Peptide tans, brain charge and seeing in the dark
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is a Triple J podcast. Hello, welcome to another episode of Science with Dr. Carl in your podcast feed. And I wanted to read you some of the texts that came through this week that made their way into the episode as questions. Now, this is verbatim. I have a genuine pinecone inquiry for Dr. Carl. I love that wording, genuine pinecone inquiry.
What questions does Dr. Karl address in this episode?
Naturally, we said we need to find out more about this. Bree in Newcastle, how the hell does a plane just take off the ground? I think we've all wondered that. And Gaynor texted in saying, I would love to know how far do fish see? I have a fish pond inside and I swear they watch me when I'm inside. What is going on with these fish? You're going to find out all of this and more in this week's episode. Let's jump in. Dr Karl is across from me right now. Dr Karl, how are you?
I'm so peachy keen.
Yeah, what's been happening? What's one thing you learnt this week?
Zempic. So that drug came to us from the Giller Monster nearly 50 years ago in 1980. We first started working on it and it took nearly 45 years for it to come to market and we've discovered that it has all sorts of other effects.
So hang on, the Giller Monster. The Giller Monster.
How does a plane take off from the ground?
So I've heard of a Giller Monster on a King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard song.
What?
They have a song called Gilla, Gilla Monster. Wow.
It's a creature that is a short, fat reptile, maybe half a metre long, moves slowly, spends 95% of the time underground. That checks out.
How far can fish actually see?
Hardly eats any food. Oh. And that ties in with the ability of it to make a chemical in its venom that that can, in humans, ultimately end up leading to treating diabetes and insulin. This little creature is bottom right-hand corner of the USA and just in Mexico on the other side, and it comes out with a chemical called a peptide, which is about 30 or 40 amino acids long. I've been getting a little bit worried about people cheerfully saying, oh, I'm taking peptides, and so now my boob muscles are terrific and my arm muscles are terrific and I'm look-maxing. And if you're looking even at just... 10 peptides, 10 amino acids in a row. So a peptide is made of amino acids. And if you're just looking at a short one with only 10 amino acids, the number of different possible combinations are greater than a number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy.
Whoa. And the stuff that they're manufacturing is not made to medical standards. And so it can do this and sometimes it can do that and people have died from taking the peptides. Peptide covers an infinity of sins and so that's our public services announcement for today. Be careful.
Okay.
Be careful out there, folks. Can we say it in a sort of meaningful way? Do we sound like somebody letting the cops go out on a night shift?
How would you say it?
Be careful out there, man. I don't know.
What led you to this discovery? Were you reading something?
Yeah, I was reading an article in the New York Times about it and that just started me on the fact I didn't know what ozempic was. I didn't know that we made our own natural ozempic and surprisingly in our brain and in the far end of the gut and it has effects on the gut but also on the brain but it's got a half-life of two minutes. Hmm. And the good thing about the Gila monster, the venom that it makes, the peptide, it's roughly half the amino acids the same as what we make, but instead of lasting for two minutes, it lasts for hours. Right. And we've even triggered it to last for days. And you're in the situation now where obesity is relatively major in the USA. Yeah. On the other hand, the side effects of the Zempi can be very high and people go off it, even though they lose weight, because they've got vomiting, nausea, all sorts of messy stuff.
Yeah, there's still a lot we don't know. If you've got a question, 0439-757-555 on that. Dr. Kyle, it's just you and me today. You know, we've had a few really great guests recently. We had Peter Lebedev talking about AI. We had Hannah Gould last week talking about the science of death and dying. So, hey, if you want to check in on those episodes.
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