Model Organism

99% Invisible

SiriusXM Podcasts and Roman Mars

Design, Arts

4.8 • 28.1K Ratings

🗓️ 7 September 2021

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Axolotls are nature’s great regenerators. They are able to grow back not just their tails, but also legs, arms, even parts of vital organs, including their hearts. This remarkable ability is one of several traits that turned the axolotl into a scientific superstar. The axolotl is one of the most abundant laboratory animals in biology. They can be found swimming in tanks at universities all around the world. But in the wild they’ve only ever been found in one place: Mexico City.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars.
0:04.0	If I'm being honest, I'm not a big pet guy, but I've had a couple over the years.
0:09.0	My favorite was a snake named Chubaka that I had in grad school while I was studying corn genetics.
0:14.0	He was pretty cool.
0:15.0	I am definitely a pet guy.
0:17.0	Right now I have a dog and a cat.
0:20.0	Shout out to Donnie and Lewis.
0:22.0	But my first pet was kind of an odd one.
0:24.6	Best producer, Emmett Fitzgerald.
0:27.1	At a party in college, my friend Will handed me this Tupperware filled with water.
0:32.4	I took off the top and there was this little animal floating there.
0:35.4	It looked like an adorable chubby tadpole with legs and this delicate feathery boa of gills wrapped around its neck.
0:45.0	Its face was locked in a placid, almost enlightened smile,
0:49.0	like it knew something I didn't about the secret of life.
0:52.0	Will told me that I was holding a kind of something I didn't about the secret of life.
0:53.0	Will told me that I was holding a kind of salamander called an axelotel and that he was giving
0:58.4	this axelotel to me.
1:00.4	Oh yes, my favorite kind of gift, the kind you have to work really hard just to keep alive.
1:05.0	I put the top back on the Tupperware and named her Lenny.
1:08.0	It turned out that Will had taken about 20 axolotal embryos from a biology lab where they had been discarded.
1:15.9	He was raising baby salamanders out of his bedroom and distributing them to friends across
1:20.8	campus along with detailed instructions on how to care for them.
	...

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