SciShow Quiz Show: Battle of the Brains!

[Music] welcome to scishow quiz show the ultimate battle of brains where the real winners are two of our patrons on patreon so what's no we're not it's not that competitive Brit is a very competitive person oh yes it's gonna be okay I put a tie on and she was like I have to put a tie on I was doing without a tie it's equality not competition that's good thanks co-op petition this is Michael's tie Hank said it smelled real good that's not good I'm Michael Ronda your host today our contestants are Hank green who we've managed to wrangle away from working how's your novel coming along oh I think it's good I'm revising oh they call it okay good what do you call it I call it we've also got Britt garner who somehow manages to find time to host scishow Psych while also getting her PhD it's fine okay so these two will be battling for intangible bragging rights and some very tangible prizes which will actually go to the two patrons on patreon that we've selected at random also we should say that the if somebody beats me in this game we kill them oh the blood of the winners goes into the scishow punch according to the leopard King and I actually mean that literally well out of context yeah I'm not really I'm not really sure how to contextualize that in a way that will make it you just don't make sense Hank you will be competing on behalf of Sarah Caskey hi Sarah and Britt you're playing for Lucas grocer we got this so each of you begin with a thousand scishow bucks answer a question correctly and that number goes up answer incorrectly that number goes down by how much depends what I know right this games bad this is what he was talking about when it's if you not watched to get the numbers to run the graphs the numbers are meaningless everything's meaningless no no no someday there will be no humans left to remember humans were here but they'll find my Excel spreadsheet I don't know we were doing ok Oh oh man she made a whole spreadsheet of all my scores how did I do you have a pretty good record all right so whoever emerges from the last round with the most points wins their patron some slick gear Stefan show our friends what they're going home with today welcome Sarah and Lucas to the prize corner will be sending off some lovely care packages to our lovely contestants today and the packages will include signed cards from our final round with our contestants final guesses and wagers on them and the contestant with the most points at the end of the show will be taking home the I won scishow quiz show pin and some secret Shh scishow swag from dftba.com but the contestant who leaves the game today with the least number of points will take home really the only prize of any value the I lost scishow quiz show pin good luck to you both and back to you are you guys ready thorn are you pumped yeah but you can't go down with both because that's fine that was better why do you go down anyway round one is all about psych Oh ecology no like the TV show they're actually about animal tricksters hmm in the jungles of Central and South America communication is key especially for small social animals like the endangered Pied tamarin monkey little baby tamarins are especially vulnerable since only the alpha female breeds the whole group takes care of her babies so all tamarins react when they hear a baby tamarin industry but sometimes what sounds like the cry of a baby monkey is actually something very different in 2005 researchers observed something that was definitely not a baby Tamron making the same call near a band of adults was it an adult Tamron from a different troop a maned wolf a Marg a cat or a harpy eagle I'm not you guess wrong first and then I'm gonna get the points afterward go with the eagle incorrect that is the way to do it I know I did okay do you know the answer you're pretty testing it but I'm pretty sure the margays like those tinier feelings can make sounds because I'm thinking predatory the only reason you want to do mimicry would be to probably eat so I was thinking yeah but there's more limited vocal range stuff so anyway I would say the kitty kitty cat that's what you would've guessed yeah the answer is C a Margay copying another animal to avoid detection or lure prey closer is called aggressive mimicry and lots of animals are known for acoustic mimicry is somewhat rare though and cats might not be the first group that comes to mind when you think of species with vocal range but based on local reports we've known for a while that Cougars Jaguars and ocelots do this kind of call copying and they don't just target monkey apparently the cats will also mimic certain rodents and other smaller mammals then in 2005 researchers actually observed this firsthand when they saw a Margay calling out like a baby monkey in trouble that drew the attention of a nearby troop of eight pied tamarins and they started scampering up and down the fig tree they were in to investigate shortly afterward the monkey spotted the Margay approaching and after a loud warning shriek they fled so in this case the ruse wasn't successful but the researchers think this tactic is fairly common and it probably works pretty well margays and the other cats in the Amazon definitely do eat monkeys and other mammals and this might be one way they get close enough to snag them okay question two here we go large Alcon blue butterflies can be seen flitting about in the summer but like many butterfly species their populations have declined recently due to habitat fragmentation and loss this particular species is especially sensitive to such changes because it has a kind of particular diet during its last larval stage do you want to hit the thing now kind of I just taught this two weeks ago because I had my habitat fragmentation lecture this was one of the examples my habitat fragmentation lecture was so long ago yeah I'm gonna have to hit the button to try and steal the points but a publican of Iran so this species is especially sensitive to changes because it has a particular diet during its last larval stage which relies on the presence of another species when they're separated from that species they die because the caterpillars can't get this special food without it of course that species isn't exactly a willing participant in all of this so the question is what biological trick do these caterpillars use to get their special meals do they sneak around at night so they can eat honeycombs without the bees noticing produce chemicals that get ants to regurgitate their food look like leaves so they can ambush flies or poop out compounds that lower the defenses of their host plant let me lose the points what if I get it right then again with the ants well that is correct [Applause] [Music] cancer can kill us all and I figured sometimes he'll end up you know not having the ants around and then you're in trouble when you're a baby caterpillar I thought you're going for the plant species that they wind up meeting with the fragmentation and migration rates so that actually wound up being different to be fair okay she's fair the answer is B they produce chemicals that get ants to regurgitate their food for them how calm blue butterflies take deception to a whole other level there was known as a brood parasite because they rely on other species to care for their young the caterpillars begin their lives like most caterpillars as small pink grubs feeding on plant parts but they don't gain much nutrition from their host plants they'll only grow one to two percent in size while they munch on the flowers and seeds of their favorite plant so after three molt's they chew a hole in the flower they're eating and glide to the ground on a silk thread where they wait to be adopted by a forging red ant if none come along they'll starve to death the caterpillars produce chemicals on their skin similar to the red ants larvae so if a worker from the right species of ants sniffs the caterpillar it mistakes it for a lost grub and dutifully brings it back to the safety of the nest there the ants treat the caterpillar like royalty that's because the caterpillar also vibrates and it does it the same way a queen ant does if food is scarce the ants will even sacrifice their actual babies to feed the caterpillar so sometimes if enough caterpillars are adopted by a small colony of ants the ants won't even raise their own brood the caterpillars take advantage of their generous hosts all winter kicking back and enjoying the good life from autumn until spring then they pupate in the nest when they emerge they no longer look or smell anything like a baby ant so it's a mad dash for the door before the ants swarm and go in for the kill last question in this round how many three I really need you guys to get on board with some kind of empirical ELISA says three three round herons like a lot of other birds are super smart which is part of what makes them such great hunters for example if they can stand motionless for unbelievable amounts of time waiting for a fish or frog to make the wrong move but herons aren't always patient enough to wait for the prey to come within striking distance and they've developed a special strategy that they can use to catch fish how do they do it do they hunt in packs use bait camouflage themselves with plants or farm the fish themselves in rocky fish ponds repeat the second answer use bait can you find a worm and then you're like jingle jangle bit over the you jingle jangle it I mean your hair and mouth like a you're like a hare and angler fish rocky fish ponds I was gonna go with unfortunately that is in oh sorry oh [Music] they must camouflage themselves but I feel like that's not even uninteresting I'm gonna go camouflage themselves unfortunately that's also incorrect well they use bait okay well we're gonna find out now something's gonna tell us all about it somebody's gonna tell us all about it great the answer is B they use bait herons are an incredibly successful group of birds found on all continents except Antarctica well they don't swim they do live near bodies of water and our adept hunters great blue herons will hold their wings over their heads to create a nice shady spot thinking the shade is a protective cover like a log fish dart into the darkness to hide only to find out the hard way they were wrong but more impressively several species of Heron have figured out how to fish with bait green herons have been observed tossing things into shallow pools to attract hungry fish they'll use twigs bottle caps and other small objects basically anything that floats and herons and parks have been known to harass geese being fed by people so they can steal hunks of bread some herons will even catch small fish just to let them go so they attract bigger fish there's always a bigger fish once they have their bait the birds will toss it into the water ready to pounce on the first fish to fall for the trick and just like we do when we go fishing if they don't get a nibble the first time they'll scoop up their bait and cast it out again over and over until they get their catch it's a pretty effective way to get dinner on to round 2 this one's also about animals the human animal so we are so awesome we get our own category and we'll begin with one of those things that makes us so awesome we humans stand out in a lot of ways including with our bodies themselves because we have a body part that no other living species has just one which of the following is unique to humans having a chin having heals having tonsils or having an appendix hang on I'm process of elimination yeah define chin are you talking about a mandible bone yeah I don't know like a chin chin that is correct it's this part it's the weird jutting thing this protuberance yeah yeah this thing is you put put your hand on your face and feel your skull underneath and I'm gonna be dead someday and what are you saying nope I say no that's here what our expert has to say the answer is a we're the only living species with a chin grab your jaw and poke around at the front bottom part that bit of bone that comes forward from under your teeth is what scientists have at various times called the mental protuberance mental eminence or mentum aciem otherwise known as your chin in all other animals it doesn't exist not even our closest relatives the great apes have Chin's look at their skulls and you'll see that their teeth mark the front of their jaws even Neanderthals didn't have any jaw bone past their teeth so why do we have them well that's proven to be a real chin stroker researchers have a bunch of different ideas some have suggested that they're uniquely useful for defending against punches I'm not kidding a 2014 paper and biological reviews suggest Chin's and other facial features that are more prominent in males evolved because men get in a lot more fistfights and Chin's deflect punches other scientists say that while this may be could explain some of the variation in Chin's it doesn't explain why they came to be in the first place Chin's could have also evolved along with language because we needed something stronger to contain our tongues those little suckers move all over the place while we're talking and the authors of a recent review have another suggestion that the chin isn't an adaptation at all it's a spandrel a trait with no inherent benefit that arose as a side effect of something else they just don't know what that something else is yet so Chin's aren't the only thing that make humans stand out we tend to be on the extreme end of a spectrum of a lot of traits like the way we use language or tools but the answer to this next question is a trait we used to think was uniquely human until we found out that it isn't the more scientists have looked the more they find it even in invertebrates which of these seemingly human things isn't so human after all fainting blushing written language that most of us are righties I'm gonna go with that last one that most of us are right-handed that is correct yes because we see a handedness yeah exactly we've seen in cats and dogs domestic I actually read that study but I had a question about one of the other answers so I didn't answer it yet because I wanted to make sure to really help talk I didn't minister pretend it's like you were over analyzing Chin's well we used to think that only humans had innate preferences for one side or another and then we thought it was just the great apes but the more scientists have looked the more they have found single side preferences even some invertebrates are handed or legged wing wing it whatever but we're not just handed as individuals 70 to 95 percent of people are right-handed specifically and that species level preference does make us a bit weird well scientists have found that most individual animals prefer one paw over another at the population level the split between righties and lefties in most species is 50/50 but even that still doesn't make us unique because we now have evidence for population level skews in other animals to most of our closest relatives also tend to be righties with the exception of orangutans for some reason they're the only great apes that are mostly lefties many species of parrots red kangaroos and dogs tend to be lefties while whales leatherback sea turtles and chickens are usually righties like us and elephants are just as skewed as we are nearly 95% of them prefer to dig around using the right tusks rather than their left as of yet though no scientists have found written language in any other species and we remain the only animals that faint and blush so that whatever that was brings us to our final round or it's time for everyone to make their bets okay Britt you have 1100 points Hank you have 1400 points you can wager any all or none of them on your answer to the following topic pee mmm talking about pee yeah well you guys decide to wager some points we're gonna head to commercial break for some commercials that was my favorite commercial so this this round is about P which means you're in for a treat thanks dude okay so in ancient Rome cleanliness was next to godliness which basically made urine liquid gold the ammonia in pee made it great for cleaning and it was also used for things like setting clothing dyes but the Romans aren't the only ones that have found the unique chemical composition of urine to be useful throughout history people have collected the stuff for a wide variety of things that might sound weird to us but turn out to actually have some science behind them which of the following didn't they use P for they being the Romans or anyone humans topical anesthetic teeth whitener hallucinogenic drink or fertility treatment well you have an answer yeah okay okay show your answers - we both guest see you're both incorrect oh that's - a mentor I have reached out all of your wagers and knew that is it that's that's how I yeah I don't wager that way I don't winter on loss cause everybody always bets points I lost it was a topical anesthetic oh yeah that was that was my other one cuz again wouldn't make you it wouldn't make your pain go away but I also was like why would it give you hallucinations so I went through the same thing but why it would versus if it does versus thinking it will mm-hmm right that's right well I mean I guess right if you drink enough pee or probably you know hallucination so that's what so that's actually what I picked out from the function don't drink pee well I mean in certain situations all right bear grylls I'm just saying don't roll it out the answer is a as a topical anesthetic urine has had many bizarre uses over the centuries but dulling pain isn't one of them like laundering and color raining pee teeth-whitening was a roman thing but they weren't the ones that started it children's pee was said to be the best mouthwash available in ancient China thousands of years before the Romans got into the practice of gargling urine and according to those who continue to do this it works probably for the same reason it's such a great laundry detergent and bleaching agent ammonia ammonia is slightly basic so it neutralizes most dirt and grime which are slightly acidic even if it doesn't smell great it was the shamans in Siberia though that took mouthfuls of pee to a new level reindeer pee that is in the several tribal traditions reindeer pee was used to induce a trance with the spirits that's because the reindeer in question like to consume mushrooms which contain the psychoactive neurotoxin musk amol a potent hallucinogenic the musk amol would get filtered through the reindeers kidneys so drinking their urine was safer than eating the mushrooms directly and urine wasn't just useful in olden times the urine of old nuns was used as a fertility treatment until the 1990s although people didn't drink it straight from the source in the 1950s Bruno lunin Feld discovered that the urine from menopausal women stimulated the growth and maturation of ovaries in mice while working on his PhD he soon developed a method to extract the hormones responsible gennady trope ins from urine but he couldn't get pharmaceutical companies to do clinical tests because of the amount of urine needed finally though he got help from an unlikely source the Pope the Vatican had a major share in an Italian pharmaceutical company and the Pope's nephew took a special interest in the project so the church ordered 300 old-age homes for nuns to provide thousands of gallons of urine for the first clinical trial the drugs that followed from that research came from pee for decades they were purified from the urine of a hundred thousand closely monitored donors well into the 1990s until chemists finally managed to synthesize the key hormones anyway i won so we start my car with 600 points Hank green comes in second place and with 1100 points Britt garner champion 1100 points that's 1100 points how many points a 600 600 okay you had 1100 600 that's that's yep so thanks for joining us for what is potentially the weirdest scishow quiz show we've ever filmed if you liked what you saw today for some reason you can see more of both of these - over at youtube.com slash scishow psyche we have a good Channel it's very it's great we're having a great time and as always a big thank you to our patrons on patreon who make this show possible if you want to join our legion of supporters and get your shot at winning prizes on scishow quiz show you can head over to patreon.com/scishow [Music] you [Music]

Channel: SciShow

Views: 191,379

Rating: 4.8710575 out of 5

Keywords: SciShow, science, Hank, Green, education, learn, Quiz, Show, Michael Aranda, Brit, Garner, Psych, animal, trickster, pied tamarin, monkey, margay, aggressive mimicry, Acoustic mimicry, call copy, Alcon blue butterflies, larva, caterpillar, brood parasite, red ant, Heron, bait, chin, mental protuberance, mental eminence, mentum osseum, spandrel, righties, handed, legged, ammonia, pee, urine, topical anesthetic, color-brightening, teeth whitening, shaman, muscimol, reindeer, Siberia, fertility, gonadotropins

Id: 78JvysqpNMc

Length: 22min 46sec (1366 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 22 2017