Identical Twins Aren’t as Identical as We Thought
Curiosity Weekly
Warner Bros. Discovery
4.6 • 964 Ratings
🗓️ 12 March 2021
⏱️ 14 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Learn about the science of sourdough starters; and why identical twins aren’t so identical after all. Then, play along at home as we test your podcast knowledge with this month’s Curiosity Challenge trivia game.
Study of sourdough from around the world shows location doesn't matter for its microbes by Cameron Duke
- Intercontinental study sheds light on the microbial life of sourdough. (2021). EurekAlert! https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-01/ncsu-iss012621.php
- Kiniry, L. (2020). Why San Francisco does sourdough best. Bbc.com.
- http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20200402-why-san-francisco-does-sourdough-best
- Landis, E. A., Oliverio, A. M., McKenney, E. A., Nichols, L. M., Kfoury, N., Biango-Daniels, M., Shell, L. K., Madden, A. A., Shapiro, L., Shravya Sakunala, Kinsey Drake, Robbat, A., Booker, M., Dunn, R. R., Fierer, N., & Wolfe, B. E. (2021, January 26). The diversity and function of sourdough starter microbiomes. ELife; eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd. https://elifesciences.org/articles/61644
Identical twins aren't so identical after all by Steffie Drucker
- Jarry, J. (2021, January 24). Identical Twins Are Not Identical. Office for Science and Society. McGill University. https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/general-science/identical-twins-are-not-identical
- Guardian staff reporter. (2021, January 8). Identical twins are not so identical, study suggests. The Guardian; The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jan/08/identical-twins-are-not-so-identical-study-suggests
- Machemer, T. (2021, January 13). Many Identical Twins Actually Have Slightly Different DNA. Smithsonian Magazine; Smithsonian Magazine. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/identical-twins-can-have-slightly-different-dna-180976736/
- Nicoletta Lanese. (2021, January 7). Identical twins don’t share 100% of their DNA. Livescience.com; Live Science. https://www.livescience.com/identical-twins-dont-share-all-dna.html
- Jonsson, H., Magnusdottir, E., et. al. (2021). Differences between germline genomes of monozygotic twins. Nature Genetics, 53(1), 27–34. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41588-020-00755-1
Episodes referenced in Curiosity Challenge Trivia game:
- Chronotypes: https://www.curiositydaily.com/why-does-february-have-28-days/
- Ants on stilts: https://www.curiositydaily.com/why-scientists-made-ants-walk-on-stilts/
- Smellicopter: https://www.curiositydaily.com/the-dark-ages-werent-really-dark/
Subscribe to Curiosity Daily to learn something new every day with Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer. You can also listen to our podcast as part of your Alexa Flash Briefing; Amazon smart speakers users, click/tap “enable” here: https://www.amazon.com/Curiosity-com-Curiosity-Daily-from/dp/B07CP17DJY
Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/identical-twins-arent-as-identical-as-we-thought
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, you're about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from Curiosity.com. |
| 0:06.0 | I'm Cody Goff. And I'm Ashley Hamer. |
| 0:08.0 | Today, we'll bust a myth about the science of sourdough starters, and you'll learn why identical twins aren't so |
| 0:13.9 | identical after all. Then play along at home as we test your podcast |
| 0:17.9 | knowledge with this month's Curiosity Challenge trivia game. |
| 0:20.8 | What satisfy some curiosity. |
| 0:23.0 | If you're like me and you started a sourdough bread hobby during the pandemic, you probably |
| 0:28.3 | learned that your sourdough starter is unique to your location in the world. A sourdough starter |
| 0:33.4 | start for the uninitiated is the flower and water mixture |
| 0:36.9 | bakers use to grow the yeast that makes their bread rise |
| 0:40.3 | and some of that yeast comes from the surrounding air. |
| 0:43.0 | So if your bread is particularly good, you probably live in a location with particularly good sourdough microbes. |
| 0:50.0 | That's the claim anyway. |
| 0:52.0 | But a new study has revealed that while there's tons of diversity among sourdough starters, |
| 0:58.0 | geography has nothing to do with it. |
| 1:01.0 | A team of microbiologists, probably inspired by their own pandemic bread baking, decided to tease apart what gives sourdough its character. |
| 1:09.4 | Scientists have known that particular types of yeast and bacteria feeding on flour can form unique communities, |
| 1:16.0 | but they haven't known much about the structure or diversity of those communities. |
| 1:20.0 | The team had bakers from all over the world send in samples of their sourdough starters. |
| 1:25.3 | They ended up with 500 samples from across the US, Europe, Asia, and Australia. |
| 1:31.8 | After sequencing the DNA and the starters, |
| 1:34.0 | the team did several things. |
... |
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