PEJK MALINOVSKI: It says "registrera", register. That doesn't matter. Because we had already had to upgrade from a car to a van, from a condo to a home. JAD: So he's got to live his life as a toad with all this baggage on him? And when methyl groups stick to that part of the DNA, the maternal instinct is effectively turned off. So moms licking activates serotonin, and it's released onto brain cells in the hippocampus. But luckily for the Vivarium and for our story, they had a guy. This, of course, is Destiny. Barbara says they've reached out to her many times but they never heard back. JAD: Turning down a job that they'd offered him. JAD: You got your good parents and your bad parents. DESTINY HARRIS: Taylor Swift's Never Getting Back Together. That, in a sort of ass backward way was Michael's question. BARBARA HARRIS: I decided to have a press conference in my front yard to announce what I was doing. The connection between trees Normally trees from different species are competitors. Who are you? Radiolab is on YouTube! PAT: Barbara has this drawer in her desk. I just didn't think. Kalia came too. They like to hang out in the water and the females like to lay eggs in the water. Just sing. I should add too. BARBARA HARRIS: Light bothered him, noise bothered him. Just to be sure, we asked Frances Champagne what she thinks of this data. Go to him. Nobody has a right to do that to a baby. ], [ARCHIVAL CLIP, BARBARA HARRIS: Probably racist.]. She's somewhere, but it's not good from what we've heard. But the results are very clear. You know, when smart people say, you know, "There's no such thing as nature and nurture it's only interaction of the two," You're like, "What the hell does that mean?" It takes a while. Michael was in school and he got interested in a very, very basic question about how things get passed down? Through all the training that we had to do and first aid, fingerprinted and had a background check done. I think I was really horrified and terrified. JAD: But according to Kammerer, here's what happened when he heated up the toads little cage. Each stone represents a radioisotope by means of a. PAT: I ended up finding myself really conflicted about it. I think that's where Lamarck's ideas can be woven in and make some sense. So moms licking activates serotonin, and it's released onto brain cells in the hippocampus. On the one hand, she says, immediately, cheques started arriving. You've got these toads who hate water. Oh, that's a lot of potatoes. ], [ARCHIVAL Clip, News: This could mean sterilization, it could mean getting an IUD.]. Meaning that they had less incidence of heart disease? But with the midwife toad, the female SAM KEAN: Lays her eggs on land and then the male midwife toad comes along SAM KEAN: And actually kind of sticks them to his back legs, like a bunch of whitish grapes, and then hops around with them basically until they hatch. So much can happen after that. My situation turned out positive. I didn't see them as people. I could have turned out like some of the other kids. She said, "Thank you so much for the gift, I bought my son an excavator truck, remote control and some summer outfits." Were just talking about toad, I thought. Who are you? You just haven't evolved for this and there's no way you can, at least not quickly. You have to do that for five hours a day for six consecutive days. Well think about it, this is nature and nurture slamming into each other. She'll be two in January. The critical part of this JAD: Is that all these changes wake up this little gang of proteins. Just don't have any more children because, at that point, I didn't really know any of them. ROBERT: It's a little odd, actually. No, I've only had somebody call and say they regret that they didn't stay on birth control. PAT: In this magazine article, Barbara even said, quote, "We don't allow dogs to breed. It's such a surprising result. CARL ZIMMER: It all came down to this jar with his toad in it. So, the thought is, when those little boys in verkalix were really, really hungry, their hunger started a chemical process that reached all the way down to the DNA inside the boy's sperm. ROBERT: Interestingly, the church has also kept track of the farmers' SAM KEAN: How much they were growing each year. SAM KEAN: And the key point is that it wasnt something inborn in them. The little baby that we keep hearing in the background of everything. You know, inside these cells, in the center, coiled up in little spools, is the DNA. Baby, be careful. If you start smoking when you're 10, 11 something like that, you end up having children with more problems. If you're a starving boy between 9 to 12 years old, now it doesn't matter a whole lot what happens to you after this, your grandchildren will have one-quarter the risk of heart disease. In just two generations, these toads seem to have done something that should have taken, I don't know, 50, 100 generations? PAT: But along with the support came attacks, particularly as drug-addicted women began to sign up. Maybe like those methyl things we were telling you about with the rats. So that's fun. PAT: Destiny says one day, she and her mom were in the car, and her mom said DESTINY HARRIS: She said, "I don't know, you know, maybe they'll grow bigger? But according to Kammerer, here's what happened when he heated up the toads little cage. Okay, and then I just had to accept it. JAD: See, this is the story of science that doesn't get told. I mean, they didn't have porridge. ROBERT: But, this hour were gonna fight this sort of sad sack feeling of inevitability and impotence. Well, its offensive. I mean like, with the licking, is it a teaching thing where, you know, the babies become good mothers because FRANCES CHAMPAGNE: They've seen it and they've repeated the experience. Basically, the midwife toad has a strange habit for toads. Here, Kammerer's was saying, "You can do this even on a physical level.". This great. This was a really radical place at the time because you have to remember that people studying animals up till now, they were basically studying preserved specimens, and so on. That's the headline for his talk, and then CARL ZIMMER: Right below the headlines says, "Scientist's great discovery which may change us all.". JAD: Well, its offensive. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information. And I was a waitress, I worked for IHOP for over 30 years. I agree with Lynn, that this program does perpetuate a stereotype. SECTION I - Story 1 (Lamark, Krammerer & the Midwife Toads) 1. Like, I mean, as far as positives can go, I think I hit the jackpot. His famous example was giraffes. ROBERT: They won't grow much on the outside, but on the inside OLOV BYGREN: That is the time where the sperms are developing. Visited Kammerer's lab when Kammerer wasn't there. She should be with me. Maybe you can explain this to me, Robert. You just have to weigh it, is it worth it? So that was just funny to me. [ARCHIVAL CLIP, Jad Abumrad: Do you see the owl?]. It was this struggle for a few years. I wonder how much you believe in it. JAD: People can't just will themselves into a more perfect form. JAD: Its an idea thats been kicking around for me since my kids were born. And at first, it didn't go so well because, you know, if you're a land toad and you're trying to have sex in the water, it's kind of hard. JAD: So, in the end, where do you come down on this? It all came down to this jar with his toad in it. PAT: Isaiah would sleep and he would scream. PAT: A year later, she gets another call. Also, thanks to Carl Zimmer whose latest is Evolution: Making Sense of Life. PAT: Barbara tried to get a law passed requiring just that. I just saw them as child abusers. SAM KEAN: He was really one of the first grand theorists in biology. Here, Kammerer's was saying, "You can do this even on a physical level.". New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. JAD: Well think about it, this is nature and nurture slamming into each other. He actually named his daughter Lacerta, which is a genus of lizard. Take a look, explore and subscribe! JAD: Stretching got into the baby. Females seem to hate laying eggs in the water, but is that the end of the story? Well, I guess I was thinking we could just start at the beginning. A lot of times that's not the case. JAD: To fellow named Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, chevalier de Lamarck. That's a lot of people. Are you nine? Around 1908, he started publishing all of these results. BARBARA HARRIS: He wasn't a little happy baby. Yeah, it drifts into something like a shopping channel. Welcome to the Grammys of government-funded research. I just didnt think. This lady right here is still taking drugs and she could be pregnant again next month.]. My name is Veronica Zimmer. LULU: And were trying to think about how do we keep it the same in a lot of ways, but also how do we let it grow into something beyond what it was originally built to be. Could you just tell us what you are doing now? JAD: His big idea, as you might know, is that what a person does in their lifetime could be directly passed to their kids. This was a really radical place at the time because you have to remember that people studying animals up till now, they were basically studying preserved specimens, and so on. JAD: Thanks to Frances Champagne and Michael Meany and Sam Kean, who writes about Paul Kammerer in his book, The Violinist's Thumb. No, she was an oops kid. CARL ZIMMER: Well, it was a zoo where there was all sorts of experiments going on. Visit our website. Apparently, those grandkids SAM KEAN: Were less prone to diabetes. But she says, you can tell right away, just by looking, that some rat moms don't lick their kids a lot. She said, "Thank you so much for the gift, I bought my son an excavator truck, remote control and some summer outfits." Is it a big town? Its so good that it makes you not want to trash the house, you know what I mean? CARL ZIMMER: Lamarckism pretty much died there. His famous example was giraffes. BARBARA HARRIS: Sounds bizarre, but it's a solution. JAD: Famine again, and these changes would just bounce back and forth. Just sing. Like Id be like, Weve got the keys, were gonna trash the house., LATIF: Anyway, we think about that all the time and I was just talking to Lulu about that and she was just like, You know, theres a radiolab about this.. What they decided to do first was to try to figure out which rat was which, which meant, interestingly, counting all the legs. Barbara Harris says she's convinced more than a dozen women], Have accepted her offer to be sterilized in return for money.]. JAD: I mean, were not gonna do that ourselves. We'll just be honest. CHARLOTTE ZIMMER: Radiolab is supported in part by the National Science Foundation and CHARLOTTE and VERONICA ZIMMER: The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. It's a very different kind of front line, where urgent work means moving slow, and time is marked out in tiny pre-planned steps. Watching this, I couldn't help but think that Destiny's very existence is probably the most interesting argument against what Barbara is doing. Assuming that you can survive the ordeal, and you grow up, and you have kids of your own, the data seems to say that your kids will benefit from your suffering. I want her to be able to look back on her life one day, maybe when she's getting interviewed, I don't know, and be able to say that, "Yes, my mom was there for me 100% without a doubt." There were four girls and Barbara and Destiny told me that a few years ago they found three of them and they all either were in college or had finished college. She's not offering treatment, she's not offering counseling, and there are programs that do that. BARBARA HARRIS: That's how we ended up with four of them. You know, you've got all these chemicals around. [chuckles]. ], I'd like everybody to meet, please, Barbara Harris. Okay, all right, this is interesting. You can't see that on the radio but, hey, it's a fact of life. JAD: So then over the next 70 some odd years, Lamarck basically became the poster boy for, like, the big dumb idea, the idea that you want to believe in but that you know isn't true. And I've got say, I'm feeling pretty good about this show so far. How much of you will echo into the future and how much of you won't? SAM KEAN: And his lab ended up getting destroyed. Kammerer, for one, was sent off to work as a sensor for the Austrian military. Kammerer thought, "Wow. Remind me this. Radiolab is a radio program produced by WNYC, a public radio station in New York City, and broadcast on public radio stations in the United States. BARBARA HARRIS: I'm not saying that these women are dogs but they're not acting any more responsible than a dog in heat. I mean that's a different kind of odds, but its DESTINY HARRIS: Hi, this is Destiny Harris. And in1923, he actually comes to England. But I'm going to give them a basin of water. Yes, he was retarded. BARBARA HARRIS: After I've gotten to know so many of the women. So this whole debate, two totally different ways of seeing life. The neural chemical signal that gets activated during licking, is serotonin. Can you say oh my goodness? Yes, no, okay, move on to the next cage, yes, no? And if you haven't, you can choose to have an IUD, or an implant put in which will last for several years. When you explore what makes people tick or how the universe . 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