Laura: Hello, and welcome to not another episode of Lex Education. Because it's better than another episode. It's a special episode. It's a guest episode of Lex Education. Obviously, I always have one guest. Rona guest. Yeah, it's quite rude, actually. Guest here at my invitation and expelled as soon as he plays up. Hello, Ron.
Ron: Hello. I'm Ron. How's it going, Norm?
Laura: Oh. What?
Ron: I said, how's it going, Lauren? Sorry.
Laura: Oh, um, it's good. Except for we were just discussing. I've just pushed sun cream into my eye. That stings. Um, but it was either that or my eye just itched. And yesterday they itched so much that all the whites went red and I looked like a little vampire. It was horrible. Um. Um. Ron's not the only guest today, though. Ron. Ron. It's a special episode.
Ron: Special episode. Happy two years to your birthday.
Laura: To us, dear birthday to us happy birthday.
Beck Hill: That's a party plot blower.
Laura: Party plot blower. We love party.
Beck Hill: I was gonna say party like pl, but then I was like, I don't know what I'm trying to go with. Pl. What word would that have been? Party pl.
Laura: Part party plosive. Party maker.
Beck Hill: Yeah.
Ron: Party plosive.
Laura: I like party plot blower.
Beck Hill: Sure.
Laura: I think that's what we've got, a party plot blower. Um, it's Bechill, everybody.
Beck Hill: Yay. It's me. It's me, you guys.
Laura: Hi. Thanks so much for coming on our silly podcast.
Beck Hill: Oh, my gosh, I love it. I kind of feel like. Like you're my mate, and I've snuck into your school for a day, and I'm like, it's so different from my school.
Laura: Yeah.
Beck Hill: My brother is a maths teacher, and. Yeah. So this is not a new. Not a new feeling for me, being schooled by my own little brother.
Laura: Yeah.
Ron: Is he rude to you in the same way?
Beck Hill: Uh, I would say in a brotherly love kind of way.
Ron: Not the same way, then. Okay.
Laura: Ron, you do love me. You do. Ron, our contract for the podcast says you have to love me.
Beck Hill: I thought that Ron agreed to do a podcast is, uh, already. That's proof. Proof of love. Proof of concept right there.
Laura: Yeah.
Ron: It's never enough.
Beck Hill: You can deny it all you want, Ron, but the more you show up, the more you're proving it.
Ron: Yeah, yeah. No, I think getting it in writing might help, though. That would just be irrefutable. And it could stop some of the pissing and moaning that Laura does a lot of the time.
Laura: I'd still have to cheque though, that the contract still held up though, so you'd have to send me a written copy every day. And after each recording, if we'd had an argument. Um, okay, well listen, now that we've got my neediness out of the way, um, for a minute, Ron, do you still love me?
Ron: Yep.
Laura: Yes.
How do you feel about science? Talk to us about how you feel
Okay, um, bec, talk to us about how you feel.
Ron: Yes.
Laura: I'm so loved listeners. Everybody has to say out loud right now, still love you. Laura, um, how do you feel about science?
Beck Hill: Ah, like in general, I came to it late in life. I'm like you. So in school I found a loophole that meant that if I started. So we have a year ten, like we go up to year twelve. We don't do like, it's not called like a levels or anything, but year twelve is like, like the furthest you can go in high school. And I found out in year ten that if you switched to computer sciences, you didn't have to do one of the three main, like you didn't have to do biology, chemistry or physics, which meant that I could still get like the right scores to go through to year twelve, but I didn't have to do the parts that I found very boring, um, so much more employable. Well, computer science for me was very easy because that was at that sweet spot where the Internet became, uh, like the Internet became a sort of accessible thing when I was about twelve. And so we were all learning to use the Internet at the same time as well as like your general Microsoft office type stuff. So a lot of the time we knew more than the teachers. So computer science was like the easiest subject to do because if you had a computer at home and a dad who works in it like I did, uh, then you, um. Yeah, it was pretty, pretty, pretty easy. So did you do a lot of clip art? So much clip art. So much clip art. But then in, um, maybe about, ah,
00:05:00
Beck Hill: seven years ago, I reckon six or seven years ago. Um, because I've always liked Sci-Fi as a subject. So I wanted, I had an idea for a Sci-Fi sitcom that I wanted to pitch. And the more I sort of wrote it, the more I wanted like a lot of stuff to be built on fact. So then I started like going on a fact hunting thing about space and stuff and then that led me down all these rabbit holes. And now, um, that ended up with me asking Matt Parker, fellow comedian, ah, but mathematician from the youtubes, he uh, goes by stand up maths. Um, I've been friends with him for many years and I knew his wife was an astrophysicist, so I was asking for her help. But because of that, he and I ended up becoming closer and closer friends. So now we have a podcast where people send us maths problems, and we try and solve them.
Laura: See, uh, now we always find that the maths is the bit that we both die during, because it's not visual, we don't have fun describing it, and we both get nosebleeds. So was the map. Hang on.
I have a question going back to when you did computer science
I have a question going back to when you did computer science. What bit did you jettison then? Did you. Which one of the three did you choose to get rid of?
Beck Hill: Oh, um, well, because it was general science that covered all three up until that point, and then you had to choose one.
Ron: That's what we do, general science.
Beck Hill: Yeah. Now, as an adult, uh, I find myself covering sort of all topics, but wishing I knew more about all of them. I've read so many more research papers as an adult that I ever thought. I never went to uni. But here I am in, like, my late thirties, reading, like, research papers and.
Laura: Uh, and being a maths lady, and.
Beck Hill: Yeah, well, I wouldn't say I am. I would say that I'm more interested in finding out about it. The nice thing about the, it's like you. It's like you guys with your I. With your show. It's because I don't know anything about maths that much. Matt, like, I have to understand what he's trying to explain. And fortunately, he's very good at explaining in layman's terms, so. And if I don't understand, I will say, I don't follow. I don't understand. And so we try and find a middle ground. I work very well with analogies, so quite m often it's me going, is it like, you know, is it like if you were entering the lottery, but then 20 other people were entering, and then he'll be like, he'll either go, yes, that's it. Or he'll go, kind of, which is Matt speak for no, but well done for trying. Let's try again.
Laura: The big difference between understand, um, we just scream at each other for a while.
Ron: Yeah, that's why I was gonna say that the big difference between, um, their podcast and ours lore is that a Matt is a very skilled communicator. I'm a fan, by the way. I'm just playing it very cool. And also, they like each other a lot more than we do.
Laura: We love each other deeply.
Beck Hill: I don't know if I would say.
Ron: That it's a lot more patience.
Laura: Yeah, that's Ron's fault, is what, on that side, what we're saying.
M. I find teeth very fascinating. It's probably because I had a lot of dental work
Um, okay, so, bec, do you want to talk us through your subject? So I messaged you in and said, please, will you come on for our second year anniversary, just before we teeter into third year. How exciting. In fact, this is the first episode of third year, isn't it? Our two year anniversary. Um, and I said, what are you interested in? And you were like, I love space. And I was like, sorry, mate, M. Darabrian beat you to space. You can't do space two years in a row. Otherwise all of our anniversaries will be space. And there's probably enough space signs to do space again. But I thought we probably shouldn't.
Beck Hill: Yeah.
Laura: And I said, what else do you like? What did you say back?
Beck Hill: I said, teeth. I find teeth very fascinating.
Laura: Which I just love that your two scientific interests are, uh, space and teeth. Like, one couldn't be further away from your face and the other one isn't.
Beck Hill: Literally right under your nose. Yep.
Laura: What do you love about teeth?
Beck Hill: I don't know. I've just always been fascinated by them. It's probably because I had to have a lot of, like, dental work as a kid. Like, I had very, you know, the big book of british smiles, like that episode of Simpsons, and they're, like, showing. They show Lisa what her teeth will look like if they go unchecked. And it, like, goes right through her skull and comes out the other side. Um, that's kind of what my teeth were like. Like, they were really, really crooked, very, like, and really growing in weird directions. So I had, like, a plate, you know, like a, ah, retainer.
Laura: Yeah.
Beck Hill: And I had braces, uh, and I've had wires behind my teeth since I was, like, since the braces came off. Um, and I just always found them really interesting. They're bones that we shed, and I think that's fascinating. Um, in terms of our baby
00:10:00
Beck Hill: teeth. Uh, uh, I've had. I've broken teeth. It's a horrible feeling. Um, yeah. There's just, I don't know, there's something very visceral about teeth that when you lose a baby tooth, you don't think of it as being traumatic, but as an adult, you can still remember the feeling of a wobbly tooth, of getting your tongue underneath the bottom. You can remember the feeling of the gum when there's no tooth there. Like, you hold on to that feeling for the rest of your life, which is insane. Because there's so many things that happen when you're younger that you wouldn't really remember the feeling of or what that was like. But you remember teeth. You remember losing teeth. And, um, yeah. And so then I, a couple, just before lockdown, actually, I put out a thing saying I want to be the adult tooth fairy. So there's the tooth fairy for children. But I was like, what if you're over 18 and you either, like, you know, the tooth fairy never took your baby teeth, um, or, you know, like, you've still got them, um, rattling around at home. Or if, uh, you have a tooth extracted, you know, why don't you get a reward for that? So I said, if anyone wants to sell me their teeth, I will. I'll pay two pounds a tooth or five pounds for extracted teeth. M or, like, adult teeth or a pint. And with the way inflation's going, that's actually a better deal, depending on where you live. Take the pint. Um, so, yeah, so I've now bought teeth from a few people. I'm trying to, uh, the last one, I was like, actually, I should interview them. So I'm trying to get into a habit of, like, when I, when I buy teeth from people, I interview them, and one day I'll put it all together. But I'm also like, there's, you know what it's like, laura, you have a thousand projects on the go at once, and, yeah, what you're doing, I have.
Rankin collects dog's teeth and makes them into jewellery
Laura: To cut at this point, though, to Ron and ask for his thoughts, because.
Beck Hill: Uh, do you have teeth you want to sell?
Laura: No, we have backstory on teeth. I'm so excited because I, when Mackie, my dog's teeth, fell out, kept them all. I gathered up all these tiny little puppy teeth and I kept them all, and I had them in a little jar. And then when Ron discovered that I had done this, he threw them away out of a window and called me a horrible old witch.
Beck Hill: Wow.
Ron: That's not completely true. I made you throw them away. Uh, I made you go through the process of doing that. Um, and I stand by it because you're keeping a jar of dog's teeth on the mantelpiece like, it wasn't, like, squirrelled away. And where sentimental things should be, they.
Beck Hill: Were pride of place to not throw it out. It's on display. I don't come around your house and throw your pictures out the window.
Laura: No.
Ron: If I've got a jar of dirty, rotten specks, I would thank you for throwing them away.
Laura: I loved them and now I've had people make them into jewellery. I could have worn Mackie's teeth as a little necklace or earrings.
Beck Hill: Yeah, I think that was the thing that tipped me over into becoming the adult tooth fairy, because my mum came to visit and she broke a tooth while she was, uh, here, uh, like, eating a salad. Weirdly, I don't know what was in the salad, but something like, uh, it was her back molar and it was one of the molars that had, uh, like, a little bit of gold filling attached. And, um, I was like, ah, ah, can I have it? Because I was like, that'd be a really cool thing to put on a pendant. Like, it's got a bit of gold and it's my mum's. And I was like, you know, like, I feel connected and she wouldn't let me have it and thought I was being silly, but I still think that it would have been a really nice thing.
Ron: I think at this point it might be apropos to start for do two episodes of this podcast. You guys crack on. You can nerd out teeth. I'll make another one with your mum. We can talk about how they're icky.
Beck Hill: The way you worded it, sounds like you and my m mum have been meeting in secret to do podcasting. Good for sue. I'm glad she's getting some.
Laura: Ron, is there no one that you love enough that you'd wear their teeth.
Ron: Like, well, if I had to, sure. Like, if it stopped them from getting leprosy or something, then sure, I'd wear a tooth, but I just, um. Um, like, I don't know how we've gotten from, you know, their bones that live outside in your mouth. They hang from your lips like bats. But, um, do we should be wearing them as jewellery? I'd like. We don't do that with fingernails.
Laura: I'm wearing them as mouth jewellery.
Beck Hill: Yeah, they're basically already natural jewellery. You show them off when you're happy.
Laura: Yeah, yeah.
Ron: But we don't do it with, um, um, like, fingernails or the dust that you get out of ped eggs. I just don't know why teeth would be.
Laura: Oh, did I ever tell you the story of my. That I think it was one of older sister of the podcast's friends who found her baby eating the contents of her ped egg.
Ron: Yeah, that is Rankin.
00:15:00
Beck Hill: Yeah. I'm not advocating we eat the teeth.
Laura: No, but you kind of. I think I've definitely eaten one of my teeth before because the wobbly tooth came out while I was having a snickers bar and I never found it. I think I swallowed that one.
Beck Hill: I mean, I'm hoping it came out at some point.
Laura: What did you say, Ron?
Ron: You need to chew more if there could be a tooth in your snickers. Yeah.
Beck Hill: How did you not notice a lump that biggest.
Laura: Oh, you know, one chew, swallow, one chew, swallow. That's my rule. I don't care what I'm eating. Soup or, uh, sweet.
Beck Hill: You eat them all like oysters, don't you?
Laura: Everything I carry around, a load of oyster shells and everything I'm eating, I just put it in an oyster shell. Tabasco on it, throw it down.
Beck Hill: Yeah, you shuck. You shuck your snickers out of the wrapper.
Laura: I'm a rotten horror.
Ron: Um, I am starting to realise that I might be in the minority about the teeth thing, though, because I had a tooth out at the end of last year. Um, first time I've ever had that done. And he had to split it into three bits, like the three different routes to pull it out. And he showed me each individual bit as he did it, and I was just like, yeah, okay. Why? Like, this is, this is a really viscerally horrible experience. Please stop involving me in it.
Beck Hill: What are your feelings about, like, like blackhead removal or pimple popping or ear cleaning, that sort of stuff?
Ron: Um, that's better. Um, I don't watch them online, but I think I do understand the draw of their, of that.
Laura: Do you not find that like I would have. I like to. I've had lots of teeth out over the years because I had teeth very similar sounding to Beck's as a child. And, um, seeing the root stuff was always really cool.
Ron: No, I think if it lives in the gums, leave it there. That's, that's my mantra.
Laura: Okay. Okay.
Beck Hill: Which is very specific mantra, but it's, it's not done you wrong so far.
Ron: Yeah. Specific and simple.
Ron has looked at the history of teeth, even tooth evolution
Laura: Well, should we move on to some teeth facts then? Because I'm very excited by all the research I've done about teeth, Laura. So Ron has looked at the hit, like, the history of teeth, even tooth evolution. Is that right, Ron?
Ron: That's what you asked me to do and I didn't really do that. Um.
Laura: God, you literally text me before we started, though, and said you had done that.
Ron: No, I said I'd kind of done that. So the thing about talking about evolution is that, like, sure, we could sit around and be like, how do teeth evolved? Well, they were at first not a lot like teeth, and then they were a bit more like, teeth. And now, guess what? They're teeth. Um, so what I actually did was I, um, looked into mammal teeth, um, because mammals are quite unique for having what's called, um, very extreme dentition. Um, it's kind of unique to us as a thing. So, like, if you look in, like, a lizard's mouth or something, all of those teeth are basically the same. Like, they'll all just be, like, sharp pointers, whereas, you know, we've got incisors and molars and canines and stuff.
Beck Hill: Specific. I like that. Sharp pointers is now.
Ron: Sharp pointers, not dull pointers. Um, and, um, yeah, so I've done a bit about that.
Laura: Okay, well, do you want to talk through yours? And I will pepper in my interesting animals, which this will work out really well, because a lot of mine are not mammals, because I found the mammal teeth the most boring. Um, and I've got loads of them.
Beck Hill: I'm intrigued to see if baleen comes into this.
Laura: Baleen. It kind of does. In fact, why don't we start there? Where's my guy? Um, okay, yeah. All right, then I'll start with this guy because this was one of my favourite ones. Um, let me get a picture up of this guy that I can share with you.
Ronnie: There are many mammals with wicked teeth, but this one is cool
Um, so my first, uh, animal with wicked teeth is the, uh, crabby to seal.
Ron: Um, I know these teeth.
Laura: They're really cool, aren't they, Ronnie? Now find an image.
Ron: I don't know if you know this about Laura, but be prepared for a list of all fucking mammals. She, um, just doesn't know what a mammal is, literally. Number, uh, one is a mammal.
Laura: Okay. But I said there weren't many mammals, but this one is cool, so. Bet. Can you see that? Can I share that? Okay, so this is a rabbi to see y'all's teeth. Do you want to describe them for the listener? I will put all these on Instagram.
Beck Hill: Yeah, they look like. They look like, um. Sort of. They almost look like if, ah, maori tribal art was to be turned into a tooth. Um, they're sort of, uh, wavy or almost like how you would draw a fire or that sort of, um, japanese art of waves kind of thing.
Laura: It's hard to explain.
Beck Hill: They are triangular, but with lots of little bits coming off.
00:20:00
Laura: Yes. Like. Yeah, like a crude drawing of a fire. So this is the crab eater seal, which, contrary to its name, does not really live off crabs. Um, the teeth are sort of wiggly shaped, and they're interlocked so that they can philtre krill like a whale's baleen so they, uh, because they have been seen eating crabs, they do eat crabs and cephalopods, which is what presumably how they got their name is because that's what we can see them eat. But then obviously, as we've understood ocean life more and more, we've realised that krill is about 90% of their diet. Um, and it's such a nutrient rich food and not something that's targeted by other seals living in Antarctica that krabby to seals are, I think, the most abundant. They're definitely the most abundant seal. There's at least 7 million in Antarctica and they're trying to get a better, like, census done and there are estimates that there could be up to 50 million of them, which would make them the most abundant large mammal on earth. Largely down to these awesome little teeth that are all wiggly piggly together and, um, philtre the krill for them, but also allow them to eat cephalopods.
Beck Hill: Philtre the krill. Philtre the krill is also just a great thing to say.
Laura: Yeah, yeah. It would be quite cool to like, you know, you can have your teeth shaved down, have them shaved into the shape, like crabby to see.
Beck Hill: Yes, I feel like that would somewhat get towards the core of your tooth. But yes, they are incredible.
Laura: They'd be terribly unusable. But Ron, if I had a pet crab eater seal and their teeth came out, would you let me keep those to make a necklace?
Ron: Yeah, that would be fine. Um, that'd be pretty cowabunga. I think they've got a vibe to them.
Laura: Wicked. Okay, continue, Ron.
Ron: Um, thank you.
Most mammals can be identified just by looking at their teeth, um
Um, so, yeah, mammals, they have not only, um, very, very different teeth, but also very, very unique teeth. Um, so most mammals can actually be identified just by looking at their teeth, um, which does, uh, several interesting things. It means that we can tell a lot about them, uh, from their diet and stuff by looking at the teeth, because we can usually work out what the functions of them are. Also means that our fossil record for mammals is great because you can just find like, one tooth and be like, okay, cool, an elephant lived here or something. The interesting thing about it is that it's a very, very old thing, um, in mammals. So theraspids, um, is the group that mammals belong to. There used to be other theraspids, and the precursors to mammals were also theraspids. All of the other ones have died out apart from mammals. Um, but they had this as well. Um, so it goes back a long, long time to a geological era called the Permian so this is pre, sort of the age of the dinosaurs, which is usually thought as like the mesozoic, you know, the Triassic, the Jurassic and the Cretaceous. This is like the era before that. So the land before time. The land before time. But, uh, the land before the land before time. Before the longnecks and the.
Beck Hill: Yes, you're correct.
Ron: And the sharp teeth. Um. Uh, so this is 300 to 250 million years ago.
Laura: Whoa.
Ron: I, um, was looking up what was going on, um, at this time. It's when the first conifers evolved. So no Christmas trees before. Before, um, the Permian. Um, and it's when metamorphosis in insects first happened. Um, so no butterflies or moths, um, before this point either.
Laura: Wow. Okay.
Ron: Yeah. Um, so they were doing that, Christmas trees and butterflies, we would getting our teeth. Um, I did, I did look into a bit about sort of the history of teeth, um, in general.
Ron: Why do we not have many fossils of early, early life
But as I said.
Laura: Hang on though, Ron, I've got an animal that we could quickly discuss here because.
Ron: Fire away.
Laura: It fits in with your time frame. Um, the lamprey eel, uh, which I will get up to show you. So this one, Beck, this is right up your street because the lambre eel has inspired quite a lot of Sci-Fi stuff. Uh, let me share my screen with you. This is the lampreyle's mouth.
Beck Hill: M. Okay, so for the listeners, it looks like something from stranger things.
Laura: Yes, it is. It's, it's very. So it's got concentric rings of teeth. Um, and it, they are disgusting. And obviously the lamprey eel is long and thin and so it's kind of the stuff of nightmares, like this biggest mouth coming towards. I think it's inspired. It said in
00:25:00
Laura: one of the websites I was looking at, it's inspired. Is it the bit in Star wars where they're throwing things into the pit?
Ron: The sarlacc pit?
Laura: Yes, that thing.
Beck Hill: Yeah, there is something a bit like that, or graboids with Kevin Bacon, if you remember that. Um, I haven't seen June, but I suspect the big worms in that are similar. I don't know.
Laura: Yeah, so the reason I'm interjecting here, Ron, is because the lamprey eel split off in its evolutionary chain before the development of bone. So the teeth in the lamprey eel are, ah, keratin, same as our fingers and hair, uh, because lampreys are older than the dinosaurs. So possibly from a similar sort of timeframe to what we're talking about now.
Ron: Yeah, I think a bit before. So the, um, that means that they must, they probably split off around the, the cambrian explosion.
Laura: Ooh. Um.
Ron: Do we know what this is? Do I need to explain? So the cambrian explosion, um, happened. The Cambrian was a period from about 540 to 490 million years ago. Um, and, um, this is where like, basically just kind of shit started actually happening. So before that, life was very, very simple, um, not loads of big things and not that many different types of things. We think this is half a billion years ago, so it's actually quite hard to tell. We've been discussing fossils recently, Laura. Why do we not have many fossils of early, early life?
Laura: Two reasons. One, no bones. Um, two, lots of geological movement since, because of the length of time there's been. So fossils get lost.
Ron: Absolutely. Um, so the cambrian is when that sort of stopped being a thing. This is where trilobites come from. Uh, you know the guys that look like real kind of, um, no, they look like super punk woodlice.
Laura: Yeah, that's what I'm doing, Ron, but it's a bad impression.
Ron: I. What's this?
Laura: That's the little, they look a little.
Beck Hill: Bit like slaters, don't they? Slaters, you never get, you don't get slaters over here.
Laura: What's a slater?
Beck Hill: It's a, it's an insect that. Um, now I'm like, wait, did I make this up? I'm doing slaters.
Ron: Oh, they do look like slaters. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Beck Hill: Yeah. Oh, it's coming up under woodlice. So there you go. Probably the same thing I want.
Ron: I've googled, when I've googled slaters though, it looks like very luxe woodlice, like they've just got a bit of trim to them, a bit of schwa de vivre. Um, yeah, so the cambrian explosion happened then. Um, this is when, yeah, there was seemingly, um, just a huge diversification, but then also, um, increase in biomass everywhere. So we've just got shared loads of fossils from there. And this is also where the origins of teeth come from. Um, so because the first vertebrates, um, ah, arise in this time, and basically the star of every group of animals that we have around today can basically trace back to this period of, um, Earth's history.
Laura: Okay.
Ron: The earliest vertebrates did not have teeth themselves. Um, they were sort of slimy fish, uh, very, very simple creatures. They actually had no mineralized. Well, like, well, I don't really know what they were like on the outside, but they didn't have scales yet. Um, so they had no mineralized tissue at all. Yeah, just fleshy fish. Um, um, yeah, that's the, that's where the teeth go back to, but then.
Beck Hill: That other animals grow teeth so that they could eat the animals with, like, if vertebrates didn't have the first vertebrates didn't have teeth, but then the animals that would have eaten them would have needed a way of crunching them down.
Ron: Eh, I'm gonna level with you. I was reading like a big book about this this morning, but then I ran out of pages I could look at, um, for free. Um, so I don't know. That's as far as I got on.
Beck Hill: The evolution of teeth. It's a hypothetical.
Ron: It sounds about right to me. But this was like 200 million years, um, before the whole mammal thing kicks off. So by then we've got, you know, the sharp pointers, ah, aforementioned, uh, that lizards have, um, and then mammals decide that there, that's not good enough for them, they're going to really kick it up a notch. Um, can anyone hazard a guess as to why, uh.
Beck Hill: Was I close with my other thing? Is it to do with them starting to eat more like protein rich stuff?
00:30:00
Laura: Is it the opposite? Is it herbivorousness?
Ron: No, it's actually kind of both. Um, so, um, by having, uh, being able to diversify their teeth, it means that mammals were able to fill a hell of a lot more niches than other stuff, because there's only so many jobs that like, if you have a mouthful of the same thing that you can do, whereas if you have, like, you, um, know, like humans are omnivorous, like, we can eat vegetation and we can eat meat because we have teeth to handle both situations. The thing that drove me knife of mouths. Exactly.
Laura: Hang on a minute, Ron, I'm gonna, I'm gonna interrupt you with some very specialised teeth.
Dragonfish live 500 metres below sea level and have super-dark teeth
Henny, we're gonna jump off the mammal train and onto the fish train. We're gonna look at the dragonfish. Look at this, lad. Isn't this horrific?
Beck Hill: Yeah, it looks like, um, ah, from, it looks like it's from aliens. It also looks a little bit like if a bat was possessed by a demon.
Laura: Yeah, yeah, it is really, really gross. Now, this is a dragonfish. It lives below the light in the ocean. So I think it was about 500 metres below sea level. So super, super, super dark. Um, they have teeth that in structure are similar like human teeth in that they have an inner dentin layer that's very dense, surrounded by a sort of enamel layer on the outside. But researchers started doing research into these teeth and found some really fascinating stuff. So inside the teeth of the outer layer, they have these really tiny nanocrystals that prevent light from reflecting off the teeth surface so that the teeth don't show up in the darkness of the deep ocean. Because a lot of the prey of the dragonfish are phosphorescent fish that are, uh, giving off their own life. So these teeth don't reflect that, and it helps the dragonfish eat them. Um, the the teeth are also thinner, um, which helps them scatter less light and appear more translucent. And also the, uh, stomach of these fish. And the mouth is completely black, so that when they're digesting and eating these glowing fish, uh, it doesn't give the game away. And other fish can't see see it being digested inside this fish.
Ron: That's very, very cool.
Beck Hill: Why are they called dragonfish down there? You're just swimming along and the next thing you know, you've been eaten.
Laura: Yeah, yeah. You don't see this guy coming at all. I don't know why they're called dragonfish. They kind of look a bit dragon y, I guess.
Ron: Hard life for the dragonfish, though.
Beck Hill: Pictures. Some of them seem to have fins that come out like wings.
Ron: Of. It just feels like nobody's, nobody down there would know about their super high tech teeth. M it must be kind of upsetting. Oh, they are a bit dragony when they're still in the water.
Mammals have specialised teeth because they're warm blooded
Anywho, back to mammals. Um, not fish. Uh, so, yes, so they, um, swiss army knife teeth, um, so that they can fill lots of different niches. Um, the reason, um, well, one of the things that sort of drove them to do that, uh, is something that's, um, not unique to mammals. M but something that makes us very, very special is the fact that we're warm blooded.
Laura: Okay.
Ron: Um, so endothermy, it's called this, um, basically means that we can live in more habitats and things. You know, we can live on the poles and stuff. Um, we can live in different, uh, climates, live underground, because we can make our own heat. Also very good at being nocturnal lizards and stuff. Not very good at doing that. So that also that kind of has, um, that has a double effect. One very high energy cost for making all that heat. Um, we have to burn a lot of calories, keep him warm. Um, but also by then, um, uh, flying around at night and stuff, we then, um, are, uh, open to a lot more different niches and stuff. And therefore, then need to specialise our teeth to deal with all of these different things. Having these crazy teeth, essentially, um, means that we can increase, uh, the quantity, quality and digestibility of all of the different foods.
Laura: Because. Yeah, because the more you can mush it down, the easier it is on your stomach and stuff.
Ron: Exactly. And that mushing, then, um, means you can get more calories out of it, because then you're not just passing more calories and you're not spending more calories digesting it inside you.
Laura: So if a cow spent more time evolving its teeth, it wouldn't have had to evolve four stomachs or whatever it is. One stomach with four sections.
Ron: Um, well, cows are mammals, so they do have
00:35:00
Ron: specialised teeth. Uh, for. Cows are mammals, yeah.
Beck Hill: Another episode of is it a mammal?
Laura: We could do, like, ten episodes.
Ron: I just don't get it, though. Is it. Does it have m hair? Yes. Mammal.
Laura: But then there's loads of rules such as broken, because there's always a weird one, like, um. What are they called?
Ron: I can't think of the word.
Laura: All I can think of is quesadilla.
Beck Hill: Dolphins. Yeah.
Laura: Yeah. Like, they're mammals, aren't they?
Ron: They are mammals. Warm blooded mammal.
Laura: How do I know that they're warm blooded?
Ron: Some things you just have to remember.
Laura: That was driving along at the speed as some orcas that were next to it. And I met Taylor Swift. I had the raddest dream in the world last night. Yeah.
Beck Hill: Ah. It was entirely about mammals.
Ron: Taylor Swift's got very specialised, uh, teeth as well. Um, probably caps.
Beck Hill: Yeah, specialised, yeah, that's true.
The sheepshead fish has peculiarly human looking teeth
Laura: Do you want to hear about a fish that's got a mammal's name?
Ron: Yep.
Laura: The sheepshead fish. Um, this is that fish where there's a very funny meme. Um, that's like, why does this fish look british? I don't know if you've ever seen this, uh, one. Let me find this guy. Here he is. Let's share this one with you. Um, this is the sheepshead fish, and it's got peculiarly human looking teeth. They really look like human front teeth, don't they?
Beck Hill: They really do. To the point that I've immediately gone to snopes to double cheque. But it does appear that they are correct. Yeah. That that's how much they look like human teeth. I would buy these. If anyone has any sheep teeth, I would buy these. Um.
Laura: Wow.
Beck Hill: Their teeth is better than mine in this picture.
Laura: Yeah. I mean, I would pay to have teeth that straight so that the front ones, they really look like our front teeth. And then they have rows and rows and rows of teeth, like in this picture, you can see them in the base and roof of the mouth, um, like rollers. Yeah, they lose, as they lose the teeth, the new teeth shuffle forward, which is like sharks, I think. Do that. Do they? Yeah, yeah. Um, so the teeth, they don't start out as hard as this when the sharks are, uh, growing and developing. Um, but they get harder and harder as the fish age to help them because they have a diet of shelled fish, mollusks and barnacles and stuff like that is what they eat. So they need pretty solid teeth that can replace themselves as they break and fall out.
Ron: I don't know if they look like sheep, though.
Laura: No, I don't think they look like sheep, but maybe sheep have teeth kind of like that.
Beck Hill: I was gonna say, don't sheep have similar teeth? That would make sense as to why it's a sheep's head.
Laura: Hmm.
Ron: Oh, yeah, I guess they do kind of look like sheep teeth.
Beck Hill: Yeah, just have.
Ron: Does she not have teeth on the top?
Laura: No, they don't. That's why sheep can't bite you. They just have, like, a firm ridge. That's why, like, children often go to petting zoos and feed teeth, because they can't bite you.
Beck Hill: Feed cheap meat. You said feed teeth, but I think you meant feed cheap, right?
Laura: No. You never been to a tooth farm and fed the teeth.
Ron: Do you remember that book we had when we were kids, Laura? And it was like about the tooth fairy? Um, and then, um, she made a castle. Yeah, she made the castle out of the teeth. But then the kid started selling her sweet corn that had been painted white and then the castle fell down.
Laura: Yeah, I do remember that book.
Beck Hill: Imagine if you had, like, if your teeth were like sweet corn. I had sweet corn for dinner last night. Um, the sheep head. The sheep head teeth. The sheep head fish reminds me of the bump head parrotfish.
Laura: The parrotfish is on my list, Beck.
Beck Hill: Ah. Uh, yes, I've done a tour. Talk about the bumphead parrotfish for a, um, ugly, uh, animals preservation society gig. Uh, because they are, um, endangered from overfishing, but, yeah, they look like a game show host.
Laura: Yes. Oh, well, you can join me when we get to. Oh, we can do parrotfish now if you like.
Ron: I don't think there's going to be a better segue than them literally getting brought up.
Laura: Yeah. So the parrotfish is completely on my list. And I've actually, I've got tonnes about the parrotfish because, um, I found a very scientific page about it. So let me open this and share it with you and then we can have a look at this. So this is from the Smithsonian website.
00:40:00
Laura: Um, looking at, uh, parrotfish. Oh, I've got so many tabs open, lads. Um, where's Mehden? Parrotfish. Well, that's not what I wanted, is it? Hold up. Tough teeth and parrotfish poop.
Parrotfish eat coral and they poop out sand, so lots of sand
Here we go. So, yes, because parrotfish eat coral.
Beck Hill: Yes.
Laura: So lots of sand is actually parrotfish poop.
Beck Hill: Yeah, exactly. If you're on a nice beach with some lovely, lovely sand. Most of it's been ground down by parrotfish.
Laura: Yeah. This is a parrotfish. Go away, little tab. I don't want you. Okay, so, yeah, this is the parrotfish. I'll leave this image up here. No, stop. Anyway, it's got an annoying tab on it, but there you go. So they, um, they eat coral. M. And, uh, they sort of munch the coral down, poop out sand. They also eat algae on the coral as well, so they are very good for coral reef ecosystems. Um, and they poop out sand. One large parrotfish can produce 450 kilos of sand in a year, which is roughly the weight of a baby grand piano.
Beck Hill: Whoa. What a weird measurement for sand. Couldn't find anything. That's such a privileged analogy.
Laura: Yes.
Beck Hill: It's almost like the size of a.
Laura: Baby grand piano, which we're all very familiar with.
Beck Hill: Yeah. It's not something that a sheep head fish would say. Yeah.
Laura: Have you ever seen two grand pianos fucking, though? It is insane. Um.
Ron: Loud.
Laura: Very loud.
Beck Hill: Yeah.
Laura: Beck, you're excluded from this guessing game because you've studied them before, but, Ron, do you want to guess how many teeth a parrotfish has?
Ron: Um, I think it's just two. Just those big shiners are up at the front 1000. That seems very convenient.
Laura: Like, roughly a thousand teeth, says lined up in 15 rows and cemented together to form the beak structure, which they, like, bite into the coral, and then they wear out and fall onto the ocean floor. And then more teeth come through.
Beck Hill: But more teeth. More teeth.
Laura: Um, so maybe you need to do some diving to find these teeth on the ocean floor. Beck.
Beck Hill: Yeah. What? Or just, you know, I was gonna say get some sand, but that's not the same thing, is it?
Laura: Uh, that's poop, too. I think people would post you their poop.
Ron: Be the poop fairy.
Beck Hill: I could buy it. Yeah.
Laura: Please don't. Please don't. I don't want to be the start of that face.
Beck Hill: There is a poop fairy. It's just no one's willing to put their poo under their pillow to see.
Ron: Jillian McKeith sneaks in through the winter.
Laura: So the biophysicist doctor pupa or pupa Gilbert Segway found when they looked into the composition of parrot teeth, um, they're actually an intricate crystal structure. So let me find the page because this bit looked really cool. So I don't know if you can see that. I don't know why this pop up won't go away. Um, but basically they, uh.
Beck Hill: It looks like a pattern that you would see on a t shirt at a rave.
Laura: Yeah. Almost like a magic eye pattern, isn't it?
Beck Hill: Yeah.
Laura: So this was, they did, uh, pic mapping. Um, so parrotfish teeth are made of a material called fluoropatite, which is. Contains, um, calcium, fluorine, phosphorus and oxygen, and is the second hardest biomineral in the world. Um, it's the hardest. Scores a five on the mohs hardness scale, making their teeth harder than copper, silver and gold. No biomineral in the world is stiffer than the tips of parrotfish teeth. They can withstand a lot of pressure. One square inch of parrotfish teeth can tolerate 530 tonnes of pressure, which is the equivalent, uh, to the weight of about 88 elephants.
Beck Hill: Whoa.
Laura: Slightly less privileged. Why do we stop that?
Beck Hill: Why do we have crappy teeth that break?
Laura: Because we don't eat coral. Our grandparents did not have the foresight to start eating coral.
Beck Hill: We should start that now so that our, you know, in the future, our children, children's children, will have nice, strong
00:45:00
Beck Hill: teeth.
Laura: All right. Well, yeah. Anybody that's planning on breeding out there, get munching on M Coral.
You need to pick the kids with the hardest teeth
Beck Hill: I had a quick look for what creates what has the hardest.
Laura: Ron, I know that it's. I know that it's a spectrum, Ron. I know that they won't just pass teeth down to their children, but you got to start somewhere.
Ron: No, no. Biting coral doesn't make your teeth harder. You need to pick the kids with the hardest teeth.
Laura: What, and get them to eat coral?
Ron: No, get them to fuck.
Beck Hill: Kids. Can you at least wait till they're adults? Jeez. You heard it here first, folks. I had a quick look into what the hardest biomineral is.
Laura: I think Ron's been doing that too, because he went very quiet for a while. Go for it, Beck. What's the hardest part?
Beck Hill: No, no, I want Ron to say it because he'll probably. I'm just guessing from what I found.
Ron: No, no, please. You're the guest. Why don't you go ahead? I don't want to. I don't think I could pronounce this word.
Laura: You can't spell guest without guess.
Beck Hill: Yeah. Cause it's. Cause, uh. So it's a class of marine mollusk that creates the hardest biomineral of any animal. They have abrasion resistant self sharpening teeth, but they're called, it's spelled c h I t o n s. It could be Cheetons, but I think it might be shit ons.
Laura: Nice.
Ron: Titans. Tell you what, these guys look like slaters.
Beck Hill: Yeah. Ah, you wouldn't want to shit on their teeth.
Laura: Sand might come out. Okay, well they've got the hardest teeth.
Beck Hill: But shit on, shit out.
Laura: That's how they become, um, karate masters deep under the sea. Um, this doctor whose name I've forgotten, Doctor Gilbert, um, they developed a tool to have a look at the crystal structure of the parrotfish teeth and um, take pictures of the crystals. Uh, and it sort of colour codes to look how the. So that's the images that we're looking at now currently. And again, I'll put this on Instagram. So that's what you're looking at with the colour coding there. Each colour is a different crystal formation and the structure of parrot teeth was unique. They'd never seen this before. Um, the crystals are in interwoven bundles that form, form a chainmail pattern. And the specific structure is something that they're using to try and create more abrasion resistant moving parts in manufacturing. So they're actually copying parrot teeth in order to improve the wear and tear and life of different inventions.
Beck Hill: That's so human. Just to look at nature and steal the best inventions. And I think you are how we.
Laura: Got where we are, baby.
Beck Hill: I believe it is chitonse. That's funny though. Yeah.
Ron: This one's called the shit on squamosus.
Beck Hill: That's fun. I feel like someone called shit on was the person who was like, nah, it's pronounced chiton. Yeah, like a misses bucket.
Laura: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Some mammals will just continuously grow teeth, other mammals do it differently
Ron: Okay, so back to mammals. Um, neither parrots nor fish are mammals, um, but mammals, most of them are, uh, di. Phyodonts. This is, uh, uh, this is the word for having baby teeth and then adult teeth, two sets die as in two. Um, weirdly, did you know that the proper word for baby teeth is deciduous teeth? Like deciduous trees, they're leaves.
Laura: I did not know that. That's cool.
Beck Hill: Yeah, makes sense.
Ron: Um, but there are some mammals that are polyphyodonts. Um, these include elephants, kangaroos and manatees. So they will just continuously grow teeth. Um, um, and then to round off the stuff that I did, I've just got a couple of shout, uh, outs to some weird mammals that do it slightly differently. Um, rabbits, um, they often, or legomorphs, they often shed their deciduous teeth before they're born.
Laura: So is that like, why do they.
Beck Hill: Even have them in the first place?
Ron: Yeah, I don't know.
Laura: Is that just like an evolutionary thing that they now don't need but haven't got rid of in the.
Ron: Yeah, uh, yeah. Like vestigial teeth, essentially.
Laura: So do they all stay in the womb or do they come out in the birth?
Ron: I don't know, but I just imagine like if you. Because people have rabbits as pets and if they were like, you know, if a little baby rabbit fell out, plus twice as many teeth every time, that, uh, you'd think people would notice.
Beck Hill: They're pretty small when they're born, though. I bet you barely even notice. I bet they're like
00:50:00
Beck Hill: teeny, not even grains of sand kind of thing.
Laura: I've held like an hour old rabbit and they're teeny tiny and rabbits like have them in like a hay hutch thing. So I think the average person, you'd have to like clean out all the hay and like looking for a tooth needle and a haystack.
Beck Hill: Yeah.
Ron: Other shout out to elephants. So elephants tusks are, ah, actually specialised in sizes. Those are, ah, the flat, um, slicer guys at the front of your mouth. Um, which I thought was interesting. No, you think right.
Beck Hill: Canines would have more in common.
Ron: Yeah. Um, elephants are, um, polyphyodonts, aka keep on growing teeth. They have teeth very similar to manatees. And it said that, uh, elephants are believed to have gone an aquatic phase of their evolution.
Laura: Oh, yeah.
Beck Hill: Um, that seems to track, I feel. What, how obviously they're not used for eating now.
Ron: Digging up food and fighting, apparently.
Laura: Yeah. Like you can ease up tree roots and stuff, I guess. Can't you find tubers?
Ron: Um, and then the last one was just rodents, um, whose teeth just continuously grow because they just wear them down at the top. Which is why you have to let, uh, you know, um, your pet rats and stuff, chew stuff because otherwise they will. To take this full circle, Lisa Simpson grow their teeth straight through their own heads.
Beck: The deer pig has weird teeth. How do these exist?
Laura: Well, and, um, what a segway into my next animal, which is the babirusa or deer pig. Let me find this guy for you. Uh, and shazzy, shazzy, shazzy, because this guy has that stuff going on. Baberoosa, this is the deer pig or barberossa m. Uh, and I got my information here from the San Diego zoo website, which when it was written as sandiegozoo.com, i was reading as San Diego. And then it was only when I clicked on, I was, oh, my God, you're an idiot, San Diego. Um, so they have m. They have these tusk teeth. You see the ones in the bottom of the jaw? Pretty standard tusk kind of teeth.
Beck Hill: But then they imagine from like a warthog or something.
Laura: Yeah, yeah, that kind of thing. Then. Can you see that there's a second set?
Beck Hill: Yeah.
Laura: Now those, this is where this, um, uh, deer pig thing is weird. Those are actually hop canines which start growing down fang style. Then they turn around and grow back up, and if not ground down, point through the snout as seen on this one that we're looking at now. You can see they have pierced through the face of the pig. And if not ground down at, uh, that stage, they can just keep growing back into the skull of the pig.
Beck Hill: That feels like an evolutionary failure. How do these exist?
Laura: I guess enough of them are grinding them down enough that it's not killing them that this is happening.
Ron: Um, because they seem fine when it happens. Like, uh, yeah, I don't seem that bothered. They're still big, big fat lads.
Laura: Yeah. I guess they're all content with these piercings, same as we're content with our, uh, ear piercings and whatnot. So they can get that, I think they're quite brittle, these teeth. So they do get snapped off in fights sometimes, or they do, um, grind down fairly regularly. But I think they're not entirely sure why they have these teeth like this. So there was a hypothesis that they used them for fighting. Um, or that these grow up as sort of face protection during fighting. But then once they started to observe them fighting and study that, um, they don't fight with their tusks. They stand up on their back legs and, like, box with their feet. Little fighting pigs having a little, like, squabble.
Beck Hill: That's very cute.
Laura: Yeah. So they're not entirely sure why these teeth. Like, I think the leading hypothesis at the moment is that it's, uh, like a bird of paradise sitch. You know, like, bigger your teeth, the better you're doing.
Ron: I hate them.
Laura: It's weird, isn't it?
Beck Hill: Yeah, it's very weird. I find it interesting when animals display physical traits which seem to be, uh, counter intuitive.
Laura: Yeah, yeah. I know what you mean. You're like, surely this should have killed you off sometimes.
Ron: That's the point, though, um, especially if they have, um, sexual selection, because then it becomes a thing of, like you say, like, look how big my teeth are. I've actually grown teeth
00:55:00
Ron: through my own head and I'm still alive and cool. Um, so I'd probably be a good father to your children is maybe what the pigs are trying to say with.
Laura: Their hideous teeth and sort of horrible faces.
Beck Hill: Yeah, it's kind of like how people get their face pierced.
Laura: Yeah. There. Do you remember that phase, Beck? We're the same age where people would get their cheeks pierced and have like, yes. Spaces in their things so that they had, they had like, holes in their mouths, basically. Horrible.
Beck Hill: Yeah. I mean, it's the same with lip piercings, isn't it?
Laura: Yeah, but they put the stretchers in them so that, you know, I don't.
Beck Hill: Know, I feel like I would just end up drooling all over my pillow if I had cheeks.
Laura: It caused loads of tooth problems because obviously your teeth were exposed all the time and you had to drink through a straw because you couldn't.
Beck Hill: I remember my dentist, um, telling me when it was a very big phase of, um. Uh, I mean, I know it's still a thing, but I remember when lip bottom lip piercings were, became very, very popular when I was in high school and my dentist being like, don't you go get a lip piercing, because the, the other side of it would, they were saying, loads of dentists were saying that it would rub up against the, inside the bottom incisors and wear them down.
Laura: Yeah, well, uh, good, like, good dentist you have.
Beck Hill: Is it that weird that an animal does this when we as humans, will actively choose to do things like that to ourselves?
Laura: Yeah, it's, yeah, it is all about that, like, differentiationing, isn't it? Um, that's not a word. Um, right. How many animals have I got left? I've got, I've got quite a few. So I'll race through a couple of them and then I've saved one for last. That's a bit different.
Sea urchins have a pyramid shaped structure made of calcium carbonate
Um, so I've got some more sea creatures, the, um, sea urchin. So sea urchins have a pyramid shaped structure made of calcium carbonate, which is basically the, I think what coral is made of. Um, the pyramid is made of several triangle shaped plates and each one has like, a hook on the end, which is the tooth. Um, and then the pyramid can move up and down and tilt and scrape things. Oh, hello, baby. And grasp and burrow and sort of chew up bits of rock. And when these plates are sort of moving against each other, they're sharpening each other as they go, um, which is kind of cool. Um, and the proper name for the urchin's biological claw is Aristotle's lantern.
Beck Hill: Interesting. I mean, looking at them, I wouldn't have, unless Aristotle's lantern was, like, a euphemism for his butthole. They look like buttholes with teeth. I imagine it's kind of like the animal version of. Do you see those ads on the tube for, like, it's like a shaver, a handheld shaver for bald men who want to just go all over. That's kind of what I imagine how these teeth work. Is it grab anything at any angle?
Laura: Yeah, a little epilator.
Beck Hill: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Laura: They're very, very, um. Um, powerful, though. They've got quite strong jaws, I think. And, um, sea, uh, urchins can, like, absolutely cane through a forest of sea kelp, apparently. Um, so they're quite efficient.
Ron: Um, yes, Ron, I was gonna say. Yeah, I think because they basically, they just eat the base of it, and then the kelp floats away. Um, which is why they fuck it up. Yeah.
Laura: Um, then I liked the cookie cutter shark. So the cookie cutter shark was only discovered when, um, people started doing diving and going down with sonar equipment, and then it was coming up full of holes because the cookie cutter shark basically clamps on with its top teeth and then spins around using its bottom teeth to, like, om nom, nom, nom, nom, nom, nom. And then moves back with a, leaving a perfect circle of flesh missing or rubber seal or whatever it is that it's clumped onto. So they lift. Yeah.
Beck Hill: Round. Cookie cutter. Wow.
Laura: Yeah. It, like, lives really deep, waits for a big, um, ocean dweller, like a big mammal. Clumps on, eats a little circle of flesh, and then clumps off again. So doesn't, like, finish eating anything, just kind of clumps on, chomps a circle out of you, and then sods off again.
Beck Hill: I mean, I suppose if you were gonna get eaten, I guess that's the preference, isn't it?
Laura: Yeah. It always makes me think of, like, in the russian army, or is it the german army trying to invade Russia, where they had to eat their horses, and it was so cold that they would slice bits off the back of their horse, and the horse didn't notice because it was the horse.
Beck Hill: 100% noticed, I suppose, if it's freezing. But, you know, there's no way the horse did not know.
Ron: I don't understand what niche the cookie cutter shark is filling. Like, how, uh,
01:00:00
Ron: is, how is its thing that it eats a small amount of the available food and then leave?
Beck Hill: Well, because I guess it's nothing. It's not big enough to fight another animal or to, uh, like, take on a full animal, but this way, it gets to have some. But the animal continues to live and go on, maybe even grow some of the skin back. You know, it's almost. It's probably more sustainable, isn't it?
Laura: It's the green party of animals.
Beck Hill: Yeah. Yeah, that's right.
Laura: Yeah. A sustainable farming method called just take a bite and then walk away.
Beck Hill: Yeah, maybe that's.
Laura: That feels like a diet our parents were definitely on in the nineties.
Beck Hill: Yeah, it does. Take a bite and walk away. Yeah. That's why I never kill all my cakes.
Camels are renowned for killing their owners if mistreated
Laura: Um, okay, my penultimate one, just because I thought this was fascinating, and I went down a bit of a rabbit hole researching this dromedary. Camels, they have teeth that can grow up to three inches long and have powerful enough jaws to crush a human skull.
Beck Hill: Whoa.
Laura: Yeah. Right.
Beck Hill: How did they find that out?
Laura: Well, camels have killed loads of people, and because camels. Grouchy. If you mistreat camels, like camels, are renowned for killing their owners. If they are mistreated, they will snap and just bite their heads off or bite their necks, or they, like, chomp on the neck and shake the body around, and then they'll trample or crush the skull with their jaws. And I ended up. I tried to watch some videos, but they'd been taken off the Internet, which means that they were super gross. Um, but I found an article about a camel that had killed its owner, and then local villagers had captured it. And I think it's a translation issue. But there was a line that really amused me where it said, the villagers caught the camel, tied it to a tree, and then to calm the camel, the villagers started beating it with sticks.
Beck Hill: Calm down. That's the. That is like the violent equivalent of when someone tells you to calm down. Yeah, calm down. It's like, that's not helping. That is not gonna make me calm down. I, um, didn't know that about camels. That's fascinating. I love that. I want to see Ascot, but with camp, like, I know they do camel racing.
Laura: Yes. In Dubai, they do camera camel racing.
Beck Hill: I wish Ascot was like that, because then if they, like, tripped or whatever, then it would actually have to be the rider that gets put down.
Laura: Yeah. Um, I believe in camel racing, they use robot jockeys. Um, yeah, I understand why I used to have.
Beck Hill: Oh, I thought. I thought because they're not going to eat. They're not going to bite their heads off or something.
Laura: Maybe that, too. But also the lightness, I believe.
Beck Hill: Let's just cut out the middleman and race robots.
Laura: Yeah. Ah, I bet that's coming. Robot wars. Robot races. But which gender are they? I mean, that's the real problem.
Beck Hill: Formula one, if not robot races, but with human. Human riders.
Ron: Yes.
Laura: Isn't that cars?
Beck Hill: That's what I meant.
Laura: Oh, excuse me. That's the joke.
Beck: This is helicoprion, or the chainsaw shark
Okay, guys, are you ready for my final set of weird teeth?
Beck Hill: Yes.
Laura: I've saved the weirdest for last. And this is my only extinct animal. This is helicoprion.
Ron: I know the boy.
Laura: So do you want to describe this, Beck?
Beck Hill: Uh, yeah, you've basically shown, um, if you were to ask AI to draw a shark with a bit of a zebra, mixed, uh, with, uh, a bent, like a circular saw, a bench saw. Is that what they're called? Some high powered tools? Yeah, that's kind of what we're looking at here.
Laura: That is exactly what we've got here. So this is helicoprion, or the chainsaw shark, which is extinct. Um, my information comes from scientificamerican.com. so, um, the helicoprion, it basically does have like, it looks like a buzz saw. It looks exactly like a buzzsaw. That's what I'm talking about. Um, it was actually one humongous tooth with dozens of visible crowns coming out of one continuous root, um, sticking out like that in this big circle in its mouth. Um, the first fossil finds were, uh, made in the 19th century, and they were shaped like the remains of ammonoids, um, the sort of spiral things. I think I can picture what that means. But it had studs along the side, the spiral, um, and nobody quite knew where this went. There were lots of theories about where this feature must go in a shark. Like, what is this from? What's it doing? And then in the past decade, researchers were doing ct analysis
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Laura: of fossils and found evidence for the connective cartilage, um, way down that showed the way this was actually situated. Um, and one of the scientists speaking said the thing that was so confusing about helicoprion was that the tooth wall, well, was a midline structure. So it was like a pizza cutter stuck in a quart of ice cream in the middle of the shark's lower jaw. Um, and what do you think this tooth developed for? What do you think the shark.
Beck Hill: Sorry, did the science give that analogy of a piece of cutter in a tub of ice cream?
Laura: Yeah.
Beck Hill: Why a tub of ice cream?
Laura: I guess it must be like soft muscle or something. Thing that the.
Beck Hill: Either that, uh, or they were just looking around the kitchen.
Laura: This interview hungry?
Beck Hill: I'm sorry, you were asking me a question.
Laura: What do you think this not a shark, because it technically isn't a shark. What do you think it used this tooth for? Ron, any ideas?
Ron: Seaweed.
Laura: Interesting. Beck. Ah. Uh.
Beck Hill: Uh, probably like, just doing some underwater landscaping. Hey, just like, I don't know, some seaweed topiary.
Laura: Shaping hedges into the shape of trains. Um, no, it's actually this tooth in this shape. Like, this was actually like a snail fork. It was used for being able to, like, very successfully pull mollusks out of their shells. So I guess it would get a bit of it stuck on the end and then it could sort of twist.
Beck Hill: Back conveyor it towards its gullet, scoop.
Laura: It out of its shell.
Beck Hill: Clever.
Laura: Yeah. Isn't that wild? So, yes. Uh, likened the tooth to a snail fork, but the size of a large dinner plate or even a bicycle wheel. And embedded in a sharky beast, at least 20 and perhaps 30ft long.
Beck Hill: I always. With things like this, I always end up thinking, like, at what point are we going to realise we're wrong?
Laura: Yeah.
Beck Hill: These sorts of fossils and stuff, like, because I feel like there's a lot of conclusions, um, that are drawn from fossils that we've all just taken as fact. I was at the Natural History museum recently and I was looking at, you know, they were showing, um, castings of fossils and how they work out what a dinosaur all looked like from those fossils and stuff. But a lot of it is guesswork, where they've just kind of put together the pieces and been like, pretty sure this is what it is. I know that sometimes you get, like, a full skeleton and it's like, well, that's very useful. But with others, like, with this, I found a lot of the fossils that came up when I looked up were, like, just of the teeth. And I can't help but feel like, how do we know this wasn't just a giant snail with, like, an interesting, like, shell? I'm sure that they do not know that. There's smarter people than me out there.
Laura: That's how I feel every time I ask a question. I'm like, uh, you're missing so many of the pieces that they've had to put it together. But, like, I think in this case, like, there was a bit how they were saying, this technically isn't a shark, and it's because of the way they've worked out that this tooth was attached to the skull and sharks don't have that. So this, um, this animal actually, like, branched off before sharks branched off. So it isn't a shark or it was part of a branch that didn't go on to become sharks or something like that. But, yeah, I think a lot of it, Ron, isn't it, is comparing it to things that we definitely know how it works and therefore making the best educated guess.
Ron: Yeah, it's all educated guesses. Um, in the fossil record, basically, there's some cool stuff that you can do, like, you, um, can do, like, ion analysis of, uh, tooth fossils. And then, uh, that will basically have traces of what they were eating. And then you can work out if they were carnivores and stuff. Like, there is some empirical science, but when it comes to assembling them, yes, it's a lot of this, uh, looks like the bone from this thing, and we know what that thing looks like. So this was probably the same.
Laura: Yeah.
Beck Hill: Hmm. Well, that is fascinating.
Laura: Well, thank you so much, Beck Hill, for coming to celebrate two whole years completed in the Lex education schoolroom.
Beck Hill: Um, our cotton on lasting two full years.
Laura: Yeah. We're very proud of ourselves. We have been nothing if not consistent. Yes, we have literally been nothing except consistent.
Beck Hill: Thank you for listening. We hope you love us on this episode
Anyway, um, do you want to tell us the name of your podcast so that listeners can go and find it? They already listen, but you can have one of our two listeners if you like.
Beck Hill: Oh, yeah, yeah. Uh, you can, uh, hear Matt M. Parker and I on a problem squared. Uh, and if you're too. If you're done with learning things, um, and actually maybe actively want to unlearn things, uh, I have a hate watch podcast
01:10:00
Beck Hill: of Emily in Paris called enemy in Paris, where I, Sam Keefer, a, uh, sound engineer from LA, and I are re watching all of Emily in Paris and tearing it to pieces. Um, we've had some pretty great guests on, so cheque it out.
Laura: Love it. Thank you so much, Beck Hill.
Beck Hill: Thanks.
Laura: Thank you for listening. We hope you. No, we don't hope you love us on this episode. We love you.
Ron: You dismissed.
Laura: Second year dismissed.
Beck Hill: Yay. School's outlandish.
01:10:51
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