Fish have feelings too
Think from KERA
KERA
4.7 • 911 Ratings
🗓️ 7 January 2026
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
One way to understand the intelligence of a species is if they can feel pain. Marina Bolotnikova, Deputy Editor for Vox’s Future Perfect, joins host Krys Boyd to discuss how scientists are coming to the conclusion that fish feel pain, why it’s so difficult to observe them in their natural environment and compare their nervous systems to that of a human’s, and why this study new information has deep ethical implications. Her article is “The surprisingly profound debate over whether fish feel pain.”
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Rostam Zaffari, the host of the How to Change the World podcast, a guide for anyone ready to cultivate change in their corner of the world. |
| 0:09.0 | Each episode, I sit down with builders, artists, organizers. |
| 0:12.0 | Some of the names you'll know, some of the names you'll get to know. |
| 0:15.0 | Whether they're saving ranch lands in Montana, building energy independence in Standing Rock, or ending gun violence in Chicago. |
| 0:22.5 | They share a common belief that a more just world is possible. |
| 0:26.6 | So How to Change the World Podcast is produced by World Within Studios with PRX. |
| 0:31.7 | There is new research on pleasure that actually is fascinating, and the site OMGS makes it accessible to everyone. |
| 0:39.2 | OMGS shares findings from the largest ever study into women's pleasure and intimacy. |
| 0:45.1 | In partnership with researchers at Indiana University and at Yale, they asked tens of thousands |
| 0:49.9 | of couples what they wished they had discovered sooner. |
| 0:53.1 | They found patterns in those discoveries, |
| 0:55.6 | and all that wisdom about pleasure and intimacy is organized as hundreds of short videos, |
| 1:00.6 | animations, and how-toes on OMGES.com. And guess what? Half of OMGS users are men. Men are |
| 1:08.1 | curious about this stuff, too, scientific research-backed techniques. |
| 1:12.1 | See what they discovered today at omg yes.com. That's omg yes.com. I did a two-week summer program right after fourth grade at a park that operated like a 19th century village. |
| 1:33.9 | We got to dress in period clothes and churn butter and watch horses get fitted for shoes. |
| 1:38.7 | And on one memorable day, they brought us to a little pond to go fishing. |
| 1:43.1 | Fish were pretty small and the lesson did not include |
| 1:45.7 | cleaning and cooking. This was strictly a catch and release exercise. The instructors assured us it didn't |
| 1:51.4 | hurt the fish to be hooked in the mouth and pulled to the surface, but I remember wondering, |
| 1:56.7 | how can they know that for sure? From KERA in Dallas, this is Think. |
| 2:02.1 | I'm Chris Boyd. |
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