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You can help us build better mental health care for everyone. Don't eat today at CAMH.ca. That's CAMH.ca. 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. Well started on my brother and my brother in 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. Can I ask you a question? Justin, I've been asking you this for a while. Why don't you just go do a podcast with Roman Mars?
If you would have me, I would love to get over there. I have a lot of good ideas for like, not like this show, but like this show, like smart stuff. You know what I mean? Like real thinkers.
Not like, I can't just say this, not like this show, but like smart like erudite podcasting. I feel like my cheer calling and where I really feel like my lights under a bush was. So you want to do like a weird backdoor pilot for smart stuff with Justin and Roman right now and just like give us a topic you might discuss on smart stuff. Yeah, so I'll give you an example and this would be like co-hosted by me and Roman.
Okay. So I'll kind of leave blanks for his part. No, I can do Roman. No, I'm just gonna leave blanks for his parts.
Okay. You don't even want to hear my Roman. No, you can try later, but I'm just gonna be blanks for like a little bit. Guys, it's me Roman Mars.
I'm gonna steal your brother. Got him. Okay. Let's call it.
I just have it. I have it. I have it. I have it.
I have it. I have it. I have it revived. Okay, please.
I love good 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? 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. Mm. 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.
I did it. Think of it like this. According to the 2010 US Census, the United States is 72.4% white, 16.3% Hispanic or Latino, 12.6% black and 4.8% Asian. That's the average across all of America.
Huh. And then the US population is probably in the US 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 US is Scottsdale, Arizona. It's about 90% white. Scottsdaleians broke off. They formed their own Martian colony, even though Scottsdale is a population within the United States, that colony would have much less genetic diversity than the US 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 the genes, those two individuals carried would be the only genetic variation in the entire gene pool. Uh-huh.
Subsequent generations may introduce some random mutations, but otherwise that's it. And then we're working with, huh. When it comes to plants and animals and bacteria and 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, what in that?
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. 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 polydactylene. What? And even today, the Pennsylvania Amish have much higher rates of polydactylene than the US population as whole. And that's why, even though it's so 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 the real time for.
I'm smart stuff today. 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 RadioTope.fm, you'll find a big button that says Roman Mars' 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 eight of 10,000 listeners to RadioTope donate. That means very likely you are one of the 9,992 who do not, but you can change that. Go to RadioTope.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. They 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 RadioTope. Thanks. What a fascinating tale.
Thank you. RadioTope.