Talk Show: Brain Injuries & Pearl the Tegu 

"she's not a thing" what a wonderful reminder

In the second part, dude on the left looks like he is not usually asked to sit for a long time in silence looking at other people's lizards :D Also he looks like he could make a mighty badass movie character.

Whenever I hear air temperature in Fahrenheit I go Holy *... Oh it's in Fahrenheit

I think the sheer pleasure I got from seeing the two greatest minds in Montana share a couch(Ben and Hank) is rivaled only by that I got from watching Ben try to figure out why he was still in the room after they brought out the Tegu. Bravo.

The lizard is all "ehhh, it is too cold to bother being vicious today".

Shocking new discovery: getting hit in the head repeatedly is bad for your brain

4:17 Oh. yeah... looks like a very specialized institute.

I've heard (but I don't recall the reliability of the source) that the boxing glove actually made boxing more dangerous. The padded glove reduces the wear and tear on the hand of the boxer, reducing the inhibition to hit the hard, bony surface of a skull and resulting in more head injuries than with bare-handed boxing.

My favorite part: "That's not what human hands look like."

This is probably my favorite guest speaker on scishow so far.

"When she flexes it, everything gets hard." -Hank Green

I miss the stump Hank section, and the part where Hank has to guess the animal from the bone.

I love her enthusiasm, you can see she is really interested and invested in what she does and loves talking about it. That's always why science does me in

10 points for the sound this week

11:20 Of course she's well behaved, she's cold :P

I bet Jessi is pretty nervours sitting next to such a handsome and prime example of a male... The guest talking about mma wasn´t ugly either.

Ben Fowlkes brought me here. The guy is a very good reporter; you guys should check out his articles on MMAjunkie.com. Also, first time watching this show and I already like it.

I don't have time to scroll through all the comments, so I apologize if someone already said this, where I would just +1, but... Audio is Awesome on this one!! As a previous commenter that sound was too low, I feel obligated and pleased to note when it is perfect. Thanks for the improvement!

The lizard is just like "IM A FEARSOME FIGHTER PUT ME DOWN HUMAN"

"You've got to touch this girl" Context is everything ;) I think this was an interesting episode. When you introduced Ben I didn't know what to expect, but it turned out great!

Haha, pearl just had a look that said to me: "I ain't having this, but I'm too cold to do something about it, so you get to live." I couldn't imagine being outside, minding my own business, and happening upon a creature like that. My mind would surely be blown!

I have high hopes for this segment! I am hoping for scientists of today coming in and talking about their research. I know there are articles in many journals but to hear them dive into detail would be amazing!

It seems like this topic was outside of your comfort zone, kudos to you for branching out.

I'll be the first to actually make a comment about the video, not being the first to view it. That Tegu was awesome, I wish we had that around where i live to see in person.

Hank is by far, one of my favorite RU-vid personalities. He right up there with Mr. Ballen, or Raven from EWU, Falcon from Gameranx.

I think this is one of the better talk shows - i still enjoy most of them, but this one seems exceptional :)

I would love to see a video on differences between a sociopath and psychopath and how either of those come to be (genetics, growing up etc etc)

Can't help feel that this talk was simply awesome in the sense that despite the guest being an MMA junkie (his words), he does seem to agree on the basic idea that's punching heads does of course affect the brain, typically adversely. There's also a compromise on whether this kind of sports would last. Awesome discussion.

Hank Green totally has the hits for Jessie. She's in every talk show episode!

Jessi is such a cool person!!! :DD

You can tell by the comments that not a whole lot of people watching care or know about MMA, and that leads to some pretty ignorant looking comments. "I don't get punched in the head and enjoy it hur hur hur lookit my intellectual superiority." They don't seem to stop to think about the mentality that you develop as a side effect of physical exertion and training for something that you care about deeply. TL;DR: Don't think you're superior because your hobbies are different.

Watched War of the Worlds in KL Live. Amazing!!

Great topic, great guests, and just a great episode. Thank you.

This was an extremely interesting topic, more so than I thought it would be! Please make more videos about health and culture. :)

How come the intro always seems to have a different volume? Maybe you guys should fix it at a certain level and then use it as a standard to adjust the regular video to.

yeah great sound again!

Tegus are not in the monitor family in fact they belong to their own family and genus. Monitors belong to the genus varanus and they are native to the old world. The tegu is an example of convergent evolution because they and their relatives are native to the new world.

Great thoughts on MMA and brain injury. I'm a big fan of the sport. Love the skill, athleticism and respect (most) martial artists have for each other. My inner nerd and warrior are in conflict here.

fight science is a pretty fascinating show. i'd recommend it. they go through the physiology of various forms of fighting, especially specific hits. martial arts, military, etc groups join in on different episodes. there's a bit of biology and bit of physics all to explain what happens to a person's body within those different scenarios.

I love Jessi!

4:16 dat architecture though

thanks Hank, I really loved the subject (Chronic traumatic encephalopathy, CTE) and i would really like if could do a ScyShow on the subject (and it's possible cause like in child abused), i mean from a more science/medical point of view. I haven't seen one from the ScyShow team and i enjoy the way you guy's explained thing.

He blinks upside down! That's so cool. ^-^

Awww! No link to Ben's article? Or shoutout to his writing? To teh Googles! (But you could still add the link in the text, and that would be sweet of you.)

Still trying to understand the point of bringing that tegu after awesome talk by Ben Fowlkes.

Okay, the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health is one of the trippiest buildings I've ever seen.

this was fare less car crash than it normally is. You're getting the hang of this Hank. ;)

The monitor is awesome. It's like a fat mini-goanna. Greetings from Australia!

It's good to hear that several studies are shedding more light on brain trauma caused by certain sports. Hopefully we as a species can move onto smarter forms of entertainment that don't threaten the well-being of the participants. I wanted to make a suggestion so here it goes. I felt that the presentation of Sci-show can get a bit awkward or random at times. I enjoy hearing the special guest talk about his/her subject matter and I also find myself going "that's so freakin cool" when Jessi presents an animal. I just feel that sometimes the 2 elements do not mix well in one show. Transitioning from certain serious topics such as brain injuries to discussing an animal is clunky and just seems a bit out of place. Often, there is so much more to be said about the subject matter discussed by the special guest. The guests are usually very willing and excited to share their knowledge as it's something they have worked on or delved into, so I'm sure they would say a lot more if they were given more time. I think Sci Show could do great having 2 separate episodes: one for Animal Wonders and one for a special guest. This would allow each individual episode to be even longer so the special guest and Jessi have more time to discuss with Hank. I realize that the current format allows you to condense info into one episode, but I'm sure that viewers would be willing to sit through longer videos that really get to the heart of certain topics. The special guests usually have such amazing things to share, that I feel like a back and forth conversation between them and Hank deserve their own episode. Don't get me wrong, I really do enjoy the current show also. Thanks for making unique animals and science accessible for the rest of us!

Just had a great idea. How about suing Ken Ham, WLC and so on? All those facepalms they cause are bound to do some harm.

The guy on the left is like why the fuck am I still sitting here

MMA is a great sport to get into. I highly recommend it.

I absolutely love your videos! I was wondering, though, if you could start captioning your videos for people who are Deaf and Hard of Hearing. Everyone should be allowed to enjoy your amazing videos. :-)

why a brain health clinic be on a building that makes my head heart?

It's funny you said it's good to wear gloves to protect your hands while fighting Hank, as that change is what has led to brain injury becoming so common in boxing. Before the fighters were allowed to wear gloves they would mainly strike each other on the chest and body (bare-handed strikes to the head will break your hand) and knock outs were rare and fighters would deal with the punishment much better. While handling Tegus however, gloves are a very good idea!

Tegus are wonderful

"You gotta touch this thing" - Hank Green (2014)

Those reflections of the cartoonish roses and vase on the table though

The big question: Does getting hit in the head induce a decrease in brain volume, or does an initial low brain volume at the outset contribute to the primitive desire to WANT to be hit in the head for a living?

I do think the risk to brain-health makes the decision to be a professional fighter an unwise one, but I think the physical dynamics of sports like mma or martial arts like jiu-jitsu make them incredibly beneficial as workouts for the human body. If you think about it, jiu-jitsu should become the main curriculum of phys-ed classes in our kid's schools. People go through so much headache trying to piece together a fitness program that's going to improve their cardio, strength, muscular endurance, and find it hard to do because you can't simultaneously work on building up to a high one-rep max on squats while also improving your 40-yard dash time without putting yourself at a high risk for a leg injury. Jiu-jitsu is just one human working out against another human in the most logical way. The functional aspect of jiu-jitsu is just a bonus. Human beings have to have SOME form of physical exercise to balance out their hormones, regulate their metabolism, and even to keep depression/anxiety at bay. Jiu-jitsu is perfect, every kid should have the opportunity to learn it.

It's funny because the bigger tegus are the nicer tegus. Argentine Giant Tegus, especially the black and white tegu, which grow to be 4-5 feet long are extremely docile and easy for even inexperienced people to handle. Mine is on my lap as I type this right now. No welding gloves needed.

we shouldn't confuse correlation and causation. It is possible that only people with small brains fight a lot and that it isn't the fighting that causes the smaller brains

I have a question: After a workout, you consume a meal of glorious nutrients, then drink a cup of coffee. Is this wise? Will the digestive system have enough time to absorb all the nutrients before you have to poop them out again?

TEGU!!! Tegu tegu tegu

Hey, GREAT mic levels, this time. Just wanted to let you know. (.....Because we don't always have to use the comments to complain).

"you gotta touch this girl" hell, you didn't make it any better!!

That Jesse chick is pretty cool...normally animal fanatics are a little, uhh, strange, but she seems like a cool person along with being very knowledgeable. But I never in my life ever would have guessed getting hit in the head would hurt anyone, I always thought getting hit in the nads was the worst thing ever.

It was unclear to me if the smaller brain volume in pro fighters is a result of the choice of occupation or the other way around. Always interesting stuff on your show Hank. :-)

Whenever there's like lower ceiling/doors/entrance that I don't expect, I usually hit my head. :(

Man that guy's just totally uninterested in the Lizard.

You have such a nice house :) I've watched this quite a long time, but it's still nice....

Jessi is awesome.

"you gotta touch this girl!" someone soundbyte Hank saying that.

i got an armadillo to the face once. i was trying to pick it up to take it back to it's enclosure and it rolled into a ball and popped up at me. it was like something from a sonic the hedgehog game

I have epilepsy all from a brain injury (concussion) from when I was 2

Cool episode. My two worlds collide. Nerdy stuff and mma. Ben is awesome by the way for mma fans out there.

That man has an asymmetric beard, and he still looks amazing

I think that woodpecker and/or tegu MMA fights would be a much better thing to watch on television than human MMA fights.

OMFG I CAN HEAR THIS SHOW NOW

Scishow should make more videos on astrophysics or high-energy particle physics also what happened to minute physics its been putting out like one video each year given that they are short you'd think they could be put out more quickly

This was fascinating

Love Ben Fowlkes! ^_^

This was great and fresh :)

wow i watched some of your videos a while ago, always informative as shit. cool to see you cover mma, though it has to do with brain injuries. but it's an important aspect of the sport that should be studied

Sounds analogous to UV exposure vis a vis skin cancer. The best prevention is to stay away from the source of damage.

Small correction: Tegus are not part of the monitor lizard family. They are similar in appearance, but are not closely related.

Old style bareknuckle boxing was actually safer than modern boxing. To protect their hands, boxers avoided the head and as a result there were few deaths or brain injury.. Today in the US alone about four boxers die in the ring each year and many more have their brain permanently damaged. There must be some way to stop this. One way would be to introduce stiff penalties in scoring or even forfeiting of the match for blows to the head.

I love these talk shows but is there some way you could include the first guess in the animal portion a bit more? They tend to just sit there thinking.

The Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health :D It´s just awesome architecture!

"She's not a thing" that was perfect

Love the animals each time :)

mma is kind of neat. its very technical. boxing is way worse health wise because you have ultra padded gloves and the rules include no below the belt, you cant arm bar, etc. bare knuckle boxing is safer than gloved boxing, because all the hits to the skull with a padded glove doesnt break the hands of the puncher. but bare knuckle, you must tone it down or do more body-shots or you break your own hands hitting skulls repeatedly

Wow Tegu eats snakes. Tegu: Watch your words, human. You might be next.

Loved it

I get hit in the head often and nitin ron wif ma bran. Also YAY! Great sound recording.

LOL HANK YOURE HILARIOUS

Dude reminds me of my old spanish teacher. Smart, hairy-armed badass

I was kneed to the head and elbowed as well, when I did wrestling in high school, partly against my wishes. Undoubtedly I think my brain got screwed up a little bit then. Indeed all the practice that goes one, is most of the time I got injured because more time is spent training/practice than actual competition. Add some of the dangerous labor I did around that age, I got hit in the head by a pry bar, falling tree branch for example. My head is so fuked.

i love these

Ben was like wtf I'm doing here.