The Science Pawdcast

Episode 15 Season 7: Fungal Apocalypse, Dinosaur Digs, and The Orange Cat Gene!

• Jason and Kris Zackowski • Season 7 • Episode 15

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We explore the science behind HBO's "The Last of Us," investigating whether a fungal apocalypse could happen in real life and if a vaccine for fungal infections is possible. The Royal Tyrrell Museum's new "Breakthroughs" exhibit showcases five groundbreaking fossil discoveries that revolutionized our understanding of prehistoric life.  Lastly we look at the cause of the orange color in orange cats!

• Fungal infections like cordyceps jumping to humans is extremely unlikely, though climate change impacts fungal evolution
• Scientists have no approved fungal vaccines available, with only four new antifungal drugs approved in the last decade
• The Royal Tyrrell Museum in Alberta showcases world-class dinosaur specimens including Canada's best-preserved nodosaur
• Five breakthrough fossils include a Mosasaurus with preserved cartilage, feathered Ornithomimus, and exceptionally preserved Borealopelta
• Recent studies reveal orange cats share a single genetic mutation near the RH-GAP36 gene that originated 900 years ago
• Female orange cats are rare because they need the mutation on both X chromosomes, while males only need one copy

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Speaker 1:

Hello science enthusiasts. I'm Jason Zukoski. And I'm Chris Zukoski, we're the pet parents of Bunsen, beaker, bernoulli and Ginger.

Speaker 2:

The science animals on social media.

Speaker 1:

If you love science.

Speaker 2:

And you love pets.

Speaker 1:

You've come to the right spot, so put on your safety glasses and hold on to your tail.

Speaker 1:

This is the Science Podcast. Hi everybody, welcome back to the Science Podcast. We hope you're happy and healthy out there. This is episode 15 of season 7. Guess what? We had Rain, so much rain, for the last two weeks.

Speaker 1:

I think we've mentioned before that rain is not a very normal thing for us in alberta. It's quite dry. We do get rain. It's not like it never gets rain. But um chris is from the coast. Uh, she grew up close to the ocean in the, in the valley around vancouver, and it would rain for weeks and weeks at a time, months at a time, and I think that gets people a little down out there. I don't know. You can let us know if you're from the coast, if the rain gets you down. So we just don't have that. We have so many sunny days in Alberta. We have as many sunny days as Florida does. We have as much sunshine as Florida, which is hard to believe, but it's true. It is true because we have really clear skies almost all the time, except for the last two weeks it has poured, but that has allowed us to get dogs into their super cute raincoats that we got from Canada Pooch, so be on the lookout for that. Okay.

Speaker 1:

Well, what's on the science show this week? We got two science articles this week, two science news items to look at. The first one is all about the Last of Us, part two or season two, and if we could make a vaccine for a fungal infection. I kind of nerd out about the show and the game. I love the game, love the show. Chris, not so much. Maybe some people also don't love it. It is very gritty and violent. The other science news item we're going to look at is the exciting mega display the Royal Terrell Museum is putting together. That is the world famous dinosaur museum just south of us. And in pet science, chris found a fun article that has finally figured out what makes an orange cat orange. All right, let's get on with the show. There's no time like Science Time this week in Science News. Well, let's talk about a very big show happening on HBO. It's actually season two of a breakout hit that I really liked. I'm not sure you enjoy it, but the show is called the Last of Us.

Speaker 2:

Now, I didn't realize it was just season two, probably because you played the video game before the series came out and it really was just a continuation of the game that you were playing. So it seems like the Last of Us has been in our house for quite some time.

Speaker 1:

A great game, very violent, set in a, as we'll talk, a dystopian future. And, of course, people who played the first game really grew to love. There was two characters, ellie and Joel. You play as Joel and you pick up this young girl named Ellie, and Joel over the course of the game forms a very strong bond with her as a father figure. So I was playing it and I was seeing myself in Joel's shoes because I'm a father myself. And then, of course, the game has got some intense moments. It's definitely got some horror elements. Did you watch the season one with me the TV show or was it too much for you, chris?

Speaker 2:

Jason, it's a little bit too much for me. Like I can watch parts but then I have to run away and be like, ah oh no, but Jason, I couldn't even handle that. The cat brought in a mouse, killed a mouse in the garage, so I can't imagine a world ravaged by a mind controlling fungus that is turning people into zombies. But I let you watch it because you really enjoyed it and I watched parts, so I am familiar with the story, but unfortunately, any of the really violent parts I had to step out.

Speaker 1:

So, simply put, in the Last of Us there is a fungus called cordyceps that normally only affects insects and it infects them. It takes control of their brain, it makes them do odd stuff to get in the way and thus infect more insects. Due to climate change, the fungus now has been able to infect humans, who run a little hot compared to insects, and in the game one of the main characters, ellie is immune, is immune. So the whole plot line is getting this girl from one area of the United States to an entirely different area through a zombie apocalypse where humanity has been destroyed by this fungal infection. I think I did a pretty good job summing up the game.

Speaker 2:

Yes, you summed it up, but then you also didn't give any spoilers, which I think is really important.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, there's some pretty serious spoilers for season one and as I've played the game, I know what happens in season two and there's some very intense moments in season two and of course that's in social media and also people are becoming more interested in the idea. Can humans be infected with a fungus? Could the cordyceps apocalypse in this TV show happen to us?

Speaker 2:

But then also can humans be immune, like Ellie? To the fungus or the fungi.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so can they. Sometimes the fungus that causes valley fever, for example, can trigger lifelong immunity in people who grow up in endemic regions. So sometimes if you survive it like you get sick with a virus, your body will get immune to it. That's what happened to Ellie. She survived the original infection and she became immune to subsequent bites from infected humans or spores. But in other cases fungus like yeast or ringworm or athlete's foot will come back again and again like a bad penny. You have no lasting immunity from infections like that.

Speaker 2:

So the immunity would depend on exposure levels and your actual, your personal immune strength that you have inside your body. Did you know, Jason, my mom thought I had ringworm when I was a baby.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I think I got ringworm.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I didn't have ringworm. My sister bit me and I had rings all on my arms because my sister bit me but it wasn't ringworm.

Speaker 1:

Oh God Okay.

Speaker 2:

That might've been worse getting bit by your human sister but at least we got to the bottom of that I didn't have ringworm and that they could intervene to see why my sister was biting me and that they could intervene to see why my sister was biting me In the game, ellie's immunity starts in her brain.

Speaker 1:

Is that possible? Can you have brain-based immunity? And most experts who study fungus say no, that's unrealistic. So it was a interesting plot device for the game and the TV show, but not really great.

Speaker 1:

Real fungal infections in the brain are super dangerous. If you get a brain infection and it is with fungus, it can slow it with drugs and it's incurable. Like you will die unless you're extremely lucky and somehow your body fights it off. T-cells are the immune system's main defense against fungi. They're found in blood, bone marrow and lymph nodes and not necessarily in the brain. So if you do get a fungal infection and it does work its way to your brain, very dangerous. Not to bring up a sad point, but I will. My mom died of a brain infection and when she was in intensive care for the months before she died they were very concerned about a brain infection from opening because they had to open up her head to put in shunts and things like that. So not getting too sad, but from our experience with my mom, they were very worried about a fungus infection in the brain.

Speaker 2:

But who else is a high risk group? People with high spore exposure, people who are in jobs like landscaping, or actually people who go camping which I'm not, so that is a win for me construction workers, and then also people with a weakened immune system already, such as older adults or those on immunosuppressive drugs. They're at a higher risk of getting the infection. And then also there's areas that seem to be endemic, like parts of Arizona and California that would create exposure to the spores.

Speaker 1:

Now I don't want to give away too many spoilers for season one or the first game. If you haven't played the game, I'm not sure how many gamers listen to our show. But one of the plot points is that because Ellie in the game and the TV show is immune, scientists really want to make a vaccine based on her immunity. But that's another question that scientists have answers for. Can we make a vaccine for fungus? And the answer is maybe, but not really, because as of right now there are no approved fungal vaccines available. They just don't exist. There are pharmaceutical companies developing valley fever vaccines for dogs and humans, and they use a genetically altered fungus that cannot change form to become infectious. It's in trials for both dogs and humans, but doesn't exist yet.

Speaker 2:

Because there are other treatments that you can use. There are antifungal drugs, but they are limited and the World Health Organization warns of rising resistance and few new treatments. There has only been four antifungal drugs approved in the last decade globally. There actually are nine others in development, but of those nine, three are in late stage trials. Now. This is unlike bacteria, which has many antibiotic options. The fungi have few drug treatments that are available to them, and some fungal infections have no licensed therapy at all.

Speaker 1:

There is a drug on the horizon named alorofim and this has been in development for 25 years. It prevents fungal DNA RNA production, targeting a pretty dangerous fungus named Aspergillus, now one of the. I do have to talk a little bit about the TV show. If you watch season one, there is a cold open, before it gets to anything, of two scientists in like the sixties on one of those talk shows being interviewed. It's chilling.

Speaker 1:

The reporter is asking these two scientists what do you think is the biggest threat to humanity? And the one scientist goes oh, it's a virus, like a super virus could take us all out and it's very spooky. And then it hands to this other scientist and he's no, the thing that keeps me up at night is fungus, because we have no drugs, we have no vaccine for a fungus. If it infects humanity like viruses do game over for the human race. So it's a very chilling opening for a TV show about the end of humanity because of this fungus named cordyceps that started to infect humans. They talked to a researcher, chris, about this very topic and they asked that researcher hey, what's the plan for fungus vaccines? And what the researcher said? There isn't one. No, they said we should have started 25 years ago.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's the problem because it takes 20.

Speaker 1:

It took 25 years to get like the four or the few that are out and the few more that are coming. So, yeah, we don't have to worry, though, like I've talked to some scientists on social media who study fungus and the chances of something like cordyceps jumping to human is very low to infinitesimally small, so we just have to continue to watch out for the things that are more dangerous to us, like bacteria and virus. All right, that's our first science news article. Our second science news article is a science story close to home the royal tyrell museum.

Speaker 2:

I love that place I know we just went back there to the badlands of alberta and of course it was a stop on the way when we stayed at the windmill in rosebud yeah we thought it was so fun to go to the royal tyrell museum to see what was new, what was different, to experience the giant sloth and I love the triceratops and you love the ankylosaurus, and so it was a really great opportunity to spend time together and nerd out over dinosaurs oh man, it is a bit out of the way like the royal torel museum.

Speaker 1:

Drumheller is where this museum is located and, yeah, it's in the badlands of alberta. Um, you go down south, far enough south and a little east, and you hit literally desert. It is like the desert. It is very different from the rest of alberta. There's cactus, it's crazy dry and it's one of the richest places in the world for Cretaceous fossils, if you can believe it. That is why that museum, only a couple hours drive away, is one of the most famous museums in the entire world. Is that? Luckily, a whole bunch of dinosaurs croaked in that area a long time ago. So that's where our story takes place.

Speaker 2:

Exactly. Have you ever taken students there on a field trip?

Speaker 1:

They always take the French immersion kids or the French exchange kids Like they. You know how I don't was Adam on that. I don't think so.

Speaker 2:

No.

Speaker 1:

He didn't do the exchange. Anyways, like an exchange is, kids from France come here and then they stay with families and then our kids go there and stay with families. Anyways, like an exchange is, kids from France come here and then they stay with families and then our kids go there and stay with families. That's like a little exchange. The French kids are not impressed with our architecture, like at all. If you're like, hey, kids, let's go look at this old building, and the oldest building's a hundred years old and they have churches that were built 2,000 years ago. But what we have that France don't have is the Royal Tyrell Museum, and the kids are always so impressed when they go.

Speaker 2:

And it's so impressive. You're right, and they've launched a new exhibit that's titled Breakthroughs, which showcases five of its most scientifically significant fossils, and the goal is to highlight the literal breakthroughs in paleontology that are archived at the museum over its 40-year history. I can't believe the museum has only been there 40 years.

Speaker 1:

Like we went on that mine tour down there and dinosaur fossils were not valued when they were mining for coal. Like nobody cared, they just chucked them down the hill.

Speaker 2:

They weren't valuable yeah, no, they weren't valuable. That was really surprising to me, like when we were there and they were saying, yeah, look at all this like hot, what did they call it? The hot slurry or something slag that was on the side of the hill there and they're like don't go in there. That's not great to go, but there's dinosaur bones there, but don't try and get them because it will be dangerous for you. And I was thinking I really want them but, it's dangerous.

Speaker 1:

A miner in like 1940, 1950, like hauled out a T-Rex skull and stupid bones and just chucked it down the hill.

Speaker 2:

Cause just chucked it down the hill. Because just chucked it down the hill, but alberta, you're right, is one of the richest places in the world for those fossils, the cretaceous fossils. They were around approximately 143 to 66 million years ago yeah, what are the what's?

Speaker 1:

what are the five groundbreaking fossils?

Speaker 2:

okay, the okay, so fun, jason. The five groundbreaking fossils. Okay, okay, so fun, jason. The five groundbreaking fossils. The first one is the Mosasaurus, and the second word looks like Missouri Ennis and cysts. And the fun fact is it's not a dinosaur. The Mosasaurus is a marine reptile that comes from 75 million years ago and it was found in alberta's ancient inland seas, which is so weird because alberta now doesn't have any seas at all. We have to travel a whole other province over to go to the ocean trip to get to the ocean yeah, so where did?

Speaker 1:

those inland sea go. We could have had beachfront property where we live.

Speaker 2:

Where is our beachfront property? The specimen that they're showing is a young mosasaur that was exceptionally preserved, which showed the soft cartilage, which is rarely fossilized, and fish bones from its last meal.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it got fossilized with a snack in its belly. That's wild, all right. The second one is a feather dinosaur, ornithomimus, and that was found in Dinosaur Provincial Park in 1995. This was the first North American dinosaur with feather evidence. I remember being in high school when they discovered this thing. It was a big deal and it has been on display in the Royal Terrell Museum. I remember seeing this on display. They continually do research on these fossils right, and just recently technicians discovered feathers on the arms. This helps support the bird dinosaur evolutionary link. Feathers were probably used as mating signals in this bird, not necessarily flight Other big dinosaurs that we think of from when we were kids as being smooth, kind of like a I don't know, a monitor lizard or a snake. They were probably covered with feathers, which is wild.

Speaker 2:

That is interesting, like you're thinking that they're smooth in their mating ritual, but really they're not smooth because they're covered in feathers.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Now this next one. Chris is my favoritest one, and we saw this we saw this one when we were down there the last time.

Speaker 2:

It's the crown jewel.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's a huge deal.

Speaker 2:

Now I don't want to botch the name, so what's the name of it? Boreal pelta okay, I could have probably said no problem yeah, it's a nodosaur.

Speaker 2:

It's a relative of the ankylosaurus and you love the ankylosaurus oh it's my favorite dinosaur so I know this was an armored herbivore and it's from 110 million years ago and it's actually considered the world's most well-preserved armored dinosaur, because it was preserved in 3D with intact skin and armor, with also stomach contents that included plants and charcoal. Now, the cool thing about this is it was so well preserved because it likely washed into the sea very quickly and was rapidly buried, which prevented any scavengers or decay happening to the carcass.

Speaker 1:

Us talking about this fossil doesn't do it justice. There we walked into a room and it was in a glass case. It's huge, right, this is a giant creature that lived a long time ago. You can see the pattern on its skin and its armor. That's how well preserved it was. I was, I could have stared at this thing for hours. You can see its head, you can see its skin and, yeah, like it's armored back, like I wanted to touch it. I so wanted to touch it, but of course it was under glass. The story of this boreal pelta is bananas because it came from fort mack, fort mcmurray up north. They were drilling or digging up a mine and they hit it with a bobcat, like a front-end loader, um. So they could have been destroyed and part of it was nicked. So there's a whole section of it that got nicked off and that's because they hit it when they were digging.

Speaker 2:

And when we were in there, we were talking about the coal trail, which is the highway on which we live, and another woman was there and we had a whole conversation about the boreal pelta and then also the dinosaurs that were found on our road.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, oh, that's right. They were widening the highway and they had a dinosaur dig and that stopped everything for a year. Yeah, I remember how frustrated some people were. They're like stupid dinosaurs. Yeah, there's dinosaur fossils everywhere in Alberta. If you dig in the right spot, you'll hit a dinosaur fossil. The next one is a nest of the Hypocrysaurus that was discovered a long time ago, 1987. What makes this one cool? What's so cool about this nest?

Speaker 2:

The nest included dinosaur eggs with preserved embryos.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, the embryos is the crazy part, Like not an egg but the buoys inside the egg.

Speaker 2:

And what that does is it provided insight into the nesting behavior and also the development of those embryos inside the egg.

Speaker 1:

And the fifth really cool display. The fifth cool celebration is the Gorgosaurus that was discovered in 2009. If you think a Tyrannosaurus, it's a younger version of that and it was found with prey still in its digestive system. This, of course, is fascinating to dinosaur researchers because it gives them clues about what the feeding habits of juvenile Tyrannosaurus were. A baby tyrannosaurus rex? No, it was more like a teenager.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, a juvenile one, but it is still cool to find out what they eat, and finding these preserved fossils is just amazing.

Speaker 1:

I've talked to paleontologists before and two separate paleontologists said that the dinosaur that they would be the most terrified to run into would be a juvenile tyrannosaur, because the big tyrannosaurus rex would probably see humans as too small for a meal like we're just stupid little things, right. And baby tyrannosauruses would be not much bigger than a chicken or turkey, but the juveniles would be the size of a polar bear and they would see us as a delicious treat and they would run incredibly fast.

Speaker 2:

I thought the velociraptors were the scary ones.

Speaker 1:

No spoiler alert for people and a little fun fact that I'm going to burst everybody's bubble Velociraptors are about one to two times the size of a turkey, so they're actually quite small. When, who was it? Was it Steven Spielberg? Yes, Steven Spielberg. They wanted to do that movie. They hired a paleontologist and the paleontologist was like actually, Steven, the velociraptors aren't really big Like you want to make them really big, they're not that big. If you want to make a raptor that big, you need to call it the Utah raptor. The Utah raptor was like six, seven feet tall. You have the wrong one and he's shut up, You're fired. So he just got rid of the. They got rid of their experts so they could do whatever they wanted.

Speaker 2:

That's yeah. Yeah, there you go. That's Hollywood for you.

Speaker 1:

And I guess, as we wrap up, what's the people come see this museum.

Speaker 2:

Because it houses over 160,000 fossils and geological specimens, and so it's a must visit destination. On TripAdvisor no, I don't know if it's. I don't know. No, it is.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, like it's. If you come to Alberta, it's on the top 10. Things to see in Alberta is the Royal Terrell Museum. Since opening in 1985, it's been a big deal. Visitors come from over 150 countries and the museum sees up to half a million guests annually. So the little town of Drumheller pulls in a lot of folks who go to the Royal Terrell Museum. There's lots of cool things. Yeah, there's lots of cool things to see in Drumheller too, Like old timey that mine. What was the mine called? If you're coming, you should check out that mine too. I forget what it's called. Anyways, there's a mine tour you can take. Highly worth it. Okay, I think we should get some kickbacks from the Alberta government for tourism. Between our show here and Bunsen and Beaker and Bernoulli, I think a lot of people want to come visit Alberta.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's a great place to be, and if you like the heat and cactus and hoodoos and all the things that come along with stepping into magma, then come on down to the Badlands.

Speaker 1:

All right, that's science news for this week. This week, in pet science, chris, we're doing one of the articles you found.

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, about the orange cats. Why are they orange and why is ginger orange? And there's a joke. And I didn't realize that there was a joke about orange cats. But the orange cats are often called chaotic or goofy and as if they share one communal brain cell. And so when I first started posting about Ginger on social media, someone's yep, she has the one communal brain cell right now and I looked at you and I said what is that?

Speaker 1:

comment. I didn't get that. I thought people were making fun of us.

Speaker 2:

I know and then I Googled, I went to Google and Google definitely told me that orange cats are often very goofy and share that communal brain cell. But surprisingly, behind the joke is something with their DNA. It falls in their genetic code. Most orange cats actually do share a single genetic mutation.

Speaker 1:

This is a really new science news item. Two independent studies were published on May 15th in Current Biology and they both revealed a DNA deletion that causes pigment cells to produce that yellow-red or ginger color rather than the brown-black correlation. This mutation has baffled scientists for a while as a mystery as to what makes cats orange.

Speaker 2:

So the science behind the mutation is a deletion near a gene called the R-GAP36.

Speaker 1:

That's funny it's called the R-GAP, like it's a pirate or something.

Speaker 2:

I guess you could say RH-GAP36.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, RH-GAP.

Speaker 2:

Okay, yeah, what it does is it actually boosts the production of the RH gap 36 protein, but selectively, only in the pigment cells, and what that does is it prevents the brown black pigment genes from activating. So what does that do? That leaves cells producing only that yellow red pigment, which is actually a simpler pigment to make, if you're into making pigment in the DNA code.

Speaker 2:

And only cats are like this Weird, Unlike most mammals, even if you include big cats like tigers, it's the domestic cat's ginger coloration and it's actually linked to the sex chromosomes. So if you're looking at mammals, there's only two pigments produced. There's a black-brown and a yellow-red pigment.

Speaker 1:

The other comment that we got lots, and of course I did some research and figured out why was people thought Ginger was a boy? Because most orange cats are male. Now the reason why is the gene responsible for the orange fur lies on the X chromosome. Male cats, xys, right, x, female, y, male need only one copy of the mutation to be ginger, but females need the mutation on both X chromosomes to be fully orange. So in order to have a female kitty cat that is orange, both parents need to pass on the mutation. So like the male needs to pass on an X chromosome with the mutation and the female does, so the chances are just a lot lower. If only one X has the mutation, the cat can become a calico or a tortoise shell, which is a patchwork of orange and black. That's because you've just got some on the X and the Y kind of does its own thing due to the X inactivation instead of the full activation Y kind of does its own thing due to the X inactivation instead of the full activation.

Speaker 2:

And that's so. When we say why most orange cats are male, that's why they say most calicos, or tortoiseshells, are female.

Speaker 1:

Because you'd have X, which is your orange mutation, and the other X likely doesn't have it. How did they figure this out, Chris?

Speaker 2:

They took a sample. They took all orange cats from a global sample of 258 cats and they had the same DNA deletion. And no non-orange cats carried that deletion and that suggested that the mutation originated from a single ancestral cat, that the mutation originated from a single ancestral cat and researchers one cat. And yeah, if you think, hey, let's make babies like rabbits. Cats are busy too, and researchers estimate that the ginger ancestor lived over 900 years ago and that's supported by historical paintings of calico cats.

Speaker 1:

Aw, that makes sense. People loved cats just as much back then as they do today. Before these studies, the R-GAP, the RH-GAP-36,. It wasn't known to affect fur color. It was just associated with hormone-producing organs like the pituitary gland, so its role and the coloration is unique to our domestic kitty cats. This is just a really cool example of a genetic adaptation in our pets.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, exactly so. Tigers and lions eat your heart out.

Speaker 1:

That's right. Is Ginger goofy? Though she can be goofy, I don't think she's like chaotic dumb.

Speaker 2:

She's pretty sassy yeah, I don't think she's goofy. I think she's just a normal cat who actually is figuring out how to feed herself with the automatic feeder oh yeah, I forgot about that so that's a new development that shows that she watches and learns yeah, and then tries.

Speaker 1:

She sneaks out to the garage and murders mice.

Speaker 2:

That happened yesterday. She was so proud of herself. She brought the gift to the stairs.

Speaker 1:

I know she's a good girl.

Speaker 2:

Hi, I have a gift for you.

Speaker 1:

That's good, though that's what cats were. That's a good job that cats do. They get rid of vermin. I do feel sad for the little mouse, but you know the cat's going to do what cat's going to do.

Speaker 2:

It shouldn't have been in the garage.

Speaker 1:

That's right. It's got the whole wide world to live.

Speaker 2:

I did.

Speaker 1:

Made some poor choices. All right, that's Pet Science for this week. That's it for this week's show. Thanks for coming back week after week. Special shout out to the top tier of our Paw Pack community. You help make the podcast free. Thanks for supporting us. If you want to hear your name in a shout out, just check out a link in our show notes and there will be a link to sign up to be part of the Paw Pack. We'd love your support at any tier. All right, chris, who are the top dogs?

Speaker 2:

Amelia Fetig Rhi, oda Carol Hainel, jennifer Challen, linnea Janik Karen Chronister, vicky Otero, christy Walker, sarah Bram, wendy, diane Mason and Luke Helen Chin, elizabeth Bourgeois, marianne McNally, catherine Jordan, shelley Smith, laura Steffensen, tracy Leinbach, anne Uchida, heather Burbach, kelly Tracy Halbert, ben Rather, debbie Anderson.

Speaker 1:

Sandy Breimer, mary Rader, bianca Hyde, andrew Lin, brenda Clark, brianne Hawes, peggy McKeel For science, empathy and cuteness.