Cosmic Queries: Primate Evolution

Paleoanthropologist Dr. Ian Tattersall is back to help Neil deGrasse Tyson and Eugene Mirman answer fan questions about where primates came from, and where we’re going. Read more and listen to the full show at: http://www.startalkradio.net/show/cosmic-queries-primate-evolution

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.

• 0:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. In studio is Eugene Mirman. Eugene.

• 0:30Eugene Mirman?

  Hello.

• 0:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're a funny guy Eugene.

• 0:32Eugene Mirman?

  Thank you.

• 0:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Anybody ever tell you that?

• 0:34Eugene Mirman?

  I've heard it occasionally, mostly my mom, some people on the web.

• 0:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Couple of people.

• 0:39Eugene Mirman?

  You're extremely knowledgeable, as well as likable.

• 0:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Couple of people on the web. Today, we're doing cosmic queries.

• 0:46Eugene Mirman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 0:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cosmic queries themed to evolution.

• 0:50Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 0:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Evolution. Now, stars evolve, the universe evolves, but that's generally not what people are gonna be asking us about.

• 0:56Eugene Mirman?

  No.

• 0:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I did not want to do this alone. I gotta get back up on this. So I combed the holes of the American Museum of Natural History and found one of its leading evolution experts. And he's a paleo-evolutionary about...

• 1:12Eugene Mirman?

  Paleoanthropologist.

• 1:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Paleoanthropologist.

• 1:14Speaker 02

  Something like that.

• 1:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Dr. Ian Tarnasol. Ian, welcome to StarTalk.

• 1:18Speaker 02

  Hello, thanks.

• 1:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And thanks for joining us for our Planet of the Apes show. That was good to have you on there.

• 1:23Speaker 02

  Oh, that was fun.

• 1:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And now we can take it to a new place.

• 1:26Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 1:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Finding out all about evolution in humans and all the like. Ian, you've written 20 books in your life. Would you start when you were six?

• 1:34Speaker 02

  No, I've just been trying to catch up for the last 30 years.

• 1:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. 20 books, and your latest one, How We Became Human, was that how? Did I get that right?

• 1:44Speaker 02

  The latest one published was called Masters of the Planet, about how we became human, trying to explain how the human species emerged.

• 1:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How we emerged. Okay, I might have some questions about that as we go on. But what we do for cosmic queries is we solicit questions from our fanbase. It's Twitter and Facebook and wherever else on our website. And I've never seen the questions. Ian certainly hasn't seen the questions.

• 2:06Eugene Mirman?

  No.

• 2:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Eugene, you have plucked these from the ether.

• 2:10Eugene Mirman?

  I have.

• 2:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Go for it.

• 2:11Eugene Mirman?

  All right. Levi Matamanuik wants to know.

• 2:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 2:16Eugene Mirman?

  If human evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys? It's a classic creationist argument, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, why are there still monkeys if humans?

• 2:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, Ian, Ian, we got you there, Ian.

• 2:30Speaker 02

  Well, humans didn't evolve from monkeys, otherwise it's perfectly correct. Uh, we have a common ancestor. About thirty million years ago, uh, monkeys went their way and we went ours. And then, uh, something like, uh, ten or twelve million years ago, the, uh, the orangutan went its own way. And we continued on our way along with the ancestor of the apes, of the other apes.

• 2:56Eugene Mirman?

  Right.

• 2:56Speaker 02

  And eventually differentiated about seven million years ago.

• 2:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what's the last ape we split, we split from?

• 3:02Speaker 02

  The last day we split from was the common ancestor of the bonobo and the chimpanzee.

• 3:06Eugene Mirman?

  Oh, no. And then they were like, we're gonna be awesome chimpanzees and we were like, we'll be people.

• 3:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, basically, basically.

• 3:13Eugene Mirman?

  But don't, what, why didn't those chimps realize it's much more fun to be people?

• 3:18Speaker 02

  Maybe it isn't.

• 3:20Eugene Mirman?

  Maybe it isn't.

• 3:20Speaker 02

  It would be actually a lot more fun to be a chimpanzee if there weren't any people around.

• 3:24Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 3:25Speaker 02

  But that's a separate question.

• 3:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nap.

• 3:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:27Eugene Mirman?

  But given that there are, it's definitely more fun to be a person.

• 3:30Speaker 02

  Uh, right now, I would say that the advantage is with us.

• 3:34Eugene Mirman?

  Yes, uh, for now.

• 3:36Speaker 02

  We only have ourselves to blame at least.

• 3:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But we saw the movie, it's only just for now that the advantage is human.

• 3:42Eugene Mirman?

  It's true.

• 3:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Next one, you.

• 3:44Eugene Mirman?

  All right. Lance Elliott wants to know, beyond natural selection, we also have artificial selection, such as what we've been doing to dogs for centuries. Does selective breeding do the same as evolution faster or not at all? And if it does cause evolution faster, could we possibly selectively breed chimps until they reach intelligence?

• 4:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh, yeah, why, why aren't we doing to chimps what we're doing to dogs?

• 4:10Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah, and creating super chimps that we can murder us.

• 4:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, we already have ourselves and that, I think that's probably enough for us to have to deal with right there. Um, why you would want to turn a chimpanzee into a human being when human beings are already out there really, uh, you know, messing up the world, I, I can't imagine.

• 4:30Eugene Mirman?

  Between buying a cake and making a cake, you can see the fun.

• 4:34Speaker 02

  Well, I suppose.

• 4:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, we're not turning chimps into humans, we're turning chimps into smart chimps.

• 4:38Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 4:39Speaker 02

  So any chimps in a smart chimps, um, you know, people have been trying to do things to, uh, to, to, to, to teach chimpanzees language. Turns out that chimpanzees can learn a lot of signs. They can manipulate symbols in their minds. They're gonna add them up anyway. Uh, but they just don't, uh, don't

• 4:59Eugene Mirman?

  They don't love doing it.

• 5:00Speaker 02

  Manipulate information the way we do. They have another way of

• 5:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, Ian, Ian. Neither are wolves cuddly lap creatures, but we turn them into, we turned wolves into cuddly city dogs that sit on your lap during dinner. So why can't, why aren't we doing that to other animals, to chimps?

• 5:22Speaker 02

  You know, I think dogs basically domesticated us, you know, dogs, uh, dogs, dogs are basically, uh, the, uh, the victims of their own, their own personal kind of relationship with human beings. Uh, chimpanzees aren't that way.

• 5:36Eugene Mirman?

  Meaning dogs decided they could get food easier if they just hung out with us than hunted it?

• 5:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And didn't bite us.

• 5:41Eugene Mirman?

  And didn't bite us.

• 5:42Speaker 02

  That's basically it.

• 5:43Eugene Mirman?

  And chimps are like, we can get food easier if we stay away from people.

• 5:46Speaker 02

  Exactly, exactly.

• 5:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Next question.

• 5:48Eugene Mirman?

  All right. Elad Avron wants to know.

• 5:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Are you doing your best to pronounce these people's names? I don't, I'm not sure.

• 5:55Eugene Mirman?

  Oh, how would you pronounce Elad Avron?

• 5:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, go on.

• 5:59Eugene Mirman?

  I feel like I am.

• 6:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 6:01Eugene Mirman?

  I mean, it's spelled J E F F. No. Um, Elad wants to know. Do you think it's appropriate to say that our technological advancements are part of our evolutionary path? Did we change or cheat evolution by enhancing our lives with technology? Or is the mere fact that we are able to invent that technology a part of our evolution?

• 6:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm with, what's his name again?

• 6:24Eugene Mirman?

  Uh, Elad.

• 6:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm with Elad on this, but we, we are humans, we are fleshy things and we create skyscrapers and subways and airplanes and spaceships. So that's our world.

• 6:36Speaker 02

  I think Elon has a really good observation here. And I think that basically we have a long, long history of biological evolution. But I think right now, all the action is on the cultural level. It's on the technological level. I don't think we're going anywhere as biological creatures. But boy, we're having a hard time keeping up with our own technology.

• 6:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but we've got people in the lab stirring our genome. Why isn't that just right on the next headline?

• 7:01Speaker 02

  You can stir up the genome all you want, but you need to keep it into a separate inside a separate population. I mean, you can get into some pretty morally hazardous scenarios.

• 7:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What you're saying is you can mess with the gene, put them on an island and let that gene propagate, but this is an immoral experiment.

• 7:18Eugene Mirman?

  Like the Truman Show.

• 7:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like the Truman Show.

• 7:22Speaker 02

  There you go.

• 7:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, next. We've got like 30 seconds. Wait, you got a quick one?

• 7:28Eugene Mirman?

  Well, Philip Verossi has a, "Does technology affect or hinder evolution since we as a species are able to protect our weak who may host?"

• 7:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Great question.

• 7:37Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 7:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  "People who would have otherwise died out on the Serengeti, we keep alive till they're 80. What's up with that?"

• 7:43Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 7:44Speaker 02

  I think basically we are...

• 7:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No time.

• 7:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When we come back to StarTalk, we're gonna find out the morality of keeping weak people alive when we return to StarTalk Radio.

• 8:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  StarTalk, Cosmic Queries. Eugene, thanks for being here. Ian Tadassol, my friend and colleague, world famous monkey guy.

• 8:25Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 8:26Speaker 02

  Monkey guy?

• 8:27Eugene Mirman?

  A paleoanthropologist.

• 8:29Speaker 02

  Call me a lemur guy.

• 8:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, lemur. He studies lemurs.

• 8:31Eugene Mirman?

  Oh.

• 8:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In case you didn't know. Everything we know about lemurs is from the movie Madagascar. Just so you know.

• 8:37Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 8:38Speaker 02

  Everything he does.

• 8:38Eugene Mirman?

  Everything I know. And I haven't even seen the movie.

• 8:41Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 8:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So this week, we had a cliffhanger here.

• 8:44Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah. So Philip, sorry. Basically, he's like, why do we keep weak people alive?

• 8:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we interfering with evolution by bringing the miracles of modern medicine to keep people alive that would otherwise be dead or enable people to procreate who would have otherwise been impotent.

• 9:01Speaker 02

  Well, you know, as long as we're able to do it and we're able to afford to do it, what difference is it gonna make? We can compensate for some basic biological problems.

• 9:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we're rising above the limits of biological evolution.

• 9:15Speaker 02

  And as soon as we cease to be able to do that, uh, selection will take over and we'll go back to the status quo.

• 9:22Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 9:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a, that's a pretty straight answer there.

• 9:24Eugene Mirman?

  Also, some of those people, uh, might end up being really great musicians. You never know. It's worth it.

• 9:29Speaker 02

  It's true.

• 9:30Eugene Mirman?

  Uh, okay. Okay, so, uh.

• 9:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank you.

• 9:33Eugene Mirman?

  Cedric wants to know.

• 9:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Does Cedric have a last name?

• 9:38Eugene Mirman?

  Nothing goes by you? Yeah. Ev- Evilly.

• 9:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cedric Evilly, okay, go.

• 9:44Eugene Mirman?

  Cedric Evilly probably wants to know, do you think that the evolution of technology is a continuation of our biological evolution?

• 9:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Hmm.

• 9:54Speaker 02

  That is another really good question. Uh, yes, it is, uh, in a sense, because it's biologically enabled. Um, I think our biological evolution, as long as we're a huge population like we are today, is not going anywhere. But you can see change all around you on the technological scene. And this is where the action is gonna be in future.

• 10:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, just to be clear, when you said we're all here together, there's a deep implication there. We're not spawning branches of ourselves that could then speciate differently. We're all interbreeding, so we're, we're in this together in the same sandbox.

• 10:28Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 10:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that a fair characterization?

• 10:30Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 10:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So because of that, what, what can we do for ourselves? We now evolve our technology.

• 10:35Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 10:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, all right, cool.

• 10:37Speaker 02

  All right.

• 10:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cool. Ian, Ian, knocking him out.

• 10:40Eugene Mirman?

  Fernando Soares wants to know, in current human populations, a clear selection pressure isn't-

• 10:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fernando Soares? What? What's that name say?

• 10:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where, where's his name?

• 10:52Speaker 02

  Right there.

• 10:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, Fernando Sors, okay.

• 10:56Eugene Mirman?

  What?

• 10:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just.

• 10:56Eugene Mirman?

  What are you?

• 10:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I thought, I thought maybe you put some accent in it.

• 10:59Eugene Mirman?

  Fernando.

• 10:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Help the guy.

• 11:00Eugene Mirman?

  Fernando.

• 11:01Speaker 02

  What's his question?

• 11:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Go, what's his question?

• 11:03Eugene Mirman?

  Sorry, no, Neil, how would you pronounce S O R S?

• 11:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sors.

• 11:05Eugene Mirman?

  I'm curious.

• 11:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sors.

• 11:06Eugene Mirman?

  Oh, interesting, okay.

• 11:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I might say Sors.

• 11:10Eugene Mirman?

  Sure.

• 11:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fernando Sors.

• 11:11Eugene Mirman?

  You might.

• 11:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 11:12Eugene Mirman?

  But I'm, I'm pretty sure he's from Jersey. Oh, you did it. Anyway.

• 11:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's from Jersey, alright.

• 11:16Eugene Mirman?

  Alright, anyway, in current human populations, a clear selection pressure isn't observed for certain geotypes, genotypes over others. Most people can leave offspring. How will this affect human evolution?

• 11:29Speaker 02

  Well, as I was just saying, I think it means that we're not going anywhere biologically, that essentially that we're, we're static biologically until demographic circumstances change. But meanwhile, there's a lot going on in the cultural sphere to keep us amused.

• 11:43Eugene Mirman?

  So you're saying the X-Men franchise isn't totally realistic?

• 11:47Speaker 02

  Totally. Unrealistic.

• 11:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, wait, wait, so, it, what that says is because we all interbreed and we have airplanes to do it all around the world, the next time we.

• 11:58Eugene Mirman?

  That's why we made airplanes, to fly around having sex.

• 12:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We didn't want, there was no branch of the human species unmated with.

• 12:05Eugene Mirman?

  Exactly.

• 12:06Speaker 02

  Yes, as soon as you have the airplane, everything possible happens.

• 12:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, exactly, but you also spread disease faster and.

• 12:13Speaker 02

  Absolutely, yeah.

• 12:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At jet speed, but, uh, but, so it means if we speciate, it's gonna be because we send colonies to Mars or on generational ships to other star systems.

• 12:25Speaker 02

  Well, you're not gonna like this, because I think, yes, theoretically, you could send a colony in Mars, which was small and genetically unstable, could incorporate innovations and could speciate, but they'd be so far away that they would have no relevance at all to what was going on on Earth.

• 12:42Eugene Mirman?

  What do you mean? They would be.

• 12:43Speaker 02

  Mars is a long way away.

• 12:44Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah, but what if they came back and then we're like?

• 12:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, wait, yeah, that's no different from Australia, breaking away from its other mother continent and, and, and generating these weird marsupial creatures that you don't find anywhere else on Earth, same difference.

• 12:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:00Speaker 02

  We weren't around to see those strange marsupials either, until of course, the Aboriginal Australians got there and made them all extinct in a hurry. Uh, the fact is that we are here on Earth and we are on this planet, and as you say, we're all in it together. You send out a colony in Mars, it's so far away.

• 13:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what they said about Australia.

• 13:20Speaker 02

  Australia.

• 13:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so in a hundred years, as a wormhole, I get to Mars for lunch. It's not a convincing point to me.

• 13:27Speaker 02

  When Mars, when you can get to Mars for lunch, that'll change the rules. But right now, how long does it take to get to Mars?

• 13:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A long time.

• 13:35Eugene Mirman?

  How long in a...

• 13:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The fastest, nine months is the fastest.

• 13:40Eugene Mirman?

  Nine months? So you could totally go there and have sex. In fact, if you had sex and food there, you'd have a kid.

• 13:45Speaker 02

  You'd have nothing much else to do on the way there.

• 13:47Eugene Mirman?

  It's true. Well, you could bring a Vex Trex. You could bring video games.

• 13:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Next question.

• 13:52Eugene Mirman?

  Nick Mills wants to know, oh, well, what species do you think Eugene Mirman evolved from? Do you think they may still exist and evolve into more Eugene Mirman in the distant future?

• 14:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, let's think of this.

• 14:05Speaker 02

  I think that's a question for Eugene Mirman.

• 14:06Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 14:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, let's think of this. He's a comedy guy. He wrote his college thesis on comedy. So, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 14:14Eugene Mirman?

  Hey, you can study anything now. Welcome to America.

• 14:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You couldn't do that. And so, if he marries like a comedian and they have offspring, what, is the genome so randomizable that this is, these kind of experiments are not interesting?

• 14:31Speaker 02

  The genome is totally unpredictable. You know, it's like the lady who came up to George Bernard Shaw and said, "We should get together with my beauty and your brains. It'll be fine. Be great." And then he said, "Well, what about if the offspring gets your brains and my beauty?" Right? So you never know where all this stuff is going.

• 14:51Eugene Mirman?

  Right. Anyway, yeah, I am very special, so thank you, Nick Mills. Okay, Bill Straight wants to know, "I've heard some tribes of primates go to war with other tribes. Some have invented spears and slings. Do we have any way of knowing how long it might take them to move up to more advanced instruments of war?"

• 15:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I like to think of that question as they've got something, does the next generation of chimps see that and then improve upon it, the way we do in our libraries and our shared information?

• 15:17Speaker 02

  Okay, well, there are no other primates with spears and slings, for a start.

• 15:21Eugene Mirman?

  So Bill Straight is a little wrong.

• 15:23Speaker 02

  But what some chimpanzees do is pass along...

• 15:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, wait. We're primates and we have spears and slings, but they don't have...

• 15:29Speaker 02

  We are the only primates that do.

• 15:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so the rest of the primates don't, never had spears and slings?

• 15:34Speaker 02

  Nope.

• 15:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 15:35Eugene Mirman?

  Okay.

• 15:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, and they don't have spears because they can't throw?

• 15:40Speaker 02

  It's interesting chimpanzees, for example, they've got, they have elbow, I mean, sorry, shoulder joints which sort of aim upwards and although they can actually throw fairly accurately or they can throw something in your direction and it'll pretty much land in your direction, they can't throw very hard, they're very strong, but they can throw things very hard.

• 16:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So even with their long arms, they would never make a good major league pitcher?

• 16:03Speaker 02

  They'd make terrible pitches.

• 16:04Eugene Mirman?

  Much, much, much better to punch. chimps are much better punchers. Alright.

• 16:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright.

• 16:09Eugene Mirman?

  Spike Mike wants to know, can different species of apes interbreed and if so, will their offspring be fertile? I am asking because I worry about the bush family.

• 16:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 16:20Eugene Mirman?

  Um, I wanted him to say I'm asking for a friend, but can different species, basically, can different species of apes interbreed?

• 16:28Speaker 02

  Well, we all have things that we worry about. Uh, the, uh, basically, uh, uh, different species of apes today do not interbreed.

• 16:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Can they?

• 16:37Speaker 02

  Could they? Uh, nobody has tried. Nobody knows, uh, I think, I'm not sure if anybody's tried, uh, breeding bonobos with chimpanzees.

• 16:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh huh.

• 16:49Speaker 02

  Um, they might have interbred in the old days in, um, before it was recognized that they were different things and so's, but I don't know about that.

• 16:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But that would scramble the genome at that point.

• 17:00Speaker 02

  It would scramble the genome in a, in a minor way. Uh, the, the, the thing is, would, would, would, uh, an offspring, uh, be fully, uh, functional with, with either parental group? And the question is, we've got no idea.

• 17:14Eugene Mirman?

  Okay.

• 17:15Speaker 02

  The answer is rather.

• 17:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Interesting. So you have two different species, they'd have offspring and it's a question whether that offspring could make back with either one of the branches.

• 17:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, you can be, you could be incompatible, uh, at many, many different levels. You might not be able to form, uh, an embryo, for example, or you could bring the embryo to term and it wouldn't live, or it could be, uh, could live to adulthood and not be fertile, you know?

• 17:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A lot of genetic landmines in there. Interesting. Okay, 30 seconds.

• 17:41Eugene Mirman?

  Okay.

• 17:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Get another question.

• 17:43Eugene Mirman?

  Uh, Danny Hughes wanted to know, wants to know, shouldn't other primates have rights?

• 17:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, they're so almost human, should, yeah.

• 17:51Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah, why don't we let them vote? Or, or better yet, have an attorney? Why don't monkeys have more attorneys, apes have more attorneys?

• 17:58Speaker 02

  There are attorneys that believe that apes should, you know, the attorneys are very opportunistic. Um, but if they need, uh, they, you know, they need human beings to represent them in any kind of, uh, human, uh, environment. And so it's, uh, pretty hopeless.

• 18:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When we come back, more of Cosmic Queries.

• 18:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back to StarTalk Radio's Cosmic Queries.

• 18:41Eugene Mirman?

  So Dana Hughes asked, shouldn't other primates have rights? But they partially do, actually, right?

• 18:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do they have rights different from other animals?

• 18:47Speaker 02

  There is legislation in various countries, uh, protecting, um, animals, uh, uh, other primates, uh, for example. There's legislation in this country, which is, uh, just decree that they, that chimpanzees should no longer be used in medical experimentation and so on. So yes, in a sense, they have rights, but rights is a, is a human notion and rights are what humans give other animals rather than something inherent to them themselves.

• 19:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, just to paraphrase what you said, Ian, the rights we give chimps is laws that prevent us from killing them. That's, that's their right.

• 19:24Eugene Mirman?

  So we can give them that right, but we can't give them the right to, uh, happiness or a house?

• 19:29Speaker 02

  You could give them a right to, to a decent existence. Um, if this was your judgment, uh, it would be a wonderful thing to do, but you can give them rights to things that they cannot themselves conceive of.

• 19:41Eugene Mirman?

  Right.

• 19:42Speaker 02

  Like to, uh, to enjoy the, uh, metaphysical works of Marcel Proust or something.

• 19:49Eugene Mirman?

  I like that you're like, they can do that. But they wouldn't even really be able to enjoy, uh, uh, even a shorter book.

• 19:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's right.

• 19:57Eugene Mirman?

  They could.

• 19:57Speaker 02

  This is true too.

• 19:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I bet they totally get into Curious George, you know, that would be the total best seller.

• 20:02Eugene Mirman?

  And they might like the Beatles, um, but plants like the Beatles.

• 20:05Speaker 02

  Might is right, unfortunately.

• 20:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They like the monkeys, of course.

• 20:09Eugene Mirman?

  Oh, yeah, they might.

• 20:11Speaker 02

  Human beings are the bullies on the block.

• 20:13Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 20:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Next question.

• 20:15Eugene Mirman?

  Okay, Matt Ellie wants to know, Arthur C. Clarke wrote of primates in space to help with tasks. Do you see some primates possibly evolving with humans one day to make a home in interplanetary or multi-planetary cohabitation?

• 20:32Speaker 02

  I don't like to answer this one under the BDI, uh, over here, but in fact, much, uh, all, all, all the, the roles that are needed in space are much better done by instruments and robots anyway than they are by human beings.

• 20:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe he wrote that before, before robotics was really, had really taken hold.

• 20:49Eugene Mirman?

  We don't have monkeys right now doing like.

• 20:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Doing anything.

• 20:52Eugene Mirman?

  Traffic stops or anything.

• 20:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Doing anything.

• 20:54Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah, so I feel like the same way we don't, we wouldn't fly them into space.

• 20:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I bet he, I bet he wrote that after ham flu and, you know, or those early chimps, uh, in the early space age, cause they, you train them to hit some buttons and.

• 21:08Eugene Mirman?

  Sure.

• 21:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe that was his concept of that.

• 21:10Speaker 02

  They actually had to hit buttons while they were up there?

• 21:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I thought so.

• 21:14Eugene Mirman?

  Maybe, I don't know.

• 21:15Speaker 02

  No kidding.

• 21:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, that's what I thought, that there was some, it would turn on and they'd have to react.

• 21:19Speaker 02

  Really?

• 21:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But because they're, they're reacting under conditions that a human would then have to react under and they're just checking it, but, uh, I think you're right, we're way past that.

• 21:27Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah, exactly, but he doesn't know it, poor Matt.

• 21:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, he doesn't know, Arthur C. Clarke didn't know it at the time he posed that question. All right, next.

• 21:35Eugene Mirman?

  Okay, Alfred C. wants to know, in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, the primates are exposed to a drug which increases their intelligence, allowing them to be more creative and even speak like humans. In order for this boosted intelligence to pass on to offspring, wouldn't the drug have to affect and change the primate's DNA? Is it possible for a drug to alter DNA?

• 21:55Speaker 02

  Well, this is true and it's, there are lots of drugs out there.

• 21:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  True, you've heard it here on StarTalk.

• 22:00Speaker 02

  There you go.

• 22:01Eugene Mirman?

  I'm gonna start taking Alzheimer's medicine tomorrow.

• 22:04Speaker 02

  There's a lots of drugs out there that'll damage your DNA.

• 22:07Eugene Mirman?

  Oh, really?

• 22:08Speaker 02

  Uh, there are no drugs available that will have this particular effect on your DNA.

• 22:12Eugene Mirman?

  Wait, but there are drugs, so you could with drugs alter and affect DNA?

• 22:16Speaker 02

  Theoretically, I I I I suppose you could.

• 22:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, so it'd alter your DNA such that you could reproduce with that alteration?

• 22:24Speaker 02

  Ah.

• 22:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it wouldn't be just a local set of changed genes in your body?

• 22:29Speaker 02

  Oh, well, look, I mean, there's there's there is. Your DNA is a very fragile molecule being damaged all the time by cosmic rays by you know.

• 22:39Eugene Mirman?

  So the fantastic core is realistic.

• 22:42Speaker 02

  So it's.

• 22:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The whole is real.

• 22:44Speaker 02

  The effect isn't realistic.

• 22:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Spiderman is real.

• 22:47Speaker 02

  Really certainly hope to damage your DNA.

• 22:48Eugene Mirman?

  So it's easy to damage DNA but hard to become superhuman?

• 22:52Speaker 02

  I would think so.

• 22:53Eugene Mirman?

  Nah, oh, well, can't have everything. Okay, John Anderson wants to know, uh, why did humans acquire thumbs through evolution and monkeys were never able to? And is having opposable thumbs the reason why our DNA is 2% different than a monkey's DNA?

• 23:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, they've got opposable thumbs, don't they?

• 23:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, monkeys have opposable thumbs, uh, but they're not opposable in the in the very precise way that, uh, that that our thumbs are opposable. And even apes can't do that.

• 23:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ian is right now tapping each finger with his thumb.

• 23:24Eugene Mirman?

  So they can't hold a gun, but they could maybe hold a rock? Or a mug? Could they hold a mug of coffee?

• 23:29Speaker 02

  They have the power grip, but look at our closest relatives, the apes. Their hands are long, they're long and thin, the axis of the hand goes straight up the arm. Our hands are totally different.

• 23:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or stubby things.

• 23:41Speaker 02

  The axis of our hand goes across the palm and it's a different kind of a hand and it can do different things militarily. And it's something that just happened in our lineage and didn't happen in the lineages leaving the monkeys or or.

• 23:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, so what's so what's is the problem with that the monkeys don't have a space program? That their hands can't build things or that they're not smart enough to do so?

• 24:02Speaker 02

  It's an amazing thing that we actually have brains that want us to go into space at the same time as we have hands that allow us to build instruments.

• 24:10Eugene Mirman?

  Well, so monkeys want to go into space, they just don't have the thumbs for it.

• 24:14Speaker 02

  There you go.

• 24:15Eugene Mirman?

  Is I think the way to look at it.

• 24:16Speaker 02

  I don't think monkeys want to go into space. Frankly, you show me a monkey that's really anxious to go into space.

• 24:21Eugene Mirman?

  Well, I think I can show you a monkey.

• 24:22Speaker 02

  The only ones that have been in space are ones that were sent there involuntarily by the Soviets. In the 1950s, right?

• 24:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How do you know it was involuntary?

• 24:29Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 24:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plus, I think, I think there was an episode of Curious George.

• 24:33Speaker 02

  Most things in the Soviet Union were involuntary in the 1950s.

• 24:35Eugene Mirman?

  That's true. I can say, I can say that's accurate.

• 24:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I think Curious George, there was an episode of Curious George where he went into space. I'm pretty sure.

• 24:41Eugene Mirman?

  You can draw a monkey that wants to go to space, that's for sure. No one's saying you can't do that.

• 24:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When we come back, more of StarTalk, Cosmic Queries, Evolution Edition.

• 25:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back to Cosmic Queries. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson. In studio, Eugene Mirman and my friend and colleague, Ian Tattersall, expert on apes and monkeys and lemurs and stuff like that. That's on your business card, isn't it?

• 25:22Speaker 02

  Yeah. If I had a business card, it probably would be. But lemurs first.

• 25:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Lemurs first. And like I said, everything I know about lemurs is from the movie Madagascar. So I hope, are you proud of me for that?

• 25:33Speaker 02

  Oh, man, we're in trouble.

• 25:35Eugene Mirman?

  I know probably even less.

• 25:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, Cosmic Queries, Evolution Edition, go for it.

• 25:39Eugene Mirman?

  Okay, Anthony Kelly wants to know, what were the influences in human evolutionary history that enabled us to develop intelligence and an ability to use tools and control environments in such amazing ways?

• 25:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, what's up with that, Ian?

• 25:51Speaker 02

  You know, there is no Nobel Prize in paleoanthropology, but if there was one, whoever could answer this question, especially briefly, would probably win it. It's a very long story of seven million years of evolutionary change, leading from something that was broadly like a chimpanzee to something that we see around us today. And a lot happened in that short time. I don't even know where to start.

• 26:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, let me ask you this. That's seven million years, and we go from whatever we were to what we are now. In another seven million years, can we somehow selectively breed ourselves, or take chemicals, or stir our genome to become even smarter?

• 26:35Speaker 02

  I think that's unlikely. The, the fact is that...

• 26:41Speaker 02

  Evolution occur evolutionary change occurs mostly in very small populations. Small populations are genetically unstable. New things can become incorporated in them.

• 26:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like if you stranded a branch of humans on a, on a, on an island or a continent and no one interbreeds with them for millions of years.

• 26:59Speaker 02

  Right. We don't know how long, we don't know how long it would take, but in principle, yes, if you have a small population on an island, it's almost certainly going to incorporate evolutionary novelties because these novelties keep on spontaneously appearing because of spontaneous changes in the DNA.

• 27:14Eugene Mirman?

  But you don't see humans evolving significantly. We won't have wings in, say, thirty to fifty years. Or a million years.

• 27:21Speaker 02

  Certainly not in thirty to fifty years. But the fact is that we are now this gigantic population worldwide that Neil's already talked about. And in a population this size, it's practically inconceivable. You could have the fixation of any meaningful new kind of biological adaptation.

• 27:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I got a question. I got a question. If we have so much DNA in common with all the other life, starting with chimpanzees going down the list. Presumably, we have, we're vertebrates, so we have DNA in common with all vertebrates at some level, correct?

• 27:50Speaker 02

  You've got sixty percent of your DNA in common with a banana.

• 27:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With a banana.

• 27:54Eugene Mirman?

  Really? So why am I not as delicious?

• 27:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I mean, why are you not appealing?

• 27:58Eugene Mirman?

  Actually, I take it back. I am as delicious as a banana.

• 28:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, and appealing. So, can I get some props for coming up?

• 28:07Eugene Mirman?

  That was very good. That was very good.

• 28:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Thank you.

• 28:10Eugene Mirman?

  That was, I will.

• 28:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, Ian, what I ask is, can't you just go into our genome, flick a switch, that it excites or turns on or off, so whatever combination necessary, to have your offspring, have your arms have become wings?

• 28:28Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah, or have people.

• 28:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If it's all there.

• 28:31Speaker 02

  If you knew what to do, you'd have to do it in seven billion people.

• 28:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, not in a lab.

• 28:35Eugene Mirman?

  I would be happy with five people with wings and four that were bananas. Why don't you change everyone?

• 28:40Speaker 02

  Where would you keep them?

• 28:41Eugene Mirman?

  Where would I keep four people with bananas?

• 28:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You want to turn people back into bananas?

• 28:46Eugene Mirman?

  I don't want to turn people a little. I mean, I only found out recently it was possible. So I'd like to try just on one person.

• 28:54Speaker 02

  Holy moly, this is interesting.

• 28:57Eugene Mirman?

  Well, one person that hasn't been born yet has that.

• 28:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm assuming nobody wants to turn their offspring into bananas. I want to know.

• 29:02Eugene Mirman?

  We would force them.

• 29:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If they're just, so Ian, in the old days, we had computers and it was called dip switches, where you can change the parameters of the calculation. Right. If you're old enough, you remember that. So if such switches exist in our genes, it's not that you have or don't have the gene. The gene is manifested or not manifested in its operation within you. So in principle, let's turn on the gene that can regenerate limbs that as newts do. Let's ju, you know, newts got that. And, and here we are, thinking we're evolved in some special way, and we can't do stuff that other animals can do.

• 29:36Speaker 02

  You know, you don't have a technology to do that right now. We have to worry about this, uh, and this one down the line. But right now, you, you can repair genes, you can insert genes, you can do all sorts of things, but you're not going to get a separate population going on its own evolutionary trajectory without isolating it somehow. And that would be, uh, probably unacceptable to the majority of, of people.

• 29:59Eugene Mirman?

  Yes, let's not enslave a banana people.

• 30:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Banana people.

• 30:04Eugene Mirman?

  And make them have wings and regrow limbs until they destroy us.

• 30:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I want a flying banana. That's what I want.

• 30:09Eugene Mirman?

  I kind of want a flying banana.

• 30:11Speaker 02

  Flying banana. I see how we could do that.

• 30:13Eugene Mirman?

  That can regrow. We really have solved a lot of stuff here. It could fly, people would eat it, it would regrow another banana.

• 30:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did we only get to one question in this segment?

• 30:22Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah, but it was a long, solid question.

• 30:25Speaker 02

  Bananas need help.

• 30:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk Radio, the Evolution Edition of Cosmic Queries. When, when we come back, it'll be the lightning round on Evolution.

• 30:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back for the last segment of our Cosmic Queries Evolution Edition. I'm Neil, Eugene across the table from me, and Ian is our expert on Evolution. Eugene, you have one last question before we did the lightning round. What is it?

• 31:07Eugene Mirman?

  Yes, here's a question. What is Dr. Tattersall's opinion on the theory that Neanderthals slowly died off because of competition with Homo sapiens?

• 31:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh, competition. That would be competition for food, or are they just slaughtered?

• 31:18Speaker 02

  It could be competition for food, it could be competition for space, it could be competition for anything, but I believe that any chimpanzee would tell you that Homo sapiens is bad news, and I'm pretty sure that any Neanderthal would have told you the same things.

• 31:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the Cro-Magnon, I guess, were the ones that kept going after that.

• 31:40Speaker 02

  The Neanderthals were living in Europe and Western Asia until about forty thousand years ago, when all by themselves, minding their own business, until Homo sapiens showed up. Within ten thousand years, they were completely gone.

• 31:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They were gone?

• 31:55Speaker 02

  It was not a coincidence, in my view.

• 31:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So they weren't just cross-bred and we lost the species distinction? They just, they died?

• 32:04Speaker 02

  Basically, yes. I think there may have been a bit of Pleistocene hanky-panky going on there, and the latest genomic data seems to indicate a slight amount of interchange of genes as all the mayhem was happening.

• 32:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a new move, the Pleistocene hanky-panky.

• 32:19Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah, that is. That's, I hope one of your books is called that.

• 32:22Speaker 02

  You know, that's a brilliant idea.

• 32:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, so, so, so you think they waged war?

• 32:30Speaker 02

  Waging war? I don't know. We have no evidence that would, but I can't imagine, knowing how Homo sapiens tends to treat members of its own species, let alone members of other species, I can't imagine that all the encounters between Neanderthals and modern humans were happy ones.

• 32:47Eugene Mirman?

  Right. Considering one is dead.

• 32:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Extinct.

• 32:51Eugene Mirman?

  All right, let's lightning round.

• 32:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But just to clarify, and they buried their dead, the Neanderthal?

• 32:55Speaker 02

  They did, they did. And interestingly, the very first humans to come into Western Europe were the Neanderthals. They apparently didn't. They may have even learned this from the Neanderthals.

• 33:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay. All right, we're about to go to the lightning round. We have a bunch of questions left and only three and a half minutes to do them in. Ian, I briefed you on the lightning round?

• 33:14Speaker 02

  Uh-oh.

• 33:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, are you ready? Here we go.

• 33:17Eugene Mirman?

  Rachel wants to know, do we know what type of primates humans evolved from?

• 33:21Speaker 02

  Uh, broadly speaking, yes. Uh, neither apes nor humans, but something with characteristics of both.

• 33:29Eugene Mirman?

  Oh, next. Fernando Translavia wants to know, if we do in fact, if we did in fact evolve from monkeys, what is the reason we lost all of that hair that they had?

• 33:39Speaker 02

  We didn't actually evolve from monkeys. We have a common ancestor with monkeys, but I don't think humans actually lost their hairy ancestral hairy cover until they moved out into the savannas about a couple of million years ago.

• 33:53Eugene Mirman?

  So a combination of coats and deserts?

• 33:55Speaker 02

  Coats and desert, there you go.

• 33:56Eugene Mirman?

  Okay.

• 33:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know enough people with hairy-

• 33:58Speaker 02

  You don't want to wear a coat in a desert.

• 33:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There are enough hairy humans out there that that question doesn't apply to all. Okay, next.

• 34:04Eugene Mirman?

  Okay, Lynn Ellipco wants to know, why do you think there's a lack of evolution evidence within the fossil record?

• 34:10Speaker 02

  It takes a lot of work to become a fossil. There's actually a lot of-

• 34:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not everybody can become a fossil.

• 34:17Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah, one day.

• 34:18Speaker 02

  This is true. You try it.

• 34:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Lightning round, keep going fast.

• 34:20Speaker 02

  Oh, you won the rest of the, uh, the answer. The rest of the answer would be we actually have a very good fossil record.

• 34:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, but it's very hard to make a fossil.

• 34:28Speaker 02

  But it's hard to become a fossil.

• 34:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What fraction of all dead animals become fossils?

• 34:31Speaker 02

  That is impossible to say, but way south of 1%.

• 34:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gotcha. Next.

• 34:37Eugene Mirman?

  Dinosaurs died randomly. Since that may not have happened elsewhere, should we adjust SETI for reptiles?

• 34:43Speaker 02

  Should we just what for reptiles?

• 34:45Eugene Mirman?

  SETI, the search for-

• 34:46Speaker 02

  Oh, for, for, for extraterrestrial reptiles.

• 34:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, and other planets?

• 34:51Eugene Mirman?

  That's what I'm assuming the question is.

• 34:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, he's thinking maybe other planets also had dinosaurs, but they would not have died from an asteroid.

• 34:55Eugene Mirman?

  Exactly. And so they're smart, you know?

• 34:57Speaker 02

  Who knows what's happening on other planets there so far away that we don't know?

• 35:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let me ask the question differently. If the asteroid didn't come and the dinosaurs were still here, might they have evolved in intelligence such as what humans have?

• 35:07Speaker 02

  Dale Russell thought so. You know, he imagined a dinosaur which had become bipedal because many dinosaurs were already bipedal and developed a big brain. Who knows what would have happened?

• 35:17Eugene Mirman?

  So maybe.

• 35:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, next.

• 35:19Eugene Mirman?

  Julian Alonso wants to know, what is this missing link I've heard about and why is it important?

• 35:25Speaker 02

  Well, if it's a link, it can't be missing. And if it's missing, it can't be a link.

• 35:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Next.

• 35:30Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 35:31Eugene Mirman?

  Viv Cox wants to know, why could humans not have evolved at different places on Earth rather than one?

• 35:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I love that. Or life in general. Could life have had more than one genesis around the world?

• 35:42Speaker 02

  It's not impossible that the same things that gave rise to the life that we're familiar with could have happened on multiple occasions. It's possible that we had multiple early bipeds, but only one lineage survived.

• 35:56Eugene Mirman?

  Okay. Great. Okay, and Dave wants to know, do you predict designer babies becoming a reality for our species in the next 20 years?

• 36:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In the film, Gattaca, that's exactly what it was. They got the best, defined by the couple, the best of both genes to design the baby that they wanted.

• 36:15Speaker 02

  Somebody with enough money could conceivably do it. I don't think you'd find many people approving.

• 36:20Eugene Mirman?

  Okay. So, yeah, it's possible 20 years if people become immoral. Okay.

• 36:25Speaker 02

  Oh, they're already immoral.

• 36:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So it's the immoral future that you're predicting?

• 36:29Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 36:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ian, thanks for being on StarTalk. Oh, my gosh.

• 36:32Speaker 02

  It's been fun.

• 36:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Next, we gotta find a way to do three hours of this or something with Ian, because Ian is like my man.

• 36:38Eugene Mirman?

  I would love to.

• 36:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ian is my man from way back. Ian, curator emeritus at the American Museum of Natural History, thanks for being on StarTalk.

• 36:47Speaker 02

  I've spent a lot of...

• 36:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Eugene Mirman, we'll look for you. You're still a character on Bob's Burgers.

• 36:52Eugene Mirman?

  Yes, absolutely.

• 36:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Unrelenting.

• 36:54Eugene Mirman?

  Unrelenting.

• 36:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, we're good. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson. I tweet at Neil Tyson. Find StarTalk on the web at StarTalkRadio.net, on Facebook, and of course, on Twitter. StarTalk is brought to you in part by a grant from the Sloan Foundation. As always, I bid you to keep looking up.