If you have a starving daddy, it turns out that the baby actually gets some sort of health benefit. Three of them ended up in other foster homes and seem to have done pretty well, but one of them DESTINY HARRIS: Okay, well of them, don't really know what happened to her. Once a kid is born, their genetic fate is pretty much sealed. ], I'd like everybody to meet, please, Barbara Harris. More of this particular protein. Live shows were first offered in 2008. Birth mother's name was actually the same as me, so, Barbara. But, I said this to Lynn, "Despite all the things that trouble me about Barbara's program, I feel like what she's trying to do is to stop a kid from getting born into a childhood that's going to suck.". Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab today. But wouldnt it be nice if thats how it worked? See, this is the story of science that doesn't get told. Okay. Let me say this again. [ARCHIVAL CLIP, BARBARA HARRIS: Well, I just want to eliminate drug-addicted babies from being born. ROBERT: And that advantage, whatever it was, because it starts with one individual, and then it gets passed onto the kids, and then onto their kids, it would take a long, long, long time to spread through the whole population because, generally, that's how evolution works. Michael and Frances looked inside the brains of these rats and what they saw was that the rats who had been licked a lot as babies, they had more stuff in their head. BARBARA HARRIS: Yeah, the social worker called and told me the mother had given birth. We ask deep questions and use investigative journalism to get the answers. JAD: Or very many of them right at all, but, you know, his basic idea seems to be true. It all came down to this jar with his toad in it. PAT: Over the past five years, if you look at our tax return. Just a little. [ARCHIVAL Clip, News: Who, together, pledged more than $150,000 to her program.]. Kammerer thought, "Wow.". Wow. Looking for patterns in cardiovascular diseases, high blood pressure, and such. CARL ZIMMER: That's the kind of guy he is. And so, her name is Kalia. [ARCHIVAL Clip, News: Barbara Harris's solution is simpler than anything else out there. And Barbara and Destiny walked me out to my car. You can do this. And I think that no, I didn't plan on it but I wouldn't take her back for anything because she made me better. ROBERT: I think what's weird here is that is that we started trying to make a difference in our children and now we're surprise attacked by our grandparents. I don't know where she gets that from. Its something I still think about all the time. ], [ARCHIVAL Clip, News: This could mean sterilization, it could mean getting an IUD.]. This whole toad thing, to the Darwinian faction, it didn't scan really. PAT: Destiny says one day, she and her mom were in the car, and her mom said DESTINY HARRIS: She said, "I don't know, you know, maybe they'll grow bigger? Like have you ever had one of those moments where you suddenly are your dad and it catches you off guard? ROBERT: So what is the licking doing then? JAD: Many years later, he and this woman. But it failed. They told me a bunch of these stories, one of them involving, well DESTINY HARRIS: I don't have the biggest boobies in the world. ], You get them $200 each, which they can spend on crack. He stuffed himself silly; 9, 10, 11 years old, so he's a happy grandpa, you the grandson, you then would have. JAD: Thats just the cold logic of Darwinian evolution. Jean Baptiste Lamarck was a pioneer in the . It's against the rules. LYNN PALTROW: The women who I've worked with, who've had a history of drug problems, aren't like the examples that she gives. They've seen it and they've repeated the experience. And very often, one of them will just go crashing into the DNA and it'll stick there like a barnacle or a glob of peanut butter. She's not offering treatment, she's not offering counseling, and there are programs that do that. And she says, one day, this idea just came to her. He's not even eating at all. They won't grow much on the outside, but on the inside That is the time where the sperms are developing. like they could be whistling six tables over in a restaurant and he would turn around and be like, "Stop that," it was like it was scraping his very nerves. OLOV BYGREN: So they didn't starve to death. [laughs]. So. And I packed up my stuff, it's pretty much done. They have six, seven, eight, ten, fourteen.]. Tell me what your image of a drug-using pregnant woman is. [laughs[ So yeah, it's embarrassing, but I believe everything happens for a reason. BARBARA HARRIS: I was just pissed at what they have done to my children. PAT: And that's when things would start to get out of control. You're finishing college, right? Were told. And he makes a very careful study of this hand. And so, they just had to hold on for the entire winter. PAT: When you first hear about this, what goes through your mind? [ARCHIVAL Clip, Panel: You don't think that they should have their children back?]. All the babies I had seen and all the people that have called me to tell me about their babies that were damaged. A given episode might whirl you through science, legal history, and into the home of. CARL ZIMMER: Around 1908, he started publishing all of these results. And this idea won him a lot of fans, including, not surprisingly, the Soviets. JAD: Well, its offensive. We went to the foster home and went in. If Barbara had gotten to Destiny's birth mom, Destiny, Kalia, this moment, none of it would exist. They wanted to see basically the effects of starvation on multiple generations. Basically, the midwife toad has a strange habit for toads. Kalia came too. A little village? CARL ZIMMER: He was mighty skeptical. Yes. The neural chemical signal that gets activated during licking, is serotonin. ROBERT: Just for those years. So almost instantaneously, the mother's tongue has reached into the baby's brain cells. These people are paying millions of dollars to take care of your children!]. LULU: A really good radiolab about this called Inheritance. I guess retard. ], That's their choice, but the babies don't have a choice.]. It was something they acquired during their lifetime. PAT: And even though they look basically nothing alike. FRANCES CHAMPAGNE: You have to do that for five hours a day for six consecutive days. If you were a boy in verkalix between the ages of 9 and 12 years old, that's the window, 9 to 12, you're a boy, and then we have one of those terribly rough winters, and you're eating much less than normal. ], Like you said, when you were in your addiction like she is], I didn't say I'm God. So then over the next 70 some odd years, Lamarck basically became the poster boy for, like, the big dumb idea, the idea that you want to believe in but that you know isn't true. How was this woman allowed", "To walk into the hospital and drop off a damaged baby and just walk away with no consequences?". Hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, Radiolab is a " show about curiosity " that examines science, history, and philosophy to answer the big questions about life. ROBERT: One-fourth? PAT: Which I find kind of hard to believe but, then again, I must have read at least 100 news articles as I was reporting this story. And one of them is called the thyroid system. What do I know? Yeah, it was a very attractive theory to them in Moscow. More information about Sloan at. All right, I'll get in the water." I know! CARL ZIMMER: He was revealing it with experiments. You're slippery, partner's slippery. ROBERT: They won't grow much on the outside, but on the inside OLOV BYGREN: That is the time where the sperms are developing. You got to help boost if you had a starving grandfather. ROBERT: You cant say that. She's 20 months old. These are women who love their children, who sought help. SAM KEAN: It was this struggle for a few years. This whole toad thing, to the Darwinian faction, it didn't scan really. There's going to be this massacre of toads and only a few lucky ones are going to survive. These were kids that didn't end up with Barbara? Never mind, you're stuck with small boobies." Barbara Harris's solution is simpler than anything else out there. She carries your kids for nine months and you're like, "That poor male toad.". She said, "Thank you so much for the gift, I bought my son an excavator truck, remote control and some summer outfits." ROBERT: Okay, so lets get going and stick with your boy, Lamarck, just for a sec. But a year later, the social worker called again. ROBERT: I think that makes a lot of sense. Which, when you think about it, it has a very Lamarckian flavor. OLOV BYGREN: Yes, we are really data-rich. Then she goes, "Oh wait, I didn't give birth to you. I said, "This will be the last one. You know, just take a little peek for themselves, and every time Kammerer said no, they were his specimens. I just saw them as child abusers. Your boys will first grow taller and taller for the next few years, and when they get to be about 9, 10 years old, they're going to stop growing just for a few years. You know, like if you're abused as a kid, you were more likely to abuse your kid, but still, you got to wonder. Maybe more. JAD: These were kids that didn't end up with Barbara? He extended this idea to people. JAD: So imagine the DNA in that brain cell. OLOV BYGREN: Well, for cardiovascular disease JAD: Olov told us, take heart disease. If your grandpa didn't starve, instead he lived through great times. DESTINY HARRIS: That's my little girl. ], [ARCHIVAL CLIP, BARBARA HARRIS: Like you said, when you were in your addiction like she is], [ARCHIVAL CLIP, BARBARA HARRIS: I didn't say I'm God. He thought it worked with humans, too. So we're going to leave you with a story from our producer, Pat Walters, about one woman's radical A few months ago, Pat made his way down in North Carolina, to a small suburb outside of Charlotte to visit this family. In this episode, originally aired in 2012, we put nature and nurture on a collision course and discover how outside forces can find a way inside us, and change not just our hearts and minds, but the basic biological blueprint that we pass on to future generations. JAD: And then, Michael just launched into this thing. Yeah, thats it. SAM KEAN: They wanted to see basically the effects of starvation on multiple generations. In this episode, originally aired in 2012, we put nature and nurture on a collision course and discover how outside forces can find a way inside us, and change not just our hearts and minds, but the basic biological blueprint that we pass on to future generations. All jokes aside. The sperm carries these marks to the next generation. I already knew that if I ever got a little girl, I was going to name her Destiny. It's off-limits. I mean, the idea that they could be constrained by their DNA, that maybe one of us gave them a bit of DNA thats gonna hold them back? I mean, the idea that they could be constrained by their DNA, that maybe one of us gave them a bit of DNA thats gonna hold them back? It would be wrong to think that they represent all women who use drugs while they're pregnant. ROBERT: Okay. 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