In the 1950s, scientists exposed a tin of meat to a dose of radiation that they expected would kill all forms of life. But one organism defied the odds and lived: Conan The Bacterium. Turns out this microorganism, known to science as Deinococcus radiodurans, is capable of surviving extreme levels of radiation — thousands of times the amount that would kill a human. So what's Conan's secret?Want more stories about the microbial world? Let us know by emailing us at [email protected]!Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: What microorganism can survive extreme radiation?
All that on this episode of Shortwave, the science podcast from NPR. OK, Ari, where do you want to start?
I'm intrigued that there is a radiation resistant microorganism, this like super, super tiny little thing. What is it?
Chapter 2: How did Conan the Bacterium earn its nickname?
Oh, totally. OK, so formally, this bacteria is called Deinococcus reuterans. It was discovered back in the 1950s and has been long known to withstand radiation doses thousands of times higher than what it would take to kill a human or any other living thing.
Which is why scientists have given it this funny nickname, Conan the Bacterium, a resilient superhero of the microbial world.
Chapter 3: What is the secret behind Conan's radiation resistance?
Do kids today even know what Conan the Barbarian is? I feel like that's such a dated reference.
True. Email us, kids. Let us know.
I'm assuming scientists have just been dying to find out the secret to this Conan the Bacterium's radiation resistance ever since.
Yeah, definitely. Because the implications could be really huge, like helping protect astronauts from radiation in space or other kinds of medical applications. But over the years, scientists have suspected that the bacteria's radiation shield has probably something to do with these ingredients inside of its cells, like phosphate, manganese, and peptides.
question has been, how are these things coming together? The magic of how these things come together has been a mystery.
This is Michael Daly, a professor of pathology at the Uniformed Services University, who has studied the Conan bacteria for decades.
Please tell me he has solved the mystery.
Well, with the help of Brian Hoffman, yes. Brian's a chemist from Northwestern University. And conveniently, he has access to a tool that allows you to see what's happening inside a living cell and study his chemistry. So he and Michael partnered up. And Brian says going into the research.
I never confessed to Mike at the time. I absolutely believed that the efficacy was just the sum of the pieces.
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Chapter 4: What implications does this research have for space travel?
But it turns out... Oh my God, it is more than the sum of its parts. It's something new that forms when you put the pieces together. which makes it better than one or the other, is that the combination, they interact with each other.
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Amazing. Like a scientific actual application of that metaphorical artistic idea.
Yeah, look, when combined, these three, phosphate, manganese, and peptides, offer astounding radiation protection. The details about this appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and Michael says this breakthrough means big things for the future.
We now have a much better understanding of the nature of the complex and how it is formed, which means we can now try and think of ways of making them better.
Chapter 5: How can we combat the loneliness epidemic?
Michael says that he hopes that this can lead to innovations. For example, a medication that astronauts can take to make them more radiation resistant before, you know, long missions to Mars.
Cool. All right, let's move on to the second topic, how to help with the loneliness crisis, which we know affects millions of people in the U.S. of all ages. We've been hearing about it for years. What's new?
Yes, we have a very lonely society, and there are a lot of studies out there showing this, including the National Poll on Healthy Aging from the University of Michigan. Now, for six years, the poll gathered household data from older Americans ages 50 to 80 about how lonely they are, loneliness being defined as feeling a lack of companionship.
Yeah. And after a spike in loneliness in the first few years of the COVID pandemic, the poll found that this year it's back down to pre-pandemic levels, that 33 percent of older adults feel lonely at least some of the time.
That's still a lot of people.
Yeah. Yeah. One third of older adults. It's a lot. And an outside researcher thinks this could be an undercount. Geriatrician Thomas Cujo at Johns Hopkins University is especially worried about older adults who are, say, homebound or cognitively impaired and may not take part in a poll like this.
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Chapter 6: What recent findings exist about loneliness in older adults?
We all may experience loneliness at points in our lives, but I think it's the longer experience of it, our persistence that really leads to someone to know that negative health outcomes that we talk about in terms of increasing risk for cardiovascular disease, in terms of increasing the risk for dementia.
And to that point, a 2022 study found that being chronically lonely can make people three times more likely to develop dementia.
So what do the researchers recommend on how to bring those loneliness numbers down?
Yeah, lead author Preeti Malani wants everyone to think of loneliness as a health problem, like cancer or heart disease, as something that can be treated and prevented. We can actively cultivate human connection.
We can all walk across the street. We can knock on people's doors. We can make plans to visit.
Or find community, join book clubs, faith groups. The NPR Shots blog recently profiled nonprofits that pair older adults with teens to address the loneliness crisis.
And there's medical interventions, too, like getting fitted for hearing aids so those who are hard of hearing can connect like we are now through good old-fashioned conversation.
Oh, interesting. A medical solution to this social problem. Well, speaking of hearing, let's go to the final story, how some animals can restore their hearing.
How do they do that? It's cool. By regenerating hair cells in their inner ears. I mean, humans have these hair cells, too, but when they're damaged, they don't come back.
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