SPEAKER_00: Every kid learns differently, so it's really important that your children have the educational support that they need to help them keep up and excel. If your child needs homework help, check out iXcel, the online learning platform for kids. iXcel covers math, language arts, science, and social studies through interactive practice problems from pre-K to 12th grade. As kids practice, they get positive feedback and even awards. With the school year ramping up, now is the best time to get iXcel. Our listeners can get an exclusive 20% off iXcel membership when they sign up today at iXcel.com slash invisible. That's the letters iXcel dot com slash invisible. Squarespace is the all in one platform for building your brand and growing your business online. Stand out with a beautiful website, engage with your audience and sell anything. Your products, content you create, and even your time. You can easily display posts from your social profiles on your website or share new blogs or videos to social media. Automatically push website content to your favorite channels so your followers can share it too. Go to squarespace dot com slash invisible for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use the offer code invisible to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Bombas makes clothing designed for warm weather from soft breezy layers that you can move in with ease to socks that wick sweat and cushion every step. Socks, underwear and T-shirts are the number one, two and three most requested items in homeless shelters. That's why for every comfy item you purchase, Bombas donates another comfy item to someone in need. Every item is seamless, tagless and effortlessly soft. Bombas are the clothes that you want to get dressed and move in every day. I'm telling you, you are excited when you've done the laundry recently and the Bombas socks are at the top of the sock drawer because your feet are about to feel good all day long. Go to B O M B A S dot com slash 99 P I and use code 99 P I for 20% off your first purchase. That's Bombas B O M B A S dot com slash 99 P I code 99 P I. In August of 2016, Justin McElroy and I created the next great leap forward in podcasting. Asynchronous podcasting. Look it up. It's actually on the Roman Mars Wikipedia page. It all started on My Brother, My Brother and Me episode number 316. Roman Mars says that if there's a revolving door and you use the one next to it that isn't revolving, then you're a monster because they're so efficient and great.
SPEAKER_05: Can I ask you a question, Justin? I've been meaning to ask you this for a while.
SPEAKER_03: Why don't you just go do a podcast with Roman Mars? If you would have me, I would love to get over there.
SPEAKER_05: I have a lot of good ideas for like, not like this show, but like his show, like smart stuff. You know what I mean? Like real thinkers. Not like I can't stress this enough. Not like this show, but like smart, like erudite podcasting. That's I feel like my true calling and where I really feel like my lights under a bushel. Justin, do you want to do like a weird backdoor pilot for smart stuff with Justin and Robin right now and just like give us a topic you might discuss on smart stuff?
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I'll give you an example. And this would be like co-hosted by me and Roman.
SPEAKER_05: OK, so I'll kind of leave blanks for his part. I can do Roman. No, I'm just going to leave blanks for his parts. You don't even want to hear my Roman?
SPEAKER_05: You could try later, but I'm just going to leave blanks for like the Roman Mars. Hey guys, it's me, Roman Mars. I'm going to steal your brother. OK, that's kind of a Grover vibe. So it'll go something like it's kind of remember it's like an erudite kind of smart podcast. Yeah, yeah. Like a podcast where you know the host knows the word erudite.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That kind of thing. So here's here's kind of what would go like.
SPEAKER_05: OK, please. Hello everybody. Welcome to Smart Stuff. I am your host, Justin McElroy. I'm joined, as always, today by Roman Mars. Hey Justin. Roman, what smart thing are we discussing today?
SPEAKER_00: Well, for episode two of the Smart Stuff podcast, I'd like to talk about one of my favorite things in population genetics, the founder effect. The founder effect is when there's a loss of genetic variation in a new population because it was started by a small number of founders from a larger population. Now did it? Think of it like this. According to the 2010 U.S. census, the United States is 72.4 percent white, 16.3 percent Hispanic or Latino, 12.6 percent black and 4.8 percent Asian. That's the average across all of America. But imagine that one city in the U.S. wanted to start a colony on Mars. Speak on that. That city may not have those proportions or that degree of genetic variation. So for example, the widest city in the U.S. is Scottsdale, Arizona. It's about 90 percent white. If Scottsdaleans broke off to form their own Martian colony, even though Scottsdale is a population within the United States, that colony would have much less genetic diversity than the U.S. population as a whole. Usually founding populations are much smaller than entire cities. Sure. So imagine there was only two individuals that started a new population, and then the genes those two individuals carried would be the only genetic variation in the entire gene pool. Subsequent generations may introduce some random mutations, but otherwise that's it. That's all you're working with. Huh. When it comes to plants and animals and bacteria, an isolated founding population with low genetic diversity that by chance had different genetic makeup than the population it came from could lead that new population to becoming a whole new species given enough time. But wait, wouldn't that…
SPEAKER_05: Now if the small number of founders of a population have a genetic mutation and the new population remains somewhat isolated, that mutation will be much more common even as the population grows over time.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I see. So in the 18th century, about 200 families founded the Amish population of Pennsylvania. Huh. And at least one of those families had a mutation called polydactyly. What? Today, the Pennsylvania Amish have much higher rates of polydactyly than the U.S. population as a whole. And that's why, even though it's still quite rare, an Amish person is much more likely to have 11 fingers. Oh. It doesn't usually look like a fully formed finger. It's often just a little nub. Well, folks, that's all we have time for.
SPEAKER_05: Some smart stuff today.
SPEAKER_00: This kind of groundbreaking work made by pioneers in the world of podcasting is only possible because of listener support. Right now, if you go to radio-topia.fm, you'll find a big button that says Roman Mars's Beautiful Nerd Brigade. If you click it, you'll be donating $10. And you'll get an invitation to the online version of my office hours where I will impart onto you and a bunch of other beautiful nerds all the things I've learned about podcasting in the last 10-plus years. Clearly, as evidenced by smart stuff, I have a lot of knowledge about podcasting to impart onto you. About 8 of 10,000 listeners to radio-topia donate. That means very likely you are one of the 9,992 who do not. But you can change that. Go to radio-topia.fm, click the Roman Mars Beautiful Nerd Brigade button, and a big group of us will hang out and talk about podcasting. It's going to be awesome. We need 35,000 people to be backers to this drive to hit our goal. Let's reach that goal together. We made it really, really easy. 10 bucks, that's it. You're in the brigade. And when you're done, send me a note about it on Twitter, at Roman Mars, and I will thank you personally. That's radio-topia.fm. Thanks. What a fascinating tale. Thank you.
SPEAKER_05:
SPEAKER_02: Welcome back to our studio where we have a special guest with us today, Toucan Sam from Fruit Loops. Toucan Sam, welcome. It's my pleasure to be here. Oh, and it's Fruit Loops, just so you know. Fruit? Fruit. Yeah, fruit. No, it's Fruit Loops. The same way you say studio. That's not how we say it. Fruit Loops. Find the loopy side.
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