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Hello everyone, welcome to Look What I Found.

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This is a weekly podcast where we, this is we K.

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And this is K.

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We are going to discuss interesting things that we found in the news that we're excited

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about this week.

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And I think we are excited about it for many reasons and one of them mainly being it connects

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to science.

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Yes.

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Thank you for that K.

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Both of us are scientists.

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I have a PhD in psychology.

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And I have a PhD in physics.

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We've both been teaching for many, many years.

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I've been teaching for over 14 years now.

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And if you count graduate school, I've been teaching for more than 25 years.

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And we are also married.

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We've been married for 21 years.

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So a good portion of what I've been teaching.

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Yes.

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So the reason we started this podcast is because we read the news and we see interesting scientific

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discoveries being reported and we get really excited.

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We talk to each other about it.

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And because I'm a psychologist and K is a physicist, we come at it from very different

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perspectives.

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And every time I talk to him about it, I feel like I walk away having learned something,

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having understood something from a different perspective.

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And the same goes in reverse for me a little bit because if you think about it really for

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me, it is physics is our external reality and psychology is our internal reality.

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And that's kind of sort of how we make sense of things by putting together the external

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with the internal or the internal with the external.

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And so when we discuss sort of findings that we've come across in the news or other sort

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of scientific publications that we might read or things that we're teaching in class, there's

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always sort of a counterpoint to it, if you will, something that you might miss because

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you got a specialist view from a particular sort of an angle or a discipline in science

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really is quite wide and multidisciplinary.

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So one of the reasons that I was going to try to do this with VK was to really, you

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know, sort of talk about the excitement and the expanse of science.

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Yes.

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See, this is what I mean by just describing the difference in our focus as external and

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internal K has just shown us that there are different ways to view the same research finding

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and people can walk away from reading or watching something and take very different things from

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the same experience.

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And one of the joys of our relationship, because we are such different people, is that sometimes

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that's a complementary thing where we actually like add on and complement and sometimes that

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causes conflict.

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Well, exactly.

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And sometimes it's orthogonal, which means you're still complementary, but you're orthogonal

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to each other.

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You want to run sort of perpendicular to each other in some ways.

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And like VK was saying, you know, I think there are every time in life that we have

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sort of these these cross complementary skills, they can either be oppositional or they can

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be sort of extremely useful to expand and sort of your horizon about how you think about

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things.

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Absolutely.

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And I think for me, the the current climate where folks have become siloed, they talk

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to people only if they agree with each other is something that I haven't lived with.

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I've lived with someone who I can sometimes have very strong disagreements with.

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And we've built a relationship around trust and mutual respect and learning how to talk

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to each other, how to communicate clearly.

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So in addition to the science, which I think is very exciting and really gets me like passionate

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and alert and awake.

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I also wanted to communicate this the excitement of talking to someone who comes at the same

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piece of information from a very different perspective and the joy that you can gain

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from that.

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And I personally love our relationship.

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I love the focus on science and how excited both of us get about it, because I like learning.

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I love it.

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Like this is the thing I like doing the best.

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And that's exactly right.

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And, you know, sort of my angle to this is also quite similar, because my view of science

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has always been expansive and multidisciplinary.

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And I try to say this to you a lot when we talk, obviously, but I also say this a lot

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to all of my students that I teach and my research students that I have mentored is

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to you know, back in the day when sort of the scientific method was forming, physicians

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and physicists were the same people.

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They were not different from each other.

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And you know, we kind of sort of forget how important that is in a worldview as especially

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when we're trying to solve complex problems with science, because all the teams that I

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worked on are multidisciplinary by nature and nobody can sort of do this in a silo.

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And it's one of the sort of great things about sort of trying to do this podcast, which is

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to talk about things that are outside our disciplines necessarily, but things that excite

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us and sort of giving, you know, as a way to rethink about this multidisciplinary worldview

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that we have with some particular subject matter in focus.

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Absolutely.

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And I think just adding on to that a little bit, the multidisciplinary nature of science

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often means that people tune out when it's not about their field.

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But findings can have implications as we'll see today in the episode for what you're thinking

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about, what you're planning to do.

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The most beautiful thing though that I find about science is that I use science in my

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daily life to understand myself.

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I use science to understand other people.

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I use science to figure out how to solve problems.

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And in the complicated and often difficult world that we live in today where people sometimes

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find themselves at a loss for answers to complex issues, science can be very helpful.

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Science is not just findings.

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Science is also the process by which we get to the truth, the procedures that we use to

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understand what is the actual truth, how far away we are from it.

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So there's a lot to it.

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And the last thing I'll say is this, that I find that most of the news today is really

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focused on negative things, but there's a lot of wonderful stuff happening in science

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all the time.

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And I'm deliberately going to focus on the scientific nuggets that show up in media that

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don't get talked about or get talked about very quickly, but people don't understand

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how complex it is so that for all of us who are interested in learning and thinking about

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things and growing, there are these glimmers of information that we can hold on to and

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learn from.

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Yeah, that's excellent.

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And another piece that I'd like to add to that is what I would, for me, really what

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I want to bring into this is just the childlike curiosity that all of us carried as this

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from a young age all the way into our midlife or mid-professional career, whatever we want

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to call this, without having let go of that curiosity and the excitement that comes from

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findings that are reported or that you see can be so exhilarating in some ways because

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it connects things that you had not thought of were connected or perhaps gives you a new

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insight into something that was pretty obvious but was never considered a certain way or

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a completely sort of revamped worldview about something that you might have thought you

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understood.

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So, that's exactly sort of the outlook and the plan for us doing this.

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So I think we're going to try to stick to a schedule, maybe try to do this every weekend

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for now.

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So we'll sort of see how that works out.

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And we're all off to episode one.

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Exactly.

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Thank you for that, K. We're going to do this once a week.

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And like I said, we'll pick up on articles covered by popular media.

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And then we'll also tell you why we picked that article.

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Great.

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So this week's article started with a news report that I think was featured on a lot

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of high profile media organizations including CNN and BBC.

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Yeah.

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So I saw the video on CNN and as the title of this episode indicates, the video literally

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showed an octopus punching a fish.

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The video itself is fairly short.

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It's about 40 seconds or so long and what you see is an octopus in the seabed scurrying

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around with fish all around.

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And then out comes this tentacle and punches the fish.

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And I was fascinated for multiple reasons because the article said that the octopus

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was punching the fish because the fish wasn't cooperating.

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Yeah.

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So it was absolutely fascinating.

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So when we saw the news media article, obviously, I think both of us had independently clicked

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on it and had seen the video, which you should totally check out.

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So go to BBC or CNN and just search for octopus punches fish and you're sure you'll get the

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article.

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And it shows quite fascinating natural behavior of these species, which first of all brings

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into sort of sharp contrast that they are all cooperating at some level.

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It might not be something that we understood very clearly, but this is happening way more

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than we thought it was.

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Yeah.

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I mean, so before we get into that a little bit, I'd like to say that the first thing

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I did, which is what I usually do when I find something interesting on CNN or BBC or any

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of the big media outlets is like, I find the original article and the original article

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was published in Ecology, which is an open access journal.

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And I read the article.

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The article was actually published in 2021.

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So it's kind of interesting that it was published in 2021 and CNN's covering it in 2024.

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Yeah.

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And I'm just going to jump in at this point and say that's exactly what happened in science.

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And we know that all the time because, you know, stuff happens and we're producing interesting

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information at a very rapid rate.

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So kudos to the reporter who picked the story up and decided to publicize this so we could

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do this podcast.

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Absolutely.

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So the paper itself was really well written and I found it an easy read, but I am also

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acknowledging that I have a PhD, but I don't have a PhD in ecology.

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So here's a few things that I found really interesting about the article.

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Number one, the authors actually describe the fact that punching by octopus actually

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serves a specific purpose in facilitating cooperation.

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What that essentially means is that the act of punching is seen as an aggressive act.

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However, that aggressive act is actually enabling the octopus to get what the octopus wants,

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which is cooperation from in particular in the article, Group of Fish.

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That's right.

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I think the article and just to over this point, thank you for being a great scientist.

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I did exactly what you did.

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I went to the original article, which I was very happy to see was open access, which means

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that anybody in the world can actually get access to that article and read it as the

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scientists had written it.

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It also has links in the article itself to the supplementary videos that CNN might have

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used.

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So you find a few more videos than just what you might find in the news article.

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So it was fun to check out.

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I think they had four or five videos of different kinds of punching behaviors reported by these

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octopus.

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So that was fascinating to see all that.

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And then I think to VK's point, the article was phenomenally easy to read, even though

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I'm not an ecologist.

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I felt like it was not too difficult, um, relative to the news media article.

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So I, I again strongly suggest, uh, folk that get interested after listening to some of

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the stuff we're talking about to go check out the original article if possible.

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Absolutely.

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And I want to highlight over here.

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If there are folks who want to become scientists, are scientists, it really helps to write clearly

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so that everybody can understand what you're talking about, especially when you have complex

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information.

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The other thing that I loved about the article care was that unlike articles in psychology,

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it had pictures like color pictures of the actual interactions with video supplements,

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which I feel like automatically makes it an interesting read.

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Absolutely.

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And I think because it's a lot of fun to sort of see it, it's accessible at various levels

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and to some of the points that, uh, you know, you made earlier about, um, the reasons for

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punching, you know, when I first saw this, I, it almost felt like the octopus was enforcing

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discipline.

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You know, it asked people to stay in line and do their jobs because if everybody did

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their jobs, everybody would get fed.

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So that was such a cool idea that, that seemed to sort of just come out of this and that

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species like an octopus could easily sort of, uh, well, easily or not, they are naturally,

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uh, sort of implementing these strategies in, in the wild.

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I think that's, that was the interesting bit.

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So for me, and this is where I'm going to get a little bit technical now, so I'm going

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to like dive into the article a little bit and talk to you all about what they were observing.

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So the CNN article said that the octopus was doing it for cooperation, but the article

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actually goes into some details about other reasons that the octopus might be doing this.

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One of them is to essentially get the fish out of the way so that they can eat the food.

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Uh, and the group of fish too seem to make these, the only way that I can understand

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it, they called it referential, which means the referring to something else.

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But essentially I think of it as like the group of fish start making like faces when

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they get close to the food.

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And what's interesting is that the octopus seemed to know what that facial expression

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means, which is fascinating.

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Yeah, absolutely fascinating.

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So that's exactly right.

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And you know what, my sort of research led me to sort of seeing summaries which said

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that the octopus sometimes punches fish to maintain group cohesion and control the hunting

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dynamics of the, of the situations, which I thought was, you know, you could, it could

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have been a human being for all, all we, you know, if we could have replaced our octopus

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with a human and we might not have, that sentence would have still been totally fine.

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I know exactly right.

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And I think that's the bit that fascinated me was this aggressive act.

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And the writers of the paper make it a point to clearly indicate that they don't think

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there's any spite involved, which means they're clearly saying this is not about feelings.

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It's more about strategizing.

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That's exactly right.

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Right.

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And it seems also that the expenditure was, was punitive, but was not sort of overly so.

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It was just enough and just to keep the fish in line.

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And you know, so you could almost sort of think of overstepping that line and chasing

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away all the fish that might've been around, but it really didn't disrupt the hunting behavior

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at all.

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It just put the errant fish back in play.

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Exactly.

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And what I find fascinating about the use of this punching strategy is that there's

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the same strategy, a quick little punch with the tentacle, which if you watch is hilarious.

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Maybe not for the fish, but it's hilarious for us watching is that you punch, but your,

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your intent could be a multitude of things.

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You could be trying to tell the fish, Hey, behave yourself.

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You could also be telling the fish that get out of the way.

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I need to get to the food.

247
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You could also be like punishing the fish for having left the hunt, which is very interesting.

248
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Yeah.

249
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And I think the authors of the paper did allude to that a couple of times where they thought

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that the punching behavior was really to just put the group back into, you know, hunting

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mode and for efficiency sake.

252
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Yeah.

253
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And speaking of efficiency, the writers did talk about the fact that it costs the octopus

254
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who's on the hunt, right?

255
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Like you're at the bottom of the ocean.

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You're trying to find food.

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It does cost you in terms of energy.

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So they do expend energy for this, but it is self-serving expenditure of energy because

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what you're trying to figure out is that if this fish doesn't work with me, I'm not going

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to be able to get my food.

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Right.

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And that's where this gets really interesting.

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Absolutely.

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And obviously I strongly, strongly urge anybody listening to follow up and check out those

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videos.

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They're absolutely hilarious as we kept pointed out, but there's, it's just fascinating too

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at the same time.

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It seems like they don't distinguish between it's not, the punches are not reserved for

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only one type of fish.

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It's very clear or many different kinds of fish get put in place by the octopus over

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this hunt.

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And it was, it's just a great watch.

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Absolutely.

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And if folks want to learn more about, and Kay is going to correct me in a second.

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Is it octopus or octopi?

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I'm going to wait till the end of the show for that.

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I have a whole thing about what the plural of an octopus is.

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Okay.

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So if you want to learn more about this, you can read the original article in the journal

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ecology.

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You know, also check out this interesting website called OctoNation that does cover

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some of these behaviors.

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But I just wanted to like talk a little bit about what does this mean?

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And as a psychologist, I'm fascinated because aggression, right, self-serving aggression,

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this notion of punching someone to get your way as a cooperative strategy that the writers

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talk about as being part of game theory, right?

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The framework that they use about game theory is that the octopus and the fish are involved

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in a collaborative exercise where they are trying to get food.

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Both of them need food and both of them need to work with each other to get the food.

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And yet it's the octopus that's doing the punishing.

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And I'm wondering if this is because is the octopus just more strategic?

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Or is it just more like bigger and stronger?

293
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One makes it think, right?

294
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Like I don't know.

295
00:22:17,320 --> 00:22:18,320
It's a great question, actually.

296
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I didn't think of it from that angle.

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But here are a couple of other things that this article made me find out.

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Apparently, not all species of octopus hunt together with groups of fish.

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This behavior of octopus teaming up with fish has only been observed in specific species

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in particularly in tropical environments.

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And so most octopus species otherwise are solitary hunters and they rely on ambush strategies

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typically and their camouflaging capabilities to hunt prey.

303
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So this sort of group herding behavior is obviously clearly highlights the cognitive

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abilities and flexibilities of octopus.

305
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But it's not widespread amongst all its own species.

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And so and just on that note, there are more than 300 recognized species of octopus that

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we know of.

308
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That is so cool.

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I mean, one of the things that I read when I went and did a quick Google search about

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octopus is that octopus are really clever.

311
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They have the ability to like get out of traps.

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Amazing escape artists.

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They're called Houdinis.

314
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Apparently, they've escaped aquariums and gone back into the ocean.

315
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I just I love that.

316
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It's just like finding Nemo.

317
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I just I absolutely love that.

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And I think one of the things that, you know, with all the talk about aggression that's

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in the media right now, I was fascinated by this this example of aggression within a cooperative

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culture where both groups are just trying to get to food and, you know, working with

321
00:24:05,600 --> 00:24:12,120
each other that can also give you a little bit of joy when you're like learning about

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00:24:12,120 --> 00:24:18,840
it because there was I I am reconsidering calamari.

323
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I was going to say that at the end of the show.

324
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Thank you, VK for all of you guys who like calamari.

325
00:24:23,200 --> 00:24:24,200
Next time.

326
00:24:24,200 --> 00:24:27,040
Remember, that is a very intelligent species that you might be eating.

327
00:24:27,040 --> 00:24:28,040
Yeah, I know.

328
00:24:28,040 --> 00:24:30,840
And I'm an omnivore and proud to be one.

329
00:24:30,840 --> 00:24:34,320
But yeah, I got to think about that one.

330
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And just on the intelligence front, I found a few more things.

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Apparently, octopus is known to use tools.

332
00:24:41,880 --> 00:24:46,120
It can use coconut shells and other objects.

333
00:24:46,120 --> 00:24:51,360
It is typically seen carrying across the seafloor and assembling them as protective armor when

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needed.

335
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It's got amazing social behavior, as we just witnessed in this program.

336
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It's it can it can form mimicry and camouflage.

337
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And apparently, it's also known to learn by observation.

338
00:25:07,560 --> 00:25:09,440
Well, there you go.

339
00:25:09,440 --> 00:25:16,960
Well, how else are you going to make sense of the facial expressions of a different species

340
00:25:16,960 --> 00:25:19,120
if you don't learn to observe?

341
00:25:19,120 --> 00:25:21,400
And that would be exactly true with camouflage as well.

342
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You would not be able to camouflage and mimic certain things if you were not a good observer,

343
00:25:26,400 --> 00:25:27,400
I guess.

344
00:25:27,400 --> 00:25:28,400
Exactly.

345
00:25:28,400 --> 00:25:36,720
I just I just that little article in CNN, which again, like I want to thank the big

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media for covering this beautiful article.

347
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And the researchers for writing the article has given me so much joy this week has has

348
00:25:47,280 --> 00:25:52,800
encouraged me to learn about this species that I knew a little bit about.

349
00:25:52,800 --> 00:25:57,280
But now I feel like go octopus.

350
00:25:57,280 --> 00:25:58,280
Cephalopods as they're called.

351
00:25:58,280 --> 00:26:00,760
Is that what they call?

352
00:26:00,760 --> 00:26:02,240
So what's the plural?

353
00:26:02,240 --> 00:26:05,480
Well, so OK, so here comes the English part of this.

354
00:26:05,480 --> 00:26:11,280
So any takers for what the plural of octopus could be?

355
00:26:11,280 --> 00:26:14,000
OK, here are three choices.

356
00:26:14,000 --> 00:26:17,560
Octopi and Octopods.

357
00:26:17,560 --> 00:26:22,800
OK, I'm going to go with Octopi.

358
00:26:22,800 --> 00:26:23,800
That's a good guess.

359
00:26:23,800 --> 00:26:29,680
But octopus apparently doesn't emerge from Latin and Octopi would be plural if it did

360
00:26:29,680 --> 00:26:30,680
emerge from Latin.

361
00:26:30,680 --> 00:26:32,800
But octopus comes from Greek.

362
00:26:32,800 --> 00:26:36,640
So Octopods is actually the plural of octopus.

363
00:26:36,640 --> 00:26:37,920
There you go.

364
00:26:37,920 --> 00:26:40,960
You learn something every day.

365
00:26:40,960 --> 00:26:42,520
I love that.

366
00:26:42,520 --> 00:26:43,680
Thank you, K.

367
00:26:43,680 --> 00:26:51,280
We will see you all next week for another episode of Look What I Found.

368
00:26:51,280 --> 00:26:52,280
All right.

369
00:26:52,280 --> 00:27:15,060
See you this week, K.