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Mum, Why did they call it Scottish cheese?
It's cottage cheese, honey. And I'm not sure did.
The dogs in other countries speak different languages?
Yeah?
I think so. Well when we get there, well, we've got to fix the car first, but there's someone coming to help us.
Is it the man from Geneva?
Not Geneva, he's from a Viva.
Oh there's a van now.
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Oh hi, welcome to smologies.
What aresmologies?
Okay?
So these are shorter, kid friendly versions of classic episodes. So we took them and we took all the swears out. Nothing too racy. You can listen around kids, you can listen around your grandparents, perhaps, work colleagues, whatever. If you want the full length version of this episodeough, of course, it's going to be linked in the show notes. We also have more ssmologies up at aliwar dot com slash smologies. Okay, enjoy.
Oh hey, it's that mark that you get on your chin when you're wearing lipstick and then you take a bite of a giant sandwich. Ali ward back with informative chuckles that I just can't wait to get to mammalogy. So this ologist is a big deal, a Ted talker multiple times, a nat GEO explorer, a longtime science writer and an advocate and a researcher. Us are a tweeter, an icon, an idol of mine. So we talk about this.
Biologists work on animals of all kinds, especially the furry milky ones, and we chat about fieldwork, platy pie furriness, and parenting styles. And I was so excited to talk to her that I honestly was kind of speechless and just starstruck. And I just wanted to get out of the way and listen because she's just wonderful and insightful and informative.
So please get ready.
To meet one of the world's coolest professors and mammalogists, doctor Danielle and.
Lee knowledgious alogy, knowlogy, im jeous knowledgeous.
I'm ready to say, oh yeah, okay, of course I want to talk to you about all these warm blooded, furry little creatures.
First thing, ah have you do? If it's okay?
If you could just say your first and last name, so I make sure I pronounce it right and pronounce thank you.
So my name is Danielle in Lee, and my pronouns that she and her.
But I also just don't.
Care, okay, and I'll tell you why. So in the process of doing my research in Tanzania and learning Swahili. There are no ginger pronouns in Swahili. Really, they don't exist. They just don't exist. Like, because I kept ask and I was, I realized that because people who speak English would constantly get their pronouns mixed up. They would say he and she interchangeably. And I thought it was, Oh, it's because they don't know English very well. No, it's
because those words are the equivalent. He and she are equivalent and Swahili because he and she don't exist.
So that's what I's just like, So this is all the construct.
That's so beautiful, that's so good to know. Can you tell me a little bit about your research that you you did in Tanzania.
Absolutely, I study giant pouchtrats for those who get the reference Princess Bright, Yeah, I study rouss.
Rodents of unusual size.
I don't think that exists.
They are large rodents that look like rats. They're not rats proper, they're rat like rotents. And I'm holding my hands up across my body, but anywhere.
From nose to tip of tail.
They can go anywhere from one and a half to two and a half to three feet long.
What was it like the first time that you saw one?
The first time I finally got the sea one, I was just like, I can't believe this thing.
It's big. It's the size of a cat, like a nice size house cat. Like they're cat guys.
They're very strong, they're very fast, they are smart. They have a lot of dexterity in their hand, like they can grab things very easily.
They were really good at removing their name cards.
Because at first apologize now, but I thought it was the animal care cleaning the cages. Then they forgot to put their name tags back.
Oh no, And I was like, we can't have this. We got to keep the name cards on.
And if we come to find out it wasn't it wasn't the staff at all.
It was the rats. They were removing their own cards. They were removing their own water bottles.
We had to change a lot of our protocols and how we care for them to do get different from regular rat.
We had to change the materials we use.
We can't use glass bottles because they're so good at flipping them out. They were breaking these super industrial expensive pirates bottles.
Oh my god.
Every night they were just breaking them because they flip them out, and then they would use that little hole to either reach their hand out and undo the cage, or for the smaller ones, they would move their food hutch because it slide in, and then they would use that to escape out.
Okay, So I asked what happens when they escape, and she said, it's not like there's mayhem. There are double doors for safety, but it's certainly like a come on guys moment. Well, they're so smart and they're so dexterous, you are able to research how they can be used to help with finding landmines.
Right, So that's actually a nonprofit does this, So they do the training. What they do is really basic operate conditioning positive reinforcement.
Wait a minute, what are those things she just mentioned operant conditioning and positive reinforcement. Okay, So operant conditioning is a name for one way that we learn things where a creature like you or me, or a rat in a lab, maybe your dog, does something and that thing is followed by something else that either encourages or discourages the behavior, and if it discourages the behavior, it's called punishment,
and if it encourages that behavior, it's called reinforcement. With positive reinforcement, the behavior to be taught is reinforced with a reward being added to this situation. So in this case that Danielle and I were talking about, they were teaching rats how to find certain chemical smells from land mines by giving them a tasty, tasty little treat whenever they succeeded in locating those chemicals. So find the right smell, ding,
ding ding. You receive a reward boom. That is positive reinforcement. You did a thing, good job, here's another thing. So then what is negative reinforcement. It's when something bad happens to you. Right, well, a lot of people think so, but no, that is actually just straight up punishment. So negative reinforcement rather would be removing something bad from the situation as your reward. Like let's say that it's raining on you and you're starting to get a little wet
and a little cold. But ha, you remember to bring an umbrella in with you because you're smart, and you opened your umbrella and you block the rain that is making you wet and cold, and you feel better. So you didn't add something pleasant, You kind of took away something unpleasant. But still in doing that you've reinforced a lesson that on days when it might rain, it's a
good idea to bring an umbrella. That's negative reinforcement. Now, can you think of any other behaviors that you've learned through positive reinforcement, like receiving a reward or negative reinforcement which is reducing unpleasantness. I'm sure there's all kinds of things.
And people who work with animals typically are like, no punishment, just reward for good behavior, which is good when you're trying to motivate yourself to do something, don't be mean to yourself, just say hey, good job when you did the right thing.
I learned that all the animals that have gone into the program, there are all nuisance animals that are caught within the town because they were getting into somebody's house or food stores or just vexing them in some.
Sort of way.
M M.
It'd be like if we had a raccoon getting in the garbage and then we're like, you know what, as long as we gotcha, do you want to help us find some land mines?
Now, whatever you do, don't push this button.
That's exactly how it works.
Landmarks and helpless diagnose tuberculosis, because that's also what they can.
Do, really, and that's are they using like old faction for that.
All old faction. This is all old faction.
That just means smell. But I was trying to sound more professional because underneath I was very giddy to be having this conversation, if you must know.
So this is a.
Big deal because between fifteen to twenty thousand people each year are killed or injured by land mines. And our little rat friends are really great at sniffing out the TNT plus are too light to detonate the land mines, and they don't bond with their trainers like dogs do, so they can move around to different countries without getting emotionally hurt. Okay, what about mammals. We're mammals, but so
are pouched rats and wolves and testmighting deals. Is there more variation among mammals than say reptiles.
And so, now, if we're going to look at the whole thing, reptiles big big umbrella, and of course they got the spread, they win, they wind up we're more weirder than you. That's a very good point if we do it that way. But your mammals are interesting. So we have a little bit of everything. So we have the live birthers versus the not live birthers. And among the live births, we have the fully developed versus the barely developed.
Among those that do the fully developed.
Stay with Mama a long time, or I need you out the door as soon as possible. So this what I like to call diversity and investment strategy of the species, Like how much do you invest in it offspring to make sure they're you know, big and strong before they're out there on their own in that big, widening world. It literally can range from years to moments. Yeah, years to moments.
Why why do you think that is? And what influences that?
So it's a lot of things to influence that.
Some of it is evolutionarily, like you know, just part of it is you got to work with what you got.
But it's also.
Ecology in other words, where you are, the time you are, how much space.
You have to do your business and make a living. All these inputs.
Determine how you make a living and how well you live.
So all these different evolutionary pressures like if you're dodging predators constantly, or if you gorge food and then store it really well, or if you have a fast metabolism, those will affect your internal furnace.
All these different strategies determine a lot of stuff. So, like going back to comparing birds and mammals, so we're both warm blooded and so another.
In order for gestation of the risks for your babies to develop.
Really really well, and this is across our species, even for reptiles, you got to have that right temperature.
It literally has to cook when we say it's.
Been in the others to cook, it has to cook, and it has to cook at the right temperature. Too hot or too cold, you mess up the whole recipe. Nothing's gonna nothing is not gonna happen.
But there's a few different ways of doing it. So a lot of reptiles they drop their eggs, they put it in the store, they cover it up, they do a little kiss, throw it up to the sky and be like, hope it works out, Like mama. Reptiles like I did a little temperature check. This ground is about right, and I know I'm gonna be gone for forever because I ain't gonna never see you again. Yeah, it stays.
Literally, kiss up to the sky and I'm out so that's like like turtles, birds on the other hand, are like, you.
Know what, I still got to get this temperature right, but I still need to be able to move a little bit here and there to go get some more food because carrying on these eggs, they're heavy.
They're heavy female animal.
When they're grabbed or when they're sitting on a nest, they gotta be careful because it makes them easy pickings for predators. So that's the reason why you know, mama turtle holds on to those eggs as long as she can. Yeah, she incubates them when cooks them. Oth Wise, she's like, I'm too slow. I'm gonna get gobbled up by these sharks or whatever else is out here in the water.
I got to drop these eggs and lighten my load.
Mama bird is very similar, but she's like, you know what, I can kind of get up and move a little bit.
So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna make this really nice nest. I'm gonna insulate it as much as possible.
If there's a partner involved, we'll take turns sitting on it and keeping it warm. But like they have to be careful with that too, if they stay gone too long, that throws the temperature off.
Back to the cooking. Like, oh, that's the recipe of.
What happens in mammals is you know what, I need to be able to move and I need to be.
Able to keep the temperature going. So what female.
Mammals are able to do is they're able to keep their babies with them at all time.
They know that temperature is gonna be right, They're gonna go where they go.
There's still some trade offs and loss of movement and dexterity, but compared to other species, like female mammals are able to still get quite a bit done even though they're pregnant up until the last day. So that's why some have strategies of sitting still in the end, but they think about cats.
They stay hunting, Yeah, till near the end.
We have these trade offs, but like that temperature control is really important, and what we see are these three very dramatic strategies for that temperature control across the three main groups of vertebrates. Drop them off, wish for the best, yeah.
Drop them off for keep up with them.
But if things get real real bad, I'll bug out and I'll start all over again, or this we are all we in this together.
That's the mammal in this together. Oh God, I got you when you got me?
Oh my gosh, I have so many questions from listeners that know that you're coming on the show. Okay, We're gonna let those questions cook a second longer while we take a quick break to hear about sponsors of the show who enable us to make a donation to a cause of theologists choosing. And this week Doctor Lee shows SemLink that's Science, Engineering, and Math Link, which is a nonprofit.
It was found in two thousand and five by Tuka T. Smith in Atlanta, and SemLink promotes student achievement and career exploration in math and science while increasing student exposure to STEM communities. So a donation went to them, Doctor Danielle and Lee's name thanks to some sponsors of the show who you may hear about.
Now.
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Mum, why did they call it Scottish cheese?
It's cottage cheese, honey, and I'm not sure.
Did the dogs in other countries speak different languages?
Yeah?
I think so.
Well, when we get there.
Well, we've got to fix the car first, but there's someone coming to help us.
Is it the man from Geneva.
Not Geneva, he's from a Viva. Oh, there's a van now.
For car insurance with breakdown rescue, it takes a Viva visit Aviva Dota E to say fifteen percent.
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Okay your questions, This was the most asked question. What is happening with the platypus?
Natalie landon Brand's first time question asker essentially says, like, why why are they so weird?
They've got eggs and venom, but they're a mammal. What's happening?
Yeah, all right, So platypuses on mammals because they meet the what I call the base criterion of what makes a mammal and mammal and eddie is they make nourishment from memory grains on the evolutionary tree, they're like high up, so they're really in between. Like they are a really good example of that connection to our other vertebrate cousins like the birds and the reptiles that I mentioned before. It has so many traits in a very bird slash reptilian light m h.
But they have eggs, they lay eggs, They do lay eggs, and so you don't have to have live birth to be a mammal.
No, the drop dead criteria is do you make milk for mammary glands.
That's where the word comes from, mammal mammary.
Okay, listen, some of you might be wondering what the heck is a mammary gland, and because this is where you come to learn science, we're going to tell you, even though some of you might want to giggle, but a mammary gland is the part of the mammal, including humans, that makes milk. So that is udders on cows or perhaps boobs on people you call mom, they're memory glands. And in fact, the word mammary has the same root
word as mom. Did you know version of the word ma mean mother in Greek and Latin and Persian, in Russian, Lithuanian and German and French, and in Welsh. In so
many languages. This word is nearly universal in Indo European languages, and it's believed to come from the natural human animal sounds that babies, including you, at one point made when they were imitating sucking milk out of what that's right, a memory gland, and you can store that in your memory gland or your brain, which isn't really a gland.
But that's another episode. So it doesn't matter if you drop some eggs or have a bill, it doesn't Allen Skelton wants to know why have so many mammals evolved to cooperate or stay in large groups as opposed to other animals.
So sociality is really common in a lot of species that we see that we attribute a lot of high cognitive function to We see that, and that's because sociality yields a lot of benefits. Think about it. You don't have to look for a mate when it's time to mate. You can conserve your own physiological energy when it comes to keeping you know.
Warm, the right temperature.
Being around others is a really good way to exploit them for information and other resources. So I don't have to be really good at hunting. I can let you be good at hunting, and I come around and pick up scraps. So sociality has a lot of benefits. Now there are cost to it, as well, so like thehood, are spreading communicative diseases, whether it's like parasites or things like the main or even sicknesses like what we're experiencing now, like with COVID among us.
You know, sociality counts.
Against us, but so much of what we need to do to make a living requires, for many species outright cooperation or even just passive cooperation. Our evolutionary two kit does not allow us to do a lot of things very very well for long without the aid of others.
Right, we all affect each other and we're in this together. Moe Casey had a great question about life expectancy and why does a mouse have such a short one compared to a horse which lives for decades? And is it just size the.
Reason why different things live a different times. It's not just about size. Is a correlate with it, but it comes down to what's happening with them physiologically, their metabolism, how long something takes. So being large enables you to avoid a lot of predators, so big things don't have as many other things that can take them out. If you're not taken out, then you can live a long time thereafter, assuming everything else in your body is in
pretty good shape. You just got to get through that scary small period of your life.
Ah.
So that's one of the reasons.
So once you get past that scary juvenile period, then you can pretty much live until what we call that natural death when your body just wears out.
But little things.
Live for a short period the time because part of it is their metabolism. Their metabolism is real fast. They're burning themselves up. We don't use that, that's not technically what's happening, but that's just one way to envision it from a lay position is that they're always going. But the other thing that you got to keep in mouth for things like mice is they don't tend to die of old age like we really take for granted as
people that most things don't die of old age. Longer lived animals, we tend to see what we call age related like disease, what we call natural causes of death, So things like you know, diabetes or heart disease or later on set diseases either due to metabolism or structure, and animals that tend to be predated.
Upon or die early.
Those things just don't accumulate because they tend to die when they're still just in or just past the prime of life. And by prime, I mean like the height of reproductive life, so in other words, when you're at the height of having the most babies and even looking at people old age is a relatively new thing for us.
Living to be one hundred would not have happened without antibiotics.
No, that's magic, Let's be honest.
Yeah, we're the transport and talk to someone from two hundred years ago.
One hundred years is magic.
Yeah, speaking of ancient things, A lot of patrons wanted to know if it weren't for the asteroid wiping out the dinosaurs, do you think that mammals would have survived to today.
No, that had to happen for mammal evolution like that, Like that is a.
Critical, Like when I teach mammalogy, that's one of the one historical events that is critical. If it had not been for that mammal evolution, they would have stayed small, they would have stayed in the ground. We would not have had a mammalian radiation, that's what we call it. That's when the explosion, Like the mammals came above ground and they were able to diversify I informed shape in species.
If the dinosaurs hadn't died, none of that would have happened. Oh, you would not be here if it had not been for the KT event.
Really, this is literally the first I've ever heard that. That's amazing.
Yeah, said they had to go for us to flourish.
Okay, what about your favorite thing about being a homologist the travel.
I do science to travel. I grew up in that family.
We never got to go on family vacation, so travel was always a dream of mine. I just I just grew up working class. Course, so my biggest dream was to grow up to be middle class. And so there are certain things that I was envious of, So like being able to travel and go places and back to those nature shows that I love.
They just seem to always be all over the world. And so for me being.
Able to travel to see a lot of things by myself. I love being able to travel.
This has been so great having you on. I just I feel like I'm such a fan girl. I've been like so nervous and excited to talk.
I don't know what to do with folks say that, because I was like, we're talking about this, do you talk about me? Mom?
Jeez so asks more people all kinds of furry, milky questions because that's what makes mammals mammals. And to find out more about doctor Danielle Lee, you can see the links in the show notes. Also linked is more episodes.
Also linked is aliwar dot com slash Asmologies, which has dozens more kids safe and shorter episodes you can blaze through and thank you Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio and shared Sleeper of Mind gem Media for editing those, as well as Zeke Rodriguez Thomas and says we like to keep things small around here. The rest of the credits
are in the show notes. But before I go, I like to give you one very tiny piece of advice, and this week it's just to make sure if you can, that you go outside, and not just go outside, but if you can play outside or look at things outside. We have so many greens around us. He stays full of a lot of really fun stuff. But for a million reasons, you just can't substitute the feelings that your body gets from being outside. Maybe smell some grass, dig
in some dirt, you can look for bugs. You can toss a ball around for your dog, or maybe your cat on a leash. I don't know your situation, climb a tree, just do something. I r L And I'm not just talking to kids out there, I'm talking to their parents or people who don't even have kids, and that includes myself. So yes, let's all go outside a little more. Okay, have fun. Bye bye Solisious.
Algy knowlogy knowledges.
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