to as being alpha ranking is associated with both high stress levels and high testosterone levels during social instability, during changes in the social rank. But during other times, during stability, that high rank would have low stress levels thats one of the benefits thought to be of high rank and no testosterone differences among individuals. Interviewer - Kerry Klein To test those hypotheses, Altmann and five colleagues focused on a wild population of savannah baboons in Kenya. Practicing a non-invasive means of sample collection one that wouldnt interfere with the natural phenomena they were trying to observe the team ultimately collected a wealth of data. Interviewee - Jeanne Altmann Taking advantage of the fact that we had five different social groups and nine years of data, we were able to study these processes in 125 adult males. Interviewer - Kerry Klein The team observed fights between pairs of adversarial males, and used those incidents to infer the overall social hierarchy of males within each group, which was re-evaluated every month. They also determined the level of stability within the hierarchy. Interviewee - Jeanne Altmann We used a definition that a month was considered stable if the top 3 ranks were the same in the month before and the month after. Interviewer - Kerry Klein Finally, to determine individual hormone levels, the team collected fecal samples from members of the hierarchy. That data source, says Altmann, had several advantages. One is that it integrated hormone levels over time. Interviewee - Jeanne Altmann Its quite good for looking on a monthly level at whats the dominance rank over the month, whats the hormone levelnot at a particular moment when a lion jumps out at individuals, but in general over the month. Interviewer - Kerry Klein And, of course, collecting these samples didnt interfere with the animals natural behavior. Interviewee - Jeanne Altmann Its not disruptive; the animals just deposit their samples my Kenyan assistants say they make donationsand move on in their activities. Interviewer - Kerry Klein By correlating samples with the individual ranks and hierarchical stability, the team drew three conclusions. First, in periods of social instability, stress levels of males increased

as expected. Second and not so expected, stability had no effect on the relationship between status and hormone levels that is, males that exhibited higher levels of a particular hormone did so at both stable and unstable times. But the third conclusion was the most surprising. Interviewee - Jeanne Altmann There was a major discontinuity between being the top dog or the top baboon, in our case and being second ranking. What we found was that rank one was high all the time in glucocorticoid levels and stress levels. We also had a number of pairs of males where they had occupied both positions at some time during these nine years. And again we found this, that when they were top ranking, their stress levels were higher than when they were second ranking. Interviewer - Kerry Klein In other words, its stressful at the top. And it could be hazardous, too; Altmann points out that though stress hormones provide a boost in the short term, they can have potentially serious consequences over longer periods. Interviewee - Jeanne Altmann Glucocorticoids help provide the energetic boost and the fast action to respond to immediate emergencies. But in the long term, because they do this at the cost of shutting down reproduction and bodily repair and other maintenance and reproductive activities, having high levels of glucocorticoids has been well known, to have potential real costs in terms of some major health deficits over the long term. Interviewer - Kerry Klein As to the kinds of things that can take those tolls, Altmann suggests that it's a combination of both psychological factors, such as the number of challenges that the alpha male receives, and energetic stressors, such as the need for repeated fighting and continual mate-guarding. Dorothy Cheney, a professor of biology at the University of Pennsylvania who's not affiliated with the study, says that the study's highly individual view of stress provides a more nuanced view of societies that are sometimes studied in the aggregate. Interviewee - Dorothy Cheney Theyve done a really good job looking at individual levels and variation in the stress response, so they havent just lumped all high-ranking animals under one category, and as a result theyve uncovered a very subtle difference, you know among high-ranking alpha males and beta males. Interviewer - Kerry Klein Cheney also notes the benefits of the sampling technique used by the team. Interviewee - Dorothy Cheney One of the wonderful things about measuring stress non-invasively like this, through fecal samples, is that it gives you the opportunity in a sense to interview the animal to

ask him what is it that causes stress and in some cases what factors help to alleviate it so its a wonderfully non-invasive means of getting inside the animals mind, which makes it a tremendously useful and valuable tool in the studies of wild animals. The other component of this study thats really good is that they dont simply just measure stress levels; they have excellent behavioral assays as well, where they can actually look at the particular behaviors that seem to be associated with higher or lower stress. Interviewer - Kerry Klein Moreover, says Cheney, given the stress at the top of the heap, the paper highlights the question of whether the benefits of being alpha male are worth it. Interviewee - Dorothy Cheney It seems quite clear here that the alpha male is undergoing considerable stress, which as the author has emphasized may be costly in terms of disease and parasite resistance and so on. We find in contrast that beta males, although they are experiencing slightly lower reproductive rates, and they may be mating at a slightly lower rate, theyre also not incurring some of the costs associated with alpha status. So when I read the paper, one of the questions I asked was, why not just settle for being beta male? Interviewer - Kerry Klein Altmann agrees that it's an important question. Interviewee - Jeanne Altmann One of the next kinds of things is to understand just when being top dog, the costs outweigh the benefits. And then I think the other thing is that even though we found similar overall findings that instability leads to higher stress levels, I think its going to be important to understand how much instability really impacts individuals and in what forms. Interviewer - Kerry Klein For Science, this is Kerry Klein. Host Stewart Wills You can read the study, "Life at the Top: Rank and Stress in Wild Male Baboons," along with a related Perspective article by Robert Sapolsky, in this week's Science. Music Host - Kerry Klein In a News Focus package this week, Science's Andrew Lawler looks at the drive to boost science and R&D in Egypt, in the aftermath of that country's popular uprising early this year. He talked with Stewart about the story. Interviewee - Andrew Lawler When the revolution happened in Egypt in January, I was really curious as to what the impact would be on Egypts universities and research institutes whether they would

play a role in the new Egypt that was clearly coming about. But, it was also clear that at that point it was about politics; it was about Mubarak; and it would take a while before people could focus on the issues of R&D. So by the time May rolled around it seemed like the ideal time to go in and ask people what impact the revolution was going to have on research? Interviewer - Stewart Wills And I gather from your story that Egypt is I suppose by many standards now or was at the outset of the revolution not where it might have been in terms of scientific advancement or infrastructure. What has led up to that situation? Interviewee - Andrew Lawler Well, its helpful to compare Egypt to other countries in various parts of the world. Say, take an example that was given to me by the minister of scientific research in education with whom I spoke, was of South Korea. And South Korea in 1950 was a very poor country agricultural; was dealing with war; had been dealing with, in fact, decades of war and devastation and yet today South Korea is a booming economy with a very strong research establishment and a very good collection of universities and scientists. Egypt, by contrast, in 1950 was actually in pretty good shape. When Egypt became a republic shortly after that date, it had a good infrastructure, it had universities that the British had helped set up, it research institutes it actually was in far better shape than countries say like China or South Korea or even Japan. And yet, Egypt fell behind. And that largely was due many people told me to the wars that began with Israel, particularly the 1967 war, and the wars that followed that the money went into the military, there was no money leftover to do basic research. Researchers were left really high and dry, and that began a long, slow decline of Egyptian science, which only began to reverse very, very slowly in the past 10 years. Interviewer - Stewart Wills And so, now I guess the revolution of the past January has given this new focus on science a bit more impetus? Interviewee - Andrew Lawler Yes. What I found was that from ministers down to workers and certainly anybody I could talk to at a university everyone seems to be in agreement that in order for Egypt to really change, to really get ahead, to really develop itself, it must reinvent its R&D establishment. And to do that its a monumental task, but I was surprised to find that the government has approved a 34% increase for the coming year in R&D, which is quite hefty. And they also intend to provide professors with a 50% pay increase, which isnt much given that most public university professors only earn about $400 a month, but its a step in the right direction. And theres a general sense of optimism that the government is focused on this issue and that the people really understand that science and technology is critical for Egypt to be able to produce more jobs and to compete in a global marketplace. Interviewer - Stewart Wills

Well, I guess its one thing, though, to say that you want to foster a culture of science and R&D and another to sort of bring that about over the long haul. It sounds like a promising beginning, but I imagine there must be some hurdles here that theyre looking at. Interviewee - Andrew Lawler Well, absolutely. The most immediate is how to reform the public university system. There are dozens and dozens of very large universities with tens of thousands of staff and hundreds of thousands of students its a massive system. And, in order to try and bring it into the 21st century, they have to make fundamental changes. For example, these universities for the most part have been political organizations at the top. The president was somebody who was chosen because they were a political favorite of Mubarak or of Mubaraks party. And that has to change in order for the university system to be able to actually conduct good, strong research. So, professors are really pushing for the right to choose their presidents and their deans, to actually elect these people, which is not something done in most universities. Most universities in the west have a board of trustees. So the managers of Egypts R&D bureaucracy are trying to argue, Well, lets do a board of trustees approach. But professors are feeling very strongly that they need to have a say in the running of their university. So its an example of some of the push and pull thats happening right now where theres disagreement over exactly how to reinvent Egypts R&D enterprise. Interviewer - Stewart Wills Well, I guess to take the whole, the whole theme of push to an extreme you wrote in the story about one Egyptian Nobel Laureate who even wants to build a sort of a science city, I think you called it, outside of Cairo. Interviewee - Andrew Lawler Yes, Ahmed Zewail, who won the Nobel Prize for chemistry, is from Egypt originally hes now at Caltech. And his dream since he won the Nobel Prize has been to create a science and technology city in Egypt in order to really focus attention and resources on R&D. And that languished for a decade mainly because the Mubarak administration really couldnt get behind it, couldnt cut the red tape, nothing really much happened so now Zewail has a chance to change that. Its a very controversial matter though because some researchers in Egypt believe that creating a large MIT style school in Egypt might simply drain away the best people from the public universities, which are in such dire shape. So, although I think the government is supportive of Zewails idea and they are providing backing for it there is some concern that this kind of mega project might not be exactly what Egypt needs right now. Interviewer - Stewart Wills Yeah, in your story I also sort of got the impression there was sort of a tension beneath the surface between basic and applied science in Egypt. Is that a fair statement? Interviewee - Andrew Lawler

Yeah, absolutely. I spoke with Minister Salama, who is in charge of scientific research, and he believes very strongly that Egypt needs to focus on applied research that is to provide cheap energy; to focus on products that Egypt could produce, which could actually bring revenue, to find a way to turn applications into businesses so that Egypt can actually strengthen its economy quickly rather than just in the long-term. Now, thats a controversial issue because some people say, Well, you really have to have the basic research before you can hope to have a strong applied system working. So, its a tension, but I think for the most part Egypt is going to put its money into areas like energy production solar, wind, that kind of thing which can reduce its dependence on oil, which it has very little, and which also might provide the jobs that are needed now as opposed to focusing on basic research, which might only provide a very small number of jobs for a very skilled workforce. Interviewer - Stewart Wills Well, clearly a lot of excitement about transforming science in Egypt. Any ideas though on how long this kind of transformation would actually take? Interviewee - Andrew Lawler Well, I talked to one economist who follows whats going on in Egypt, and he warns that to make this kind of change, which Egypt is proposing, while very meritorious, is going to take a long time. To change an institution is certainly not something youre going to do within a fiscal year. And its not just a question of money theres no question there will be money and more money for Egypts R&D enterprise. The harder part probably will be to update the universities; to introduce research professors into a system that is focused right now mainly on teaching; to building bridges with foreign researchers; and finding a way for those people in Egypt who are doing research to work with industry and thereby begin to create businesses, which can start to put the Egyptian economy on a different track. Interviewer - Stewart Wills Andrew Lawler, thanks very much. Interviewee - Andrew Lawler Great, thank you very much. Host - Kerry Klein Andrew Lawler writes about science in post-revolutionary Egypt in a News Focus this week. Music Interviewer - Stewart Wills Well finally today, David Grimm, the online news editor of Science, is here to fill us in on some recent stories from our daily news site. Well, Dave, first up, another bit of evidence on what killed the dinosaurs. Are people really still arguing about that?

Interviewee - David Grimm I was surprised too, Stewart. I really though the case was kind of closed. The going hypothesis, as you are well aware Im sure, Stewart, is that an asteroid killed the dinosaurs about 65 million years ago, slamming into Earth causing all this devastation, which caused all of these giant beasts, mostly giant beasts, to disappear. And theres a lot of evidence for that. First of all, this event which is also sometimes called the K-T extinction is called that because there is basically a layer of Earth called the K-T boundary, which dates back to about 65 million years ago. And scientists have found a lot of iridium there. And iridium is not very common on Earth, but it is very common in asteroids. So thats one piece of evidence, and dinosaurs went extinct about 65 million years ago, so the timing adds up. And also, dinosaurs fossils disappear around this time. So it all seems to point to this idea that dinosaurs were killed off by the asteroid. But, there are some skeptics out there, and what the skeptics say is that dinosaurs actually started going extinct before this asteroid hit, and this was a very gradual extinction it wasnt a sudden extinction caused by an asteroid. And by the time the asteroid hit most of the dinosaurs were already gone if not completely gone already. And the reason they say that is because theres been whats called a gap below this K-T boundary. It used to be about a 3-meter gap, which means 3 meters down, 3 meters below the K-T boundary, researchers hadnt found any dinosaur bones. And 3 meters equates to about 100,000 years, so the skeptics would say, Well, look, even 100,000 years before this asteroid hit there were no dinosaurs. Now, that 3 meters has been shaved off gradually over the last few years. Paleontologists have made a few finds of, for example, some bones and more recently T.rex footprints just 37 centimeters below the K-T boundary. But that still leaves 37 centimeters and probably a few thousand if not more than that years where the dinosaurs could be completely gone. So, this new study is all about trying to even narrow the gap even further. Interviewer - Stewart Wills And so, how did they do that? Interviewee - David Grimm Well, similar to what had been done before, a team went out, and they actually made a discovery at about 13 centimeters right below the K-T boundary. So, this is the shortest gap yet. And what they found was they found a horn from a type of dinosaur known as a ceratopsian. And if that doesnt sound familiar to you, Triceratops was one of this group of dinosaurs. And they did a bunch of dating, and they were able to confirm that, indeed, this horn that they found was only about 13 centimeters below the K-T boundary. So, added up with all of the evidence, this 3-meter gap has really shrunk to about 13 centimeters, which is very, very little, in just the past few years. And the team says that this is basically just stronger evidence if any was needed that the dinosaurs were doing fine up until the time that the asteroid hit. Interviewer - Stewart Wills But, Im guessing there are probably a few people out there who still arent convinced. Interviewee - David Grimm

Thats right. You cant convince everybody. And indeed, one skeptic who we quote in the article says, Look, yeah, you did find this horn, but the idea that youre just finding these sort of bits and pieces and just finding these very scant discoveries close to the K-T boundary where theres been a lot more discoveries much further down supports the hypothesis that these dinosaurs were gradually dying out before the asteroid hit, and there was fewer and fewer of them around. So, its not a study thats going to satisfy everybody, but for the authors, at least, this is just one more piece of evidence that an asteroid did wipe out the dinosaurs. Interviewer - Stewart Wills And next, a clue to the fate of another doomed group the Franklin expedition. Interviewee - David Grimm Right. Well, this mystery is not nearly as old as the one that wiped out the dinosaurs. This mystery is only about 150 years old. And it actually traces back to 1848 when a couple of ships one ominously called the HMS Terror and another one called the HMS Erebus became encased in ice in the Canadian arctic. And what these ships were trying to do, is they were trying to find the Northwest Passage because people at the time had thought that there might be a sea route between the northern Atlantic and the northern Pacific. It turned out not to be the case, and these two ships really suffered the consequences. They became encased in ice for 20 months. And, even though it seems like they had enough food to survive for a lot longer, at some point the captain of the HMS Terror, known as Francis Crozier, decided that everybody needed to abandon the ships and start trekking across Northern Canada in search of food. Well, unfortunately nobody survived that journey. And then, about 25 years later an Inuit guide came across a shallow grave about 200 kilometers from where the ships were encased in ice that contained bones that researchers tied to one of the crew members. Now, at the time, one of the worlds renowned biologists, Thomas Henry Huxley, identified the remains as Lieutenant Henry Le Vesconte, who was supposedly a high-ranking officer as part of this expedition. This new study is about trying to figure out exactly who was this man really was it really Vesconte and what may have caused the demise of these men in the first place or why maybe they abandoned their ships. Interviewer - Stewart Wills Okay, so they had this skeleton, and they were trying to identify it. What did they look for? Interviewee - David Grimm Well, so, what basically happened is the place that the skeleton is kept which is sort of a memorial to the Franklin expedition this place was being renovated. And a new group of scientists came in and said, Well, you know, while theyre renovating this and they exhume the skeleton, lets take another look and see if this really was Lieutenant Henry Le Vesconte. And one of the interesting techniques they used was they actually tested the enamel of one of the mans teeth or one of the skeletons teeth. And basically what they found is they can do this isotopic analysis, which really gives clues to the diet and the water supply of the region where somebody grew up. And, when they were testing

this enamel of the tooth, they deduced that this person probably came from northern Britain, not from Devon, as this Le Vesconte had. So, that was the first clue that this may not be Le Vesconte. And then, they did some facial reconstruction, and they found a lot of the facial features of this person seemed to match another of the expeditions members a crew member known as Harry Goodsir. Now, that didnt really solve the mystery but at least shed some light on who this person was that was found about 125 years ago. The next clue was trying to figure out exactly what killed this person. This person was actually the ships doctor. Interviewer - Stewart Wills Well, you know I, its funny I seem to remember reading something years ago about lead poisoning being a possible suspect. Interviewee - David Grimm And that still is. Another possibly suspect that people have floated was scurvy. And the idea was that these men were suffering from scurvy, they decided to get off the ship and maybe try to find some way to improve their situation. But, the team that led this current research doesnt think thats likely because they say these are really experienced sailors, they would have known about scurvy, they would have known about vitamin C. Also, when they were examining the bones, often if somebody has scurvy they start to have a buildup of new bone on their bone surface that is tied to bleeding from scurvy. And they didnt see this on the remains of Goodsir. So, they dont think it was scurvy. So, getting back to your original points, Stewart, theyre coming back possibly to this idea of lead poisoning either by poor canning techniques that the sailors may have used or that there was maybe lead from their seawater. They used this filtering apparatus to filter seawater perhaps lead contaminated the water that they were drinking, and that may have, you know, caused the slow decline of these men. Another theory that had been proposed was that these men had actually started starving to death and started eating each other. And the researchers did find gnaw marks on Goodsirs bones, but they deduced from their analysis that these were actually gnaw marks from an arctic fox not from human beings. So, that seems to rule out the cannibalism hypothesis, at least for this one individual. So, the mystery is not completely solved, but researchers have a, are starting to get a much better idea of what may have gone wrong in this ill-fated expedition. Interviewer - Stewart Wills And finally, a tool-using fish. Interviewee - David Grimm Right, Stewart. This last story is about the first photographic evidence of what some scientists are saying is tool use in fish. So, tool use used to be thought to be something that only humans could do. In fact, it was one of the classifications of our species only humans could use tools. Well, that has sort of fallen by the wayside over the last decade or so. Researchers have observed, for example, capuchin monkeys that select a sort of hammer they basically take rocks, and they smash them against seeds to crack open the seeds. Also, even New Caledonian crows have been shown to probe branches with grass, twigs and leaf strips to extract insects. And these are all sort of fit within the classical

definition of what it means to use a tool. And some scientists have proposed that fish use tools too. Theres a type of fish called an archerfish, which basically sprays a jet of water at prey on the surface and sort of knocks them into the water and then eats them. But thats kind ofdoesnt really fit with what a lot of people think about a tool as, its sort of more of a interesting behavior but not necessarily tool use. Theres been some anecdotal reports that a fish called the a blackspot tuskfish uses tools for potentially by whacking prey, specifically clams, against a rock, but nobody had actually photographed this happening. And Interviewer - Stewart Wills And so, now this has been captured on film? Interviewee - David Grimm Now weve got the photographs. You can actually go to the site Interviewer - Stewart Wills have the pictures to prove it now Interviewee - David Grimm weve got the pictures to prove it. You can go to the site and check them out. And its a really cool story. A diver, named Scott Gardner, was swimming around Australias Great Barrier Reef when he heard this odd cracking sound. He said, Whats that? And he swam over, and low and behold he saw this foot-long black tuskfish holding a clam in its mouth and whacking it against a rock. And the fish whacked the clam enough times that the shell soon gave way, then the fish gobbled up the bivalve that was inside. Now, the diver thinks that he didnt just catch the fish just discovering how to do this because all around is the fish with all of these broken clam shells, indicating this fish or another fish had sort of been at this for a while. So, it was a really coolseems to be this very cool evidence that this fish is actually using a tool. Interviewer - Stewart Wills Well, it does bring up an interesting question, though, that you kind of alluded to just what it means actually to use a tool. Interviewee - David Grimm Its a great question. And, in fact, although these researchers say that this fish is indeed using a tool its using the rock as a tool, the rock is actually not something the fish is picking up. The rock is something that its just banging this clam against. And one of the experts that was interviewed for this story said, This isnt tool use this is something thats called proto-tool use because, as she says, to really use a tool, you actually the tool has to be something you pick up and carry around and smash against something else just like the monkeys are doing with their hammer rocks or the crows are doing with their twigs. Here the fish isnt picking up the tool the fish is picking up the target of the tool, and some scientists would say that that isnt evidence of tool use. So its a bit of debate right now, and I highly encourage our listeners out there to not only check out the pictures, but also check out the very interesting discussion thats going on

in the comment section of this article. A lot of debate back and forth about whether this is a tool or not, and you can add your own thoughts to that, as well. Interviewer - Stewart Wills Well, it sounds like a remarkable fish anyway. Interviewee - David Grimm Yes. Interviewer - Stewart Wills Okay, Dave, what else do you have in the works on the news site this week? Interviewee - David Grimm Well, Stewart, for ScienceNOW weve got a story about super massive black holes and what sparks them into existence; also a story about a new HIV preventative that seems to be having a very powerful effect against AIDS in a couple of trials in Africa. For ScienceInsider, Sciences policy blog, weve got a new story about the Fukushima reactors in Japan, exactly whats going on with them at this date, a few months after the disaster in Japan; also a story about the CIA and fake vaccinations a very controversial topic. Finally, for ScienceLive, our weekly chat on the hottest topics in science, our chat this week is about green energy. Is it as promising as people think? What is the future of green energy in the United States and throughout the rest of the world? So, be sure to check out all of these stories on the site. Interviewer Stewart Wills David Grimm is the online news editor of Science. You can check out the latest science news and the policy blog, ScienceInsider, at news.sciencemag.org where you can also join a live chat, ScienceLive, on the hottest science topics every Thursday at 3 p.m. U.S. Eastern Time. Music Host Stewart Wills And that wraps up the July 15th, 2011, edition of the Science Podcast. Host - Kerry Klein If you have any comments or suggestions for the show, please write us at sciencepodcast@aaas.org. Host Stewart Wills The show is a production of Science Magazine. Jeffrey Cook composed the music. I'm Stewart Wills. Host Kerry Klein And I'm Kerry Klein. On behalf of Science Magazine and its publisher, AAAS, thanks for joining us.

Music ends