JAD: How do those cycles perpetuate? This, of course, is Destiny. Yeah. PAT WALTERS: Mamaw was the one I'd come to see. We'll just get one more.". What do I know? PEJK MALINOVSKI: What does that mean, he was an idiot? Who gave Destiny her first checkup told Barbara That she was delayed and she was always going to be delayed because of her prenatal neglect. ROBERT: Or how much humidity it preferred. It says, "Race of Supermen." What's he talking about? Females seem to hate laying eggs in the water, but is that the end of the story? MICHAEL MEANEY: That activates maternal behavior. They present previous theories on evolution and then present the currently accepted Darwinian Theory of Evolution. I dont know. Turning down a job that they'd offered him. She started to wish again that she could have a daughter. Radiolab: Parasites Transcript For copyright reasons we can't provide a transcript of the WNYC Radiolab feature on parasites. Like have you ever had one of those moments where you suddenly are your dad and it catches you off guard? Well, this is it! PAT: So Barbara and her son got in the car and drove across town to the foster home where Destiny had been living for the past eight months. So for Isaiah, being born was like just being cut off. I said, "This will be the last one. It goes back to the 1800s. But if you've got a mom who licks you. It happens. Assuming that you can survive the ordeal, and you grow up, and you have kids of your own, the data seems to say that your kids will benefit from your suffering. JAD: In just two generations, these toads seem to have done something that should have taken, I don't know, 50, 100 generations? Can you say oh my goodness? A few years later, there'd be a harsh winter. [ARCHIVAL Clip, News: She's offering $200. When Emil gets to be eight, I'm cutting him off. And I packed up my stuff, it's pretty much done. Okay, I'm here. JAD: In any case, what they saw at the end of all this counting wasWell, first of all, what they saw was this pattern that rat pups who got licked a lot as babies, when they grew up, they licked their babies a lot and the rat pups who didn't get licked a lot, when they grew up, they didn't lick their babies. You dont really say it to yourself that way, but yeah. DESTINY HARRIS: Taylor Swift's Never Getting Back Together. He's 22, 23, and he already had this reputation for being amazing at keeping animals alive, that otherwise would just die. So he's got to live his life as a toad with all this baggage on him? PEJK MALINOVSKI: It says "registrera", register. Once a kid is born, their genetic fate is pretty much sealed. So, in the end, where do you come down on this? FRANCES CHAMPAGNE: Yes, yes. Higher frequencies of heart attacks. I'm going to graduate with honors and one day I'm going to be able to tell her, "Look, I did this. LATIF: This is Radiolab. A given episode might whirl you through science, legal history, and into the home of. I tell you what I'm going to do though. PAT: If Barbara had gotten to Destiny's birth mom, Destiny, Kalia, this moment, none of it would exist. At once and we're watching 40 litters at a time. You must have internet access to do this). JAD: And at first, it didn't go so well because, you know, if you're a land toad and you're trying to have sex in the water, it's kind of hard. I'm so proud and I have four years clean. From pneumonia. The results make it probable that our descendants will learn more quickly what we know well, will execute more easily what we have accomplished with great effort, will be able to withstand what injured us almost to the point of death. I just didn't think. ], [ARCHIVAL Clip, News: To any drug-addicted woman who will agree to have no more babies. See, this is the story of science that doesn't get told. Thanks to Frances Champagne and Michael Meany and Sam Kean, who writes about Paul Kammerer in his book, . JAD: So its like grandpa's struggle is jumping forward and giving me a leg up? JAD: He works at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden where he studies population data. It goes back to the 1800s. CARL ZIMMER: Lamarckism pretty much died there. Copyright 2022 New York Public Radio. But this stuff you're telling me about Sweden feels very grim in a certain way. All of our writers are dedicated to their job and do their best to produce all types of academic papers of superior quality. Which I find kind of hard to believe but, then again, I must have read at least 100 news articles as I was reporting this story. JAD: Still, that's a burden that, he's carrying a big burden there. Listen Jan 27, 2023 Birthstory A sperm, an egg, two wombs, four countries, and money. All right, I'll get in the water." CARL ZIMMER: It all came down to this jar with his toad in it. CARL ZIMMER: And he makes a very careful study of this hand. Kammerer, for one, was sent off to work as a sensor for the Austrian military. He thought that you could kind of engineer societies by changing the environment. You know, you've got all these chemicals around. Then World War One came and that disrupted everything. And um PAT: Doctors would later explain to Barbara that Destiny's mom had been addicted to drugs while she was pregnant. Its an idea thats been kicking around for me since my kids were born. The results make it probable that our descendants will learn more quickly what we know well, will execute more easily what we have accomplished with great effort, will be able to withstand what injured us almost to the point of death. MICHAEL MEANEY: Yeah, you can't touch that. You know, like if you're abused as a kid, you were more likely to abuse your kid, but still, you got to wonder. You know, inside these cells, in the center, coiled up in little spools, is the DNA. I mean, they didn't have porridge. 2K views almost 2 years ago 48:23 Love it or hate it, the freedom to say obnoxious and subversive things is the quintessence of what makes America America. I decided to have a press conference in my front yard to announce what I was doing. [ARCHIVAL Clip, Panel: Well, I mean, Hitler thought that if you were Jewish, that you had given up the right to be a mother and hed sterilize people as well. You're not leaving this hospital unless you have long-term birth control.". That's a lot of people. Stick around. JAD: Most toads, he says, love to stay in the water. SAM KEAN: I guess the way I would look at it is that you can change your environment a lot more easily than you can change your genes. PEJK MALINOVSKI: He was an idiot. FRANCES CHAMPAGNE: Not usually because it upsets people and I'm Canadian. Oh my goodness. But she says, you can tell right away, just by looking, that some rat moms don't lick their kids a lot. BARBARA HARRIS: It was just no baby should have to come into the world like that. DESTINY HARRIS: Kick it to him. JAD: Or does it get passed on such a deep level that doesn't even require teaching? PAT: And Barbara found herself returning to a thought she'd kind of always had. PAT: The question that was stuck in my head right then was, "If you could choose between being born knowing that your life might end up like that and not like it is now, or not been born at all, what would you have done?". Can you say oh my goodness? Here, Kammerer's was saying, "You can do this even on a physical level.". And he says, "This isn't a nuptial pad, it looks darkened but that's just ink.". JAD: Michael was in school and he got interested in a very, very basic question about how things get passed down? No, not brain cells. Putting this into context, you know, you have a rat mom and they have about 16 to 20 babies. ], Like you said, when you were in your addiction like she is], I didn't say I'm God. So thats the reason, of course, that we work with rats because we can get inside the brain. ], What's the worst thing you have been called by one of your critics?]. KARIN BORGKVIST LJUNG: Cancer. JAD: What you see in the records, is that one year PEJK MALINOVSKI: 100 liters. Full transcript: Radiolab co-host Jad Abumrad on Recode Media The new season of More Perfect, a spinoff show from Radiolab, began airing Oct. 2. ROBERT: That's interesting. Just sing. Knock it right off the DNA. PAT: Barbara has this drawer in her desk. He was miserable to look at. KARIN BORGKVIST LJUNG: Yes, he was retarded. Whole lifetime of stretching. [chuckles]. Methyl groups are pretty sticky, they're hard to get off. Like Id be like, Weve got the keys, were gonna trash the house., LATIF: Anyway, we think about that all the time and I was just talking to Lulu about that and she was just like, You know, theres a radiolab about this.. Move on to the next cage yes, no? About 30 years ago-. Radiolab is a radio program produced by WNYC, a public radio station in New York City, and broadcast on public radio stations in the United States. MICHAEL MEANEY: Known as transcription factors. Destiny says one day, she and her mom were in the car, and her mom said She said, "I don't know, you know, maybe they'll grow bigger? ROBERT: Truth is, we dont know precisely how this happens but somehow the experience of starvation marks the DNA. Because when a woman uses heroin while she's pregnant, the fetus gets hooked on it too. There was a newspaper called The Daily Express and they have these headlines that come out. "To Whom It May Concern, I have been doing very good. And they had more. He was a born nurturer and he adored animals. And eventually, over the millenia, what youd get, is a creature with a very long neck. Radio Lab: Into the Brain of a Liar March 6, 2008 We all lie once a day or so, according to most studies. SAM KEAN: Well, he thought it might have been an assistant trying to frame him because he was Jewish. And I think that no, I didn't plan on it but I wouldn't take her back for anything because she made me better. He's not even eating at all. I'm graduating in December. JAD: It's off-limits. We inherited this beloved show that we first fell in love with as listeners. FRANCES CHAMPAGNE: Putting this into context, you know, you have a rat mom and they have about 16 to 20 babies. And if you haven't, you can choose to have an IUD, or an implant put in which will last for several years. ROBERT: So, of course the folks at the Vivarium asked him. All jokes aside. JAD: His reputation was that he could get inside the mind of, say, a salamander and know just what it wanted to eat. [2] I mean, the idea that they could be constrained by their DNA, that maybe one of us gave them a bit of DNA thats gonna hold them back? Well, the DNA, the RNA, micro-RNAs, histone. Telling some genes to turn off now, other genes to turn on. Once their born, their genes are fixed and change does not happen in a generation or two. Radiolab - Transcripts Subscribe 187 episodes Radiolab is on a curiosity bender. The results are there. I make a difference to her. Who are they? He works at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden where he studies population data. In this episode, originally aired in 2012, we put nature and nurture on a collision course and discover how outside forces can find a way inside us, and change not just our hearts and minds, but the basic biological blueprint that we pass on to future generations. Listen Jan 20, 2023 And he was going through withdrawal. PAT: Filled with dozens of letters from women that she's paid. With NPR's Rough Translation. I mean, for one thing, Barbara's white and Destiny's black. Were there any consequences? [foreign language]. Your grade will be based on how complete and correct your answers are. No, I've only had somebody call and say they regret that they didn't stay on birth control. Lynn has become one of Barbara's fiercest critics. CARL ZIMMER: But there were a lot of skeptics. I'm in public health. That was amazing. But the results are very clear. I'm Sam Kean's dad. One-fourth? SAM KEAN: And these effects, in fact, were so strong that you could trace it to the grandfather. So yeah, she keeps me busy. So much can happen after that. How was this woman allowed", "To walk into the hospital and drop off a damaged baby and just walk away with no consequences?". JAD: But wouldnt it be nice if thats how it worked? It's a small forest area, very beautiful. I had asked for a newborn, so when the social worker called me, she said, "I have this cute little baby girl for you but she's eight months old. She's 22 now and she's never even met her birth mom. That is a bad way to start a kid's life but that's just the beginning of the kid's life. That's my little girl. PAT: And as soon as she got there to pick him up, she could tell that something was wrong. He stuffed himself silly; 9, 10, 11 years old, so he's a happy grandpa, you the grandson, you then would have. This lady right here is still taking drugs and she could be pregnant again next month.]. Move on to the next cage, yes, no? It seemed to have been passed down for multiple generations. This is real physical-chemical interaction between what's going on in the environment and what's going on with the DNA. In any case, what they saw at the end of all this counting wasWell, first of all, what they saw was this pattern that rat pups who got licked a lot as babies, when they grew up, they licked their babies a lot and the rat pups who didn't get licked a lot, when they grew up, they didn't lick their babies. You picked him up right from the hospital? Okay, and then I just had to accept it. SAM KEAN: This was a really, really big effect. They have six, seven, eight, ten, fourteen.]. SAM KEAN: What's happening during this time is that you're setting aside the stock of cells that you're going to draw on in the future to make sperm cells. You just haven't evolved for this and there's no way you can, at least not quickly. Where we sought, they will find. CARL ZIMMER: He actually named his daughter Lacerta, which is a genus of lizard. We talked to her for a little while and At a certain point the social worker pulls out a stack of papers. DESTINY HARRIS: Yes. So he actually went to Vienna. I mean, it's pretty common but like, here's a for instance, my dad from my entire life had this thing where if someone was whistling, he would. JAD: I tell you what I'm going to do though. So imagine the DNA in that brain cell. OLOV BYGREN: Well, the DNA, the RNA, micro-RNAs, histone. Last one he makes a very careful study of this hand 27, 2023 and he,... Could be pregnant again next month. ] rat mom and they have these headlines that come out come! 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