Level Up Human - Steve Backshall vs Kate Storrs

Level Up Human Series 2, Episode 11: Steve Backshall vs Kate Storrs

Level Up Human is a podcast panel show, on a mission to redesign the human body.

Simon and Rach chat to naturalist and broadcaster Steve Backshall and visual perception scientist Kate Storrs.

We discuss enhanced vision, limb regeneration, gecko hands, super kidneys and re-breathing.

Transcript

Extracts from the episode, edited for readability

In the news... Kate is tickled and baffled by a news story about Microsoft. They have patented to generate cryptocurrency by monitoring people's brain activity.

Steve's news story is entitled, 'Venomous Frogs use Heads as Weapons.'

And Rach's levelled up human is Bertolt Meyer, a DJ, producer and Professor of Organisational Psychology from Technische Universität Chemnitz who has hacked his prosthetic hand to hook it up to his synth.

The Pitches Steve wants to borrow the abilities of the Iberian sharp-ribbed newt, a type of salamander which can regenerate limbs and organs.

Steve: The sharp-ribbed salamander has extraordinary powers of regeneration.

After it has squeezed its body - forced its own sharpened ribs out through the sides of its body - causing real wounds to the body of the salamander - you come back an hour or so after it's gone through this whole process and it's completely healed.

And that is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to amphibians and regeneration and healing.

So what I want suggest is that we take on the ability of amphibians, particularly of salamanders, to regrow their limbs and even parts of their organs when they get damaged.

Kate, on the other hands, thinks the human body should be able to see the polarisation of light

Kate: Lots of animals, nearly all invertebrates, can see not only how much light is reflected off a surface and what colour that light is but they can see which way the lightwave is wiggling.

So when light waves travel along they oscillate in a certain direction.

They can oscillate up and down or they can oscillate side to side.

And lots of animals, particularly cuttlefish, bees, crickets and locusts can see which way the light is wiggling as it bounces off surfaces.

It turns out to be really useful, particularly for navigation.

If you could look at the sky on a clear day and you can see the direction of polarization you would see the sky as a whole grid, laid out telling you exactly where the sun was.

Even if it's below the horizon, even if it hasn't risen yet or it's set. You would see this perfect grid, overlaid on the sky like a compass map.

From the audience, we have suggestions including souped up kidneys and gecko hands.

Finally Simon has a suggestion from nature.

Simon: It's name is Anolis aquaticus. And effectively what it has in its head is a pad of skin and it has an inbuilt rebreather.

So whenever it's diving it can stay underwater for 16 minutes because it can pretty much, as it exhales, put that bubble of water back into that bubble wrap pop head and use the muscles there to contract it and put it back into its lungs. So it can use the same lung full of breath again and again.

Which of our suggestions will make Rachel's shortlist? Which will win? Listen to find out.

Mentioned this episode

Deep Neural Networks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_learning

Microsoft has filed a patent to mine cryptocurrencies using your brainwaves: https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/a32318654/microsoft-brainwaves-mine-cryptocurrency

Venomous frogs use heads as weapons: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280753150_Venomous_Frogs_Use_Heads_as_Weapons

Golden poison frog: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/amphibians/g/golden-poison-frog/

Pig-nosed purple frog: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2ZKePuOrUE

Bertolt Meyer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSKBtEBRWi4

Disabled or superhuman?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVZyVz8gBeQ

Axolotyl: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axolotl

Macrophages: https://www.news-medical.net/life-sciences/Macrophage-Function.aspx

Pluripotent stem cells: https://www.nature.com/subjects/pluripotent-stem-cells