Thanks for watching, Super Nerds, and happy new year! 2020 is going to be interesting. Looks like you all love some Witcher science, so if you want to see more, let me know! -- kH
@@charleskilo4383 I've always laughed hard that at the "looks like rain..." Dude, it's already raining. Yes, it is rain. Did you use your Witcher senses to notice the rain? Lol
@@guacca I always love that quote from when you're at Kaer Morhen drinking and you have to find Eskel, and when you bend down to find clues Lambert says "You had to bend down to see that?"
*looks at my number of 100%ed games* "Only took a few hundred hours" -just you wait for games that can't be 100%ed because it's always adding new content to itself-
Geralt was using silver only against monsters and only the ones that was sensitive to silver. Otherwise he was using only steel. Silver sword is to fragile to fight anything most of the time.
While I would love to go into all the cellular biology and genetics gone through this episode, I sadly don’t have the time to do so on my lunch break. I will however talk about a bonus that comes with the increase number of red blood cells. Known as polycythemia, an increase in blood cells does increase the oxygen carrying capacity. Research has shown that those living at high altitudes develop polycythemia as a way to cope with the lower partial pressure of oxygen. So if Geralt has a form of polycythemia (there are several but again no time) he would also be able to retain his stamina and wouldn’t get short of breath at higher altitudes, which would be pretty useful for slaying griffins in their nests atop a mountain. Love the episode, keep up the great work!
Excellent point. I look at it from the other side of the coin: I have a form of anemia wherein I produce a LOT of red blood cells but my body essentially eats them, leaving me somewhat anemic (my doc keeps an eye on things and despite what WebMD says, I'm not dying of any horrible disease .. in fact, the cause of my condition is unknown, although it seems genetic, so it's not really harmful, just annoying). In an attempt to maintain health in my fifties, I work out HARD most of the week (CrossFit, martial arts, etc.) which has greatly improved my blood work results. My resting heart rate is in the mid fifty bpm range (like my age, LOL). But if we're doing some especially aerobic stuff (or I decide to outpace the younger ones working out), once my heart rate gets up pretty good, I'm DONE ... can't breathe, muscles worn out, vision might get dim ... but give me a minute to drop my heart rate and I'm as fresh as if I just took a nap. That's my long-winded way of saying I'm looking at the situation from the opposite side and you are totally right. Hmm ... maybe I should move high up on a mountain, force my body to adjust, develop polycythemia which would then edge me over into "normal" range? Darn my choice to live on the coast! ;) LOL!
In the game you can clearly see in the dark of the night whats going on. Like in most games. In reality you wouldnt be able..try to go in a forest at night. You see shit. The potion enhance this ability even in pitch black darkness
@@Tuxedosnake00 You don't get my point. Nocturnal animal like cats don't require addiational help to see in the dark. So why go through a mutation that is totally unnecessary if you still require aid? And no, I cannot remember how many times I to brew potions or walk with the lantern to be able to see. During the fight with the werewolf in his cave, You couldnt see shit without help.
I guess it just further enhances the effect. Think about it, witchers sometimes have to fight in pitch black darkness against opponents that are super fast and/or almost transparent. Under those conditions having anything less than perfect eyesight might prove to be fatal. This implies that the witcher's normal eyes are simply not perfect, so they need the cat potion.
@@DiZeHiZe ah ah ah, nocturnal animals can see in the dark but cats need to see during the day too, their eyes being too sensitive to light would make them useless while the sun is out, the witcher doesn't need the aid of the potions, they just boost his abilities without making a permanent change that could be highly detrimental later.
Arthur Magalhaes Witchers don't really look very different to regular people, barring the cat eyes and (probable) multitude of scars. Geralt undergoes loads of extra mutations which bleach his hair. So he's weird, even for a Witcher
@@NotQuiteEnglish01 the Trial of the Grasses can bring forth many side effects (one of which is their sterilization), albinism (lack of production of melanin) can be one of them.
@@catarinamagalhaes4775 Though as far as I remember things like being sterile is normal for witchers (e.g. one of the loading lines in Witcher 3 states that). Having white hair is caused by the unnatural amount of mutations or the unusually high pain inflicted on Geralt even from a Witcher's perspective. The only other witcher I remember being white-haired is Ciri. But for normal witchers like Vesemir or Lambert having white hair doesn't seem to be a expected side effect like becoming sterile (which apparently every witcher is, though not 100% certain)
HTM geralt is a “Witcher 2.0”. He bested the Witcher trials with relative ease and underwent further more difficult trials and mutations which affected his hair. That’s why he’s the only Witcher with white hair.
@@mrsmeee1843 but some parts of the lore don't make much sense. It's clear that tge whole witcher program was sponsored by a king who put together the best alchemists and mages to cone up with the mutation process and the best knights to train the subjects. What is absurd is why the witchers are independent, even if the kingdom that created them fell surely another kingdom would step in and take over. Witchers would perform much better if they operated inside the organization of a royal army. They'd function as rangers, directly paid a stipend by the royal treasure, always equipped with the best gear available and able to rely on the support of the army for missions that required more manpower.
@@brentmeyers9657 I said that to people who also haven't played AC III, where Desmond died and FFXV, where both Noctis and Luna died. And I'm just like... You have the internet, and these are big games... avoiding spoilers is the miracle here.
Hi Kyle, I have another mutation to add, and it fits nicely with what we are already making our witcher out of. Since we are also increasing our witchers musculature and increasing oxygen transportation, there is another adaptation we can give him with regards to oxygen availability. Mammalian musculature contains another heme based oxygen carrying protien called myoglobin. In marine mammals, especially deep sea mammals, this protien is expressed at greater concentrations and acts as a primary means to store oxygen for their long dives. If we add a mutation to this effect to our witcher, there should be more oxygen available before those pumped up muscles have to resort to anaerobic processes, thus increasing the amount he could swing those big guns around before feeling muscle fatigue.
@@ankokuraven whatever cocktail that team china weightlifting is using on their athletes is the formula to make a real life Witcher, just add EPO for maximum oxygen efficiency and availability
"Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from Science!" - Agatha Hetradyne. This is what you can get with a consistent magic system and enough experiments.
whenever i think of magic i always think of it as another form of science, spells and potions are never just _there,_ someone in the universes at some point had to discover magic exists in the first place, like we discovered all the scientific things we have over the years and gave it the general term of "science", then had to go and create the spells, the potions, discover how everything works, all that stuff, its essentially that series/universes cooler science
Witcher 3 plot in a nutshell: Overdrugged playboy Step-daddy find and save step-daughter from 3 big black cold dudes with the power of magic and The Heart of the Cards
As a graduate student studying red blood cell development in low oxygen, I approve this episode. In fact, EPO production in the kidney is induced by hypoxia sensing protein HIF-2a, which is degraded by PHD2 protein if oxygen levels are high. So if the witcher mutagen damage the EGLN1 gene (which encodes PHD2 protein), they would have more HIF-2a, and so more EPO, and therefore more red blood cells. There are actual clinical cases where patients have mutated EGLN1 gene, and the symptoms include chronic erythrocytosis (over production of red blood cells). In non witcher normal human this is a problem because too much red blood cells make the blood too thick and easily clot in your body. Another interesting fact is that Tibetan populations have a mutation in EGLN1 gene that *enhances* its activity, and therefore produce less EPO even though they are constantly living in low oxygen environment. This prevents frequent blood clotting from chronic erythrocytosis and gave the Tibetan population a selective advantage in highlands.
This makes that scene in the last episode even sadder when he says "You know what they do to a Witcher's eyes to get them like this?". How painful it must be :(
Call me a cynic but I don’t think 100 percent completions mean as much as they used to. Feels like most game nowadays you could complete 95 percent just doing the story mission. The rest just cleaning out bandit camps and collecting useless treasures. Leaving you feeling like it’s all become a menial task to complete and not compelling at all. I remember scouring the cities in AC2 to find the clues to the precursor civilization feeling like I was actually uncovering a mystery. That sense of satisfaction when I got to watch the final clip after finding all the pieces was cathartic. Now everything become about collecting for collectings sake something even The Witcher 3 couldn’t escape from.
@@kingjamestres You should check out the trophies for the Witcher 3. Some of them are nightmares. I started trying it and stopped when I found out you needed to kill 50 enemies with reflected crossbow bolts.
sephirothsadvent it’s not reflected bolts. It’s 50 head shots Edit even doubled checked it’s not that hard of a game. I got it platinumed. Working on the disk platinum now. Different trophies lists.
10:20 ish, just to throw this out real quick: another compelling way to prevent ageing in theory is to find a way to preserve (or prevent the loss of) our telomeres. Telomeres are basically a length of sacrificial DNA. You see, during cell replication, DNA polymerase (the enzyme responsible for copying the original DNA onto the new strand of DNA being made) always leaves out a little bit of DNA at the ends, meaning that that part of your DNA isn't replicated. If that happened under normal circumstances, then you'd lose a lot of information in the form of DNA over time (as your cells divided), and eventually die as a result. Our bodies' solution is telomeres, which are basically just added so that _they_ are the part of DNA that isn't replicated (since they code for nothing, this is neat). It is theorised that over time, our chromosomes' telomeres get shorter and shorter until the vital DNA becomes exposed and the cell dies. This is a small scale ageing mechanism, the prevention of which could theoretically slow ageing down on a cellular level. Cool huh? Loved that we got a Witcher episode btw! Keep up the scienceing!
Darn, didn't scroll down far enough before I did my comment on telomeres. Yeah and there are other organisms that don't have that reduction process that we have in ours. If I recall we do have a specific mechanism that cuts a little bit of it away every replication and we're working on turning that off cause things like the starfish are basically immortal.... If it's in optimal conditions at all times.
well no because telomeres are just rebuilt by telomerase, at least for a long while. long-lived populations have been found to have overexpressed telomerase, but still got "old" at the same rate and just didn't suffer the catastrophic cell failure that the absence of telomeres would cause (exonuclease breaking down the DNA due to exposed ends). the real way to make people be "younger" for longer is more efficient cellular repair by slightly overexpressing the proteins that fix simple mismatches or by making the cells keep extra junk copies of the DNA for so it can be used for homologous recombination which doesn't delete any part of the code instead of non-homologous end-joining which deletes as much as the DNA is broken. also more a more sensitive cell death mechanism is probably needed if the speed is cranked up when healing wounds, which would drastically reduce the chance of cancer. witchers or longer-lived people in general need a system for regenerating damaged nerve cells and cleaning up leftover proteins as to not go senile or get altzheimer's.
@@alexandergarfield1561 that's non-homologous end joining and it's required to fix double-strand breaks in DNA as eukaryotes aren't literally always replicating their DNA, so they don't have a reference string of DNA to perfectly fix it by
Fun fact about lobsters: they produce an enzyme called telomerase, which repairs telomeres. If one of the Witcher mutations allows Geralt to produce teolmerase, that could at least partially account for his longevity.
Batspecies of the genus Myotis do not age and only die due to starvation (dental wear) or other external events (accidents, dehydration). These species do not produce telomerase but have up to 21 'telomere maintanance' genes (e.g. ATM, SETX) that prevent the individuals from ageing.... Some wild animals have been annually identified and monitored for over 40 years(!!) For an animal of only 4-10 grams with an exeptionally fast heartrate and metabilism (annual average is incl. several months of hibernation). Studies by dr. Emma Teeling of Dublin University college on genetics advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/2/eaao0926?VancePak+%28updated+6%2F30%2F2017%29&EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_02_02&, interesting topic, this anti ageing.
I love that the only 2 things you didn't cover too much were covered in the show. The sterilization because the life of a Witcher doesn't leave a lot of time to be a parent. And they mentioned the cat eye procedure being very risky and often failing and causing blindness which sounds about right with how invasive it would be
9:51 - Geralt has to take herbs regularly to keep his side effects in check (unless you played Witcher 1 on the easier difficulty). Herbs, especially ginger, contain anti-oxidants and sometimes even vitamin E that absorb the effects of oxidative stress. Those anti-oxidants are plant-based, which is why the human body sucks at making them on its own. That is why the best course is to keep eating that stuff regularly and with food to minimize the chemical stress of the food. Most of the harmful chemicals come from the food, so minimizing the food effects will help to preserve your genome. If people took more olive oil or ate seeds daily, they could get the vitamin E easily that way.
The thing about the stamina is in fact a really good theory I think, cause in the books, Andrej Sapkowski writes that a witcher heart beats 4 times slower than a normal human one. That possibly means they have 4 times more red blood cells, so a witcher heart can be slower to do its "normal" work. And maybe it would also means that they can have almost 4 times more stamina and oxygen going to muscles than a normal human. great vid btw, I rly like this one
@@morriganrenfield8240 Yennifer is no better, she wants everything done her way and if anyone goes against what she wants she throws a huge temper tantrum.
When you talked about how to expand the lifespan I was surprised you didn't talk about the telomere research happening and how scientists are getting pretty close to expanding the human lifespan.
Eddie “The Beast” hall has what is known as the hercules gene, a lack of miostatin. His strength is INSANE. He is the world record holder for deadlift, at 500kg.
I say if you were able to make a not sterile witcher, go for it. Chances of things going bad can't be worse then the success rate of making them from scratch every time and the great traits might even be better in a couple of generations. That said there is probably a reason it is like this in the first place.
Hey Kyle, love the show. Thank you for doing this. First of all, sorry for my bad english, I am brazilian. So, I was thinking about the mutation in witchers that would cause red blood cells to increase, and that probably also explains why witchers have such a lower heart rate (4x lower, as said in the series). The simple act of increasing the number of red blood cells is associated with the increased blood viscosity and decreased cardiac output (which is probably compensated by the increase of the heart sise and "strength", caused by the reduction of myostatin produced). This increased blood viscosity and the overall bigger hearth is related to decreasing the heart rate. This extremely low heart rate, is kind of possible in our world. As in the 1990s, when several high performance road bicycle racing athletes who were doing blood dopping, had a resting heart rate of approximately 34 beats/min (which is comparable to an elephant's) and it was even lower while sleeping. It was so low that they had to set their heart-rate monitor to beep whenever their pulse drops below a certain level. So they can wake up and exercise to increase their heart rate, otherwise they would die. Also, just a fun fact. The witchers super slow heart beat probably makes them less susceptible to poisoning. Keep up with the good show! And sorry again for the bad english.
This Made me love Witcher even more. The science behind all of this is great. Thank you for taking the time to put together all these facts about mutation, mutagens and so on Thank you long haired dude
Hey Kyle, love this show. Thank you for doing what you do. This episode took me back to the dragon fight episode and put my brain down a rabbit hole for a bit. What if the silver sword functions as a sort of poison? Silver isn’t toxic to humans, but if it works as an allergen or even a toxin to monsters, could the silver sword be a way to wear them down as a form of pursuit predation? We already alloy silver with other metals to make it less ductile, because pure silver is very soft. If we went further and alloyed or heated it to be brittle, using this alloy as the edge material of a sword could serve a Witcher well. Each time you struck a monster with your silver sword, small flecks or chips of the edge could become embedded in the wound, and since silver is toxic to monsters, this could cause irritation and inflammation at the very least. So if your prey escapes, by the time you find it again it has been weakened or even incapacitated This would also be why you have to watch weapon durability like a hawk, if your sword is too worn down it is either at risk of breaking or isn’t delivering enough silver to do its job anymore. Thanks again for another great episode and happy new year!
I'm pretty sure that that's exactly what the books say: silver is toxic to most monsters, while some fear meteorite steel, which the witcher's other sword is made of. Nice idea with the chipping though. Although, it might be easier to just have a durable sword and coat it in silver dust instead rather than make a blade with the intent of it breaking inside the monster
Diamond Appendix that’s actually WAY more practical than my idea. Maybe have bristles in the scabbard that coat it in silver dust or something? Particulates would be way better at getting it into the monster than chips.
@@CasaHouse2205 Yeah, that seems more efficient, but wouldn't it limit the Witcher's efficiency when dealing with water-bound creatures? Sure, in the games Geralt don't tend to use his sword underwater, tending more to his crossbow, but even just submerging and emerging again would waste the dust in his scabbard, right?
@@axeldornelles5292 now introducing: waterproof scabbard sewn with kikimora guts! Get yours today! But yeah, I actually don't think the silver dust is my own udea, I probably saw it on Shadiversity
Oxygen has 2 Valence electrons, that's how to look at it. Carbon has 4, Fluorine has 1. ETC, however the amount of Valence electrons means very little in actuality, because there are non-valence electron bonds as well, valence electrons basically mean a vacuum that could house an electron, but even so, the view of electrons as existing in shells is extremely faulty. After all, Electrons aren't really bound by some law to any particle in particular and exist purely as possibility clouds around atomic nucleus.
Lēoht Steren one of the 5/6 great mass extinctions in earths history was caused by the production of oxygen by early photosynthetic organisms. And it is slowing killing all of us, but the amount of ATP generated by using oxygen as our final electron acceptor is about 16 times greater than if could not use it. So the juice is worth the squeeze.
OR, and I know this is hard to grasp but stay with me, he used the same kind of witchcraft that enabled him to hold the drawing of a sword in thin air in his hand and slice through another drawing. You know... the dark art known as video editing?
@@ithemba While possible, I doubt they have the time/expertise/budget to change his hair color frame by frame. It's way easier to take a static drawing and apply motion to it.
Hey Kyle, I’m studying Biotechnology and I wanted to point out that there is a couple problems with decreasing Myostatin levels in a body. In 2007 a paper was published in PNAS of an experiment in mice who produced low Myostatin levels. (Article: Lack of Myostatin results in excessive muscle growth but impaired force generation). 1. So called Double Muscled Cattle who exhibit mutations to the Myostatin gene produce low Myostatin levels. These cows are more prone to muscle damage due to their increase size. 2. The mice were found not to have the correlated strength proportional to the muscle mass. The Witcher would be a beefy boy but not the strength of one.
yep, more muscle mass doesnt necessarily mean greater strength. quite the opposite, actually. at least in the specific case of decreased myostatin levels. just one more example for the classic "if one simple mutation could have such a drastically positive effect, it would have happened by now. the fact that it hasnt, should give you pause to think about why that is -.-" argument. i am a vehement subscriber to that school of thought, myself. dont use CRISPR, people. the only thing you might achieve is give yourself cancer. but probably not even that. somewhat similarly, there is also a hard cieling to the benefits of EPO doping, in that systemically increased numbers of red blood cells to way above natural levels will come with considerable drawbacks as well. a much higher general risk of blood clots, for one. and drastically increased danger of heart failiure, especailly when under long periods exertion, due to the increased stress of having to pump blood with significantly higher viscosity. there are cases of professional cyclists dropping dead in the middle of straineous mountain stages from being EPO doped to the gills back in the days when there was alot more unregulated doping going on.
Jakub Mike, there are a couple differences in the biology that play a role. Humans evolved to walk up right, the extra muscle mass would increase stress on our skeleton. Also compared to Humans Chimpanzees’ muscles have greater proportions of fast fibers that allows for great outbursts of force while Humans have fibers intended for endurance.
Hmmm hmm hmmmm ("hey Kyle, love this show" in Geralt's language) In the show, Geralt mention that Witchers have a lower heartbeat rate than humans helping they to have a longer live and also slowing the effects of a poisoning. Ok cool, BUT, could the fact of the blood flowing slowly in the body make process like oxygen and nutrients transportation inefficients? Make it harder to expell CO2 and other metabolic products that can be toxic to the human body, when in a high concentration? And what about the super healing factor? Cells that help in healing process are transported by the blood, so a slower blood flow would make the whole process take much longer, this contrasts the idea of healing super fast, I guess. Thanks and keep showing to the world how cool science can be!
Usually lower heart beats are associated to people that are fit , athletes and so on .They can have even between 30-40 bpm while resting . A normal person usually has between 65-80 bpm while resting. A fit person with lower bpm can have a heart that is way more effective than a normal person as the heart is stronger and pumps more blood in one beat and therefore more oxygen. So a healthy sporty person with low bpm can have a better blood flow than a healthy person with higher bpm.
I’m also gonna guess that through meditation and things, Gerald is able to control his heartbeat, so when he meditates he is almost able to accelerate his healing even more.
@@MandaClaudiuMCM I totally agree with what you said, but in a healing process the body have to increase blood pressure and vasodilation in the veins to be able to transport big cell and organelles, also demanding more energy to do that, increasing the use of oxygen and ATP, all that would make Geralt hyperventilate and increase his bpm. Even professional athletes have higher bpm and blood pressure when healing from a injury.
Hi Kyle, love the show and thanks for this episode about one of my favorite fantasy genres. Since I´m working on my PhD in chemistry, it kind of got me when you showed oxygen having 7 (valence-)electrons. Elemental oxygen (occuring mostly as O2) has only 6 electrons, making it a double radical. The effect stays the same, but makes Geralt even more impressive :D Keep up the good work and greeting from Germany!
To be more precise, atomar oxygen has 6 valence electrons. Elemental oxygen, being a molecule out of 2 oxygens, has 12 valence electrons. Due to it's molecular orbitals' energy scheme it has 2 unpaired electrons, forming a double radical. Yet if you have liquid oxygen, a fraction of the oxygen molecules also exist in the form in which all electrons are paired, giving the liquid a slightly blue colour and making it highly volatile. And if you read this Kyle: Heya, amazing show, I love it =). Also greetings from germany, from another dude working on his PhD in chemistry at the time. And since I'm writing now anyway and remembering that once during a live show you were asked why salt decreases the melting temperature of water, I hope that the person asking that question reads this. There are multiple factors for that phenomenon. One is, that a solute, no matter what it is, disturbs the natural crystallization of it's solvent. This also leads to an increase in the vaporization temperature of the solvent, since the chemical potetial of the solution is reduced due to the additive. These are known as colligative properties. Another that is special to salts is that they further disturb the ice structure, because they strongly affect the orientation of hydrogen bridges in the ice structure. On one hand anions, chloride in the case of sodiumchloride, want to ge surrounded by positive (partial) charges, and therefore have the hydrogen atoms of their surrounding watermolecules (also called hydration shell) pointing towards them. The cations, in our case sodiumions, on the other hand want to be surrounded by negative (partial) charges and therefore have the waters' oxygen atoms pointing towards them. The last thing that comes to my mind right now is the size difference of the ions towards watermolecules, which very likely further disturbs the ice structure. I hope that this is comprehensible and that I didn't make any major mistakes. And to emphasize it, I love your show Kyle. Happy new year to all of you! ^^
That is definitely the longer, but more precise version 😅 P.S. @Alex FM, thanks for taking time to fully explain not only the correct amount of electrons but also discussing the phenomena of lowering the waters freezing point. I always appreciate it when someone goes all out and explains science! - Viel Glück beim Doktor 👍🏻
It's also mentioned that witchers have considerably slower heartbeats and, one would imagine, a less active respiratory system. This would also aid in a reduced amount of oxidative stress and would contribute to a longer lifespan.
Kyle, love the show and thanks for this episode :) Speaking of ethics... i really recomend a books. Everything is explained more in them. I dont know if all the books been translated to english but they are really worth checking. P.S. i know nothing about mutations (except what i learned today :) ) but i believe its pretty accurate :) Please keep doing what you doing, greetings from Poland :)
Love the show Kyle :) In the show, Geralt had a poor enough vision that he asked a certain "someone" to get closer, stating, that not always, the Witcher program produced Witchers with good Eye Sight, that's why the White Wolf needs to rely on his superior hearing and amazing battle experience, adding to the potions that enhanced his eye sight. and, in the show, it was said that the Witchers and mages were sterilized, because they knew that their life style was not meant for children.
@@DiamondAppendixVODs that's true. I always thought this was similar to certain bodybuilders suffering from reduced fertility because certain steroids they end up taking
I'm pretty sure the trial of the grasses adds new genes, specifically from monsters, not change the ones he already has. Whether they survive or not is probably more to do with how the bodies immune system reacts to the systemic changes. Most boy's immune system would literally eat their bodies until death. That would be incredibly painful, which is what it's described as
how to become a Witcher....... Me: " Sir, How do you do it" Geralt: " Well actual, you have to go extensive training, ruthless mental and physical conditioning, and mysterious rituals and a bit "gene Manipulation...... " Me: "and the chance of success?" Geralt: "Ask the Emperor of the Void" Me: "Who?" Geralt: " His name is Kyle" By the way, kyle, does being a Witcher makes you more Hungry that you need to store a LARGE amount of food!!!!! and also shouldn't Geralt be Immune to getting drunk just like Steve rogers if you consider them as people with the same metabolism Love the show and makes me wanna chase cockatrice
Yeah, logic would say that witchers would eat and drink way more, but at least in witcher 3: the wild hunt, there is a school of the cat witcher who survived without food for about a month I think.
"chance of success?" Two or three out of ten boys survive the trial by herbs, then there's also gruesome training, like fighting a pendulum while standing on a board several meters above ground with a cloth over your eyes So... About, like 8-12%
@@KRAMER2411 that doesn't show a lot, since there're a lot of outside factors and extra information to consider. Is he still as ripped or has the Witcher's body started eating away these nutrious muscles yet. How fat was the Witcher when he started dieting. How fit was he when he started dieting. Has he already dieted before. Did his diet involve any activity. Humans can go around 40 days without food.
Hey Kyle, awesome episode! I must say, however, that three "whoo" for Henry Cavill isn't nearly enough. After extensive research I must say that a minimum of 5 is required to be within the realm of reality. Thank you for your time. Kappa.
I always thought its really cool that despite Witcher being a fantasy setting they came to understand things like genetics and electromagnetism trough means of magic
"We could pass mutated genes onto our offspring, who did not choose them." - That's called life. That's not an ethical problem: Nobody is born with genes they chose: Right now, everybody is born with random genes (just filtered by evolution)
It is an ethical problem as you're changing one person and forcing that change on another. You're not born with random genes you can only be born with the ones passed onto you, sans mutations of course. If a person chooses to change their genes then has a child that child now has genes that were chosen for them by their parent, not the ones that they would have had if their parent hadn't chosen to be altered.
@@preciousinfinity How is it different from getting genes chosen by evolution? The new person just gets assigned genes, with no say over it anyway. (When I said: "random genes (just filtered by evolution)" I mean the same as "passed genes with mutations" - The 'passed' genes were originally random too, just refined by evolution and by small mutations - it's equivalent to random+filtered)
@@preciousinfinity Also, everybody's genes are mutated, and everybody has the right to pass their genes forward. - The only difference in this case is: The mutations of genes of "my parents" are better than random.
Example: I was born short. I didn't wanted to be short! But my parents are, so genes did they thing. They forced this gene to me, is it not ethical? No, its natural and its evolution.
Thanks for watching, Super Nerds, and happy new year! 2020 is going to be interesting. Looks like you all love some Witcher science, so if you want to see more, let me know! -- kH
👋
I think it'd be cool to go into Witcher potions and how they work and why they're deadly to most other humanoid creatures.
Should do a thor and witcher cosplay, get your subs to vote on which is better.
@@christiansebastianobaudo9558 Hey buddy -- kH
@@becausescience Yes! I love me some Witcher!
Steps to create a Witcher:
1. Gruesome training since childhood
2. Gratuitous amounts of drugs
3. Survive
Number 3 could also translate to "a shit-ton of luck".
Because even with top preparation there is no guarantee you'll see the end of the process.
isnt modern sports same?
@@peikonpoika83 not quite, no.
Because in sports you can prepare a lot and very rarely die ^^
@@laterreurrouge1917 4. Become Henry Cavill
5. Profit
Sounds like the life of a Viking
"Aging tends to cause the condition known as not being alive anymore."
Hmm yes, the floor here is made out of floor.
But is it recycled floor? Global warming is a thing people, recycle your floors!
@@Just_som_Ottur KMSL. Love it.
People die, if they are killed.
Fuck
In other news, water is wet
"Winds howling." Would have loved to hear Henry Cavill say this at least once.
"Looks like rain..."
@@charleskilo4383 I've always laughed hard that at the "looks like rain..."
Dude, it's already raining. Yes, it is rain. Did you use your Witcher senses to notice the rain? Lol
@@guacca I always love that quote from when you're at Kaer Morhen drinking and you have to find Eskel, and when you bend down to find clues Lambert says "You had to bend down to see that?"
he could season 2
Dont forget "Storm damnit"
Instructions unclear, accidentally created a werewolf.
Send help.
I'll help, but first let's talk about the payment
I'll help. I take payment after the job for a third of the price.
Ill help for free, but i wanna keep the body after....
I'll help for you're First born son and I'll pay you
I suddenly feel like a npc handing out quests to the most willing hero.
So, Kyle has mutated from Discount Thor to Clearence Geralt?
😂🤣🤣
You mean Lambert?
@@thomascollins5622 💀💀💀
@@lordcat1958 You know I'm right!
I was so coming to say something like this! 🥰🥰🥰
“Buff bois” and “thicc sheep” were both so emphasized, I love it
haha man that was awesome :D
*T H I C C S H E E P*
MUSCLE MICE
“The general condition known as not being alive anymore.”
Lol
game ended
My family has a history of getting that condition...
@@Just_som_Ottur Yeah I can't seem to find a cure yet.
Tahraki491 good luck man.. hopefully the prognosis for you ain’t as bad as mine.
“Yeah that only took, like, a few hundred hours”
Same man, same
After the netflix show I wanted to start the witcher 3 again, and then I realized how many hours it actually took to finish the game :)
*looks at my number of 100%ed games*
"Only took a few hundred hours"
-just you wait for games that can't be 100%ed because it's always adding new content to itself-
Took me 480 hours to get 25% through it because I explore too much.
@@IAmKnightsDawn Enjoy the game how you want, that sounds like an exaggeration though. You can literally do every quest in the game in half that time.
That one trophy for killing 50 humanoids with a headshot is the only thing keeping me back from getting that platinum):
Your even got a Witcher haircut, I’m tossing the like!
He’s a friend of humanity now give him the rest
you tossing off....
to your Kyle Hill
Nice six hundred and sixty six like man
you’ll need it
🎵toss a like to your witcher🎵
Toss a Like to your witcher
Oh valley of plenty :)
Oh valley of plenty! oh oh oh
Fuck off bard
Toss a sub to your witcher
@@nChilDofChaoSn A friend of humanityyyyyy..
Me fighting bandits with my steel sword:
Geralt: HOW YOU LIKE THAT SILVER
Accurate af lmao
@Romeo M Its ok geralt sees bandits as monsters too
Geralt was using silver only against monsters and only the ones that was sensitive to silver. Otherwise he was using only steel. Silver sword is to fragile to fight anything most of the time.
Geralt when he's about to go down on a woman: Ugh, that stench.
"Damn, you're ugly"
Seeing Kyle achieving 100% completion on The Witcher series and the DLC. "Is it possible to learn this power?"
Yes, but you'll have to play a lot of Gwent.
"......Not from a jedi."
While I would love to go into all the cellular biology and genetics gone through this episode, I sadly don’t have the time to do so on my lunch break. I will however talk about a bonus that comes with the increase number of red blood cells.
Known as polycythemia, an increase in blood cells does increase the oxygen carrying capacity. Research has shown that those living at high altitudes develop polycythemia as a way to cope with the lower partial pressure of oxygen. So if Geralt has a form of polycythemia (there are several but again no time) he would also be able to retain his stamina and wouldn’t get short of breath at higher altitudes, which would be pretty useful for slaying griffins in their nests atop a mountain.
Love the episode, keep up the great work!
I guess that would match his training in Kaher pretty well, as it's a pretty high ways up.
Excellent point. I look at it from the other side of the coin: I have a form of anemia wherein I produce a LOT of red blood cells but my body essentially eats them, leaving me somewhat anemic (my doc keeps an eye on things and despite what WebMD says, I'm not dying of any horrible disease .. in fact, the cause of my condition is unknown, although it seems genetic, so it's not really harmful, just annoying). In an attempt to maintain health in my fifties, I work out HARD most of the week (CrossFit, martial arts, etc.) which has greatly improved my blood work results. My resting heart rate is in the mid fifty bpm range (like my age, LOL). But if we're doing some especially aerobic stuff (or I decide to outpace the younger ones working out), once my heart rate gets up pretty good, I'm DONE ... can't breathe, muscles worn out, vision might get dim ... but give me a minute to drop my heart rate and I'm as fresh as if I just took a nap. That's my long-winded way of saying I'm looking at the situation from the opposite side and you are totally right. Hmm ... maybe I should move high up on a mountain, force my body to adjust, develop polycythemia which would then edge me over into "normal" range? Darn my choice to live on the coast! ;) LOL!
@@CeltKnight Thanks for sharing your story! I'm glad its something you are managing well!
You are a SUPER NERD
* guitar sounds *
jucom I wish, that would make my year, and it’s only just begun!
Steps to become a Witcher :
- says "hmm" evertime someone talk to you
Hmm
hmmm "fuck"
@@checho00 *Steps to become Geralt. (Witcher 2.0)
"How do you like that silver?"
Saying Wind is Howling is awesome extremely important.
"has cat eyes"
"still require Cat potion to see in the dark"
ummm wat.
In the game you can clearly see in the dark of the night whats going on. Like in most games. In reality you wouldnt be able..try to go in a forest at night. You see shit. The potion enhance this ability even in pitch black darkness
@@Tuxedosnake00 You don't get my point. Nocturnal animal like cats don't require addiational help to see in the dark. So why go through a mutation that is totally unnecessary if you still require aid?
And no, I cannot remember how many times I to brew potions or walk with the lantern to be able to see. During the fight with the werewolf in his cave, You couldnt see shit without help.
I guess it just further enhances the effect. Think about it, witchers sometimes have to fight in pitch black darkness against opponents that are super fast and/or almost transparent.
Under those conditions having anything less than perfect eyesight might prove to be fatal. This implies that the witcher's normal eyes are simply not perfect, so they need the cat potion.
Having 'cat eyes' let you shave in brokilon night light. You take a potion when you go into mines, caves etc.
@@DiZeHiZe ah ah ah, nocturnal animals can see in the dark but cats need to see during the day too, their eyes being too sensitive to light would make them useless while the sun is out, the witcher doesn't need the aid of the potions, they just boost his abilities without making a permanent change that could be highly detrimental later.
“Look at Henry Cavill”
“Whoo”
“Whoo”
“Whoo”
My reaction to Henry Cavill. every.damn.time.
Thirst Whooo
A wise man once said, "If I found Henry Cavill in bed with my wife, I'd tuck him in."
I legit laughed when he did that
💧💧💧💧💧🌧️
I do like how Kyle changed his hair to match Geralt's style, even going so far as to put white highlights in.
I mean, if he dyed his hair and beard white, he'd actually look like a witcher
Arthur Magalhaes Witchers don't really look very different to regular people, barring the cat eyes and (probable) multitude of scars.
Geralt undergoes loads of extra mutations which bleach his hair. So he's weird, even for a Witcher
@@NotQuiteEnglish01 the Trial of the Grasses can bring forth many side effects (one of which is their sterilization), albinism (lack of production of melanin) can be one of them.
@@catarinamagalhaes4775 Though as far as I remember things like being sterile is normal for witchers (e.g. one of the loading lines in Witcher 3 states that). Having white hair is caused by the unnatural amount of mutations or the unusually high pain inflicted on Geralt even from a Witcher's perspective. The only other witcher I remember being white-haired is Ciri. But for normal witchers like Vesemir or Lambert having white hair doesn't seem to be a expected side effect like becoming sterile (which apparently every witcher is, though not 100% certain)
not all the witchers have long white hair... .
HTM geralt is a “Witcher 2.0”. He bested the Witcher trials with relative ease and underwent further more difficult trials and mutations which affected his hair. That’s why he’s the only Witcher with white hair.
I just realized he did his hair like Geralt.
How is that not the first thing you noticed?
@@Sui_Generis0 🤷🏾♂️it just escaped me.
@@Sui_Generis0
Cuz judging some dude's hairstyle wasn't the first thing he looked for.
@@Sui_Generis0
Cause real G's don't rock the standard haircut, but the shaved sides and ponytail
How to make a Witcher with science...
Step 1: Throw the baby in the oven.
The C.I.A. Lmfao I just did that quest yesterday.
Step 2 : Find and bring back an old lady's pan
Daniel Hebard Same here, just recently completed that mission
Step 3: Gwent!
The C.I.A. That was a pretty dark moment in the game glad it worked out
“When witchers are tracking cockatrices across the continent, they also need”
A convenient teleporting HORSE!!
@Grand Crusader "don't judge me"
Damn Roach!
That cant comprehend moving around a tree or fence
*or a discounted translocator mule of exceptional endurance and agility*
Kyle: starts talking about cat eyes. My cat: comes into my room.
It heeds the call of the dark lord
_I wish I had a cat again..._
Cat:giving away our secrets,are you?
Let"s forget the Thor-Kyle and start thinking about the Geralt-Kyle
"Let me introduce myself, I´m the witcher Kyle of the Lab."
@@petrfedor1851 😂
Slaying questions?
Kyle of the Void
Petr Fedor yes
LOLOL I do appreciate the 'nerd credentials' qualifier at the beginning.
"Here are my hours. Yes, I DO know what Im talking about."
He never once said those were his hours. Just that they'd take hundreds of hours.
@@scotta547 I think that he did actually play the game and 100% it. Why you gotta be a buzzkill?
He has obviously never read the books
“ThiCC sheep” had so much oompf to its pronunciation i temporarily lost the will to function
I wanted to find a way to describe how that made me feel and you did. Well done.
*T H I C C S H E E P*
"It's a like a super soldier"
*"But with fantasy and monsters"*
agh it's a plane destiny 2 is that
also without Nanomachines, son!
Yeah it almost super💪soldier or super hunter‼
And his backstory, lore, etc. Is actually competently made, unlike more recent stuff
@@mrsmeee1843 but some parts of the lore don't make much sense. It's clear that tge whole witcher program was sponsored by a king who put together the best alchemists and mages to cone up with the mutation process and the best knights to train the subjects. What is absurd is why the witchers are independent, even if the kingdom that created them fell surely another kingdom would step in and take over. Witchers would perform much better if they operated inside the organization of a royal army. They'd function as rangers, directly paid a stipend by the royal treasure, always equipped with the best gear available and able to rely on the support of the army for missions that required more manpower.
When he said “just look at Henry Cavill” I felt that
I love you
The oofs got me
That sums up my mood-
the triple ‘phew’ was extremely deserved
I didn't. Because im not sexually confused.
I just realized Kyle has Geralt's hairstyle in this video lol.
@Plague Doctor true, but he did dye it white though
@@アニメのゴミ no he just stopped dying it blonde... the void takes its toll
@@CED99 u rite
10:38 Vesemir
Me who's just bought the game: "He's the old Witcher right?"
Kyle: "He's dead, He snapped his neck"
ME: "AWW WTF come on noo"
I know that feeling, man. My brother told me about Bruce Willis when I was about to start the Six Sense many years back.
To be honest i get your feelings but the game had been out since 2015 so if you hear spoilers somewhere it's on you...
@@brentmeyers9657 Yeah but now its different. Lots of new players thank to the series. :) You still dont want to ruin the experience.
@@brentmeyers9657 I said that to people who also haven't played AC III, where Desmond died and FFXV, where both Noctis and Luna died.
And I'm just like...
You have the internet, and these are big games... avoiding spoilers is the miracle here.
Bright side is:
Spoilers don't exist, they simply shift your perspective from "OH! I DIDN'T SEE THAT COMING!" to that of a repeat viewing/experience.
Hi Kyle,
I have another mutation to add, and it fits nicely with what we are already making our witcher out of.
Since we are also increasing our witchers musculature and increasing oxygen transportation, there is another adaptation we can give him with regards to oxygen availability.
Mammalian musculature contains another heme based oxygen carrying protien called myoglobin. In marine mammals, especially deep sea mammals, this protien is expressed at greater concentrations and acts as a primary means to store oxygen for their long dives.
If we add a mutation to this effect to our witcher, there should be more oxygen available before those pumped up muscles have to resort to anaerobic processes, thus increasing the amount he could swing those big guns around before feeling muscle fatigue.
Great Point,
I'll Have To Remember This When I Make *VOLUNTARY* "Witchers".
This also has a nice side effect of them being able to hold their breath for a long ass time against either under water issues, or gas clouds
Why not use EPO
@@bigchungus2667
I could see that working out too.
@@ankokuraven whatever cocktail that team china weightlifting is using on their athletes is the formula to make a real life Witcher, just add EPO for maximum oxygen efficiency and availability
The Netflix show is actually really good. Henry Cavill is killin it.
yea and he's hot as fuck
@@maggot6817 very much so
@@maggot6817 but he is infertile, so you can't have a kid with him ... I'm sorry :(
He doesn't have cat eyes
no, it's not
"Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from Science!" - Agatha Hetradyne.
This is what you can get with a consistent magic system and enough experiments.
Witchers are litterally made by stealing monster DNA and enhancing humans...
Any unsufficiently analyzed science is indistinguishable from magic as well ;)
whenever i think of magic i always think of it as another form of science, spells and potions are never just _there,_ someone in the universes at some point had to discover magic exists in the first place, like we discovered all the scientific things we have over the years and gave it the general term of "science", then had to go and create the spells, the potions, discover how everything works, all that stuff, its essentially that series/universes cooler science
@@TheDaxter11 yeah indeed though that depends
*the science of witchers*
Me: starts mutating my body to become a real witcher.
all types of Cancers=we are about to end this man's whole career
And then fucking died.... ah Novigrad
keep in mind only three out of then survive perfectly, the rest just get so fucked up they are euthanized or their organs implode completely.
Witcher 3 plot in a nutshell:
Overdrugged playboy Step-daddy find and save step-daughter from 3 big black cold dudes with the power of magic and The Heart of the Cards
Sounds legit.
Geralt isn't a womanizer
kokroucz depends on how you play him *for me yeah he’s definitely a womanizer*
And plays a card game with the people he knows as cards.
You had big, black and a third word beggining with c that most of us probably read wrong
4:54 Saving this time stamp so I can come back just to hear him say “thicc sheep” on repeat
With 2 c's
*How to Make a Witcher with Science:*
1. Study Game Development
2. Study Character Design
3. Insert Dark Backstory
Yup
Hope you got 1000 likes!!👌
0. Take preexisting and beloved books with established lore and characters.
@@petrfedor1851 thats what i wanted to say...
i feel like too less people know that witcher even bases on books
The dark backstories were already written for you.
As a graduate student studying red blood cell development in low oxygen, I approve this episode.
In fact, EPO production in the kidney is induced by hypoxia sensing protein HIF-2a, which is degraded by PHD2 protein if oxygen levels are high. So if the witcher mutagen damage the EGLN1 gene (which encodes PHD2 protein), they would have more HIF-2a, and so more EPO, and therefore more red blood cells.
There are actual clinical cases where patients have mutated EGLN1 gene, and the symptoms include chronic erythrocytosis (over production of red blood cells). In non witcher normal human this is a problem because too much red blood cells make the blood too thick and easily clot in your body. Another interesting fact is that Tibetan populations have a mutation in EGLN1 gene that *enhances* its activity, and therefore produce less EPO even though they are constantly living in low oxygen environment. This prevents frequent blood clotting from chronic erythrocytosis and gave the Tibetan population a selective advantage in highlands.
This makes that scene in the last episode even sadder when he says "You know what they do to a Witcher's eyes to get them like this?". How painful it must be :(
Remember uma screaming after being subjected to the first part of the trial?
@@mihneaiordan1813 that poor ugly baby
Migrane from hell
Forgot the most important part about making a Witcher like Garult, you need to give him a horse named Roach.
Well, Roach belongs to Geralt. Idk who "Garult" is
Or maybe Plotka
@@earendilthemariner5546 lol. I just commented quickly without checking my spelling on my phone.
Never heard of that name... i thought it was different, but must be the localization
@@alternamasaki429 roach is the english name of the horse while płotka is the polish name
I really liked the “winds howling” bit. Almost spit my swallow potion out
You: Wind is howling.
Me: _exasperated sigh_ Looks like rain.
Place of power, gotta be.
Fuck.
A storm, damn it.
Is level 10 and stumbles upon a level 36 Basilisk "bad idea"
How do ya like that silver?
He just said "THICC SHEEP"...
👌
Hes welsh
Beep beep
@@BvLeeCultured, are we?
Sounds like dashie 😂
Ahh yes I have heard of this "not being alive" before.
I once heard a tale of a man coming down with a sudden case of death
Only one downside to being a witcher. You can't have kids.
Waldorf: how is that a bad thing? AH HA HA HA HA HA HA!
Mischievous MaleFox you’re a child not a teen. I think he was around 7-9 when his mother gave him to Vesemir
Also ordinary folk hating you, treating you like a moster and you have to stay calm.
I was thinking years of torture
"The wind is howling."
Yes, Geralt. We know...it's kinda what happens when a storm rolls in.
One thing you didn't touch is his slow heart rate, and second about sterility the mages like Yennefer that end up modifying their body are sterile too
Yen is not sterile do to her body change, Netflix is wrong about it.
He briefly discussed sterility in the final seconds of the video 11:19
@@Riva_Bear she is sterile as all mages, in the book said that
@@fourstringsmanybass yeah but just witchers, not the others individuals or creatures
not only is he sterile, but he is also immune to diseases, I remember that from the first game, I dunno if it's in the book though
Instructions unclear. Accidentally created a badass wait nevermind that’s what I wanted.
I remember Kyle saying in a previous video how he 100% completed the game. Good to see him back it up.
He did it on insta.
Call me a cynic but I don’t think 100 percent completions mean as much as they used to. Feels like most game nowadays you could complete 95 percent just doing the story mission. The rest just cleaning out bandit camps and collecting useless treasures. Leaving you feeling like it’s all become a menial task to complete and not compelling at all. I remember scouring the cities in AC2 to find the clues to the precursor civilization feeling like I was actually uncovering a mystery. That sense of satisfaction when I got to watch the final clip after finding all the pieces was cathartic. Now everything become about collecting for collectings sake something even The Witcher 3 couldn’t escape from.
@@kingjamestres You should check out the trophies for the Witcher 3. Some of them are nightmares. I started trying it and stopped when I found out you needed to kill 50 enemies with reflected crossbow bolts.
sephirothsadvent it’s not reflected bolts. It’s 50 head shots Edit even doubled checked it’s not that hard of a game. I got it platinumed. Working on the disk platinum now. Different trophies lists.
Damn straight -- kH
...I can't help but feel like in this day and age of Witchering, unicorns need to come with NSFW warnings.
8:40 „Just look at Henry Cavill” *sighs* *sighs again*
I felt that.
Did you dye your hair for this episode? I love the enthusiasm man! You're by far the best science/pop culture educator on youtube!
I was wondering that too, started scrolling the comments to see who noticed it too XD
Not many did :/
That's very high praise! Thank you Andrew, I really appreciate it -- kH
Kyle: "I've spent a lot of time with Witcher games"
Me: *crying in Witcher books series*
I'd cry more if he had only watched the TV show :P
At least he fully completed it
When the screen went dark for the cat eyes I saw my reflection in the screen and had an existential crisis
"A few hundred hours" mere mortal hours.
10:20 ish, just to throw this out real quick: another compelling way to prevent ageing in theory is to find a way to preserve (or prevent the loss of) our telomeres.
Telomeres are basically a length of sacrificial DNA. You see, during cell replication, DNA polymerase (the enzyme responsible for copying the original DNA onto the new strand of DNA being made) always leaves out a little bit of DNA at the ends, meaning that that part of your DNA isn't replicated. If that happened under normal circumstances, then you'd lose a lot of information in the form of DNA over time (as your cells divided), and eventually die as a result. Our bodies' solution is telomeres, which are basically just added so that _they_ are the part of DNA that isn't replicated (since they code for nothing, this is neat).
It is theorised that over time, our chromosomes' telomeres get shorter and shorter until the vital DNA becomes exposed and the cell dies. This is a small scale ageing mechanism, the prevention of which could theoretically slow ageing down on a cellular level. Cool huh?
Loved that we got a Witcher episode btw! Keep up the scienceing!
Darn, didn't scroll down far enough before I did my comment on telomeres. Yeah and there are other organisms that don't have that reduction process that we have in ours. If I recall we do have a specific mechanism that cuts a little bit of it away every replication and we're working on turning that off cause things like the starfish are basically immortal.... If it's in optimal conditions at all times.
well no because telomeres are just rebuilt by telomerase, at least for a long while. long-lived populations have been found to have overexpressed telomerase, but still got "old" at the same rate and just didn't suffer the catastrophic cell failure that the absence of telomeres would cause (exonuclease breaking down the DNA due to exposed ends). the real way to make people be "younger" for longer is more efficient cellular repair by slightly overexpressing the proteins that fix simple mismatches or by making the cells keep extra junk copies of the DNA for so it can be used for homologous recombination which doesn't delete any part of the code instead of non-homologous end-joining which deletes as much as the DNA is broken. also more a more sensitive cell death mechanism is probably needed if the speed is cranked up when healing wounds, which would drastically reduce the chance of cancer. witchers or longer-lived people in general need a system for regenerating damaged nerve cells and cleaning up leftover proteins as to not go senile or get altzheimer's.
@@alexandergarfield1561 that's non-homologous end joining and it's required to fix double-strand breaks in DNA as eukaryotes aren't literally always replicating their DNA, so they don't have a reference string of DNA to perfectly fix it by
Fun fact about lobsters: they produce an enzyme called telomerase, which repairs telomeres. If one of the Witcher mutations allows Geralt to produce teolmerase, that could at least partially account for his longevity.
Batspecies of the genus Myotis do not age and only die due to starvation (dental wear) or other external events (accidents, dehydration). These species do not produce telomerase but have up to 21 'telomere maintanance' genes (e.g. ATM, SETX) that prevent the individuals from ageing.... Some wild animals have been annually identified and monitored for over 40 years(!!) For an animal of only 4-10 grams with an exeptionally fast heartrate and metabilism (annual average is incl. several months of hibernation).
Studies by dr. Emma Teeling of Dublin University college on genetics advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/2/eaao0926?VancePak+%28updated+6%2F30%2F2017%29&EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_02_02&, interesting topic, this anti ageing.
"... which leads to unregulated muscle growth ... which leads to..."
.... Letho ... really
Letho is actually pretty lucky.
If cardiac muscle swelled up like that he’d die of heart attack before finishing the trial of the grasses.
"age causes the syndrom known as not being alive anymore" 😂😂 i love your caution with the forbidden word
I love that the only 2 things you didn't cover too much were covered in the show. The sterilization because the life of a Witcher doesn't leave a lot of time to be a parent. And they mentioned the cat eye procedure being very risky and often failing and causing blindness which sounds about right with how invasive it would be
9:51 - Geralt has to take herbs regularly to keep his side effects in check (unless you played Witcher 1 on the easier difficulty). Herbs, especially ginger, contain anti-oxidants and sometimes even vitamin E that absorb the effects of oxidative stress. Those anti-oxidants are plant-based, which is why the human body sucks at making them on its own. That is why the best course is to keep eating that stuff regularly and with food to minimize the chemical stress of the food. Most of the harmful chemicals come from the food, so minimizing the food effects will help to preserve your genome. If people took more olive oil or ate seeds daily, they could get the vitamin E easily that way.
I finally know why cats eyes "glow" in the dark! Thanks Kyle, great stuff as usual.
"The general condition of not being alive anymore" was the thing that got me
The thing about the stamina is in fact a really good theory I think, cause in the books, Andrej Sapkowski writes that a witcher heart beats 4 times slower than a normal human one. That possibly means they have 4 times more red blood cells, so a witcher heart can be slower to do its "normal" work. And maybe it would also means that they can have almost 4 times more stamina and oxygen going to muscles than a normal human.
great vid btw, I rly like this one
leave Triss Marigold alone, she has been through enough.
Thor wanting to become a Witcher.... he will either become a super god, or he will become a super devil.
@@lucifers.morningstar3805as long as he doesnt train under the viper or cat school he should be fine lol
@@ZacDaMex but I like the Viper School, besides he would be welcomed into the school.
Pffft. She tricked ol Geralt into a relationship. Bratty girl.
@@morriganrenfield8240 Yennifer is no better, she wants everything done her way and if anyone goes against what she wants she throws a huge temper tantrum.
"Mutants are sterile" - The Bounds of Reason
@Romeo M Perhaps they learned a thing or two since Turing.
When you talked about how to expand the lifespan I was surprised you didn't talk about the telomere research happening and how scientists are getting pretty close to expanding the human lifespan.
Bones heal
Chicks dig scars
Pain is temporary
Glory is forever
Shawn Matney replacements is the best
Eddie “The Beast” hall has what is known as the hercules gene, a lack of miostatin. His strength is INSANE. He is the world record holder for deadlift, at 500kg.
bruh thor beat him a while ago
When? I don’t think he did
What about all the strongmen that beat him then? So Thor and Shaw both have the same condition?
Himel Mondal no, only he has that condition
@@adriantonica343 embarrassing for eddie then, looks like the gene doesn't really mean much in real world applications
Patient: Doctor.. is that bad?
Doctor: mmmm... well you´re developing certain condition known as not being alive anymore...
MILLENNIALS - OK BOOMER
@@buildawall5803 ok boomer
@@gufosufo337 uhh ok then call me a boomers even tho am 19
The sterility is kind of needed thing because like, they don't know how their mutations would affect the mother during pregnancy or the child.
or the mutagens just do funny shit to their balls? :)
I say if you were able to make a not sterile witcher, go for it. Chances of things going bad can't be worse then the success rate of making them from scratch every time and the great traits might even be better in a couple of generations.
That said there is probably a reason it is like this in the first place.
Finally the pee will be stored in the balls.
Hey Kyle, love the show. Thank you for doing this.
First of all, sorry for my bad english, I am brazilian.
So, I was thinking about the mutation in witchers that would cause red blood cells to increase, and that probably also explains why witchers have such a lower heart rate (4x lower, as said in the series).
The simple act of increasing the number of red blood cells is associated with the increased blood viscosity and decreased cardiac output (which is probably compensated by the increase of the heart sise and "strength", caused by the reduction of myostatin produced). This increased blood viscosity and the overall bigger hearth is related to decreasing the heart rate.
This extremely low heart rate, is kind of possible in our world. As in the 1990s, when several high performance road bicycle racing athletes who were doing blood dopping, had a resting heart rate of approximately 34 beats/min (which is comparable to an elephant's) and it was even lower while sleeping.
It was so low that they had to set their heart-rate monitor to beep whenever their pulse drops below a certain level. So they can wake up and exercise to increase their heart rate, otherwise they would die.
Also, just a fun fact. The witchers super slow heart beat probably makes them less susceptible to poisoning.
Keep up with the good show! And sorry again for the bad english.
Depending on the toxin, yeah, I expect it would. It'd certainly make triage for things like snakebites easier.
The show actually had that happen. He was bitten and his slow heart rate extended the time until death
For not speaking English, it is amazing how much better you speak than most native speakers.
This
Made me love Witcher even more.
The science behind all of this is great.
Thank you for taking the time to put together all these facts about mutation, mutagens and so on
Thank you long haired dude
Hey Kyle, love this show. Thank you for doing what you do.
This episode took me back to the dragon fight episode and put my brain down a rabbit hole for a bit. What if the silver sword functions as a sort of poison? Silver isn’t toxic to humans, but if it works as an allergen or even a toxin to monsters, could the silver sword be a way to wear them down as a form of pursuit predation?
We already alloy silver with other metals to make it less ductile, because pure silver is very soft. If we went further and alloyed or heated it to be brittle, using this alloy as the edge material of a sword could serve a Witcher well. Each time you struck a monster with your silver sword, small flecks or chips of the edge could become embedded in the wound, and since silver is toxic to monsters, this could cause irritation and inflammation at the very least. So if your prey escapes, by the time you find it again it has been weakened or even incapacitated
This would also be why you have to watch weapon durability like a hawk, if your sword is too worn down it is either at risk of breaking or isn’t delivering enough silver to do its job anymore.
Thanks again for another great episode and happy new year!
I'm pretty sure that that's exactly what the books say: silver is toxic to most monsters, while some fear meteorite steel, which the witcher's other sword is made of. Nice idea with the chipping though. Although, it might be easier to just have a durable sword and coat it in silver dust instead rather than make a blade with the intent of it breaking inside the monster
Big brain time😎
Diamond Appendix that’s actually WAY more practical than my idea. Maybe have bristles in the scabbard that coat it in silver dust or something?
Particulates would be way better at getting it into the monster than chips.
@@CasaHouse2205 Yeah, that seems more efficient, but wouldn't it limit the Witcher's efficiency when dealing with water-bound creatures?
Sure, in the games Geralt don't tend to use his sword underwater, tending more to his crossbow, but even just submerging and emerging again would waste the dust in his scabbard, right?
@@axeldornelles5292 now introducing: waterproof scabbard sewn with kikimora guts! Get yours today!
But yeah, I actually don't think the silver dust is my own udea, I probably saw it on Shadiversity
When Chris Hemsworth and Ryan Reynolds do the fusion dance. It it becomes him.
I'll never un-imagine that now
He's not as buff as they are 🤷♂️
Sorry just a small mistake, oxygen has 6 electrons in the outer "shell"
Yeah I noticed that too I thought I was going crazy for a second there lol
Oxygen has 2 Valence electrons, that's how to look at it. Carbon has 4, Fluorine has 1. ETC, however the amount of Valence electrons means very little in actuality, because there are non-valence electron bonds as well, valence electrons basically mean a vacuum that could house an electron, but even so, the view of electrons as existing in shells is extremely faulty. After all, Electrons aren't really bound by some law to any particle in particular and exist purely as possibility clouds around atomic nucleus.
@@livedandletdie Woah we got a scientist on our hands guys. That is really good info though. I actually find that really interesting.
@@livedandletdie Also your profile pic. I hate him. He's such a terrible father to Shinji.
Kyle: *makes a video explaining how to make a hero*
Also Kyle: *Oxygen is bad for you*
Lēoht Steren one of the 5/6 great mass extinctions in earths history was caused by the production of oxygen by early photosynthetic organisms. And it is slowing killing all of us, but the amount of ATP generated by using oxygen as our final electron acceptor is about 16 times greater than if could not use it. So the juice is worth the squeeze.
100% of humans that breath oxygen die.
Oxygen is the sustaining factor in the condition known as life, that kills with a %100 mortality rate.
Kutlu Mızrak not for all life, there are plenty of anaerobic organisms that oxygen will kill.
@@TheMacmister Statement holds true. Oxygen kills.
That's cool, but Let's talk about my reward
Everyone: cat eyes
Me screaming: VIPER
Kyle dyed his hair. That's some dedication!
Looks like a trick with the lighting.
I think you can do that with color wax
OR, and I know this is hard to grasp but stay with me, he used the same kind of witchcraft that enabled him to hold the drawing of a sword in thin air in his hand and slice through another drawing. You know... the dark art known as video editing?
@@ithemba What mutagen did he use for that? 😂🤣
@@ithemba While possible, I doubt they have the time/expertise/budget to change his hair color frame by frame. It's way easier to take a static drawing and apply motion to it.
Or witcher is just a less complete spacemarine.
Ha!
Wheres your second heart boy!?
Monsters are heretical brother. Hunt them in the name of the Emperor!
Learning about how a Witcher is made just seemed like a fantasy Space Marine in its creation.
Halo?
farhan sadik no... just... no.
You even have the renowned witcher 2 elven hairstyle for Geralt.
Hey Kyle, I’m studying Biotechnology and I wanted to point out that there is a couple problems with decreasing Myostatin levels in a body. In 2007 a paper was published in PNAS of an experiment in mice who produced low Myostatin levels. (Article: Lack of Myostatin results in excessive muscle growth but impaired force generation).
1. So called Double Muscled Cattle who exhibit mutations to the Myostatin gene produce low Myostatin levels. These cows are more prone to muscle damage due to their increase size.
2. The mice were found not to have the correlated strength proportional to the muscle mass.
The Witcher would be a beefy boy but not the strength of one.
Since you study Biotechnology could you perhaps say a few words about chimpanzee? They are stronger than humans despite being much smaller.
yep, more muscle mass doesnt necessarily mean greater strength. quite the opposite, actually. at least in the specific case of decreased myostatin levels.
just one more example for the classic "if one simple mutation could have such a drastically positive effect, it would have happened by now. the fact that it hasnt, should give you pause to think about why that is -.-" argument. i am a vehement subscriber to that school of thought, myself. dont use CRISPR, people. the only thing you might achieve is give yourself cancer. but probably not even that.
somewhat similarly, there is also a hard cieling to the benefits of EPO doping, in that systemically increased numbers of red blood cells to way above natural levels will come with considerable drawbacks as well. a much higher general risk of blood clots, for one. and drastically
increased danger of heart failiure, especailly when under long periods exertion, due to the increased stress of having to pump blood with
significantly higher viscosity. there are cases of professional cyclists dropping dead in the middle of straineous mountain stages from being EPO doped to the gills back in the days when there was alot more unregulated doping going on.
Jakub Mike, there are a couple differences in the biology that play a role. Humans evolved to walk up right, the extra muscle mass would increase stress on our skeleton. Also compared to Humans Chimpanzees’ muscles have greater proportions of fast fibers that allows for great outbursts of force while Humans have fibers intended for endurance.
Never been this early to an episode. Toss a coin to your science Witcher makers. ❤️
In a fantasy scenario you explained very well what is going on in Lifespan or SENS foundations... with proper right ethical critique ;) Good job!
Hmmm hmm hmmmm ("hey Kyle, love this show" in Geralt's language)
In the show, Geralt mention that Witchers have a lower heartbeat rate than humans helping they to have a longer live and also slowing the effects of a poisoning. Ok cool, BUT, could the fact of the blood flowing slowly in the body make process like oxygen and nutrients transportation inefficients? Make it harder to expell CO2 and other metabolic products that can be toxic to the human body, when in a high concentration? And what about the super healing factor? Cells that help in healing process are transported by the blood, so a slower blood flow would make the whole process take much longer, this contrasts the idea of healing super fast, I guess.
Thanks and keep showing to the world how cool science can be!
Usually lower heart beats are associated to people that are fit , athletes and so on .They can have even between 30-40 bpm while resting . A normal person usually has between 65-80 bpm while resting. A fit person with lower bpm can have a heart that is way more effective than a normal person as the heart is stronger and pumps more blood in one beat and therefore more oxygen. So a healthy sporty person with low bpm can have a better blood flow than a healthy person with higher bpm.
I’m also gonna guess that through meditation and things, Gerald is able to control his heartbeat, so when he meditates he is almost able to accelerate his healing even more.
Geralt its spelled Geralt
@@MandaClaudiuMCM I totally agree with what you said, but in a healing process the body have to increase blood pressure and vasodilation in the veins to be able to transport big cell and organelles, also demanding more energy to do that, increasing the use of oxygen and ATP, all that would make Geralt hyperventilate and increase his bpm.
Even professional athletes have higher bpm and blood pressure when healing from a injury.
@@smigolbsk11
Or in a simple explanation ...
Maybe Andre Sapkowsky skipped some biology and PE class in his youth
Hi Kyle, love the show and thanks for this episode about one of my favorite fantasy genres.
Since I´m working on my PhD in chemistry, it kind of got me when you showed oxygen having 7 (valence-)electrons. Elemental oxygen (occuring mostly as O2) has only 6 electrons, making it a double radical. The effect stays the same, but makes Geralt even more impressive :D
Keep up the good work and greeting from Germany!
To be more precise, atomar oxygen has 6 valence electrons. Elemental oxygen, being a molecule out of 2 oxygens, has 12 valence electrons. Due to it's molecular orbitals' energy scheme it has 2 unpaired electrons, forming a double radical. Yet if you have liquid oxygen, a fraction of the oxygen molecules also exist in the form in which all electrons are paired, giving the liquid a slightly blue colour and making it highly volatile.
And if you read this Kyle:
Heya, amazing show, I love it =).
Also greetings from germany, from another dude working on his PhD in chemistry at the time.
And since I'm writing now anyway and remembering that once during a live show you were asked why salt decreases the melting temperature of water, I hope that the person asking that question reads this.
There are multiple factors for that phenomenon.
One is, that a solute, no matter what it is, disturbs the natural crystallization of it's solvent. This also leads to an increase in the vaporization temperature of the solvent, since the chemical potetial of the solution is reduced due to the additive. These are known as colligative properties.
Another that is special to salts is that they further disturb the ice structure, because they strongly affect the orientation of hydrogen bridges in the ice structure. On one hand anions, chloride in the case of sodiumchloride, want to ge surrounded by positive (partial) charges, and therefore have the hydrogen atoms of their surrounding watermolecules (also called hydration shell) pointing towards them. The cations, in our case sodiumions, on the other hand want to be surrounded by negative (partial) charges and therefore have the waters' oxygen atoms pointing towards them.
The last thing that comes to my mind right now is the size difference of the ions towards watermolecules, which very likely further disturbs the ice structure.
I hope that this is comprehensible and that I didn't make any major mistakes.
And to emphasize it, I love your show Kyle.
Happy new year to all of you! ^^
That is definitely the longer, but more precise version 😅
P.S. @Alex FM, thanks for taking time to fully explain not only the correct amount of electrons but also discussing the phenomena of lowering the waters freezing point. I always appreciate it when someone goes all out and explains science!
- Viel Glück beim Doktor 👍🏻
@@moritzkofen5951 Dir auch viel Erfolg bei deinem Doktor! ;D
"Wind's howling! - Sorry, I have to say that every few minutes."
XDXDXD so true.
It's also mentioned that witchers have considerably slower heartbeats and, one would imagine, a less active respiratory system. This would also aid in a reduced amount of oxidative stress and would contribute to a longer lifespan.
Kyle, love the show and thanks for this episode :)
Speaking of ethics... i really recomend a books. Everything is explained more in them. I dont know if all the books been translated to english but they are really worth checking.
P.S. i know nothing about mutations (except what i learned today :) ) but i believe its pretty accurate :)
Please keep doing what you doing, greetings from Poland :)
He's basically medieval Captain America with swords.
Love the show Kyle :)
In the show, Geralt had a poor enough vision that he asked a certain "someone" to get closer, stating, that not always, the Witcher program produced Witchers with good Eye Sight, that's why the White Wolf needs to rely on his superior hearing and amazing battle experience, adding to the potions that enhanced his eye sight.
and, in the show, it was said that the Witchers and mages were sterilized, because they knew that their life style was not meant for children.
In the witcher's case, I'm pretty sure sterility is a side effect of the trial by herbs. At least that's what I remember from the books
@@DiamondAppendixVODs that's true. I always thought this was similar to certain bodybuilders suffering from reduced fertility because certain steroids they end up taking
I'm pretty sure the trial of the grasses adds new genes, specifically from monsters, not change the ones he already has. Whether they survive or not is probably more to do with how the bodies immune system reacts to the systemic changes. Most boy's immune system would literally eat their bodies until death. That would be incredibly painful, which is what it's described as
Because science: "AGH!! NNNOVIGRAD!!"
Me: *subscribes*
how to become a Witcher.......
Me: " Sir, How do you do it"
Geralt: " Well actual, you have to go extensive training, ruthless mental and physical conditioning, and mysterious rituals and a bit "gene Manipulation...... "
Me: "and the chance of success?"
Geralt: "Ask the Emperor of the Void"
Me: "Who?"
Geralt: " His name is Kyle"
By the way, kyle, does being a Witcher makes you more Hungry that you need to store a LARGE amount of food!!!!!
and also shouldn't Geralt be Immune to getting drunk just like Steve rogers if you consider them as people with the same metabolism
Love the show and makes me wanna chase cockatrice
If he gets ripped the way Kyle suggests, yeah he has to eat a lot.
Yeah, logic would say that witchers would eat and drink way more, but at least in witcher 3: the wild hunt, there is a school of the cat witcher who survived without food for about a month I think.
@@KRAMER2411 Technicaly, if a witcher has a slow pulse, they probaly a slow metabolins, what maibe explain why he don't eat a ton of food per day.
"chance of success?"
Two or three out of ten boys survive the trial by herbs, then there's also gruesome training, like fighting a pendulum while standing on a board several meters above ground with a cloth over your eyes
So... About, like 8-12%
@@KRAMER2411 that doesn't show a lot, since there're a lot of outside factors and extra information to consider.
Is he still as ripped or has the Witcher's body started eating away these nutrious muscles yet.
How fat was the Witcher when he started dieting.
How fit was he when he started dieting.
Has he already dieted before.
Did his diet involve any activity.
Humans can go around 40 days without food.
Hey Kyle, awesome episode! I must say, however, that three "whoo" for Henry Cavill isn't nearly enough. After extensive research I must say that a minimum of 5 is required to be within the realm of reality. Thank you for your time.
Kappa.
Not only is he fit but the guy seems extremely humble and he is also an avid gamer and fan. We need more actors like cavill in this industry
Witchers don't have superhuman wound healing, they just eat a lot
I see those trophies...I nod my head in respect
Me a couple of years ago " I don't understand this stuff but this is cool"
Me today " HELL YEAH THIS IS 100 TIME MORE INTERESTING NOW"
I always thought its really cool that despite Witcher being a fantasy setting they came to understand things like genetics and electromagnetism trough means of magic
"We could pass mutated genes onto our offspring, who did not choose them."
- That's called life. That's not an ethical problem: Nobody is born with genes they chose: Right now, everybody is born with random genes (just filtered by evolution)
It is an ethical problem as you're changing one person and forcing that change on another. You're not born with random genes you can only be born with the ones passed onto you, sans mutations of course. If a person chooses to change their genes then has a child that child now has genes that were chosen for them by their parent, not the ones that they would have had if their parent hadn't chosen to be altered.
@@preciousinfinity How is it different from getting genes chosen by evolution? The new person just gets assigned genes, with no say over it anyway.
(When I said: "random genes (just filtered by evolution)" I mean the same as "passed genes with mutations" - The 'passed' genes were originally random too, just refined by evolution and by small mutations - it's equivalent to random+filtered)
@@preciousinfinity Also, everybody's genes are mutated, and everybody has the right to pass their genes forward. - The only difference in this case is: The mutations of genes of "my parents" are better than random.
@@Verrisin I think the very fact that were having this conversation proves that it's an ethical problem
Example: I was born short. I didn't wanted to be short! But my parents are, so genes did they thing. They forced this gene to me, is it not ethical? No, its natural and its evolution.