SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hello, Courtney Holland. Hi, Emily White. Happy Sunday, dear. Happy Sunday. Thank you everyone for tuning into That Wasn't the Plan. We are so delighted to have you here today. Absolutely. Did you have a good weekend so far?

SPEAKER_02 0:18

I so far so good. I'm excited to be home and relaxed. We were in North Carolina yesterday. My husband just really wanted to paint the back of my parents' uh house, their stairs, and fix all the rust. So we went there with some guys and they worked their tushes off from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., just making it look like a brand new. He just was like, Yeah, I've been meaning I've been wanting to do this for three years. So we just went and did it yesterday. So if you have any rusty spots, he can handle it.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

Uh yeah, my whole house. Um well I had an opportunity to go out to Lake Washington yesterday and swim around. Um while we were just kind of floating in the water, this family of ducks floated past us, and the little, you know, the little ducklings are, I'd say medium-sized, if you will. I would imagine they're probably three-ish months old. I think it was about three female or three hens and then a number of ducklings who passed us, and then on the way back, there was only one hen and three ducklings. So they must have just been after school dropping someone off and then coming back. But it made me really excited because our guest today is the world's leading expert in duck biology. And so I was just I got really excited uh for our guest. And let me introduce her real quick. We are very fortunate to have with us today Dr. Patricia Brennan or Patty, who was born and raised in Columbia, where she received her bachelor's degree in marine biology. Wow. She has a PhD from Cornell University in neurobiology and behavior. And after her undergrad, she spent more than a year living aboard the RV Odyssey, a 90 foot eight or 98-foot research catch. Wow. She is a I know, she is a full professor of biological sciences at Mount Holy Oak College. She runs a lab studying genital coevolution across vertebrates, birds, snakes, bats, dolphins, sharks, skates. Uh she is best known publicly for her research on duck reproductive biology. Yeah. She's been featured in the New York Times, National Geographic, The Guardian, Scientific American, Slate, NPR. And in 2013, her NSF-funded research was singled out by Fox News, Sean Hannity, and Sarah Paland as quote unquote wasteful government spending. And she responded with an opt-ed in Slate titled, Why I Studied Doc Genitalia, that went viral and became really, yeah, became a rallying point for basic science funding, which is so important. She is featured in the upcoming documentary, Second Nature. And she told me the title of your podcast could be the byline for my scientific career. And that is why she is here today. So welcome, Patty. Welcome to the podcast. Yay, Patty, welcome.

SPEAKER_03 3:26

Thank you. Thank you guys for inviting me. Hi, everybody, Courtney. It's so good to meet you guys.

SPEAKER_00 3:31

Oh, it's so good to see you. And thank you. I know that you are all over the world these days. Um I forget, are you in Colombia right now or are you heading there soon?

SPEAKER_03 3:40

No, I'm heading to Colombia. Yeah, but I have been all over the place collecting genitalia from all sorts of different pictures, which is what I get to do. It's a lot of fun, actually.

SPEAKER_00 3:50

It's so cool. It's so cool.

SPEAKER_02 3:54

It's not a sentence I've ever heard or probably ever will hear. I'm traveling around just collecting genitalia. I love it. Love that genitalia.

SPEAKER_03 4:04

Well, and the thing is that like when somebody's animals die and they're all very sad and depressed because you know their precious animal is dead. I'm like, yay, I get their genitals. So I feel a little bit like Dr. Frankenstein because the genitals.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

They're mine. Fascinating. So all kinds of animals then. Yeah. Oh my God. Oh my God. I can't. Yeah, we need to get into that. But first, I kind of want you to like take us back to Colombia where you grew up. Um tell us about your kind of upbringing, like where you were in Colombia, what the sights and smells and all of that was like growing up.

SPEAKER_03 4:47

Yeah. So I grew up in Colombia in a family with four sisters. And I went to an old girls Catholic high school. It was a very religious, uh, but also very supportive environment. You know, Latinos, we are all about family and community and all that jazz. And so that was great. But in my entire family, there was not a single biologist, right? Like nobody was into biology, and I was the fourth of five girls. Wow. And my sisters would terrorize me all the time when I was growing up because I was one of the younger ones, right? Um, and I learned that when we were outside, like if I grabbed any kind of creepy, crawly creature, I could scare off all of my sisters. Oh my god. And chase them around with like frogs and bugs, and and then they would leave me alone. And so I I became a bottom biologist basically out of self-defense.

SPEAKER_02 5:41

That's incredible. Yeah. That could be the coolest story I've ever heard. That's how it started.

SPEAKER_03 5:47

That's how it started. And then when I was uh 13, we we grew up in Bogota.

unknown 5:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 5:53

And when I was 13, my dad took us on our first vacation to the ocean. Okay. And we we went there and um, you know, he booked a snorkeling trip for everyone. And it turns out everyone chickened out except me. And everyone was like, I'm not going in there, like there are sharks in there, or who knows what? And they were like, No, no, no. And I was like, Oh, I'm going. And so I went with the guide and he took me by the hand, and we went snorkeling in these reefs uh just off the coast of Colombia. And it was the most spectacularly beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life. Because you know, Bogota is a big city, it's noisy, it's ugly. We have like pigeons and stray dogs, and that's it. Um but the ocean was a whole other universe that I just discovered sort of in that moment. And after we were snorkeling for a few hours, and I I almost didn't get out of the water. And I remember I asked a guy and I said, What do I have to do if I want to look at this all the time? And he said, Well, you'll have to become a marine biologist then. And I was like, Okay, great. I'm gonna become a marine biologist. And so, you know, that that part of my story was was according to plan, that's exactly what happened. I went to school, and all I ever wanted to do was to be a marine biologist. And I went to school and I became a marine biologist, and so it was uh phenomenal. It was just it's such a wonderful, beautiful ocean, and the ocean life is incredible. And so that was great. Um, everything was fantastic, and then I had this opportunity to join this boat, um, as Emily was saying, that was doing research in the Galapagos.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 7:32

Uh, they were studying whales and dolphins, and uh, I was like perfect. All I because all I wanted to do was to leave Colombia and just go scuba dive around the world. Yes, that was all I wanted to do.

SPEAKER_00 7:47

That's what I'll all I want to do right now. Me too, me too, me too.

SPEAKER_03 7:51

Me too. Like Janitalia. Yeah, and it also, you know, the there were other things in my mind as well. Like I remember um in Colombia, it's in and in my family in particular, it was a very traditional household. You know, my dad worked, my mom was a stay-home mom. Um and I remember thinking, that sucks, man. Like I don't wanna I don't want to have that life. You know, I didn't see myself as being somebody's wife and having a bunch of kids and just staying behind while my husband was working. And, you know, my mom was awesome, actually. She would always tell us, this was my choice. You know, I made this choice, but it doesn't have to be your choice, right? And I took that to heart, really, and I was like, no, I'm out. I'm I'm not gonna marry and have a bunch of kids and you know, be raising the kids while my husband goes out. I was like, no, I want to be the one going out and having adventures and and scuba diving. And so I left to to do exactly that.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

Wow, that is so empowering that your mom said that to you. Yeah. I yeah. I know. So this was my choice. It doesn't have to be yours. That's incredible. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 9:00

And and all of my sisters, I mean, we all sort of fledged a coup, and then we went to do our own things, and um it was a very good way. And also because I was in this old girls, Catholic high school, um, there was something really interesting about it, which was that I I grew up seeing women being able to do everything and being the best at everything, right? So cool. So sports and computers and math and physics, and we were all women and we were all the best, right? And it had never even occurred to me that anybody would doubt that that was, of course, the case, that women could do everything and could do everything in sort of an amazing way. Um and then I got to college and I was like, oh, wait a minute. Like people don't really think that women are like at the top of everything, and and you know, it was a kind of like a rude awakening. But sure, but it had already been part of my of my upbringing, this idea that of course, you know, you get to go and have your adventures and do whatever you want to do because you can do it.

SPEAKER_00 9:58

That's fantastic. Oh my gosh. So cool. Wow. So you joined the Odyssey and the Galapagos was gonna be, was it the first stop on the world tour, if you will?

SPEAKER_03 10:09

Exactly. Yeah, the Galapagos was the first stop. Um I actually I had fudged the truth uh just a little bit because um I was asked if I spoke English. Um and I could sing Madonna. I could sing Madonna songs really well. Uh I don't think that quite counts. Uh I was like, sure, yeah, I speak English. You know, I could I could read scientific articles in English well enough. Yes. Um, but actually when I got on that boat, I realized I was the I was one of two people basically who spoke Spanish. Um and I was the only woman on the boat as well. It was basically a crew full of men. Um boy. And it was really it was really interesting because um, you know, I I got there and the captain gave me this talk about how he didn't like to have couples on board because people fight and you're living on a sailboat, and so then they make life miserable for everyone. And I was like, oh dude, I have a boyfriend. Like I was seeing someone in Colombia, and originally I was gonna go for a month. This was supposed to be a month-long trip. Okay. But then I found out that that's what they tell everybody that it's just a month-long trip, just in case you really suck, and then they don't want to get stuck with you, you know what I mean? Because you're living on a boat, like you don't want to live with someone who's like a total jerk. So I was like, no, no, you know, I'm I'm seeing someone, like I have no interest in getting together with anyone. And I get there and I was the only woman, and out come all these men from all over the world. Oh, and the world beautiful and tan, and I was like, Oh my gosh, what happened here? Oh, it's right. And so then um, you know, this guy comes out that I was like, Oh, who is this cutie? And I was completely like head over heels, uh over, you know, falling all over this guy. Uh and it turns out, you know, we just had our 30th wedding anniversary. That's hilarious, Catty.

SPEAKER_02 12:11

He was like, no couples, and you're like, no problem.

SPEAKER_03 12:14

And then this body walks out, and you're like No, I swear, I could not keep my hands off this guy. He was like the most he was the most beautiful man I had ever seen, and he was like super smart and super capable. And and so I was like completely, you know, taken by by this this man who was not part of my plan because remember, I was never gonna get married, I was never gonna have children. No So that was that was when things started changing, really. Um was really uh finding this relationship that was weird because he didn't speak much Spanish, I didn't speak much in much English, but um yeah, we we got together and it was fantastic, and you know, we're still together very happily. That's amazing. Where was he from? And what's his name? Yeah, he's from he's from the US, so he grew up in the suburbs of New York, and uh his name is Bernard, and hence my last name, right? Because I'm Colombian, so my last name is actually Rodriguez, right? So I'm Patricia Rodriguez. Yeah, but his last name is Brennan. So it's hilarious because my name is Patty Brennan, which is like the most Irish name in the world. For real. So people invite me to do stuff. Seriously, they invite me to do all these things and they're expecting like a red hair full of freckles. Yeah. And I show up and they're like doing a double tick. They're like, wait a minute, you're not a patty Brennan. You know, and I'm like, well.

SPEAKER_02 13:32

I like your American accent too. You did that great. You're not a patty Brennan. That's perfect. Wow. Well, heck yeah, that's so romantic. I mean, I love the the empowering part, but I also like the romance. So that's really sweet.

SPEAKER_03 13:49

You know, just uh you can't plan for these things, truly, truly. Like, you know, just uh it it just happened. And it was it was such a spectacular place, the Galapagos, really. Um it is I think yeah, it it would have been hard not to yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:03

Yeah. I was fortunate to go there back in 2020 in uh February for wow for eight days, I believe. And I swam. I'm an open water swimmer, and so uh we stayed on a few different islands, and then every day we got on a boat and we went to another island and we swam along the coast or from island to island, and it was just incredible. Yeah, I feel that's a bucket list item. It was has always been for me, and I feel very fortunate to have gone there and I haven't been back after all these years, and I'm a little scared of going back just because I know it has changed so much since the time when we were there.

SPEAKER_03 14:42

When we were there, there was no development, you know, there was nothing. Those towns were like, you know, dirt roads and yeah, you know, and now they're like real cities, and so yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:52

They are, yeah. Uh we didn't actually stay in any of the bigger towns or cities, but yeah, it was big enough to, you know, restaurants and hotels to make you feel like yeah, tour it was open war tourism. So yeah. So how long were you actually on the boat for the Odyssey?

SPEAKER_03 15:11

So we we ended up doing a couple of different trips. So we were on a trip in the Galapagos for a little over a year, and then we left and we came to the States to kind of write up our results and uh write a report for the non-for-profit that ran the boat, was the Wealth Conservation Um Institute at the time, which is now called the Ocean Conservancy. Um we were doing all of that and at the same time getting permits and applying to go on a different trip to the Cocos Islands off the coast of Costa Rica, which is also another archipelago like out in the middle of nowhere. Um and so we did that, and then we went back on board and we stayed for another few months around the Cocos Islands. But then what happened again in another completely different transformation, because up until that point I was still planning on just selling the ocean blue, literally.

SPEAKER_01 15:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:00

Um and and what happened is we were uh looking always for whales and dolphins, and and I was a marine biologist on the boat, so I was supposed to know all of these species that we were seeing, and there is a group of whales called beaked whales, which are deep divers, and so you you almost never see them, and and when you see them, you see them come up for air and then they go back down and you never see them again. So most of the time you write on identify picked whale. But in this particular trip, it was a mama with a baby, but she had just had a baby, and so they were up in the surface and they were not diving. And so they were up there, and I'm out there like trying to identify this whale, and I have all my books out, and I'm like, What is it? What is it? And I couldn't find it in any of my books, and I was like, Oh man, so we took lots of pictures, and when we came back to shore, um, you know, we we sent the pictures to a guy who's an expert on this group of whales, on big whales in California who works for Noah, Bob Pittman. And we sent him the pictures and we said, Can you help us just tell us what it is so we can put it in our records? And he goes, I have no idea. And we're like, What? And it turns out, long story short, it was the first live sighting of a whale that had only been identified by the skull. And I was like, I know. So the only thing we had seen of this whale was like the skull, and that's how he had been classified. And I could I mean, look at your faces, like that that was exactly like imagine that your can't even imagine. Wow. I was like, do we just like discover a friggin' whale? Yeah. But it's a whale, you know, like how can it be that there are whales in the ocean that we still haven't seen, that we haven't laid your eyes on. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

Yeah, I've got a friend, her name is Elizabeth Henderson, she's also a marine biologist, and she was part of a group about two-ish years ago down in the Gulf of Cali um the Gulf of Mexico, who discovered a new whale species as well.

SPEAKER_03 18:01

It was a it was just like a subspecies of Brutus well, or or it had been misidentified as a Brutus whale, right? And then they were like, oh no, it's like its own thing.

SPEAKER_02 18:09

Yeah. Wow.

SPEAKER_03 18:10

I I I think uh yeah, I remember the story, because since then they have been like four or five, you know, different species of new wells that have been described. So that right there was the change of everything.

SPEAKER_01 18:22

I can't even think about it.

SPEAKER_03 18:23

Because I had no idea that there were these huge things that could still be discovered. You know, like when you learn, and especially like in in the kind of learning that I did in biology, I memorized a ton of stuff, right? And I I knew that, you know, I could tell you all the families of fish and all the families of algae. I knew them all by memory. So I was like, we know everything already.

SPEAKER_01 18:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:47

But then all of a sudden you find out that there is a whale out in the ocean that nobody knew about. And I was like, I want more of that. That was awesome. Like, how do I get to go out and build a life in which I can discover this big thing? Discover things like I know, exactly. And and at the time, I mean, I didn't even know what a PhD was, because again, in Colombia we don't have uh at that time we didn't have PhDs now, now we do. But I didn't even know what that was, and so I was I started talking to people and asking them, and I was like, okay, so how how do I do more of this? You know, like what is the path that I have to follow? And and to be the boss, you know, to get to decide where do we go? Like, I want to be the person who says the boat is gonna go there now. Yeah. What do I need to what do I need to do in order to do that? And so people were like, Well, you need a PhD. And I was like, What is that? And so I was I was learning. Um so then that's when I decided that I really wanted to become a scientist and come back. And so I came back to the States and I started applying for graduate school. And Cornell University took us both me and my husband. Wow as as graduate students, and and so that's where we went.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

And you intended to continue studying marine mammals at Cornell. Um then you actually switched to birds. Um Woo!

SPEAKER_03 20:18

I know, I know. It feels like a big switch, but trust me, it was it wasn't that big a switch because I picked the hardest bird that you can ever imagine. So it was like a whale. It was like studying a whale, like uh you hear it, but you don't see it. Yeah, I thought. Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_02 20:34

Like a ghost. Oh, I like it.

SPEAKER_03 20:36

It was it was like a ghost, exactly. Uh the reason why I changed made a lot of sense, but I was at Cornell, and of course, at Cornell, there are a lot of people who study birds, right? It's like an epicenter of bird research. Oh, okay. Um, and so the guy who became my advisor, uh Steve Emblem, who's an amazing ornithologist, he said, you know, if you try to do work with whales, you would need gazillions of dollars, you need a boat, uh, and you would need years and years and years to collect good enough data to do a behavioral project, which is what I wanted to do. So he said, no, why don't you study birds? You know, birds are pretty cool. And you could find a bird that people don't know much about and and try that. And I was like, okay, that sounds good. I love birds. I'm from Colombia, so we have like one of the highest uh diversity of birds in the world. So I was like, okay, you know, I I I can find a bird in Colombia so I can visit my family on the way in and out. Yeah. Um and so I literally I opened the Birds of Columbia book, and then the very first page is Family Tinamidi, which are these Tinamu birds. And it said something like, you know, the males do all the parental care, this is exclusive male care. Uh they lay bright, beautiful eggs. The females are completely emancipated, so they just seem to like go around giving different males eggs. Uh but we don't know very much about them because they're very hard to study. And I was like, oh my gosh, that sounds amazing. Because exactly like what you were doing, Courtney, like a I was like, I want to know how those females get away with that. Like they just have like multiple males and they just go and give everybody an egg and then they're like, see you, you know. Later, have fun with that. That's right. I was like, okay, that's kind of cool. Because most birds have uh biparental care. So both the male and the female help out. So a species where it's just the male doing everything, um, I was like, that's that's super cool. That's cool. So I basically ended up uh again, because I was an outsider. I think if I had known anything about birds, I would have never picked this bird. Because it was too hard. It was too hard. But I didn't know anything. And I was like, you know, I want to make my own project. I don't want to do something that somebody else is already doing. I'm gonna start with like something totally different. That's great. And it worked out perfectly because I was able to study them. I mean, it was sweat, blood, and tears. Don't take me wrong. It was like the hardest thing. Couldn't end up.

SPEAKER_00 23:03

So so you were studying them in the rainforest. Which country were you in?

SPEAKER_03 23:07

Yeah, so I started in Colombia, actually. Okay. Um but then then I had to switch because uh the political situation in Colombia in the 90s, if you guys remember, wasn't very safe. And especially for a woman working alone in the field. Um it just wasn't gonna be possible for me to go to a lot of the places where the birds actually were. Um so I ended up going to Costa Rica and I I did my work at uh La Selva Biological Station, which is paradise on Earth. It's just one of the most incredible places, uh, full of all kinds of creatures. Um, and that's where I where I did my project.

SPEAKER_00 23:44

Wow. And so you were there in the Costa Rican rainforest, like what time of day with it? Who were you with, and what were you actually doing when you saw them mating?

SPEAKER_03 23:55

No, we're gonna get to it. We're gonna get to it. No, we're gonna get to it, we're gonna get to it. Um so here I am studying these crazy hard birds, but you know, I I I got into my rhythm and then I could stay far enough that they wouldn't necessarily run away from me all the time. And I was watching them one day and I saw them mate. And if you ever see birds mating outside your window, if you have a bird feeder or whatever, they come in and they use something called the cloical kiss, which is is their their little cloicas, which are their one opening for everything. Um just come in and they touch very quickly, and then the male transfers sperm in that brief moment. So it's a very quick business. But with the Tinamus, you know, the female was laying on the ground, the male got on top of her, and he's kind of like threading on top of her back, and then he lowers his cloica and he grabbed her by the neck, and they got up together and they're kind of like walking together, like a stuck together. And I was like, What? What's happening? What is this? And then they separated and I saw this giant thing hanging off of his cloica. And I was like, Oh, he has worms. I thought he had parasites. Oh, because he was a white, kind of curly, long, thin thing. And I was like, that looks like a worm. I was sure it was a worm. And then he started like pulling it back into his cloica. And I was like, oh, it's a penis. I was like, no, but how can it be a penis? Birds don't have penises. Do birds have penises? And I was like, oh my gosh, I need to find out. I need to find out this piece of information. Incredible. Um, and so when I came back from the field, I hid the library and I was like looking for anything I could find about bird genitalia. And what I found was that indeed some birds have penises, but it's very few of them. So only about 3% of birds have penises. Everyone else has lost their penis. So none of the little birds out of your feeder or anything like that, they don't have penises. Um, but the Tinamus happen to be one of those groups that have kept their penis because it's an ancestral condition, right? So it's shared with other um uh other uh vertebrates. Uh and so they have a penis, dogs have penises, ostriches, rias, kiwis, you know, all of these older birds have penises. Yeah. Um and then we knew very little about them because nobody was studying them. And so again, at that moment I was like, I was like, oh my gosh, exactly, like little light bulb of like it just again felt like an opportunity for me to do something that nobody else was doing knew anything about, and I was like, oh, this is a cool question. I was like, okay, I'm I'm gonna write a project. Yeah, and I wrote a project to like uh, you know, get money so that I could do this as a postdoc because I was coming to the end of my PhD. Um, and then I got the funding. So then I could then I could actually do it.

SPEAKER_00 26:55

Yeah. And did you ever think like that this would actually turn out to be your whole career? Or was it just a project at the time?

SPEAKER_03 27:04

No, it was just a project. No, of course not. You know, it was interesting because um part of what I was doing with the Tinamous was looking at paternity, right? So there's this idea that if the male is doing all this parental care, he should be be absolutely sure that these are his babies, right? Because otherwise he's getting duped. Like, why would he ever care for a bunch of babies who are unrelated to him? And so the the fact that they had penises sort of seemed important in that context of like ensuring paternity somehow. So yeah. I was kind of like, you know, interested in in sort of that aspect of like, what is the penis for? Are they really using it for this paternity stuff and blah blah blah? But it turns out that what I found was that they they're actually not the dads of a bunch of the babies that they care of. Uh some some males are sitting on eggs and not a single egg is his, you know. I know, but it's is the females dupe them. Hell yeah. They dupe them, and but but no, but it's it's just it makes so much sense, you know. Like sometimes in science you get like this, what we call these paradigms of like that's what they should do. This is animals should do this thing. And the animals don't read our papers, they just do whatever they're gonna do.

SPEAKER_02 28:22

Good point.

SPEAKER_03 28:23

And so what happens with the Tinamus is that predation on those nests is super high because they're on the ground. The eggs are like right there. They don't even build a nest, it's like they just put eggs at the base of a tree and they're like, here, everybody, have breakfast, you know? They're hungry. So the eggs get eaten like 80% of the time. So if the male really wanted to make absolutely sure that all the babies were his, he would need to have that female with him for a very long time because the female is carrying sperm from other matings. And sperm can be viable inside of the female for a long time. Oh wow. So he would have to wait and wait and wait. And then after all that waiting, he's gonna have a nest, and then eighty percent of the time that nest is gonna get eaten. So it makes no sense. So what they do instead is they have sex with the female, female gives them eggs, whatever eggs she's got ready to ready to go, and then she goes on and lays his eggs in someone else's nest. Oh. You know what I mean? It's like it's spreading the risk of predation. And so then it it works out. It works out because then, you know, it does it. But that was kind of my interest in the penis at first, was like, how are they using it? And and maybe try to get into this idea of why birds lost their penis because it seems like such a handy tool for sperm conveyance.

SPEAKER_02 29:42

I was like, most male species are pretty fans of their own penis to keep it around, I imagine. They're big fans of them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:52

So yeah, so that was it. But then again, you know, plants completely changed because my my focus at the time was the penis. Because I was like, weird, penises for paternity, penises for um, you know, why do they get lost? But then when I it when it got down to it, and um, so I went to a farm, it turns out, you know, I wasn't gonna do penises on Tinamus because they are really, really super hard to study. Uh but ducks also have penises, and ducks are everywhere, and we eat them and we keep them as pets, you know, like they're they're everywhere. They are so I was like, okay, great, I'll do ducks. So I went to a duck farm and I got a couple of ducks and I brought them back to the lab and I open them up and I see this penis, and I was like, oh my gosh, these things are enormous. It was a giant white, bumpy, tentacle looking thing. And so I I literally was like I I dissected this thing, and it was like my first penis up front, you know, up close on personnel. I was like, whoa, this boy is big. I mean, it was a really big penis. Oh humongous. And the second I look at it, I was like, oh my gosh, and so where does it go? What does the female look like? Right? Because because up until that moment I had been dissecting other birds. Um, again, because I was interested in looking at sperm and sperm storage. And so I had been dissecting vaginas in like several finches and quails. And those vaginas were like a normal little tube. It's like a folded tube. Um and I had been looking at them and I was like, okay, that's what a bird vagina looked like. But then when I saw this dog penis, I was like, there's no way. I was like, those females, they have to have something.

SPEAKER_00 31:40

Because they're like corkscrew shaped or something, right?

SPEAKER_03 31:44

Exactly, right? So so the penis, the penis spirals in a uh in a counterclockwise direction.

SPEAKER_01 31:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 31:51

And then the females spiral in a clockwise direction.

SPEAKER_01 31:55

Right? So they're counter.

SPEAKER_03 31:57

They're totally counter. But but yeah, but so so so I open up the female and I, you know, because I I opened the males, I literally, it was like, okay, we're penis, must go look at the females. I dropped back to the farm where I had gotten the males. I asked the farmer to now give me two females. He gives me the females, I go back to the lab, open them up, and then I saw these crazy adaptations on the females. So the female vagina looks like a labyrinth, it doesn't look like a tube. So he has these crazy pouches and all these crazy spirals. Wow. And it was so bizarre that I was like, okay, what's going on here? Like there is some serious coevolution happening with this genitalia that nobody knew about. Nobody. Yeah. And so that was that was crazy. They're ducks, and they're everywhere. And no one knew that. No one knew that. And of course, you know, of course, I'm a woman. I have a vagina, you know. You do. Wow. Me too. You know, yeah, yeah. And so um, but I'm also, you know, like like the other thing is that I'm also Latina, right? And and I grew up in a culture where, you know, we make jokes about sex and whatever. It's not a huge taboo. It's not like we are, you know, 100% comfortable with it either, but at least it's a little more permissible than other places where you can't even say these words, right?

SPEAKER_01 33:16

Right.

SPEAKER_03 33:17

Um, and so that combination really sort of allowed me to be comfortable looking at these things and talking about them in an academic setting, which of course not everybody would be. Yeah. Um, but then that really then changed everything else that I did afterwards because then I really wanted to understand what was happening with this coevolution between the males and the females. And it just became this crazy feminist story without, you know, without me having planned anything. I was just like, it was it was like, you know, like everything. Like you just follow the next curious thing you find, right? And then before you know it, you find yourself in a place where you're like, How did I get here? I don't even know, but this is amazing.

SPEAKER_00 34:00

I love when the road does that. Yeah. So curious.

SPEAKER_03 34:08

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:09

Yeah, it's just so here you are doing this quiet, brilliant work on evolutionary biology, and you're publishing and you're teaching at the time, and then it's 2013, and the phone rings. And where were you when you found out that Fox News was coming for your research?

SPEAKER_03 34:29

Yeah, so um, you know, what happened is that this story uh of the of the dog vaginas and the penises became really sort of viral. And it was in it was covering all the news outlets, people were talking about it, people talked about it on TV, on the radio, you know, podcasts, all sorts of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 34:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 34:49

And it became a really popular story. And so I had set up a Google alert to let me know when people were talking about Doc Genitalia because I was it was even like in a on a shaving commercial. Like I I I kid you not, it was like insane. Fascinating. And so I was like, I was curious to see like what are people doing talking about Dr Genitalia all over the map. And so I had this Google alert and I was at work. By that time I had finished my postdoc at Yale and I had moved to UMass. And so I was here. Um and I I got this Google alert in my computer. But join, you know, somebody's talking about Doc Genitalia, and I went in to see uh and it was the Christian News Service basically just wrote a story saying, um, you know, $370,000 in a grant to Yale University to study dog penises, right? And it was kind of like just very factual. So I was like, oh interesting, okay. Interesting that they're talking about it. But of course, then it immediately got picked up by all these ultra-conservative sides and started coming up like my my email was like exploding with like stories of people talking about it and how it was such a wasteful spending in the context of the sequestration. So politically, I don't know if you guys remember that was the time when um Obama was president and they couldn't agree on the budget. And so they said we're gonna cut everything by 10% until we agree on a budget. So that's what was happening with the with the politics, and so it just got picked up everywhere, and everybody was like, Oh, so we don't have money to do children daycare, but we have money to study dog penises, right? And they were doing these crazy comparisons. That of course that's not how money works in the government.

SPEAKER_02 36:40

No, no, but people don't know that they don't understand.

SPEAKER_03 36:43

No, no, people don't know that, and and and so yeah, it was it was really frightening. Yeah, Harry.

SPEAKER_00 36:50

Like, what did that make you feel like as a person, not as a scientist, but you know, oh no, no, it was it was horrible.

SPEAKER_03 36:56

I mean, um because as a scientist and and as a person, like I I struggle with I struggled with imposter syndrome, which I'm sure you know you guys understand what that is, where you're like when you're having some modicum of success, you're always like, people are gonna find out soon enough that I actually don't know anything. I had a PhD from Cornell and a postdoc from Yale University, and I was still like, oh my gosh, I don't know anything. Wow. Um Yeah, you were straight legit, Patty. I know, but but I in my brain, you know, it's like it messes you up. And so so I was I was really scared and and worried. Um uh I felt I felt terrible, but in a way I was like, yeah, people have found out that I suck and that I don't deserve to breathe air, you know? Yeah, because personally it's really hard like to hear that people are saying your work is a waste of money and all that. And so I literally I was like crawling under the desk for a good week there. But then I started realizing that what was making me really upset was to not be a part of that conversation, right? To have other people drive the discourse about what was good or not good about what I was doing. Uh because there were actually people who were replying to this story saying, no, wait a minute, you know, this is really great research for these reasons. And they were defending me, which was awesome. Absolutely. But I was not defending me. And so I was like, no, wait a minute, you know, I need to like say my piece.

SPEAKER_00 38:28

Um it kind of like dawned on you that they don't know what I actually do. And so maybe that is why you wrote that slate opt-ed piece, like why I studied duct genitality. Exactly. Inform everyone what you're actually doing.

SPEAKER_03 38:46

Exactly. So it was that was a big part of it. But then there was also the part about setting the record straight about why basic science is important, right? Because what I do is basic science. It's not science that's meant to cure cancer or make money for anyone. It's it's discovery-based science. And why is that science important? Well, it is important because without it, there are no discoveries, there's no money, there's no cancer cure. You know, it's like a direct pipeline between basic science and and applied science. But people don't understand that, right? And when you take it out of context and you make fun of it, oh, duck and penises sounds funny. Then then, you know, then then it really can be harmful to to our understanding of science. And so I was like, okay, I want to set the record straight, and then I want to talk about genitalia because and I think in this piece I just wrote a line, it was like, you know, you don't want the doctor to stop at your belt, right? Just because you don't like the idea of genitalia. Like genitalia are critically important evolutionarily and biologically.

SPEAKER_00 39:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:50

Tell her created it's the whole, the whole kitten caboodle right there. That's right. That's right. And so so what was surprising about that part was the fact that um uh everybody had warned me that I was probably gonna get a ton of hate mail because my name up until that moment wasn't associated with any of the stories, right? Attack they were attacking the project, they were naming me. Right. Um and so they were like, oh, don't worry about it, you know, this will be this will be forgotten in a few days. That's the news cycle. So but I was like, no, I I wanna say something, like I have something to say. And so I didn't heed that advice and I wrote this piece. Um and I was super worried because I thought, you know, now people are gonna write me hate mail and all sorts of things. Uh and so I after I published that op ed, you know, the next morning I opened up my computer and I was like, oh, clear. Yeah. I was like, okay, am I gonna get a pile of like horrible things? Oh god. And it was amazing. All I got was like this downpour of support. Like so many people writing, like, thank you so much for speaking up for science and for defending science. And and so it was completely unexpected. There was one message I received that somebody wrote, You are a very stupid person. And I was like, I was like, Yeah, sometimes I am a little extra.

SPEAKER_02 41:13

That's kind of nice though. That's as mean as it got. They're like, You are a stupid person. It's like somebody saying, you know, poopy hit. Yeah, exactly. Like, I'm scared of fact. So you're numb numb. Right, right. But it's really sweet that they didn't get meaner.

SPEAKER_03 41:30

I love that. Oh, exactly. I didn't I it and so so it was amazing. And then it turned out into something really amazing because the fact that I wrote this piece and it went viral, it was picked up, it was picked up everywhere. It was all over TV. People were writing articles and calling me a hero for defending science. And oh my god, like all I was doing literally was getting it off my chest. To be perfectly honest. I was like, But how cool is that?

SPEAKER_02 41:58

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 41:59

But how cool and how unexpected, you know, like you never know how these things are gonna turn out. I was just I was a little nervous, but I was like, I really need to do this, like for my own peace of mind. Yeah. Um, and then it it was really good. And so I developed a whole outreach program and now got invited everywhere. I wrote articles about this, um, and it ended up being a really good thing for my career, you know, in a in a way that I hadn't anticipated at all.

SPEAKER_02 42:29

That's so cool, Patty. Wow. Uh you also seem to have such a wonderful um, and I know this comes along with science to be just that curiosity, but also I from what you've said so far, it sounds like you are very in tune with your still small voice, like the voice that kind of tells you what the next right thing to do is. So that's powerful because a lot of us, me included, like will not hear that voice so clearly and not able to see what the next right thing is. But like I love that you spent time under your desk during that week, and then you said, I want to have a voice in this conversation. I'm not just I'm not just passive here, like and then you came out, and then the only negative thing was like someone stuck their tongue out at you, apparently. Like, you know? So freaking cool, Patty. Wow.

SPEAKER_03 43:20

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's true, it's true. And and you know, a lot of science is kind of like that, is is there's a lot of intuition that goes into it. And um, you know, I remember I had a conversation a long time ago with someone who's an artist, and I was saying, Oh, you know, I am just not creative at all. And she looked at me and she's like, You're a scientist, what are you talking about? Yeah, and I was like, Oh my gosh. She's totally right. Because there is a lot of creativity in a different way, right, than being an artist. But there's a lot of that intuition and way of thinking that sort of guides you through it and helps you think through the next thing that's going to be interesting. And and so, yeah, so I think that that's certainly I understand. Sound that's coming a little better now.

SPEAKER_02 44:02

You're a knowledge artist. You're a KA girl. I'm gonna put that in my byline. T-shirts.

SPEAKER_00 44:14

I wanna be like I'm a knowledge artist. We'll get some merchandise that says that. For sure. I'm totally gonna send that to you, Patty. That's gonna be the title of this episode. The knowledge artist. God, that's so cool, Patty. So what's the work you're proudest of that people never ask you about? Ooh. Oh, yeah, that's a that's a really good question.

SPEAKER_03 44:41

So I think um it's it's a number of things, I I would say, in in a in a weird way. So after the duck story, I could have I could have stayed working with birds and their weird genitalia forever because I never even got to the question of why birds lost their penis. I still don't know. And nobody does because nobody's doing this research, right? But instead of doing that, what I realized is that uh the fact that I had discovered this crazy thing on the females in the ducks, um probably indicated that that these things are everywhere but nobody was looking. You know what I mean? Because I'm like, I can't possibly be that lucky. I can't be so lucky that the first system I look at, I find this evidence for this crazy evolutionary arms race because of force copulations and all this crazy stuff. I can't be that lucky. So then uh how do I uh uh you know see whether these things are more common? And that's when I decided to expand to all these other vertebrate systems, right? Because I was like, oh, let's have a look and see what's going on in other places. And so we found something similar, for example, in dolphins, right? Um and so dolphin vaginas, the same, they're super convoluted, and dolphins are sexual harassers. And we did all this research that actually suggests that the the these convoluted dolphin vaginas give females some control, sexual autonomy, basically, over who's gonna end up being the desire of their offspring. And I find that incredibly empowering, right? Like there's this idea that females uh that males are somehow more active in these evolutionary events and females are just sort of reacting in a way and just sort of more passive. But what I find over and over every time I look at all these systems is that the females are in fact super active evolutionary agents, right? And they evolve in all sorts of weird ways, with weird vaginal shapes, they change the thickness of their vaginal walls, they change the density of the collagen in there. Um, they change their behavior, of course, they change their physiology. Like they have so many weapons available to them to maintain control over their successful reproduction and their sexual autonomy. That's not a way that we generally think about these questions. And so I love that. I love that because I was not, you know, I didn't plan for that. I didn't anticipate that. I just sort of followed that line and and I have become convinced that this is what happens because every time I look, I find something really cool. But then the other thing that happened is that as I was looking at all these vaginas, if you're looking at a vagina, you're gonna be finding a clitoris. Because because uh every amniote, right? So every vertebrate that's on land, they have a clitoris because the penis and the clitoris evolve and develop from the same structure in the early development. Right. Um, and so if if you know you you have this sort of undetermined structure that then either becomes a penis or becomes a clitoris. And it turns out that we actually, not surprisingly, we haven't been looking at the clitoris either in a lot of these creatures. Shocking. I know, exactly, because you know, humans like we only discover the full structure like back in the mid-90s, you know, the 3D structure.

SPEAKER_01 48:09

I know it's just crazy.

SPEAKER_03 48:12

And so so we started looking because we we get all these different groups and we started looking at the clitoris, and we have found so many cool adaptations in the clearies of these different animals, and always evidence that these clitorises are functional, which says a lot about why females have sex, you know, it's not just to have babies. Females are not just little reproductive machines. It is actually a lot of it is because it feels good, right? And yes, of course, the ultimate reason is because if it feels good, you do more of it, which leads to more babies, and that's good. But the motivation really pleasure is a wonderful motivator, right? And if sex feels good, right, then you're gonna look for more of it and you're gonna have more of it. And and so we're getting into this whole thing about pleasure and and and and thinking about that part of animals' lives and and females' lives in nature that really hasn't been part of the equation.

unknown 49:11

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 49:11

So then you kind of or your lab and you kind of study like the pleasure that animals get, and it's not just male-female, it's female-female, male-male, and that kind of led to the documentary that's been made called Second Nature. Tell us about that and all the work that your lab is doing.

SPEAKER_03 49:30

Yeah, so um, I mean, the the documentary, uh, I am one of many uh feature scientists who are all doing super cool stuff. Um, it's actually rooted on um uh John Brofgarden's uh book called Uh Evolution's Rainbow. And John is uh the first openly trans scientist um uh uh that we had in the States. And when she transitioned, uh she started really getting into uh understanding the evolution of diverse sexual strategies. And she wrote this book, which is a really super interesting, fun book, where she's like cataloging a lot of this sexual diversity. Um but she was personally attacked for this because she had an agenda, like she was inserting her personal agenda in her work, as if that's not what every scientist does, right? Because we're completely biased human beings out there doing research, not in a bubble, right? But like informed by who we are and what we do. Um and so I remember I was at Cornell University, I was a grad student when when her book came out, and um it was pretty shocking to see like the the vitriol that she received for for this work, and uh, you know, uh it it was just crazy. Uh but then uh when I started really getting into all of this, you know, female behavior and why no nobody's looking and all of that, uh and started really uh understanding how myopic our view of sex has been. Uh which which I didn't start with that, you know, like you learn it as you go along because you're trained by the people who train you, and those people have a particular way of seeing the world, and then you just have to sort of break out of that. Um and so then, you know, there are lots of different scientists who uh who have worked on this, and so there's uh uh Amy Parrish, who's the person who described the bonobo societies and that they're matrilineal and that the females are the bosses and they do this genital rubbing with each other, and um uh yeah, and and you know, just uh lots of different people, Franz Deval, who's a primatologist, who described the males are not always aggressive and fighting each other and wanting to kill each other, but that they also reconcile and they make friends because that's also a really good evolutionary strategy. So it's sort of like a a documentary that's looking to disrupt that narrative of like, you know, females are passive and uh, you know, uh same-sex sexual behavior is weird and rare, and sex change is weird and rare, you know. Um and so so my lab is featured because we do talk a lot about you know female empowerment in some ways, but also uh, you know, like with the clitoris, uh dolphins, we describe the the clitoris of the dolphin, and dolphin clitorises are huge. Um and they're super well developed, like they show evidence of functionality, they even have the same genital corpus skills that humans have that are known as the corpuscules of pleasure, that are really associated specifically with pleasure. Okay um and dolphins but dolphins half the time they have sex with members of the same sex, you know, so same-sex sexual behavior is not a weird thing that they do. It's like half the time they're having sex with members of their same sex. And so, you know, there might be something there about the clitoris evolving as a response to pleasure period, not just heterosexual sex, right? Which of course we don't really think about. In humans, by the way, I think something very similar may be going on. Because the clitoris in humans moved away from the vaginal dopening, right? And we know that there is a lot of same-sex sexual behavior in humans, especially female-female behavior, which has never really been um prohibited in most cultures. Like when the same-sex sexual behavior is banned, is usually male-male sexual behavior. But female-female behavior, somehow everybody's like, we're not gonna worry too much about that.

SPEAKER_02 53:40

Right? Or the men like to watch it, right?

SPEAKER_03 53:43

No, right? That's it, Courtney. It happens all the time. And and so, you know, these things, like these behaviors, when they're so common, they're gonna influence evolutionary outcomes. And the problem is, of course, that we don't even know how common they are because scientists themselves, when we're collecting the data, we can be very biased, right? And we assume that if we see uh a male, uh an individual on top, an individual on the bottom, that that's gonna be a male and a female. And sometimes we just really don't know, right? So this this documentary gets into all of that and and it is really fantastic. So it talks about sex changing fish, which are super common, and right, yeah, it's just phenomenal.

SPEAKER_02 54:26

I was you said it was screening right now, Patricia or Patty. Um, but so when do you know anything about when it will be available? Like can you get it on Amazon?

SPEAKER_03 54:36

No, I I wish, I wish I knew. Uh I know that uh they've been doing a lot of screenings, uh, and if you go to their website, uh Second Nature Documentary, if you Google that, it'll come out. Um they have like a list of upcoming screenings, and they've been doing screenings in a lot of big cities.

SPEAKER_01 54:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 54:55

Uh but there is also a form where you can request a screening yourself, and that's awesome because uh I know that the Drew, who's the director, she's fantastic. She's been working on this film for 10 years. I can't. Like she talked to me during COVID. Like the first scenes of me in this documentary are like me wearing a mask and being totally sick. Wow. Um, not with COVID, but with a really bad cold. But like that was the first time that we interacted was was then. Um so she's been working on this for a long time. And um what happened was that she sent an early cut of this film to Elliot Page's production company. Oh, cool. Um, and and so they watched it and they decided to support it because she was wondering whether he would be willing to narrate it. Yeah. And not only did he agree to narrate it, so he's the narrator, but also uh his production company gave some funding for them to be able to finish the film in a much better, you know, better way.

SPEAKER_02 55:52

Cool.

SPEAKER_03 55:53

I just read his biography. That's awesome. His book is amazing, and I got to meet him, and oh my gosh, he's like incredible. So I can't even imagine. Totally starstruck. I think he's awesome. Yeah, I bet. Um, so yeah, it's a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful film, and I hope people get to see it. But when it will be released, sort of like out there into the world, and I I really don't know. I hope soon. I hope they can they can recoup some money.

SPEAKER_02 56:19

And well, and I'm in Southwest Virginia, so I'm gonna request a screening and I'm gonna hit them hard with some requests and be like, we could really use them.

SPEAKER_03 56:31

I know, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, everybody like yeah, name one person who would not benefit from understanding sex better, period.

SPEAKER_02 56:41

I don't know anybody.

SPEAKER_03 56:42

There's just not a single human in this planet who would not benefit from that. Yeah, absolutely. That's true. But I'm biased. I agree.

SPEAKER_02 56:48

Right. I know. We there's a certain group of folks that would learn the most, I think, but I won't name them. That's right. That's right, that's right. And they're probably the ones who are not gonna watch the documentary. Exactly. No, I'm not. Yeah, anyway, I'm not gonna do an impression. I get offensive here.

SPEAKER_00 57:06

But wow, like I know. It's so cool. I can't wait to watch that film. Um Patty, if you could go back and stand on the deck of the Odyssey with your younger self, the just the one who wanted to scuba dive around the world, what would you tell her?

SPEAKER_03 57:21

Oh man, keep an open heart and an open mind.

SPEAKER_00 57:26

You said that to me because you said you have to keep an open heart and an open mind to possibility because you never know.

SPEAKER_03 57:33

You never know. I I think I already knew it in some very fundamental way. But of course, when you're that young, you're just kind of like following the next thing, right? But I think that um I think I did it right. I think I did it right. I I kept my heart open. And I've always tried to do that, and and it's it's never failed. So far, it's never failed. You know, there have been hard moments, but it's life. Sure. Yeah, that's that's you know, that's normal. But um, man, it's been a ride. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 58:06

So cool. It sure has. My God, what a what a journey.

SPEAKER_02 58:11

I need to get a better word for Patty. I'm like, it's so cool. Like, you're a scientist. I want to get a really like like wow, neat oh. Talk to me more about it. I have a quick question for you, Patty. This is just very quick because as I'm listening to you talk, you know, a lot of women in my life at y at a young age wanted to be a marine biologist, and then they ended up going into something else. Um, and I the whole time was just being like, I want to be a marine, I want to be a biologist. I don't have the smarts for it. But the part I think that I struggle with, and I wonder if you at all struggle with it, like when you talked about going to get the ducks, and then you said I brought the ducks home and I opened them up, and I was like, oh shit. So, so the ducks get killed. Is that hard for you? I feel like it's gotta be, but as a scientist, you see the benefit of where it it all comes from. Oh, absolutely, it leads to.

SPEAKER_03 59:06

So, so you know, I'm a vegetarian because I love animals, and I'm like, Yeah, I don't want to eat anybody, you know. No, of course not. Um and so I what I would say is that that there are some animals that, you know, like ducks that come from a farm, I have very little qualms with that because they're being bred for this, you know, they're superabundant. They're um so that is uh a little bit easier. I worked very, very hard over the years to not have to kill anybody. And so I collaborate with a bunch of scientists, and I think this is very common with scientists actually, is that um if you're gonna collect any specimens for anything, it's like a it's like like a crazy network of people who are like, I want the brain, I want the stomach, I want the intestine, I want the genitalia. It turns out nobody ever wanted the genitalia because nobody was looking, so I just locked out. Then I was like, oh, send me all the genitals. That's right. And so, but yes, of course. And and you would never find a scientist. I I guarantee you will never find a scientist who's gonna say, no, it's easy, you know. No, I wouldn't think killing an animal is easy. It's never, is never easy, is never pleasant. Sometimes it's necessary and justifiable, and that's okay. But I would say for people who are really worried about animal rights and and uh all of that, I think farming is the the place where you should go for better regulations and better uh limitations of what we do to animals. I think the number of animals that get used for scientific purposes is dwarfed by orders of magnitude when you compare to what's going on at farms. Absolutely. Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:50

Yeah. Well, and I just can't, I have to salute the scientists to be able to have to override that, you know, that of course it's not going to be easy. Like that's just another amazing step that scientists are doing. Like it's a part, you know, you're taking one for the team essentially. You're doing the unpleasantness to move us forward as a species in knowledge, knowledge artistry, there it is.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:14

Yeah, yeah. But you know, but again, you know, a lot of these things end up, all the all these specimens end up in museums where like students will be able to look at them forever, right? And so that's um again, it's a it's it's a way of like being very responsible about what you do and you know, making sure you publish your data and that you really honor the animal by by being careful with the data that you collect from them. It's incredible. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:43

Wow. So powerful.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:45

Yeah. Um Patty, what's one of the kindest things someone has ever done for you? It can be recent, whatever it is that comes to your mind.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:53

Big, small, yeah. Oh, big, small. Um you know, one of the the nicest things uh my mom would do when I was little, uh well, not little, but like when I was a teenager and I had to get up and go to school and go to work, she would wake me up with a cup of coffee and she would just bring it, bring it to my bedside table and just kind of put it there. And so I would wake up in the morning and it would be like the the smell you know of coffee, and I'll be like, oh, okay, it's time to wake up. And you know, my husband, despite the fact that he doesn't drink coffee himself, uh, he's finally figured out that that this is something that really makes me very, very deeply happy. And so he'll make me coffee in the morning and then he'll he'll do the same. And it's it's a it's a little act of kindness that I just so appreciate. Absolutely. Oh, that's so wonderful.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:46

What was your mom's name?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:47

What's your mom's name? My mom, Ligia. Ligia, she's still with us. Thank goodness.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:52

Yay, Lijia! Wow. She was delivering, she was but the barista for a budding scientist. That's right. That's right. So cool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:03

Um, howtney do you have any other questions?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:07

Okay. What is your favorite duck, Patty? You have to choose it. One duck that's your absolute favorite.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:15

My favorite duck is probably the hardlequin. Hardlequin duck. Harlequin. Yeah. And those are sea ducks, right? So you mostly would see them out on the coast. Um, but they uh are the most gorgeous duck, first of all. I mean, they really are spectacular, and they don't have any force copulations. So then they don't do the nasty thing that all the other dogs are doing. They're not the rapist duck. They are so nice and wonderful. And so they are definitely on top of my list.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:48

Another t-shirt with the Harlequin dud that just says, not a rapist. That'll be that's that's a that'll make people talk, right? Like, what's in your shirt?

SPEAKER_03 1:04:00

Well, let me tell you to recruit you for like t-shirt making for my lap.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:04

For some reason, that is hot on my brain. I am ready.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:08

Yeah, I want a one, I want one that says like all vagina or something like that. Like yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:14

All the vaginas all the time. All the vaginas all the time. I like that. Yeah. Give me your genitalia. No one gets it. Give me your genitalia. Oh my gosh. Yeah, we could really we we need to we need to do some workshops uh on t-shirt making for you. I would love to be part of that.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:36

Absolutely. No, that's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:39

What a freaking pleasure, Patty. This has just been my face hurts from smiling now. It's so wonderful. It's like I left my life for a while and just lived in the incredible adventure of Patty. Just so freaking cool. Thank you so much for letting me live vicariously through your experience. Like, and I'm sure we just heard a tiny smidgen of what you know, the the broad, but wow, so phenomenal.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:06

Patty, do you have anything you'd like to plug, like books you have coming out or anything like that?

SPEAKER_03 1:05:12

Oh my gosh. Um, so not books that I have coming out personally, but books that I absolutely love that feature my work in some way. Yeah. Um, and they're great. So one is uh Vagina Obscura by Rachel Bros. It's the most incredible book. You guys will read the intro and then you'll be like, oh my gosh, it's like amazing. Oh my gosh. Vagina obscura is great. Bitch by Lucy Cook.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:41

Oh, I like it.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:42

Another phenomenal book. Uh basically talking about how females uh the the story of females in biology hasn't really been told properly, and she takes all this evidence that's always like, oh, this is weird, like hyenas are weird, and you know, uh marmosets are weird, and and then she puts it all together, and you can see just how phenomenally diverse and and strong females are in nature, and it's just a lovely book. And then there is a book that's just uh coming out, uh, it's called Poking the Squid. Uh and it is an it is actually, I know do you know what that means? Poking the squid. It's my gosh, it's like apparently it's Irish slang for having sex.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:24

I didn't know, I had to look it up.

unknown 1:06:26

I had to look it up.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:27

It sounded poking always makes me think of some reference to sex.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:30

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so it's this this is uh Perry Ireland, um, who um is an artist, and she's a phenomenal artist, and she basically has made this beautiful illustrated book of sex in nature, uh, talking to a bunch of different scientists, and and you know, she has a really interesting kind of like humanistic perspective on the whole thing. So there are all these thought bubbles and things that are happening in this book that are hilarious and beautiful, and and so I I really enjoyed that one as well. And that one just came out like a couple of months ago. So highly recommend. We read it for the summer with my students, uh my research students, and we just laugh our heads off and learn learned a lot.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:15

So yeah, those are all good. For our listeners out there, we'll put those in the show notes so you can reference and find those books. Yeah. Oh perfect. Well, Patty, thank you so so very much for coming on today and sharing your story. It has just been a treat. An honor. An honor, yes. Oh, we're so fortunate. It's unbelievable to have you on, I know, and sharing your story. Um, to all of our listeners, thank you so much for tuning in today. Please do not forget to download, go and subscribe to our podcast, rate us, review us. We love those five stars. We need it, give it to us. That you'd like to ask Patty, please email us at that wasn't the planpod at gmail.com and we will get those questions over to Patty and answer those for you.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:04

Um, yeah, give us a reason to keep talking to Patty. I wanted to be best friends with Patty, so I know. Send us the questions.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:16

Oh, well, Patty Courtney, thank you so much. It's been a wonderful God. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:22

Thank you so much. Well, what a wonderful treat. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:26

Bye bye. Bye.