SciShow Talk Show - Selective Breeding & the Rat

[@MaineJuen]

I had two ratties. One passed away this past October and the other in February. I miss them both horribly and seeing ratties made me so happy. I've had several rats in my lifetime and I loved hearing all of them mentioned. I had a couple of rex males, most of the others were hooded fancy rats. I never had a dumbo but I'd love one! They are the friendliest of pets. My last baby, Ophelia, was very sick near the end and she used to escape her cage at night and sneak on to my bed and sleep on my pillow. All this being very sick and partially paralyzed in her back legs. They're devoted and wonderful pets.

[@susanne1310]

Abby throughout this whole video is just like PET ME!!!

[@bandnerd29316]

I have a psychology degree and one of my classes required us to have lab rats. I named mine Pippin and she was the smartest rat in the class. I wanted to keep her so badly after the end of the class but we weren't allowed to. She was absolutely sweet and adorable with her white fur and red eyes (specifically bred that way for class).

[@Ellyerre]

The cuteness levels were high in this one! These talk shows are awesome, keep 'em coming!

[@AlleyBetwixt]

SEND OUT YOUR WARGI RIDERS! Lol. Excellent episode. Selective breeding is fascinating.

[@the-random-ones6982]

WARGI RIIIIIDEEERRR

[@ItoeKobayashi]

Abby is adorable! She's such a snuggly fluffy sweetheart :D I couldn't stop watching her the whole time she was out. And my heart melted when Hank and Sweet Pea were nose-to-nose! This was a great episode.

[@myteh_]

possibly the cutest episode of sci show talk show

[@colleenguzman9285]

Thanks for the great video I showed it my 7th grade students and we had wonderful discussions about selective breeding.

[@MotherOfWednesday]

This made me so happy. I am a rat mom and it is always amazing to see them talked about in such positive light.

[@kellbing]

I have been watching episodes backwards to get caught up on them, so I'm really late getting here. I just wanted to say how excited I was to finally see rats on Sci Show Talk Show!!! They are my favorite animal!

[@1212kendra]

"Look at your babies!" Lol

[@WobblesandBean]

I don't think he cares...he's probably eaten a fair share of his own babies at one point or another.

[@yungsloth8336]

I died when he said "Send out your Wargi riders!" in a skyrim accent xD

[@SkyeSong777]

I kept making "aw" sounds after the rats came out. I LOVE them. Great pets. :)

[@mudddkipz]

I'd love to see a scishow episode about spectral signatures of different elements. I don't totally understand how that works, and would like to know more.

[@holymudblood]

Gotta love it when you do a scishow episode about something we just talked about in class :)

[@thoruszwolf4153]

@ 15:32 she says breeding them this way doesn't make them tastier.... there's only one way she could know this for certain D:

[@kueist8952]

lol

[@WobblesandBean]

Well, rats exist for one reason and one reason only: To be eaten. Like most rodents that is their only purpose in nature.

[@sierraespo3956]

I really enjoyed this one! All of you are doing a fantastic job over there.

[@dulgee]

Something I never thought I'd hear from Hank Green "it's impossible without sentient influence". Bravo!

[@BuickGirl1986]

Yea, Nick more nick please! Great show.

[@HannahandKasper]

I love SciShow so much, thanks guys!!!

[@jwhalstrom75]

I really like Nick

[@absojake]

Me too, makes me want to immediately go to sexplanations.

[@Borednesss]

Rats do make wonderful pets, but they have a very short life span. My oldest had barely made it to 4.. I miss them! =\

[@WobblesandBean]

4 is damn old for a rat! They only live on average 2-3 years.

[@wolvensong18]

This episode makes me want to have a pet rat again. I had my little hooded baby Lola for just over 4.5 years before she passed away. I picked her because she snuggled in and fell asleep in my arms in the pet store. She died in 2006, and I still miss her.

[@hannahjervis]

I found this fascinating and adorable which are two of the best things and especially when mixed together.

[@liseturner1019]

So great to see rats on here! I have four females and they are just the best pets. Super smart and cute and loving. They would not be so chill around strangers, though. It's so fun to see all the different traits being showcased. I love being able to have very visually distinct rats in my mischief. It makes it easy to tell them apart as they streak around the living room.

[@mastelsa]

There was an experiment done on the domestication of foxes that raised some really interesting points about the interplay between behavior and physical traits in domesticated animals. Basically, the foxes were selected for breeding based solely on behavioral traits (tameness), and within 30-35 generations they were acting like dogs (eagerly establishing human contact, licking faces, wagging tails, whining, and all that other dog communication stuff) and they also showed an increased tendency to develop physical traits (white patches, shorter tails, shorter legs) not found with any regularity in the wild population. It's possible that a lot of the behavioral and physical traits associated with different breeds weren't necessarily intentionally bred together into that line, but are actually just by-products of each other due to some closely linked genes that influence certain aspects of behavior and certain physical traits.

[@MisterJimLee]

I'm so glad Nick Jenkins actually talked and participated during Jessi's time, it is much more enjoyable than him sitting back and nodding like some of the other guests did.

[@cassesque]

Why has tumblr not come up with a lifelike drawing of a Worgi and why is it not on a shirt yet?

[@GoldenDragon403]

Aw the way she nudges his hand when he stops petting her is so cute

[@windstorm95]

Best birthday present ever! Thanks Hank! :)

[@allieatwood]

More Nick! and Abby!

[@chanelsocool679]

we were learning about this in science last term :) awesome vid

[@KungFuDAVE88]

Best Scishow Talkshow ever! CORGI!!!

[@dinoiscute]

ALL THE CUTENESS!!!! I have a Corgi who I love to pieces but the biggest thing my family did not realize when getting him was the amount of hair he sheds! Energy and temperament are important but also think about how many times a week you want to vacuum enough fur up to make a sweater!

[@MarcosProjects]

Can you do an episode about the permafrost feedback loop and/or climate change feedback loops in general, please?

[@barry6541]

"Oh, are we friends? Sniff sniff, don't bite me"

[@redwolfjoy]

There is a cuteness overload going on here!

[@BrokenOphelia]

Really this episode should have been called CUTESPLOSION. I don't care that it is not a real word, it described what happened!

[@ssppeellll]

It's a word now!

[@gusbisbal9803]

at 12:58 the rat poos

[@thiagodescontrol]

Ninja sight

[@bouncyballblue]

lol I've had so many rats. They poop ALL THE TIME! The only good thing is the poops are solid and easy to clean up (unlike bird poop)

[@Neuralatrophy]

Oh dear god ! the volume.... Its perfect :P

[@blandinegay9568]

For those of you interested in the hows and whys of breeding, I saw a fascinating documentary once, about a Russian experiment, concerning the domestication of dogs. For this they bred silver foxes, according to their behaviour towards humans, and sometimes gave "mean" babies to a "tame" mother or the reverse, to see how it evolved. After a few generations, their had dog-like foxes behaviourally speaking as well as physically speaking: the tamest foxes colour's had changed, their tails tended to curve upwards and so on... I couldn't find the documentary again, but here: cbsu.tc.cornell.edu/ccgr/behavior/Index.html and it is quite easy to find more googleing

[@blandinegay9568]

cbsu.tc.cornell.edu/ccgr/behaviour/Index.htm sorry... this one should work better

[@ntz752]

I know this comment is old but thank you so much!! :D

[@johnstrobel6712]

That is the happiest dog I have ever seen

[@strange2684]

Abby is seriously the happiest dog in the world as Nick pets her.

[@chanc8r38]

would have liked to hear more about the rats intelligence as i had a friend who taught her rat tricks but was a great show thumbs up

[@Royaleah]

Artificial selection is faster than natural selection. That seems pretty simple to understand.

[@goon143]

i think what they were trying to convey is that its more than just morphology there's also epigenetics going on and though yeh selective breeding would be thought to cause changes quicker the rate is even faster than they would have expected.

[@Smeiksmeiksmeik]

+Royaleah natural selection is just you have to live long enought to fuck and that has to produce offspring that survive long enough to fuck .... and so on ... so there are diffrent genes surviving in the wild unless enviroment changes radical ... breeding is JUST the desired trait that "survives" so the selection is much more narrow

[@jckgoldness]

I want a Wargi now

[@killerbee2562]

It would be a very independent minded animal who wants to be alpha animal.

[@jckgoldness]

Rachelle van der Watt I already did, you're too late! :(

[@Bobbiethejean]

I liked this ep of Scishow Talkshow. :) it was cute, funny, very informative, interesting, and NO AWKWARD.

[@rubymimosa]

Hybrid vitality!! Could you explore the various topics within this?

[@ksutubagal]

Abby has Nick pretty much trained! Every time Nick took his hand off Abby to make a gesture Abby was like: "What happened!?!? Why am I not being petted!?!?" and then Nick would automatically resume petting Abby! ADORABLE! Only pet owners would understand....My cat has me trained too!

[@PinkChucky15]

I like rats too. This was one of the most adorable episodes of SciShow Talk Show :-)

[@juststeveschannel]

Theory on cats "playing with their food" which our barn cats on the farm were frequently guilty of; could this be a way of ensuring that they don't ingest sick, diseased prey? I've never heard this proposed or explained, but I have observed the same behavior Hank describes, and it's the best idea I've been able to come up with. That, or their just sadistic...which with cats, of course, is a distinct possibility as well. (Kidding. Mostly.)

[@absojake]

I have also wondered if it has something to do with breeding. Where to make a more-gentler cat, we had to breed it to have more juvenile traits for longer. Such juvenile traits can be kneading and playing with their food. But my cat never kneaded until she was an adult, so that is weird. I guess no one knows for sure!

[@Stoned_Pony]

Yea, I've heard that cats are the only animal that kills for fun. I don't know if this includes wild cats or not, but if it is just domestic cats that do it, then your theory might make sense. During the dark ages when people needed cats to kill all the diseased rodents, they would have bred for the cats that would kill the most, but the ones that ate their prey likely would have died. Funny, the worlds only animal that sadistically kills for fun (aside from humans) was created by humans. I love them all the same though!

[@DeusKDuo]

Stoned Pony many other animals kill for kicks and giggles also not just human breed ones.

[@Stoned_Pony]

***** Hey, thanks for the article! That was pretty informative, and makes perfect sense too. Makes my kitty seem a little less cruel, but not much... I'm sure he still enjoys every moment, lol.

[@Stoned_Pony]

DeusKDuo Yea, you're probably right. I only got my info from hearsay, so I'm sure it's not reliable. Do you know what other animals kill for pleasure? Just curious...

[@dylanlewis-rowlands4430]

The welsh word meaning dwarf is 'corrach' not 'cor', and gi is the mutated version of the actual word, ci.

[@sirkowski]

Rats are the best!!

[@Dyslexic-Artist-Theory-on-Time]

Could you make a video about the alternative theories on KZbin that are outside of the mainstream!

[@SteveCzarny]

Those would be pretty quick videos: "Here is a fantastical "theory"! There is little to no scientific observation which supports this idea. The End."

[@mariposahorribilis]

Steve Czarny How about instead of just saying there's no evidence to suggest it's true, showing that there *is* evidence to suggest it's *not* true. "Here is a fantastical theory. Here are the experimental results and empirical observations that suggest it's a load of tosh." That way the lazy thinkers (as opposed to those who think that the whole scientific establishment is involved in a conspiracy to hide The Truth - whatever their particular version of the truth may be) might actually learn something that will change their minds.

[@SteveCzarny]

mariposahorribilis the types of examples you describe are already more than abundant... anyone who is genuinely curious about the legitimacy of a psuedo-scientific (or legitimately scientific) claim already has hundreds of resources they can tap into to educate themselves. Do you really think the greater good would be served by diverting *more* media coverage to "no shit sherlock" revelations? Personally, I think there are already more than enough folks out their trying their best explain simple things to ignorant people... I would hate to see high quality content like the current SciShow compromised in favour of more pandering to the lowest common denominator.

[@Muffysb]

Steve Czarny For sure, there's no convincing the people who believe these things. Any evidence is simply part of the conspiracy, and they know that because somebody who vlogs about the things they found while Googling told them so.

[@Emsarrev]

Jahanam9994 Aka, religion.

[@tiffanykrieger5035]

I had a corgi and rats and they're both amazing🎉❤

[@TheDraconifors]

Oh my goodness. Not only did I get several minutes of Abby I also got several minutes of the cutest rats ever. Oh my....so much cute!

[@maddhatter6551]

That rats are sooo cool. I'm not surprised there's so many breeds of dog with how much people do breed them. It's amazing how from the wolf we have so many different breeds today though.

[@RainbowNerds103]

Awwww Hank and the rat. So cute!

[@LINDSAYLIKEOMG]

Those are the cutest little rats i've ever seen.

[@Kaoss134]

"HEY I DIDNT TELL YOU TO STOP PETTING ME!!!"

[@nightingale42]

i just about died of adorableness

[@MRInuzaki]

very intresting episode

[@Kitsunary]

The corgi seems to always nudge for more petting every time the guys stops petting. :3

[@josephmontelauro1626]

Please some day let Jessey bring her ocelot to your show. Ocelots are my very favorite feline. And also please bring an egg for her to eat. I know I can't have one of my own, but I would love to see her on scishow!

[@biaroca]

Abby's faces are hilarious. She is an adorable dog.

[@JillH1995]

I've never been a fan of rats, but I can't deny that the baby ones are adorable.

[@robertsnearly3823]

My respect and more, Hank, from finding out you have a Greyhound. I hope you still do. After all, this was from 6 years ago. 😊

[@GilgameshEthics]

SEND OUT YOUR WORGI RIDERS! TODAY WE FIGHT.

[@sachpierre1848]

Dwarf dog, I was wondering why Simon loved corgies

[@rprunty088]

This episode killed me with the cutes.

[@Limit19970]

I used to have a rat called Sophie. They're soo amazing and intelligent.

[@ChildrenOfBodom466]

cutest scishow talkshow ever :p

[@jpopelish]

The best point broyght out here is that we did not imagine the final result with dog breeding. Random mutations provided unexpected opportunities and we just picked from the choices that process provided to us. We discovered and propagated corgies (and all the other breeds), as a result.

[@joeylopez3644]

The rats at 10:00 made me miss my snake

[@brandonperalta409]

Every time Jenkins put his hand down, Abbey hits his hand asking him to pet her again. Such a cute needy wonder!

[@WobblesandBean]

That's rats in a nutshell, though...greedy and never satisfied. And I don't mean that as an insult, that's just how they are. Kind of like how pigs somehow are genetically predetermined to be obsessed with food to the point of it totally dominating their lives.

[@queergeologist8207]

The only thing more interesting than purebred dogs, in my opinion, are mutts. All of the dogs I've ever owned have been mutts. Lucky our oldest dog was a great number of breeds, we have no idea what she was really, but she was fairly short, ver very sweet, to my knowledge she has only ever snapped at one person, and they were poking her. We had to put her down a few years ago. Our 2nd dog Curly was some breed of herding dog, she nipped at our heels, we had to get rid of her because she bit someone, we think she was abused before. Pepper the 3rd dog is an Australian Shepherd-Lab mix, she will just run, and run, and run. She is a big sweetheart, she will just snuggle up to you, if she's been on a walk or at the dog park, otherwise she will just bark and drop a tennis ball on whatever your doing. Fritz is our youngest, he is a schnauzer-pointer mix. He is also a cuddle-bug, more so the Pepper, and she looks like a fraggle with old-man eyebrows. He will actually try to herd the dogs at the dog park, probably one of the cutest things he does. And by the way wargis sound hilarious.

[@MeleeTiger]

Worgi is a thing that must happen, the name alone is just perfect!

[@Dinner_Roll]

When I was little our family of five children had a border collie named Georgia, she had never been taught to herd but she herded us around the backyard all the time!

[@LegoGirl1990]

It's been bred into them. They are such an intelligent breed. I'd love to have one but I'm just not energetic or outdoorsy enough.

[@karlslicher8520]

Dogs have a gene repetition mutation not evident in the oldest wolf breeds. When genes are present in both parents it is repeated in the sequence to become more prominent quicker.

[@WobblesandBean]

It's still present in wolves, it's just not as pronounced or easy to switch on and off. But you're right, that's what makes dogs so easy to mutate and develop breeds from. It's fascinating, isn't it?

[@karlslicher8520]

Amelia Bee Everything is another piece of the picture yes.

[@karlslicher8520]

Amelia Bee Imo the most interesting thing about dog is their ability to read our body language and facial expressions better than we do.

[@zenzylok]

Dogs are a wonderful demonstration of the environmental factors that may morph a species.

[@kitsunescout]

haha your little Corgi has you very well trained with the petting! :P hehe I have a Pomeranian and it absolutely infuriates me when people respond to me telling them the breed of my dog with "oh so he's just a little yappy lap dog?" no! He is very smart, willing to please and quite athletic! He is apart of the Spitz breed, of course he would be athletic! ugh I love my dog! also those rats are too cute! I would love to have a few, but I have a kitty. He is a very social kitty though, hes gotten along with any animal we've introduced him to so far. But I'm really not sure about a little rodent. lol

[@ragnkja]

The Pembroke and Cardigan corgis were considered the same breed, and thus also cross-bred, until about 1920.

[@StolenMoonlight13]

love the rat section hope to see a rabbit from animal wonders on sci show one day :D

[@turtletail313]

Wow people say they don't like cats because all they want is your attention, but that corgi was very unhappy when he stopped petting it XD

[@aemathisphd]

8:58 - Corgi with crazy eyes

[@mariposahorribilis]

"Send out your Worgis!" Hahaha. I always wondered why such a small dog was used for herding cattle, and now I know, thank you.

[@darkreaper300]

what is a breed. i mean i once thought subspecies and breed were the same but my teacher at that time told me no so what is a breed?

[@593iwalkalone]

Im not certain if this is right but think of a breed like you would a race of people. Lets take aboriginal people of Australia and Polynesian people of the pacific as an example. Both poses widely differentiated physcial traits from the average size and weight but too their appearances and to some degree even their behavior would develop along a seperate path. A breed/ race I would say is the point before two individuals that are capable of producing a viable offspring can no longer do so.

[@Summerinx]

Chad Leach I'm not sure if I understand your meaning, but this is how I always knew as the meaning of breed: Breeds are subsets of species. If dogs are different breeds, but the same species, they can reproduce and have fertile offspring. If two animals are different species, but the same genus, THEN their offspring will be usually infertile, with a few exceptions.

[@inkbotkowalski]

I don't know if this has been mentioned in the comments yet, but Darwin also worked with/observed artificially bred pigeons and noted that no matter to what strange shapes the animals had been bred, when left to their own devices, the lineages would revert to "plain"/natural shapes within a few generations.

[@mariabrorsson3712]

Haha, vorgi!:) We never trained our dogs for bird-hunting. But on a contest, were another dog were grumpy, one of them sat of and got the fake duck for my mom and put it by her feet just like he were supoed to. We did train tracking and stuff, but never this. It was his instinkt to do so! Hes a Clumber Spanjel, bird-hunting dog.

[@Bunneears]

My cat Luna does the same thing as Hank's cat (the playing with and laying down on rats etc) :3

[@TegukiSix]

Rats are so cute! Also, at 12:59, you can see a little pellet of poo drop. XD

[@troik]

interesting that nobody commented on the heartbeat in the second half of the video, not sure but I think it's Jessis

[@SinisterXRouge]

Hank can you make a video about your greyhound?????

[@elementwind91]

There's actually a breed of dog similar to what you're talking about, called the Swedish Vallhund. They basically look like a wolf/corgi.

[@sonlukification]

During the second part of the video you could hear someone's heartbeat and for some reason I just want to know whose it was.

[@dylanica3387]

I have started a little thing where I am selective breeding bean plants. (Although only 1 generation has passed so far)

[@jml21000]

not just dogs but fruit, veg, flowers are crazy varied because of our influence

[@remuladgryta]

Ants and termites also have HUGE differences between individuals of the same species. Not only between the queen and the workers are the differences large. Look at P. diversus and their massive soldiers, hundreds of times larger than their siblings. I guess the differences aren't as large between breeds or subspecies though.

[@WithGeorgina]

Corgis these days have tails as in most countries it's now illegal to dock the tail. They weren't bred to have no tail. It's very rare to find one that does not have a tail naturally. I have a corgi pup from an extremely well known breeder in Australia and he has a tail.

[@StrongButAwkward]

"Send out your Worgi riders" needs to be a Nerdfighter thing immediately.