Rat lungworm (featuring Dr. Chelsea Wood)

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28:20okay and we're back daniel and i took a little bit of time to try to get that yuck out and we are we're doing our best to not make yeah we're doing our best to not make too many faces as chelsea describes this so the people who live in hawaii must be particularly frustrated to have this parasite because they also didn't originally have rats, right? And so like, how much of this system has been introduced into Hawaii? And like, how did it get there? Almost all of it. Rodents are not native to Hawaii. The Polynesian rat was introduced by Polynesian voyagers about 1100 years ago. And then European colonists introduced the Black Rat, Norway Rat, and House Mouse.

29:01So those rodents are now all extremely common across the Hawaiian islands. Most of the snails and slugs that are host to rat lungworm are also non-native to Hawaii. Oh, come on. And the worm itself is non-native. Yeah. It's, it is an entirely novel ecosystem that's been assembled to support the transmission of this parasite. You said it was first described in the thirties, but it must've been around a long time, right? Yeah, this worm isn't new. It has evolved from a large tree of other nematodes. And while we obviously don't want to be infected by it, it is natural and normal in East and Southeast Asia.

29:47What's not natural or normal is the fact that it's now been imported into ecosystems all around the world. And so if you live in Southeast Asia, are people just regularly getting like, is it as big a problem in its native range as it is in like Hawaii, for example? It doesn't appear to be. And this is a frontier area of research. So, you know, this is something that we still have some uncertainty about. We think that early life exposure to the worms protects against catastrophic infection later in life. So people who have no exposure to rat lungworm and then suddenly get a big dose of it are the ones who are winding up with really severe neurological problems.

30:28But this is an emerging area of research, and that's not a solidified hypothesis yet. How would that work? Your immune system is somehow trained, and then when they're burrowing through your body looking for the brain, they get attacked by the immune system? Precisely. Yeah. Wow. Gosh, so I can imagine maybe one day there'd be like a vaccine before you go to Hawaii or a vaccine for everybody living in Hawaii, which would at least make it less bad. If we could develop a vaccine against a worm. Yeah, right. Which we haven't done yet. Right. I know they're working on it for hookworm, but we've not had any success.

31:02Right. Not yet. But remind me, and I know we did a whole episode on why it's hard to get vaccines for parasites, but this is something where your immune system can be trained to respond. What's the challenge in developing the vaccine? Okay, I don't develop vaccines, so I'm way out of my depth here. And Kelly, you should step in and correct me. My understanding is that worms are so closely related to us that biochemically, we have so many similarities that things that hurt them also hurt us. And that's why it's just logistically much more challenging to develop a vaccine without unacceptable side effects for a worm relative to something like a virus.

31:39We had John Hodden on the show and he talked about this for like an hour. And he said a lot of what you said. He also said that part of the problem is just that like worms are really big. And like nematodes, for example, the outside of them has this like, you know, hard outer coating. And so it's hard for the immune system to do much of anything to them. And so you have to try to find a way to like, I don't know, get inside of the nematode and then attack it from within. And it's just really complicated for for lots of reasons. But the immune system knows how to do it because in Southeast Asia, people who are exposed as children have protection.

32:11I'm just reaching here for some optimism. Help me out. Let's go with maybe, which is about as – does that seem reasonable, Chelsea? The solution to worms is more worms. What? No. We need more worms to eat these worms? Is that what you're saying? No, more worms for us earlier in life to provide immune protection against later catastrophic infection. I'm not actually advocating for this, by the way. No one go out and get worms. Do not take medical advice from this show, but maybe take your baby to Hawaii. So how is this changing the lives of people who live in Hawaii? Like, has it changed their diet?

32:50Like, what is, yeah, what are their lives like? Well, public health outreach about rat lungworm is pretty minimal. in Hawaii. So a lot of people are totally unaware that it's being transmitted locally, that it's a risk. There's a tremendous amount of agriculture locally in Hawaii because otherwise food needs to transit over these huge distances in order to reach the Hawaiian islands. So there's lots of lettuce and kale and other leafy greens being grown locally that people are eating without any awareness that there could be snails or slugs that represent a risk to them. That's a problem. people who are aware are trying to be careful but there's only so much you can do and actually i met one patient who is also a professor at the university of hawaii manoa she's an ecologist she was aware of rat lungworm when she went to a farmer's market and bought kale and she washed it very thoroughly and nonetheless she was infected and nearly died of her infection was hospitalized for a month and still suffers the after effects of her infection.

33:52Wow. So people try, but there are limits. You can't check every kale crevice. There's no way to ensure that your leafy greens are completely safe. What if we irradiate the kale? Particle physics to the rescue. I'll leave that to you, Daniel. That can be your next project. Bring your salad to the Large Hadron Collider and I will kill those worms. Well, and you mentioned, you know, like someone had a veggie wrap and in some writing of yours that I'm familiar with that folks can find in early 2027. Like you mentioned that you can get it in a smoothie. Like, you know, you put like kale in a smoothie.

34:31You don't even think about it. And now you've got parasites that way. Like there's so many different routes that you might not even think about to get it, which is why none of us are going to sleep tonight. And why we're never getting kale advertisers after this episode. Yeah, that's right. big kale is gonna shun us okay so you went to hawaii to meet people who study this and to like sort of find out what it's like for people in hawaii and so you and i when we used to be roommates we'd go out for sushi and you would eat all kinds of sushi right and so you don't seem like a kind of person who is worried about parasites in their food although i know sushi usually frozen beforehand.

35:09But like, did this change your eating habits when you were in an area where you knew that it was? 100%. There's a big difference between going out for sushi and eating a salad in Hawaii. Rat lungworm is a catastrophic infection, potentially life-ending, certainly life-altering. It is not a parasite that I would touch with a 10-foot pole. It's very, very dangerous. And probably, you know, of all the parasites that I have encountered in my career, the one I least like to be infected with myself. You have a ranking of like most to least? I sure do. Wow. Okay. Where is Loa Loa? I would 100 % take Loa Loa.

35:53Absolutely. Wait, what's Loa Loa? Oh, that was on, we did the list of the three parasites that creep Kelly out the most. and loa loa was on there because it moves around the inside of your eye and people can see it moving in your eye and i thought that was pretty gross but that sounds cool to you chelsea it's gross for sure but it's really low pathogenicity you know there's very few effects of being infected with loa loa and then you get to like have a little pet that you keep with you all the time him. You're never alone. Never alone. So what do we know about how this parasite gets from one place to another?

36:33Like, do we know how it got to Hawaii or how it got to Louisiana? We have no idea how it got to Hawaii, which is a question that I find really interesting because there are several very different potential answers. It seems pretty likely that it could have arrived from Southeast Asia during World War II or the Korean War, because there was a tremendous amount of movement of material between those regions. And we know that rodents came and went. It's also possible that snails and slugs came and went in things like tires or vehicles that were being moved from one place to the next. So that's really reasonable.

37:10But it's also entirely possible that the parasite arrived with Polynesian rats when they were introduced 1 ,100 years ago by Polynesian Voyagers. So those are two very different answers to that question. And I find it really interesting that we don't know how it arrived, given how much impact it's had and how that information would really help us better understand how to move materials responsibly across the face of the earth moving forward, given that we don't want rat lungworm to continue to expand in its range. Can I ask a question about that comment you made? You said that Polynesians introduced Polynesian rats.

37:51Were the Polynesian ships large enough for the rats to hide on them? Apparently so. Or was this intentional? That I don't know. I don't know whether it was intentional or not, but I've always just assumed that they were stowaways like in any other ship. Wow. Because in Moana, it's just a raft. That's why it's confusing. Kelly's revealing the depth of my research on this topic, yes. I've actually had rats in the home. So thank you very much. I have a little bit of experience. I'm grateful I didn't have rat lungworm though. Hopefully. Yeah. So, so now when you travel to other parts of the world, like I don't, it's in Louisiana and Florida, for example, do you like, are you totally off salads now is what I'm asking?

38:34Like how, how do you, how do you balance this risk when you go from place to place? I'm really, really careful about fresh leafy greens when I travel in a place that has rat lungworm. I did not eat anything green while I was in Hawaii. The only exception is I was hanging out with Rob Cowie, who's a malacologist, a snail researcher at the University of Hawaii, and one of the folks there who's studying rat lungworm. and he had my husband and me over for dinner one night and served us a salad. And I looked at him and I was like, you have to be joking. I am literally here to study rat lungworm with you.

39:13Like, there's no way you're feeding me this right now. And he's like, no, no, no, it's totally, it's fine. I know that this lettuce came from California, so I know that it's safe, so you can eat it and it's okay. And so I was like, all right, you're the expert. put some salad on my plate, pass it down the table to another dinner guest, Vernon Ansdell, who's a physician and rat lungworm expert in Hawaii, based in Honolulu. And he took that bowl and passed it right on down the table without giving himself any salad. And I just, I like was internally panicking. I didn't want to be rude and not eat the salad.

39:49So I ate it. And then I didn't sleep for a couple of days after that. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, I'm very careful about green things when I'm in Hawaii, except for when Rob tricks me into eating a salad. Not cool. Not cool. Wow. You're peer pressured into parasite roulette there. That's terrifying. And then, you know, in the southeastern U.S., yeah, I avoid leafy greens, especially local ones. The reality is that the vast majority of salad that is eaten in North America comes from the Central Valley of California. So, so far, that's safe. And that means that salads that you eat anywhere in North America are probably from California and therefore safe.

40:35But to me, it's, you know, I'll gamble with a lot of different parasites. I eat sushi because I don't care if I get sushi worm. It's fine. It's worth it to me to eat sushi. Might even be kind of awesome. Might even be kind of awesome. I mean, if you could collect it somehow. All right. Sorry, maybe not. Maybe it's just me. Speaking alone here. No, no, you're not at all. I mean, antipsychosis, which is sushi worm disease, not fun. Vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain. In really severe cases, you're hospitalized and they have to do an endoscopy to actually visualize and remove the worm. Would that be cool?

41:12No. I wouldn't enjoy it in the moment. Would I love to have a picture of a worm from my own gut? Also no. Yep. Not going to lie. It would be pretty amazing. Yeah. That would be pretty cool. No, it would not be pretty amazing. Wow, this is a real litmus test for people's personality. I think I'd rather have a tapeworm though. Absolutely. I'd rather collect a tapeworm, yeah. No question. Okay, so you don't worry about salads because most of the salads have come from Central California, but you pay attention to where you're going and you change your behavior accordingly. Would that be a reasonable summary?

41:44Yeah, I don't eat salad in Hawaii. I wouldn't eat leafy greens that are uncooked in East or Southeast Asia. and I'd be cognizant of it in the southeastern U.S. where salads are most likely sourced from California but could be from local greens. So you're saying if somebody served you two salads, one grown in California and one grown in Virginia, you would eat the California salad? So far, Virginia's okay. Yeah. So Daniel and I have a California versus Virginia thing going on and he was trying to catch you there. Trying to score a point here, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so it's called rat lungworm, But you've already mentioned that it can get into mice, and now we know it can get into people.

42:25So as it gets introduced throughout the world, are there other animal brains it's eating, like other than humans and mice and rats? Like how bad is this for like the rest of the ecosystem? Yeah, any mammal can be infected and suffer some of the same effects as people and rats. In Hawaii, there are lots of veterinary reports of paralyzed dogs who experience that paralysis as a result of rat lungworm infection. Horses, too. And often our reports of rat lungworm from the continental U.S. are from zoo animals. And that's because they're highly observed by really well-trained veterinarians. And they're bored.

43:10And so if a snail or a slug comes into their enclosure, they're likely to eat it, touch it, mouth it, and become infected themselves. The reports from California that came out of San Diego recently were from zoo animals. All right. Well, let's take a break. Bit of a palate cleanser again. And when we get back, we'll do our best to see if we can find some sort of positive angle to end on for Daniel. And we'll see where that gets us.

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48:05and we're back we're talking about the spread of rat lungworm and so chelsea you said something about how if we knew how it got from place to place there would be something we could do about it. Are there inroads for ways we can keep it from spreading to places that it hasn't gotten to yet? Yeah, so we've talked about war and how war moves materials over these large spans of space and can bring animals that are from one place to another. What we haven't talked about yet is trade, and the trade in horticultural products is thought to be one of the pathways by which the worm has made it into the southeastern U.S.

48:50Trees, shrubs, herbaceous plants come in soil. Snails and slugs can be in soil. And that is one pathway by which a parasite is transported from one part of the world to another. The trade in horticultural products is regulated. And of course, people are trying to prevent the spread of invasive snails and slugs themselves. But our screening procedures are not perfect. better protections on how biological materials are moved across national boundaries would reduce the likelihood that the worm is going to make it into new places. But if you can't even rinse kale and inspect it in your own sink and be confident that there's nothing in there, how could inspectors check every plant?

49:36I don't think they can. Okay. And once it gets established somewhere, Is there any hope of kicking it out? It depends on where you are. Eradicating rats and mice is famously difficult. Not possible except in small areas or on small islands. There are some islands where rats have been introduced and later eradicated. It costs a ton of money and it takes a ton of effort, but it is possible. But if we're talking like an area of a large landmass, getting rid of rats or mice or snails or slugs is really just not practical. The best intervention is to make sure that people are taking measures to protect themselves and that the food supply is protected.

50:25Okay. Yeah, that was the most positive we were able to come up with. Sorry, guys. I am not a beam of light here. Neither am I. And I have to hammer on that a little bit. You're saying protect themselves. But again, like what can we do to protect ourselves other than not eat salads? Buy lettuce from places that are safe. Californian lettuce so far is both the easiest to get and the safest. Wash all of your leafy greens extremely thoroughly. Inspect those greens very carefully. If you live in an endemic region and you're growing your own greens, what I'd recommend is like filling up the sink with water and letting the lettuce soak for an hour or so, so that any snails or slugs that are on it are dislodged and you can see them more easily.

51:14And then rinsing it really, really carefully and inspecting all the crevices. And it also means protecting kids from their own curiosity. A lot of pediatric rat lungworm cases in Hawaii are kids who were playing in the backyard and picked up a snail or slug, mouthed it, or even just handled it and then put their hands in their mouths. So watching over kids, especially in places where rat lungworm is known to be transmitted when they're playing in nature or in the backyard. So this doesn't seem very hopeful. I mean, in five years, in 20 years, in 50 years, is rat lungworm just going to be everywhere?

51:51Is carefree eating of salads just going to be a historical anecdote? I might have answered this question differently a couple of months ago. It's a subtropical parasite, and I would have expected it to remain only in regions that are very warm and very moist. It made sense to me that it would wind up in the southeastern U.S. It's like well within the bounds of the humidity and temperature that the parasite evolved in. The fact that it showed up in San Diego is upsetting. Because that is a very different habitat than where the parasite has been found before. And we don't know whether this is really limited or not.

52:34Like the first report from San Diego only came in a few months ago, so we don't know the full picture yet. But the fact that it shows up in a place that seems to be outside of the envelope of environments that it's previously been known to inhabit kind of blows up my expectations about where we should expect to see it in the future. So what are the lessons from rat lungworm for what we should expect regarding other parasites spreading around the world? Like, is rat lungworm the only parasite that's spreading around the world, or is this happening with a lot of different kinds of parasites right now?

53:08The answer is all over the map. You know, parasite, when we say the word parasite, we're talking about this like sprawling tree of life. Parasitism has evolved 223 independent times across the animal tree of life. Wow. That's 223 times when a free living ancestor gave rise to a parasitic branch. And that means that there's this like crazy amount of diversity among the parasites. They're not a monolith. They're all doing different stuff. Rat lungworm is a great poster child for those parasites that are benefiting from global change. We're like moving stuff all around the world and rat lungworm is the beneficiary of all of that movement.

53:50It's not the only one. There are lots of other parasites that are similarly well positioned to take advantage of the fact that we've now connected these really far flung places. But there are other parasites that are doing the exact opposite thing. We don't pay attention to them because they're not causing outbreaks. They're not increasing in abundance, and so we have no reason to encounter them. But they are quietly diminishing, sometimes even to extinction. And that's the other side of the coin that we never see because it doesn't affect us personally. And that seems like a perfect segue into the amazing book that you wrote.

54:27Do you want to tell us a bit about it so that folks can immediately go preorder it after listening to this episode? If this wasn't nightmares enough. Yeah, there are actually a lot more nightmares in Netherworld, The Genius of Parasites, which is the book that I've been working on for the past couple of years, which is due to come out on the 16th of February, 2027. Pre-orders should open in mid-June. This book is kind of the culmination of my career to date in parasitology. It's what I've learned about the future of parasitism. It's my answer to the question, is the world getting wormier or not?

55:05And yeah, the book is about how global change is influencing parasites, whether we should expect in the future more parasite outbreaks or fewer parasites in general. And the upshot is these parasites are just so diverse, there's no reason to expect them all to do the same thing. And the book covers many examples of parasitic outbreaks like rat lungworm and many others. But it also looks at the other side of that coin and investigates those parasites that are diminishing even into extinction and asks the question, why and does it matter? Should we care? And can we do that to rat lungworm? After we wrap up this episode, folks should stay tuned because one of the listeners who reached out to us is a man named Scott who is actually working on trying to get people in Hawaii aware of rat lungworms.

55:58So he's like part of a group that's working on that. So we're going to give him some time to tell us about what he's been working on. But before we let you go, I want to know what is your favorite parasite? And if it's not rat lungworm, what is the creepiest parasite? Oh, boy. You're like asking me to choose amongst my children. I know. No, I knew it was not an easy question. I knew. I really, I have a lot of favorite parasites, but the most beautiful, in my opinion, are the tapeworms in the order Trypanorinca. And I really love these worms. We come across them a lot in our coral reef fish project.

56:37We dissect lots of coral reef fishes and we find these parasites as larvae. And I love them because they are set up perfectly for life inside of a slippery shark gut. If you imagine yourself inside a shark gut, it's dark, it's slippery. There's this never ending tide of poop that's trying to sweep you out of the gut and into the environment. And you don't want that. No. The trepanorinx avoid that by having these like four tentacles that are on their head end, which we call scolex. And the tentacles are retractable so they can have them kind of like coiled up inside of their head. And whenever they wish, they can eject those tentacles.

57:22Each one is armed with thousands of backward facing hooks. So those tentacles, Daniel. Daniel, this is so fascinating. Daniel and I are having diametric responses right now. This is... All right, I can handle it. I can handle it. Go ahead. You got this, Daniel. It's shooting these tentacles out of its head. All right. It's shooting tentacles out of its head. They lay those tentacles down on the intestinal wall of the shark, dig in the hooks, and then retract them back into their head so that they're firmly anchored on the shark's gut wall. And they are... That's amazing. They're amazing. They're also just so beautiful because those tentacles are like curly-cued, kind of like the illustrations in the margins of a medieval manuscript.

58:11You know, all those like really elaborate ornaments. And they've got all these hooks that refract light when you see them under a microscope. So just like imagine like a bedazzled medieval manuscript and you've got an idea of what the Trepenorinx look like. They're just gorgeous. I love the thought of them swimming around with a bunch of sharks traveling hundreds of miles with their hosts, using these incredibly well-adapted tentacles to get what they want in the world. I just, every time I see one, it's a really special moment. I can imagine. I'd love to see one in person. Come visit! Okay. You speak of this parasite admiringly, but you also call it beautiful.

58:52Are you really thinking it's attractive? I mean, would you like wear as a piece of jewelry or are you just like impressed by its ingenuity and its ferociousness? She literally has one on her finger. All right. All right. There we go. It's a different kind of parasite, but yes. Right? Yeah. It's the haplazoon. Eudiplazoon. Yeah. Those are two trematodes that are permanently connected to each other. Nice. Monogenes, actually. Monogenes. Oh, no. I've been embarrassed in public. All right, but I'm feeling like we should probably not get to a creepy parasite given Daniel's face when we were talking about the most beautiful parasite.

59:33And so I think maybe we should call it quits here and bid you farewell. Thank you so much for coming on the show. This was amazing. Folks should go out and preorder Netherworld. This episode is coming out after the preorders go live, so you can all go and do that right now. And when the book comes out, we will have Chelsea back to talk more about parasites and their future. Thanks for being on the show. Thank you so much for having me, guys. I really appreciate it. Hi, Daniel and Kelly. Thanks for the information on rat lungworm. It was very thorough and answered more questions than I thought I had.

1:00:07I've been on a diet and been told to eat more salad. Well, so much for that. Admittedly, I live in New Hampshire where the salad is likely safe, but it still gives one pause. And please, don't find a chocolate cake parasite. Anyway, thanks for the great show. Aloha, Kelly and Daniel. I really enjoyed listening to Dr. Woods' share her knowledge of the rat lungworm parasite and the disease. It was very informative. Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity to share some about our efforts for disease prevention here in Hawaii. In our rural community of Hana, Maui, back in 2017, we had an outbreak of rat lungworm disease.

1:00:44and I have friends who are still experiencing some neurological symptoms years later, and there are still cases now and then. Through the Hawaii Farmers Union, we developed an educational outreach campaign aimed at rat lungworm disease prevention, targeting farmers and consumers. While all mollusks can carry RLW, in Hawaii, the most high-risk vector is called the semi-slug, due in part to how its habits bring it into contact with human food sources where it can end up hiding. in a lettuce or kale. As Dr. Woods mentioned, there is a great need for locally grown food in Hawaii, and we want to support our local farmers.

1:01:23So while we don't want anyone to get rat lungworm disease, of course, we also don't want the fear of the disease to discourage people from eating locally grown produce. So we did outreach to local farms to help them reduce the risk of contamination by aggressively going after rodents on their farms, creating buffer zones around their growing areas, which semi-slugs don't like to cross, putting out non-toxic iron phosphate slug bait, and doing manual semi-slug removal. This is especially important during the rainy season when slugs are most active and taken together, it can have a big impact on the presence of slugs.

1:02:03For the consumer, no matter how much we may trust the farmer, We have to take responsibility for our own safety. Cooking or freezing kills the parasite. So for kale and other leafy greens, cooking it will prevent the disease, and if you really want raw kale smoothies, you can freeze the kale first. I do eat local salads still, but I wash every leaf of lettuce in flowing water, which will knock off the semi-slug, and I carefully inspect them as I do. The good news, Kelly and Daniel, is that rat lungworm disease is an entirely preventable disease. By taking proactive measures where produce is grown, we can greatly reduce the risk.

1:02:48And by ultimately taking responsibility for our food as consumers, we can still enjoy our delicious local greens while keeping ourselves safe from this nasty nematode. As part of our outreach, we created a website with basic, clear information for farmers and consumers, as well as patients. So I'd invite your listeners to visit ratlungworm.info. Again, thank you so much for spreading awareness about this parasite and the debilitating disease it can cause, and for giving me my chance to add two cents to Dr. Wood's excellent information.

1:03:28Thanks, everybody, for listening. Please go and do us a favor and rate the show on whatever podcast app you're using. It really helps people find us. Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe is edited by the amazing Matt Kesselman. He really is a wizard. You can also find us online on Blue Sky, Instagram, and XDNKUniverse. Come engage with us. You can email us at questions at danielandkelly.org. We really do want to hear from you. And you can find our website, www.danielandkelly.org, where you'll also find an invitation to join our Discord, where everybody comes and talks about the amazing universe.

1:04:08And we also have the most amazing moderators. This is an iHeart Podcast. Thanks for joining us.

1:04:18My first guest is Paris Hilton. Shakira. Luke and Yerin. We have surprises. Many surprises. Mona. Welcome to the Sweet 305 podcast where the Groove Check comes to life. What up? You're the only person I know that loves a yellow starburst. It's lemonade. This is Sweet 305. Here, oversharing is encouraged. Listen to Sweet 305 with Lele Pons on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On Raiders of the Lost podcast, we explore cinema like no one else, including huge interviews with stars like Ryan Gosling on Project Hail Mary. It was like the Jaws shark. Didn't always work.

1:04:59Came with its own problems. That's what made it great. The cast of Obsession. On set, there was so much magic happening with each scene we were putting together. Deep dives into classics like 2001 A Space Odyssey or Fight Club, plus weekly episodes on all industry news. Listen to Raiders of the Lost podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And for more, follow at Raiders of the Lost Podcast and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. Hey, Portlandia fans. Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen here. The dream of the 90s is alive in podcast form. We're launching Podlandia AO Rewatch, our brand new podcast where we revisit every episode of Portlandia together, breaking down sketches, going deep on our iconic characters, and pulling back the curtain on how it all got made.

1:05:47And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life. Guest stars, collaborators, and friends, including director Jonathan Kreisel, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more. Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvised not just words, but a song about it. Well, I thought you were all going to write a song. I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia, A-O, Rewatch on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up, fam? I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers. Hey, what's up, y 'all? It's your girl, Sam Jay.

1:06:21And we're the hosts of Everyone Watches Women's Sports, a new podcast from Together and iHeart Women's Sports. We're breaking down the biggest headlines. Naomi Osaka showing out. Shout-outs to you, Naomi. The viral moments. I've been obsessed with Kashawn Rock's boxing journey. She looks good. Her combos are swift. And the stories everyone's talking about across women's sports. Because everyone watches women's sports. Listen to Everyone Watches Women's Sports on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.