¡Science de Mayo! - This Week in Science Podcast (TWIS) - Episode 1057

Added: 2026-05-07

[00:00:00]and heat. Hey Hello everyone. Welcome to this week's podcast broadcast of This Week in Science. I'm here with Phillip, our guest host. He was the patient earlier, but apparently he's changed that in his title.

[00:00:48]I am so glad that you're all here at the beginning of the show so that I can tell you this is not actually the beginning of the show. This is the part of the show that is live as the beginning, but will be cut out for the podcast. So, if you're a podcast listener or you really like things edited a little bit better than the live thing as it happens, make sure that you leave now. No. Um, that you subscribe to our podcast wherever you can find it. Uh, we are all over the place in those podcast directories. But this is also where I say we're going to start the show. Everything from here on out is the show show. You ready, Philip?

[00:01:28]>> Yeah. Bring it.

[00:01:29]>> Yeah. Everybody out there. Okay. We're ready. Let's do this.

[00:01:34]Wait. You don't do like a truck driving thing if you're flying a plane or Okay.

[00:01:40]Moving out. Yes.

[00:01:44]>> We are not checking mic. Is the mic good? Did I do it right?

[00:01:52]I just checked my mic because I feel like I had to. Was that the right mic?

[00:01:58]>> Oh, interesting. Actually, I don't >> Is that correct?

[00:02:02]>> Tap that mic.

[00:02:03]>> Nope.

[00:02:09]>> Is that better?

[00:02:10]>> Yeah.

[00:02:10]>> That's >> Paul. Thank you so much. You save me every time.

[00:02:19]It's all of you who help out so much.

[00:02:22]This is why we edit the show and why there is an edited podcast. But for fun, this is why we have fun livveness. So, welcome and thank you for being here. It is time to start this show in three, two.

[00:02:41]This is Twist. This week in science, episode number 1057, recorded on Wednesday, May 6th, 2026.

[00:02:52]>> Science deio mayo mayo. Well, hey everyone. I'm Dr. Kiki. Thank you for being here. And today we will fill your head with sky plastic, fish filth, and baby yawns.

[00:03:10]But first, disclaimer, disclaimer, disclaimer.

[00:03:16]What kind of legacy does a great mind leave when it shifts from this mortal coil?

[00:03:23]What is left after all has been done and said? What remains of the hopes and dreams when people remember the man that had been? Is it the buildings, the centers, the labs, the papers? Is it the many presentations upon so many stages that leave the rest of humanity to guess what would have been done next?

[00:03:47]Or is it the students, the colleagues, the nemesis and friends? Will those who speak now forever create the space you inhabit in our minds?

[00:03:59]Or is it what is said here on this week in science?

[00:04:04]Coming up next, I've got the kind of mind that can't get enough. I want to learn everything. I want to fill it all up with new discoveries that happen every day of the week. There's only one place to go to find the knowledge you seek. I want to know what's happening. What's happening?

[00:04:29]What's happening this week in science?

[00:04:32]What's happening? What's happening?

[00:04:36]What's happening this week in science?

[00:04:44]Good science everyone.

[00:04:47]Welcome to another episode of This Week in Science. So good to be back for another week with you. Thank you for joining us. Got a great show ahead. And tonight joined by my guest co-host straight from the land of What the If filmmaker and documentarian Philip Shane.

[00:05:09]How are you?

[00:05:10]>> I'm good, Kiki. This is a a real honor.

[00:05:12]It's very exciting and a little bit strange for me. I've been watching this show for however many years. 20 >> It's been a It's been a bit. Yeah.

[00:05:21]>> Y and uh suddenly it's talking to me >> like directly. It's very exciting.

[00:05:29]>> We had a crossover once years back.

[00:05:32]you and uh and and Matt invited me on for what the if and we talked about birds >> and um and I didn't you come on you you came on twist one time and we talked about >> various sciency things. I think we talked a lot about Einstein.

[00:05:51]>> Yeah. And I think Matt was there too. I I met Matt doing a my co-host one of my co-hosts Matt uh Stanley. We were I did a documentary about Einstein once and he was one of the experts in it. So, >> and became a lifelong friend.

[00:06:05]>> Yeah. And colleague.

[00:06:07]>> Yeah.

[00:06:07]>> Yeah. It's true.

[00:06:08]>> Co-conspirator in in science fun.

[00:06:11]>> Exactly. Exactly. And we got we got to get you back on the show also. You've you've been on more than once, but you the show I don't know if you remember the show you did with us is still one of my favorites. It was about the Shrikes.

[00:06:23]Is that right?

[00:06:24]>> Yeah. That was the bird show. Yeah. That episode. Yeah.

[00:06:27]>> They're like the Mad Max of Birds, you know.

[00:06:29]>> I totally still think that.

[00:06:32]them.

[00:06:33]>> Yeah, >> they're cool. They're beautiful. They're ferocious. They will impale things.

[00:06:40]Like, >> yeah, >> come on.

[00:06:43]>> Yeah, they're awesome. They're like, you know, Road Runners are their own kind of cool, but the shrikes.

[00:06:50]>> Yeah.

[00:06:50]>> Can't go wrong.

[00:06:51]>> Yeah.

[00:06:52]>> Yeah.

[00:06:52]>> Good stuff. Good stuff. So, thank you.

[00:06:54]Thank you.

[00:06:55]>> Yeah.

[00:06:56]>> Yeah. No, thank you for getting a chance to talk about that kind of stuff. I honestly love that. Yeah.

[00:07:01]>> What are you doing now? What are you up to? What have you been up to since the last time >> that we spoke? I think >> I think we were The last time I was on was with something to do with Mist, the video game.

[00:07:17]>> Oh, no. Right. Well, a little bit. It was Paleibius, >> which is this mythical mythical video game uh that was rumored to basically possess anyone who played it. Great story. Great story. Yeah. And you helped us imagine how would that work? How would the game interact with the brain in that way? Um but yeah, so I've been um doing uh this podcast as you mentioned, what the if >> and uh with Matt Stanley and Gabby Pinesia. Um Gabby is a biologist at Harvard and Matt is a a physic physicist and historian of science at New York University. And we've been doing that now almost eight years amazingly. So 400 something episodes, you know. In fact, you interesting you said >> you're babies. That's nice. Or like you're getting to be like kindergarteners now. That's good.

[00:08:08]>> You said something like I think in your last episode you said episode 125, but you must now that I'm looking at the numbers, it must have been one zero.

[00:08:17]Anyway, I don't know what it was, but yeah, >> I think No, it was I think I said one and I think when I said it, it was supposed to be 10 and maybe just in the live moment I said one and nobody caught me.

[00:08:29]>> Yeah.

[00:08:29]>> So, it went out 156.

[00:08:32]>> Yeah. You know, all the way back to 156.

[00:08:34]>> Now, those things add up. They add up quick.

[00:08:36]>> Not starting over.

[00:08:38]>> So, I've been doing that. I also uh we could talk about it now or we can talk about it later. I I um also am a member now a uh I'm a member of the planetary society that was founded by Carl Sean and a couple of other wonderful people.

[00:08:52]Um many many moons ago when I was very little and Carl Sean was still alive. Um but I've I still have my card here my membership card here on the wall. It's a membership from the beginning. But for the past about 10 years they've been doing something called the day of action. And uh that's where volunteers from the society travel uh on their own to Washington DC for uh on a Sunday we have a day a training day where we get up to speed on the status of all the NASA programs and uh all the budgets and things like that. and we are being basically trained to get to talk to our representatives and senators to their staffs in person in their offices um the next day on Capitol Hill and uh we push a usually they've been uh most of them have been very supportive of science um in particular we're supporting science at NASA which is its own directive dire science directorate they call it um >> yeah And uh generally the Congress has been very supportive of that over the years. Um the White House has not been supportive and they've last year tried to cut NASA science in half.

[00:10:08]>> Oh yeah. And yeah, you're showing a picture now and I it's funny is I am actually in that picture just to the right just out of the picture.

[00:10:14]>> Oh, just out of frame. I was wondering I was looking at the picture and I see actually a couple a few faces that I know.

[00:10:21]>> I'm like, "Oh, hey, I know some of these people in there."

[00:10:24]>> Yeah. Yeah. But you're off off screen for this. I'm there in spirit prop.

[00:10:28]>> Yeah, there you were there physically.

[00:10:31]>> Yeah, exactly. And Bill Nye is there, which is very very exciting and a huge part of our >> motivation and training.

[00:10:38]>> He's still president. He had been president of the Planetary Society for years.

[00:10:44]>> Um, and a big part of of helping the Planetary Society actually gain prominence because of his like his public credibility.

[00:10:56]>> Yeah. No, he's he's been a phenomenal leader. He was president, I believe, for 15 years. And um just now just in fact um on the eve of this last uh uh event, we we I was honored to actually got invited to a very small dinner we we had with the leaders of the society. was sort of thanking Bill, honoring him as he stepped down uh from CEO uh and he's now becoming a worldwide ambassador, which he said basically he gets to do the parts he likes and he doesn't have to do the parts he doesn't like, >> which is really like it's where you want to get in your career. Uh I talked with my husband about this at length, which is grandfather status.

[00:11:37]>> Yeah, that's right.

[00:11:38]>> You know, people want you there, but you don't have to be there all the time.

[00:11:43]>> Exactly. They let you go home and take naps, you know.

[00:11:46]>> Exactly. And I think if you wear a bow tie, you get to grandfather status, you know, in twice in half the time.

[00:11:51]>> Yeah. It gets faster. Exactly.

[00:11:54]>> Yeah.

[00:11:54]>> So, you were So, you were there and you you were you did you actually um speak personally with uh with cabinet members or with certain lobbyists for organizations? So, what did you do? No, no, we meet we actually meet with our uh representatives in the House of Representatives and our senators in the Senate.

[00:12:21]>> Um now we are meeting for the most part we're meeting >> whatever state you're from, >> whatever state you're from and whatever district you're from in the House >> and u sometimes we we also go into groups and so we kind of meet other um other groups as well. But uh yeah. Yeah.

[00:12:36]No, it's you and you sit there and they spend time with you and you really get to talk and uh it's very moving and um I I think the society and the two guys who who run it in particular um uh Casey Dryer and Jack Gwali uh have just got honored by um an organization that honors people who do activism for science.

[00:12:59]>> Uh but they had just they've done a phenomenal job at uh and it worked. So last last year, you know, look, we weren't the only ones, but um um the president tried to slash science in half and zero out the STEM basically. He literally said cut science in half and get rid of the STEM department.

[00:13:17]>> Yeah.

[00:13:18]>> He wants to zero out the science budget this year for 2027 completely. That's where we are. That's where we are now.

[00:13:25]So >> yeah, >> last year the efforts that were made to talk with members of Congress, to talk with representatives, it I I believe these efforts actually help because you're going as a constituent and telling your representatives what is important to you. And so these efforts as they're organized are essential to actually maintaining the the funding that is is put in the budget by Congress.

[00:13:54]>> Yeah. for NASA, for NSF, for NIH, for CDC, for HHS, for >> so many things.

[00:14:02]>> Yeah. Yeah. And they tell us and and we get to ask the people who run these offices with, you know, for the senators and for the congress people, what is actually effective? Like if people call, is that actually effective? They we always say, they're like absolutely that is like insanely effective.

[00:14:16]>> And going there in person is the most, but that's hard to do.

[00:14:19]>> Not everyone can go there in person, but a phone call is something you can do.

[00:14:23]five calls.org.

[00:14:24]>> Yeah.

[00:14:25]>> What are the best uh ways to give you an idea of what to say, how to say it, and who to call?

[00:14:31]>> Um, so somebody here is asking, "Is what the if on YouTube?"

[00:14:37]>> No, it is not.

[00:14:38]>> No, it's just a podcast.

[00:14:40]>> It's audio only. You know, I love radio.

[00:14:43]>> I say just a podcast even though people are now saying video is podcast also.

[00:14:50]>> It is. Sure. Yeah.

[00:14:53]But uh there's any number of reasons for that. Um one of them also is that I work in film and so like if I were to do the video it would have to be so good that I'm just like I just can't stand it. And I do love audio. I'll say this actually the idea of it's an imaginative show we basically run with thought experiments.

[00:15:11]They're sort of fanciful scenarios. What if gravity turned off all of a sudden?

[00:15:15]What would happen? And we use real science to imagine what would happen and you learn from that. Um, but also that audio lends itself to that cuz you can kind of imagine.

[00:15:25]>> Oh, I love I love that. I mean, I think that's one of my favorite parts of podcasting, the audio aspect of it. I got into it through radio and the whole, you know, I still listen to radio in my car because I love the DJs.

[00:15:43]>> I love when I take my son to school, the morning DJs talking about whatever it is. But I love it's that intimate relationship hearing what they want to talk about and >> and I think that you know NPR gets it right so much like the the the talk radio >> for so much get it right um it has been influential across the political spectrum and across the social spectrum and just also for entertaining and >> I don't know I grew up listening to you record stories on records.

[00:16:21]>> Yeah.

[00:16:22]>> So I I don't know how many kids these days are listening to stories in podcast form, but I think it's >> actually there's a lot >> that imagination that imagination is so important as somebody in media, film making, documentary, talking to people out in the world. Yeah. You just said there's a lot like what >> what are you hearing about the world of media these days?

[00:16:48]Um, well, first thing I want to mention real quick, I realize there is one thing on YouTube. Well, I've done a lot of things on YouTube, but Oh, >> awesome.

[00:16:54]>> Um, there is a video, remember that that I'm a little mini documentary I made about Dr. Kiki and >> there is so yeah, ages back.

[00:17:02]>> Twist takes Manhattan. It's called um so look that up and uh yeah, what's happening in media today? Um well, you know, actually the the movie business is in terrible shape. Um I think it may rally, but nobody knows.

[00:17:20]But we're in transition. We're in a huge transition yet again.

[00:17:22]>> Uh the the streaming movies, right? And how versus movies in a in a theater or >> even streaming movie you just just the shows the or the movie like I have a lot of friends I work in the movie business and I'm in documentary that's one side of it and that's not you know doing great and the fiction side of it is typically doing much better. It's doing terribly um with all these mergers of companies and nobody I don't know if anyone exactly knows why but um uh that's it's a tough thing.

[00:17:54]>> Money money money. Yeah, that's right.

[00:17:57]>> Say, >> yeah, >> yeah, >> there is a bottom line to why a lot of this stuff is happening when it does not make sense culturally.

[00:18:08]>> When people are still going to see movies, when people are still enjoying movies and other, you know, creative media in their homes and externally to them like there is there's no other reason for it.

[00:18:23]>> Yeah. Yeah. And should do a scientific study, maybe an economist, I don't know.

[00:18:29]>> Right. Exactly. I will say, you know, YouTube is one of those reasons, right?

[00:18:32]That is part of it. Um, but I will say this, I think YouTube is one of the greatest things that's ever been invented. I mean, if I I wish I had YouTube growing up. I've been watching YouTube since the beginning. And if you The same thing with television. People used to say how terrible television was, but I just watched PBS and Bravo and, you know, I just choose to watch quality things. And you can do that on YouTube and what's available is astounding the amount of it. Yeah, >> I know that my child watches reals and he also watches a bunch of shorts on um on Instagram, but >> when I really like check in on him, he's watching long for content about like computer science, >> programming, graphic design, science, uh physics, like he's in the history. He comes out and he tells me things about, you know, World War II Europe that I have never heard before, but that are backed up by evidence and are not just like somebody spouting off.

[00:19:39]>> These are his He's watching historians.

[00:19:42]>> He's watching experts in their fields.

[00:19:44]And I think this is one of the most You're right.

[00:19:47]>> Yeah. It's one of the most brill you all I had was the encyclopedia bratannica that was bought by my dad and paid for over low monthly installments.

[00:19:59]>> Yep. Yep. Yeah. We had the world book.

[00:20:02]We didn't even have the Britannica. We just had the >> Yeah.

[00:20:05]>> But uh >> Oh man, I should check. Maybe we only had the World Book also. I actually don't remember.

[00:20:10]>> Those were good though, actually. I mean, I could, you know, Right. we would sit there and and um but yeah what what's and and and then the obviously YouTube is is inexpensive to to create right and I have some friends who are actually making decent livingings some quite decent on YouTube doing science history type programming um >> yeah so I mean it depends on what you're doing who you're doing it with how it's being done I think that >> and suddenly we have turned into uh the daily tech news show or you know some other tech program but This is the cultural application of all the science that came before. And I think that honestly we need to be looking at it from a social science perspective of how all of this is being navigated and how it's changing society because it is impacting >> information. the information information ecosystem has been I mean I hate the word disrupted because it's overused but it has been disrupted and it is a a different place right now and there are there are people doing such amazing work but because it is not regulated because there are no unions because there is not a protection we you know similar to, you know, Chapel Ran coming out at the uh music awards last year saying, "Hey, what about uh protections and like healthcare and you know, 401ks or whatever, you know, like take care of your artists. We need that for movies.

[00:21:49]We need it for content creators as well because we have the big ones like Mr. Beast >> and but it's still and he does good, but he's also a young dude coming into a fully fleshed out business environment without having understood all of the underpinnings of that media environment that's bigger. You know, it's like ah little little fish coming into the the big shark's jaws, right? And suddenly the little fish has to like is going to be halfway down the gullet before it turns into a big shark also, right?

[00:22:26]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:22:27]>> And there is evolution happening. Um I don't I it's fascinating. But anyway, I have so many so many thoughts on this, but it's not our show right now. What else are you doing? Have you made Did you Did you finish the Mist documentary?

[00:22:45]>> No, we're still in progress on that.

[00:22:48]Still working on that. They take a while.

[00:22:51]>> Um although we're we're in I'm some interesting things are happening with it. I I think so. I hope to have some actually some big news on that. But yeah, I I've been making a documentary for those who don't know. I've been documentary about Mist, the classic video game.

[00:23:04]>> Um and uh the guys who made it and all the people involved and the fans who love it. So yeah.

[00:23:12]So that's still going on. Uh I'm also working on um I'm editing a documentary uh another Sesame Street documentary actually 15 years after. So, I worked on Being Elmo with my uh good friend Connie Connie Marx, produced and directed.

[00:23:28]>> Um and uh she's making a new film about um the muppeteer behind Abby Kadabi.

[00:23:37]Uh if you know Abby, Aby's >> Abby is a Aby's a later muppet. Abby wasn't wasn't one when we grew up.

[00:23:45]>> Right. What's so funny is I was going to say I still think of Elmo as new. Like I didn't have Elmo, right? Elmo has been on >> Elmo was not mine. I did. I was like, "Everybody when I was in college, everybody's talking about Elmo and then there was the tickle me Elmo and then people are setting it on fire and I had no clue what was going on." I was like, >> "What?"

[00:24:05]>> Yeah.

[00:24:05]>> I'm in college. I don't have kids yet.

[00:24:07]Come on.

[00:24:08]>> He's he's been on Sesame Street for 30 years.

[00:24:12]>> So Abby is is a newcomer. She's been there 20 years. Um and she's a little pinky.

[00:24:19]>> Just a kid. Yeah.

[00:24:20]>> She's a she's a she's got girl power.

[00:24:22]Um, she's also magic.

[00:24:23]>> I do love Abby. Yeah.

[00:24:25]>> Yeah. So, the muppeter behind her, Leslie Carrera Rudolph, is an extraordinary person. And so, we're sort of >> making a portrait of her life. So, that's been pretty cool.

[00:24:34]>> That's awesome.

[00:24:34]>> Yeah.

[00:24:35]>> That's wonderful. I Yeah, >> I love that you're And by focusing on these figures >> in Sesame Street, you can come out from there. And And what do you do you know what story what kind of story you want to tell? Like, is it >> Yeah. Well, it's it's she um so uh you know, everyone is different. Hers, interestingly, she um grew up, you know, very workingass in Northern California and you know, when she was, I don't know, 18 or 19 or something, got her first job, big job, um out of California at Disney World. And so she went there in Florida and >> so she went from the Golden State to the Sunshine State.

[00:25:19]>> To the Sunshine State. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

[00:25:21]>> And um little uh DV video cameras had just come out >> and so she bought one of those and it's the first time she'd been away from her family. So she started making essentially almost like a video postcard, a video letter home, a video diary and sent home like this is here's my apartment. This is what I do. And and she never stopped doing that. And then eventually iPhones come around and she anyway she just loves >> you know she's kind of a documentarian of her own. She's also incredibly artistic. Everything is an art project.

[00:25:50]she will turn anything into a work of art. Um >> I love >> so we have this whole her whole life sort of documented as kind of and she's just a very poetic person. So yeah, but essentially how did how did how can you help how can you bring joy to the world >> when when the world pushes back really hard? That's essentially the the theme, you know, >> we need that right now.

[00:26:15]>> Yeah.

[00:26:16]>> Thank you. Oh my gosh.

[00:26:17]>> Yeah.

[00:26:18]>> If Yeah. However, I don't know. I mean, I do this science stuff, but however I can help, let me know. I mean, I think I think we really really need more joy stories. We need reminders of that common humanness that is not just rooted in fear.

[00:26:38]>> Mhm. Yep. We need all the content, all the creativity that that we can share with each other that reminds us that joy is actually revolutionary that it is standing up to fear and and people telling you what to do and all this stuff like there's I joy is someh I love it.

[00:27:08]Yeah. Yeah.

[00:27:09]>> I can't wait. I am.

[00:27:11]>> Great.

[00:27:11]>> I'm excited about just Yes. Keep me up to date on this one. I love this one.

[00:27:14]>> Right on.

[00:27:15]>> Yeah. Um, someone was asking, I mean, we're going to move on to science very shortly, but um, VA is asking whether the original creators of Mist are still in involved with the game, what they're like, and uh, they're still up in Northwest Washington State. Right.

[00:27:31]>> Not to um, tell people where people are located.

[00:27:34]>> Right. Right. Right. Um yes, one is literally in Washington state and the other is in another state not far from Washington state. Um but yeah, they uh they are still around. They are still making games. Uh Cyan, C Yan is the name of the company. I go check them out. Uh in fact, they were just putting out some new stuff uh just now. I think they were made a new version of Mist for PlayStation or something like that. Um, so yeah, they're doing incredible stuff and they remade after Mist the sequel was Riven and Riven was like way bigger and you know it's almost like the they they describe it as the Empire Strikes Back to Star Wars, you know, like the second one we had all the we had all the confidence, we had all the money, now we're going to really do it right. The first one was this scrappy little thing.

[00:28:20]Anyway, that game was called Riven and they just they went and remade that 30 years after it was made the first time and made it way bigger uh even than it was before. So, it's a incredible uh incredible thing. Also very poetic. I would say something that combines sort of the types of things I like to focus on. It's you know, it's a very meditative game. um beautiful >> uh you're in nature and you know there's a mystery and there's some spooky villains you have to kind of navigate but essentially you're just solving puzzles. It's kind of like science and and one of the things I learned from Mist I would just say is that you're talking about how the making the documentary is taking a long time. It's not easy to make these films from scratch. U but um >> uh Mist is a really hard game. In fact, the vast majority of people Man, some of those puzzle No, I don't think I ever did. Actually, there were some of those puzzles that and and it is like science, right? Where you get up against a problem you cannot solve.

[00:29:22]>> Yep. Y >> then you have to go a different direction >> and work on a different puzzle for a while >> and see if you can do that. And I feel like I don't there is there's definitely a there's definitely a parallel there.

[00:29:38]>> Yeah. It took a lot of patience and perseverance if you're going to actually see it through to the end. And um a total side note, I had another career very for a brief time for about four years >> as a competitive mist player.

[00:29:51]>> Oh, I should have done that. That would have been fun.

[00:29:54]Uh now I was an intern at NASA at the Gddard Space Center, but I saw you know again I saw projects that was actually the first place I think I saw projects that take a really long time to make.

[00:30:05]They take a lot of dedication and perseverance. But if you stick with it, you can, >> as Bill Nye would say, you can change the world >> or reach out to the universe.

[00:30:16]>> Yeah.

[00:30:17]>> I went to Goddard back in 2006 or seven.

[00:30:22]>> We ate with a National Association of Science Writers group and saw the honeycomb mirrors as they were being designed.

[00:30:32]>> Yeah.

[00:30:32]>> And created. It was like the first iteration of the honeycombs and got to learn about them there.

[00:30:39]>> Here we are 20 years later, >> right? You know, it's we're getting these amazing images from the James Webb Space Telescope. There are these incredible just incredible science that's able to be done. We are touching the past.

[00:30:57]>> Mhm.

[00:30:57]>> And it's it's only possible because of stuff that was done at Goddard and the patience of people who looked at the future and said we can do something.

[00:31:07]>> Yeah.

[00:31:07]>> Step by step and they fought for their funding and the budget increases and you know the I'm sure the story is brilliant. But >> yeah, >> how neat that you interned there. Oh, it was amazing. And then the centerfuge was there that they trained the astronauts on and other stuff. I worked on a some cool stuff that was on went on the space shuttle. And uh the Hubble telescope was also run out of there. And um >> the Nancy Grace Roman telescope is about to launch uh which is basically the replace or the successor to Hubble even though Hubble is still going amazingly.

[00:31:44]>> And they've just uh basically they're about to launch incredibly they are under budget and under you know under dead they're ahead of schedule and under budget and >> it happens sometimes. It happens. And yet the entire Gddard center is threatened with being shut down.

[00:32:02]>> Yeah. They've been uh but it's not just Gddard. They have been uh decimating.

[00:32:09]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:32:10]>> All of NASA's facilities um and all of the manufacturing all of the I mean we've got research, we've got development, we have action, you know, going to space and doing everything is being outsourced. They are uh there was a plan called the 2030 plan that was developed several years back and when I found out about it a few years ago it it horrified me and we are watching it play out right now even as NASA is struggling for budget even as the planetary society is going for a day of action looking to support through for support through Congress.

[00:32:51]>> Yeah. There is um there's a plan that has been in place since the first administration that is still going.

[00:33:01]>> Mhm.

[00:33:02]>> And it wasn't really slowed down during uh the last administration. So >> yeah. Um I don't know. We're not going to talk about politics or other issues right now. Well, we're going to talk about optimism and but actually I have like a whole bunch of death and destruction and chaos in tonight's show.

[00:33:23]Are you ready?

[00:33:26]>> Yeah.

[00:33:29]>> All right, everybody. We have had a very long introduction with this wonderful conversation with Philip Shane and I really do hope that you look up his Elmo documentary like the Elmo movie. It is wonderful. Um, additionally he has a documentary about about Einstein. So many more. We we will link to his website and we'll remind you again at the end of the show. Um, and of course, What the If, an amazing podcast uh with Matt Stanley, and what is your other co-host's name?

[00:34:02]>> Gabby Penia.

[00:34:04]>> Gabby Penia. She was not there.

[00:34:06]>> Dr. Gabby Penia. Yeah, >> there. Yes, of course. Dr. Gabby, >> my co-host go places. when she started she was so simple. She was a student at Rockefeller University and then four years later I guess as they do suddenly she was a PhD and now she's at Harvard.

[00:34:20]She's a doctor at Harvard. So >> eight years later here you go time happens people do work things go forward. Yeah.

[00:34:29]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:34:30]>> Okay. So tonight on the show we have stories about some plastic fantastic heat in the sky. I've got fish filth.

[00:34:40]I've got Swedish power. I've got some double trouble for the West Coast and I have some brains and proteins for us and maybe some yawns at the end of the show.

[00:34:52]Are you ready?

[00:34:54]You ready?

[00:34:55]>> Yeah, I'm ready.

[00:34:56]>> You're ready? Okay, good. I need a little feedback here. Oh, >> as we jump into the show, as we jump into the show, I want to remind you that subscribing to the Twist podcast on your favorite podcast platform or YouTube or Facebook or Twitch is going to bring you Twist each and every week. Every time a new episode is published, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitch 8:00 PM Pacific timeish, you'll be able to watch us live on Wednesdays. And if you search for this week in science or visit twists.org, twwis.org, that's our website. You can get show notes, links like those that go to Philip's website and his what the f podcast and other stuff like that. So, you got to go there. Make sure you get all the links. Make sure you get subscribed. Share it with a friend.

[00:35:48]And also, please become part of our Patreon support network because we are community supported by listeners like you. All right, are we ready? It's time for the science.

[00:36:01]All right, here's um our our death. It's not the destruction yet. Um this last week we lost a very large figure in the field of science and in fact in the specific field of synthetic biology. Um, I had met Craig Venttor once at a conference many years ago and we were both much younger, but he was always an imposing figure with a vision and with amazing ideas. He stood in front of a collected sin bio beta conference and talked about his ideas for the way that synthetic life could be printed using DNA printers on Mars one day in the future. that we might be able to do experiments here on Earth or in our space stations or on the moon, learn things, figure out new protein combinations, figure out new enzymes that would help us terraform other planets that could help us deliver organisms that would allow us to take control of a foreign environment or even our own. to be able to take the enzymes, the proteins that we know degrade oil or petroleum that we know exist in organisms here on the planet, but be able to upregulate it. To be able to create organisms that could actually deal with oil spills more effectively than the natural bacteria on our planet.

[00:37:46]To be able to deal with viral outbreaks.

[00:37:48]to be able to deal with so many issues that we are up against. He envisioned a future where we could design it and he was also scary.

[00:38:03]He was he was forceful. He was he was going to do what he wanted to do and he did a lot of it. He is known for the J Craig Venttor Institute. He is known as a father of synthetic biology, of genetic modification, of creating organisms. We still can't do it. So, I just want you all to know that we're not really there yet. So, if you're getting scared a little bit, it's okay. Sh, we're going to be okay. Um, he had these visions and I I watched him talk about them and he made them so exciting.

[00:38:40]>> It made your fears go away. I mean, he didn't talk about it so much here on Earth. The DNA printer idea, I loved that it was on Mars.

[00:38:48]Was that was okay. Um, he died at the age of 79 last week. Um, and it was related to cancer, but at the same time, it's really, it probably wasn't unexpected for him and his family. But when something like this occurs in the lifetime of a figure who is so broadly impactful to science, I think that it's a moment to kind of sit back and say, "Woo, wow. Where does that leave us?

[00:39:26]He has an institute.

[00:39:28]He has a legacy, right? And but what is that legacy going to be without him? and where he was one man and we used to have a world of the science superstars who would push things forward recently because of things related to the Epstein files because of you know other issues related to that superstar science status collective science seems to be more important collective collaborative science seems to be the thing that's going to drive science forward now, but without a figure head like Craig, how is science, how is synthetic biology going to move forward? Is it going to do it? What's going to happen? I don't know.

[00:40:21]Um, yeah, Benter is a he was he was controversial. I don't I don't think that anybody will ever say that he wasn't. Um, and I think that's important. And I don't think he ever sat back from his own role as being controversial.

[00:40:39]But I I do think that it is important to just take a moment and think about this man who drove the single nucleotide um the snip sequencing of the human genome.

[00:40:58]He when we had had a gen human human genome project that took 13 years to get us a human genome. He was the guy who made something faster. It came out very shortly after the original human genome.

[00:41:15]After him it was genomics companies.

[00:41:18]After him, it was the possibility of getting individualized genomes for under $1,000. Now under $100, now under a day, you know, the the movement he corpor he he he he turned not corporatized, I want to he made it a business. He gave it a he he turned genomics and biology into something that people put money behind and it radically accelerated the timeline.

[00:41:52]I don't know whether that's for good or for bad.

[00:41:58]What do you think, Phillip? Well, it's interesting, but you know, I I remember um it must have been a 60 minute story or something like that when it was like the human genome project was happening and then it was like and now here's a story about this crazy guy and wasn't he was like taking a boat around the South Pacific or something.

[00:42:17]>> Yes.

[00:42:18]>> P pulling things out of the water, right?

[00:42:20]>> Yes.

[00:42:21]>> Yeah.

[00:42:22]>> Yep.

[00:42:23]>> Um >> I I don't remember what that project was called, but we we talked about it on Twist. Blair was very excited about it.

[00:42:28]Ah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it it's interesting what you say cuz like I'm uh it's I'm not totally I'm not at all up on the sort of um the science behind it.

[00:42:39]But I the idea of this p public versus private thing is very interesting. You know again all the NASA stuff we were talking about is also all about that.

[00:42:49]>> Um it's a huge thing I guess in America and I I assume in much of the world. Um, >> a lot of the western world for sure, but most of the world now. Yeah.

[00:43:00]>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it sounds like he was he was uh like as you said respected and um he wasn't it's not he wasn't crazy like so many >> no >> these guys now. Yeah.

[00:43:14]>> He he wasn't crazy. He was he was very serious, >> very sane. Um but really the kind like he he was dynamic in a way that could push things forward, you know.

[00:43:29]>> Yeah.

[00:43:30]>> He wasn't like every other scientist for sure.

[00:43:34]>> Oh, how how so how what was >> well in his in his in the way that he could talk to people in the way that he was excited about it >> and could actually >> put the details aside to be able to tell a story.

[00:43:49]>> Yeah. He was a spokesperson. He was someone who could really get people behind him, you know, like if he were not doing synthetic biology and pushing, you know, human genomic research forward, he probably would have been a cult leader. But no, um Kevin Reirden is asking, didn't he try to patent the human genome or human genes? And yeah, that was one of the things that he is known >> very controversially for.

[00:44:19]because he tried to say well we patent we made we found these genes we can identify them using this process so we'll patent them thankfully judges said no they said this is natural the the genes are natural and they existed before you discovered them but you can patent the process >> so so that is where the difference between if you create a chemical denovo, right, that hasn't it doesn't have any existence in nature.

[00:45:00]>> You can patent that chemical.

[00:45:02]>> But if you're trying to patent something that you did a process and you're like, look, I made it with this process. You can't patent the end result, but you can patent the process to make it. And so this is you know one of the places where um uh what's the gene editing technology that um >> crisper thank you very much I was remembering DNA who made it but I couldn't remember crisper >> um wasn't alone of course there was also sharpentier and many other researchers but um >> crisper itself cannot be patented but certain processes around it can be.

[00:45:44]>> So the process that is the crisper process can be patented but those bacterial genes that exist those cannot be patented and so anybody can take those basic ingredients and make a new process if they want or figure out something new. So it's all about the packaging.

[00:46:06]>> Yeah, it's interesting. So another sort of theme that comes out of this that I think is very still obviously very important now is the uh regulation you know that um that if this balance between yes you can have these private companies doing these extraordinary things >> um and if the regulation kind of finds the right balance between >> regulation and non-regulation I guess or whatever um then you can things can really progress forward right I think so and I think it is a balance and some I mean I don't know the man or did not know the man well enough to know what his actual philosophy was.

[00:46:49]>> Was he doing things knowing like did he try to patent genes knowing that it would get turned down just to push it forward?

[00:47:00]And I think these are questions that we should ask because if somebody isn't pushing then it never has to be dealt with, right? And so more problems pop up if somebody isn't ahead of the game, I think.

[00:47:18]>> Yeah.

[00:47:19]>> I don't know.

[00:47:20]>> Yeah.

[00:47:20]>> I don't know. I just observe things. I don't know anything.

[00:47:28]>> But anyway, I don't know. Did you have anything else you wanted to say about venttor or synthetic biology or this whole area?

[00:47:36]>> No, I say I I and maybe a lot of people like that uh like me who don't really understand it other than I understand its importance and I constantly rely on in a good way Blair and you and >> Yeah, Blair is the one. I rely on her too. Where the heck is she?

[00:47:58]Yeah. Well, >> sorry, Blair.

[00:48:01]>> We're cutting up jeans and we have no we don't know what we're doing. Um and and on my show, Gabby, you know, also who was a a biologist. So, um very interesting. Last question. Why why was he proposing that uh that this gene editing or whatever be done on Mars? Was that just to avoid conflict or >> No, I think he was setting up >> an inspirational story. You know, it was honestly that day I saw him talk about printing synthetic bacteria on Mars and heard Jennifer Dana give one of the first talks about crisper in a public in a public like it was a crazy day and I went home going I don't even know what I just heard. Um but I think what he was doing he was giving researchers something to aspire to. He's also in conversations with people in the new space era you know who were in that industry looking at what could we do in space that would be safer than here on earth. And so it's similarly if you had a a lab out at Lrangee Point or on the moon or on Mars, it could potentially be way safer than a biosafety level four lab here on the planet.

[00:49:35]>> Yeah.

[00:49:36]>> Right. So there is so much space >> that could be insulating, right? to to actually say this is a safe space even though it's in space and very dangerous to the people who are working there. But that day we were also hearing from entrepreneurs who who were doing some of the first work on robotic labs on labs where uh they're uh artificially intelligent or had programs sequenced into them that um that researchers could upload certain instructions could send their samples to this you know cloud. It's not a cloud physical lab just somebody somewhere else than than where they are physically >> but basically ask a lab that's robots to do the work for them and so I heard about all these things in one day and Craig was sitting in a place of you know that you know what is it the seat you the he had heard all of this stuff he knew all of this stuff already >> and so he was talking to that combined kind community >> and giving them a vision of what the robots of what the technology of what the intelligence of what the everything all the people all the all the pieces could do together.

[00:51:06]>> Mhm.

[00:51:07]>> And I and that was over a decade ago and he's been doing that the whole time.

[00:51:15]like he's a he was a dreamer and it I yeah I think that's what he was doing there.

[00:51:24]>> Yeah. And it point, you know, points to the fact that for all we talk about, of course, science, how science is done, how science is done well. Um, and this could apply to other areas as well. But, um, there's a lot of technology, there's a lot of mathematics, there's a lot of, you know, nitty-gritty elbow grease, all this kind of stuff that is involved. But a huge part of it is also just a storyteller, you know, somebody who can explain it.

[00:51:48]>> He did that. And I and I think that's why as as much as he was a controversial figure, I saw him as somebody special >> and why he stood out because he was a storyteller >> or he had somebody who worked with him who was a good storyteller and trained him and you know and coached him and said you need to talk about this. Either it was him all along or there was somebody behind him going >> this is what you need to do a science communicator marketer person who was paying attention I don't know >> and I want to hear that story >> yeah totally >> right >> totally totally >> are you ready for more science >> yeah ready always ready >> and I will respond to F here yes introducing non-native bacteria to Mars is not a good idea. We shouldn't we should not pollute any foreign world with our crap.

[00:52:53]>> Yeah. But that never stopped Mars. Mars has been sending crap to us constantly, you know, from littering Antarctica with it, you know, because it's a mess. Not biological as far as we know, but >> geological.

[00:53:06]>> As far as we know. Yeah.

[00:53:07]>> As far as we know. there.

[00:53:09]Well, as far as we have discovered yet or has been told to the public, no, I'm not one of those conspiracy theory people. No, there's a bunch of rocks from Mars on our planet because things knocked into Mars. Their moon got boomed and then billiard bar billiard balls all over our planet. And we've done the same. Oh my gosh.

[00:53:34]But we've been sending craft to Mars for years and uh where we thought we had clean rooms, we have learned we did not.

[00:53:43]And so our idea of >> clean, I think, you know, we've been doing studies of funguses and other bacteria on our space shuttle, tardigrades. We I don't know, we crashed tardigrades into the moon. I was going to say there's tardigrades all over the moon. Yeah, >> I know. No, those little tons. Oh my gosh. They get a nice little boost of sun and they're going to be like burned dead. Oh my gosh.

[00:54:14]But but I I just feel it's it's all the experiment has already begun. But maybe we should be doing some of those experiments that we've been doing on our our space shuttle. Not our space shuttle, our um that thing that goes around the planet uh station, space station.

[00:54:36]>> Thank you very much. The brain doesn't work live anymore. Um >> the ISS. Yeah, >> but maybe we should move some of those experiments to Mars or close to Mars and see >> what what have we dropped there that's still alive >> because I think it's important for you know controlling our experiments right yes rest in peace ISS it's not done yet but uh pretty much >> but we know people who are making new ISS things where There's going to be an international hotel in space soon. It's going to be amazing.

[00:55:20]But anyway, we'll talk about that later.

[00:55:22]Other science cuz I'm going to keep Phillip up way too late. He's in Brooklyn. It's midnight right now. So, >> city that never sleeps. That's not >> There you are. Never sleeping.

[00:55:33]>> Yeah.

[00:55:34]>> Okay. So, here we get into disaster. You ready?

[00:55:39]You ready for disaster?

[00:55:41]>> Okay. So, um, what do you know about global warming, Philip? What about the things that cause global warming or that are forcing factors in global warming?

[00:55:56]>> Um, well, I guess I would say greenhouse gases is what I hear about. CO2, >> right?

[00:56:02]>> That's pretty much my uh understanding.

[00:56:04]And there may be other gases that you know go in the atmosphere and trap uh >> water.

[00:56:13]>> Water is one. Yeah.

[00:56:14]>> Oh yeah.

[00:56:16]>> Greenhouse gases. So we have Yeah. Water actually water vapor is a massive massive forcing factor >> in uh and a greenhouse gas people.

[00:56:26]>> So we should get rid of water. Yeah.

[00:56:28]Clearly.

[00:56:28]>> Yeah. Totally. Yeah. No.

[00:56:31]>> That is literally throwing the baby out with the bath water. Yeah.

[00:56:35]>> But you know as everything heats up more water vapor ends up in the atmosphere.

[00:56:40]The water vapor is part of the magnifying factors or what we call a forcing factor.

[00:56:46]>> Um so people are like water it's not bad you know. No it's not. Carbon dioxide we know has a very long lifetime. Carbon dioxide methane ethane um all those organics that are up there.

[00:57:03]Ozone. Oh my gosh, >> that one that's the that's the cancer in Australia.

[00:57:09]>> Um Um But now microlastics in the air or >> Yes. Yes.

[00:57:21]>> Oh my god.

[00:57:22]>> Just published in Nature Climate Change.

[00:57:27]Um, microlastic and nanoplastic particles are pervasive in the atmosphere. Nobody understood what impact they had. There's all sorts of things. There's dust in the atmosphere, there's pollution in the atmosphere, there's uh there's everything's everything, bacteria, fungal spores, everything. Everything ends up in the air and people are just like, >> "It just smells so clean."

[00:57:55]>> No. No, really.

[00:57:58]>> It depends.

[00:57:58]>> This bottle is just smells so good.

[00:58:02]>> So good.

[00:58:03]>> Wow.

[00:58:05]>> So I know I know they're in the water.

[00:58:07]Well, like they're in the ocean, right?

[00:58:09]These microplastics.

[00:58:10]>> Yes. But when we talk about micro and microplastics, like that's actually bigized particles, right? Like this is >> stuff you can see. Nanoplastics are the littleer tiny tiny things that are much harder to see and to strain out. Um, and recently there was a a report and it is talked about in this field all the time about um how they ensure that they're not like dirtying their samples because there is a lot of work that people are reporting on. Plastic's bad, microplastics are bad. It's in your bones. It's in your brains. It's in your testicles. It's everywhere. Polar bears to wherever. And there is some truth to that. There's a lot of truth to that.

[00:58:56]But at the same time, it's unclear as to how accurate all of those measures are.

[00:59:02]And still to this day, we are unsure as to the impact on biology. Aside from when little animals eat plastic, it gets in their digestive system. it doesn't get digested and then they die.

[00:59:19]>> So there's the one thing that everybody talks about which is like oh the reproductive system and plastics have estrogens and so is this going to impact the reproductive system and blah blah or plastics are very sticky and so pharmaceuticals and other pollutants are going to stick to the plastics and then they're kill they're going to impact the frogs.

[00:59:41]These are iffies. These are very iffy questions that nobody has like really clearly answered at this point in time.

[00:59:50]>> But but brand new yes brand new answer.

[00:59:58]Airborne microlastics trap nearly 15 as much heat as black carbon.

[01:00:06]Black carbon is one of the worst pollutants uh in our atmosphere for trapping heat. That's a physical uh body. Uh black carbon is soot. You know, it is uh left by burning volcanoes.

[01:00:23]>> Um yeah, it's not great. But there's a lot a lot of uh this microlastic that ends up aerosolized apparently some of it through breakdown products.

[01:00:38]So like in the uh West Pacific Gire Guyire Gimling Guyire I think it's Guyire. Um but in the Pacific Gire where plastics seem to be collecting along with a whole bunch of other garbage aerosols are coming from there as well.

[01:00:57]So it's part of now a new feedback loop >> of particles ending how and particles end up in the atmosphere.

[01:01:06]>> Wow. Wow. And I could say, you know, um, uh, everybody saw the pictures that came back from Aremis went to the moon and these magnificent pictures of Earth. And among the many kind of shot stunning images are those ones where you can see the atmosphere is just this ridiculously thin, you know, layer of um, little little bit of glowing, you know, in the sunlight um, around the Earth. And so >> yeah, >> so now it's those it's full that you can imagine that full of all these other things that >> shouldn't be there and that are trapping the heat basically, right? They it the interesting thing about these these um uh greenhouse gases or things pollutants is that seems like they let the sunlight in, right? So the sunlight comes from the earth and it gets through them somehow hits the hits the ground >> heats up the ground then the heat comes off the ground but the heat >> is trapped right and just builds up >> as Blair likes to say it's an insulating blanket. Ah yeah yeah yeah yeah >> where you can imagine there's like a small amount of heat that might leave right but >> it traps all that wonderful heat inside and so this is another ingredient that we had not added to all of our models.

[01:02:34]So this is actually very interesting because understanding what is in the atmosphere.

[01:02:41]So we have this understanding of okay the atmosphere is heating the lower atmosphere the upper atmosphere heating at particular rates what's in it that is contributing to the speed of the heating and over time we're like okay black carbon um greenhouse gases water vapor you know let's add these things to the list of what works and we're getting better ideas of how each of them work and what they do >> this breaks down that like unknown component that has been you know like C in E= E E= MC^2 it's just fudge factor right >> yeah yeah >> it makes that it's not it's not as much of a fudge factor anymore it gives more accuracy because now we can say this component and I will tell you what they found here >> is that Uh the the global surface concentrations reach 4.18.

[01:03:47]Wait, what are the P? Uh uh mega I don't know what the P stand microlastics.

[01:03:56]Oh yeah, 4.18 microplastics per meter cubed for micro.

[01:04:01]I don't know what MP stands for. This is something that I should have figured out and I apologize that I don't know the exact nomenclature for this.

[01:04:10]3.67 nanog per me cubed for nanoplastics.

[01:04:15]And uh this means that there is four microplastic and nanoplastic particles 0.039 plus or minus 0.019 watts per meter squared equivalent to 16.2% of black carbon forcing. And this means that uh peaks they found peaks over the North Pacific subtropical gy gimble and wave gh exceeded local black carbon by 4.7fold.

[01:04:48]So they were unrecognized and um very impactful.

[01:04:57]So, >> and another another possible possible reason why I mean don't they say that thing the earth seems to be heating up more than >> faster than expected and so maybe having something that was unrecognized before be recognized we can start to put timing to it and under say oh this is how it plays in the equation >> right this yeah so yeah me that's what I was thinking Oh, you just said it. Maybe this is part of the explanation of why it's going faster than we thought.

[01:05:32]>> Yeah, >> I don't know.

[01:05:35]Okay, we're going to move away from um the the atmosphere and we're going to dive into the water right now.

[01:05:44]>> All right. All right. Refresh.

[01:05:45]>> Do you like Do you like salmon?

[01:05:47]>> Yeah, I like salmon.

[01:05:50]>> You like >> I do. you. You're like, "Yes."

[01:06:00]>> All right. So, are you aware though of the difference between wildcaugh versus farmed and the impacts on the environment that people have been talking about over the last few decades?

[01:06:12]>> No, I see those terms on the rapper, you know, the pack wildcaugh or or farm, but uh yeah, I don't can't say I know how it affects the environment. Yeah.

[01:06:25]>> And so this is a big question. What uh has been shown is that uh the farmed fish when they when they get into the environment, they mess it up. They don't know how to behave. They don't know what to do. They have bad hormones. They're just like, I'm afraid.

[01:06:49]I just listened to the Clash way too long. I don't know.

[01:06:55]>> I feel like Henry Rollins out in the country. What do I do?

[01:06:59]>> Yeah.

[01:07:02]>> Excuse me.

[01:07:04]But this is a huge question as to how aquaculture of these fish, how it impacts the environment and what go what and cuz you know normally fish like all wildlife they run around. They eat where they will. They defecate where they will. They do whatever they will in their place. And then we go and we're like, "Hey, you you're like farmed now.

[01:07:34]So get into that pen, which is in water." And we have farmed fish on land for certain species that are up in the mountains, way inland, far away from the sea. But in Norway, it's right in the fjords and there they've got uh like 995 different fish farms in the fjords of Norway. Um Norway is the largest farmed salmon producer in the world according to the Guardian. And I came across this story story thanks to the Guardian. And it I think it's incredibly important because when I went to the Guardian to look at the story, it also showed an advertisement for Nordic fish oil supplements along with this story >> which is I don't know the balance.

[01:08:35]>> It makes sense but is a little funny.

[01:08:37]It's, you know, like watching that murder movie that chopped somebody's head off and then the ad for Ginsu steak knives comes on right after.

[01:08:45]>> Yeah.

[01:08:47]>> We heard you like knives. Yeah.

[01:08:49]>> Yeah.

[01:08:51]>> So, salmon over I mean I don't know growing up it was a delicacy. You only got to have it if like once a year. It was like Canadian maple candy. like you maybe got it at Christmas time. Maybe the smoked salmon that the grandfather brought for the bagels. I don't know. It was very much a not a normal thing. And over the over the years, everybody's got salmon.

[01:09:19]Do you want salmon on that? Do you want chicken? Do you want salmon? It's like salmon is now like the chicken of the sea. And it it definitely doesn't taste like the chicken of the sea, but it is being farmed in that way. and Norway is pushing it forward because it is a wonderful wonderful industry. It's helpful to their economy. It's fantastic. However, uh there is an institute called the Sunstone Institute that is dedicated. It's a a data focused organization, bunch of data scientists trying to do good for the world, for the environment. And they found in a recent analysis that Norwegian aquaculture released 75,000 tons of nitrogen, 13,000 tons of phosphorus, and 3600 tons of organic carbon last year alone.

[01:10:11]And according to this Guardian article, this is the equivalent to the untreated sewage of 17.2 million people. for nitrogen, 20 million people for phosphorus, and 30 million people for carbon.

[01:10:30]>> Wow.

[01:10:32]>> And that's those numbers, by the way, just for the heck of it, right? That's New York City itself now within the city limits is 8 million people. And um I imagine >> every day with commuters and is the whole area like 20 million people every day because of business.

[01:10:51]>> Right. So, I was going to say this basically adds up to sort of like a, you know, a vast metropolitan area, >> vast, dense.

[01:10:59]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[01:11:01]>> Now, imagine Norway with these beautiful fjords, right?

[01:11:09]>> These gorgeous fjords. And I love I'm going to keep saying it like that because like it's great.

[01:11:18]But the coastline of Norway has these be beautiful landscapes >> and it it it's special because the ocean comes in to this very um folded coastal structure. So, it's I I think of the coast of Norway as like the surface of a human brain with all of those deep crevices and everything that might go in there or come out.

[01:11:50]But if you don't have the proper flow, if things are not, if there's not enough water coming out to push everything out of the fur into the sea, it's going to sit and you have these very old, very cold, pristine environments.

[01:12:12]Yeah, not entirely pristine, but Norway is not huge. So even though there's industrial waste, even though there's human waste, even though there's agricultural runoff going into the fur, now you also have the fish runway, like this runoff from the fish. And there is a website by the Sunstone Institute that I think is honestly one of the most beautiful web stories that I have ever seen. That is their report on what they found. It tells the story of one researcher who spent his life looking at salmon industry waste and it shows these beautiful videos of him going below the the cold cold sea um and looking to see how the salmon industry has impacted these feuds.

[01:13:10]Fears I keep saying it like that. Um anyway, you have these circular pens that exist um at the at the edge of the fur where the salmon before they're released to the sea before or before they're taken to the o open sea pens for adult development.

[01:13:38]They are kept at the edge of land to you know kind of make the you know the lifestyle life the life history of the salmon in their development. They spend their youth in the rivers. They get into the brackish rivery water that goes to the sea. They spend 2 years 2 to four years out to sea becoming adults and then they come back again to spawn at the rivers where they were born.

[01:14:08]And so this is trying to synthetically recreate that. And they've got the babies that were now this the smolts that are growing into their adultish form at the edge of the fur. And they've got them in these contained pens. And they're feeding them salmon kibble. They just nutritional food pellet like cat cat food, dog food, but for salmon. and they shake it down over the top of the circular pens, these tanks, but the fish are in them.

[01:14:42]And then all the water is a fresh water flow through. So all the water goes through and then all the garbage comes out, undigested food, waste from the fish, everything of this biological in nature which we know on the west coast here and also Florida very familiar with algae blooms, very familiar with uh oxygen dead zones where you if you have too much biological matter, it eats itself.

[01:15:14]It eats all the oxygen and then nothing can survive. And so these researchers, they have found that they have these pipes where there's tons of biological organic material that comes out and the fish, the cod, the smelt, the uh the fish that live in the fards are feasting >> on the detritus of the salmon.

[01:15:41]But so are the sea urchins.

[01:15:46]The kelp forests that normally grow in these places are dying because the algae is dying. The urchins are coming. There is not enough in these places even though there is excess to actually support the ecosystems anymore. And so we're seeing a problem of the salmons and the salmons the salmon. Anyway, I'm going to stop scrolling through this website. It's incredible. I highly recommend anybody who's interested in the plight of agric uh agricultural fisheries fishery agriculture apiculture. Um no, apriculture is bees. But anyway, um, anybody who is interested in this, I I highly recommend I'm going to share the link and it is one of the most amazing reports I have ever seen visually, but also datadriven, story driven. It is it's beautiful.

[01:16:51]>> Yeah, that was beautiful. Yeah, beautiful website effective.

[01:16:54]>> We need to save the fjords. Yeah, I I have I have never I've never uh I've never imagined the word filth and Norway in the same sentence.

[01:17:06]>> You wouldn't.

[01:17:07]>> Now we know >> no one is sacred. Nothing is sacred.

[01:17:11]>> And so this and but this is one of the things they bring up is they've gone to the companies and they've said we went below the water. We saw what's happening and they said we're within regulations.

[01:17:24]everything we're doing is fine.

[01:17:26]>> And so this is where >> there there needs to be a conversation and uh this this institute the Sunstone Institute is trying to tell this story in a way that makes people want to talk to their representatives in Norway, right? try and get uh people to fill the gap in regulation that is currently allowing these companies to overfeed the animals to allow the waste to go into the fur. Um there's there's something that is not sustainable here and you look at Norway and you go of course they're going to fix it >> but they're human too so Yeah, >> they've got capitalistic tendencies as well. So, >> well, also it's it's interesting. You can see it's a little um surprising because from above, you just for those who didn't see the website, you know, from above it still looks it looks magnificent. You know, every the grass is greened right next to the facility.

[01:18:33]The water is, you know, blue. It's beautiful. But it was this diver went under under the water and shows you that. And um >> yeah, >> without that website, without his footage, you wouldn't know that, you know, >> and you wouldn't know. And I think this is >> but it's the calm before the storm because it's only so long before >> what's happening under the surface can't be hidden by a few meters at the top.

[01:18:59]It'll make its way to the top and those be blue fjords will become green.

[01:19:07]You know that people ask, "Oh, why is Lake T Lake Tahoe gets more green all the time? We want Lake Tahoe to be blue." These are similar similar questions.

[01:19:19]How do we how do we work together to make our environments resilient, sustainable?

[01:19:27]I don't know.

[01:19:28]>> Yeah.

[01:19:29]>> How reminds me again yet another thing, a poetic moment from the Artemis mission. I think it was Christina of the >> uh astronaut said um >> yeah, she's very Well, they were all they were all just incredible.

[01:19:42]>> They're all so amazing. They picked the best astronauts.

[01:19:46]>> Yeah, >> they did.

[01:19:47]>> Yeah, they they did. There's a whole In fact, there's a story I'm I'm curious to learn that story, you know, how that how they found how they chose them >> each of them. And um but uh anyway, she she was saying, you know, that she was talking from the um uh craft or something and she said, you know, we're we are a crew. You're all talking to us. We're a crew on this ship. And she said, and then I was looking back at the Earth and it was so tiny, you know, so and floating in this blackness of space. And she thought, "Oh, that looks like a ship, too." And you're the you talking to us, you're the crew, you know. So, >> yeah. Can can we act like the crew? Can we >> I mean, even that that crew from Gilligan's Island, they worked together, too.

[01:20:40]>> We're like a crew of pirates or something, you know, all drunk and fighting with each other. Yeah.

[01:20:51]We know we know how to do this. We do.

[01:20:55]It's just we are allowing certain interests to keep us from doing it.

[01:21:04]Have you like have you have you seen like honestly have you seen Shane the news about sustainables and renewable energy recently? Have you?

[01:21:16]>> No.

[01:21:18]I saw a graph this last week. California is mostly sustainable energy.

[01:21:27]>> Ah, >> fossil fuels, it's natural gas.

[01:21:31]>> Mhm.

[01:21:32]>> Was some 31%.

[01:21:38]solar, wind, hydro, geo, >> they were all together more energy towards like the the the usage on a particular like one day last week.

[01:21:54]Natural gas was this small piece of the pie compared to what you would expect it to be. And I just sat and I looked at that and I went, "This is why the fight is so big right now >> because we can do this."

[01:22:15]I don't know. We're doing it. And what Trump has done recently with um with the canal with the street.

[01:22:24]>> The canal. Yeah.

[01:22:25]>> Canal. The street love canal.

[01:22:28]>> Yeah.

[01:22:29]Well, what he has done recently has inspired investment in sustainable and renewable energies internationally.

[01:22:38]>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:22:40]>> We're I mean, he might not have wanted to do that, but heyo.

[01:22:45]>> Yeah.

[01:22:46]>> It's going to be great.

[01:22:48]>> Yeah.

[01:22:49]>> So, we move from disaster at that point to um maybe there is an upside there. Um but back to the United States.

[01:22:59]My last little story here in this part of the show. Um, do you get earthquakes in Brooklyn?

[01:23:07]>> Uh, you know what? It's so funny. I was talking about that the just the other day with a friend. Occasionally, occasionally we do. Not like now I used to live in LA, so I've had more experience there, but >> So that would be more like San Andreas fault >> and all the other things. So you're you're aware of the West Coast.

[01:23:24]>> Oh, yeah.

[01:23:26]>> Earthquake.

[01:23:27]>> Yeah.

[01:23:29]environment.

[01:23:30]>> Yeah.

[01:23:31]>> So, I moved up to Portland and it's like, "Oh, yeah. Volcanoes everywhere.

[01:23:36]Ring of fire. That's really cool." And you don't really put two and two together at first until you go, "Oh, right."

[01:23:46]And there's the Cascadia fault, which is a massive fault, which people over the last like 10 years have been like, "Hey, this is ready to go at any point. It's going to be major." And you still have like petroleum and fossil fuel right here in the port of Portland. And you have all these things that you have not fixed, there's going to be a problem, right?

[01:24:11]>> And we get little, you know, little blips every once in a while. And it's kind of like that's nice. So it's like I went from the San Andreas fault in California growing up near that and saying okay whatever anytime I'm ready to moving up here and all of a sudden being like all right just a different fault anytime I'm ready. Let's do it.

[01:24:31]Got my got my earthquake kit. We're ready.

[01:24:35]>> Yeah.

[01:24:36]>> But yay.

[01:24:40]Doesn't one good fault deserve another?

[01:24:49]So, a new study out of uh Corvalis, Oregon, >> Oregon State University has worked on a study that was just published in a geoscience uh journal called Geosphere.

[01:25:09]They were doing a management survey several years back of the Cascadia fault which is off the coast.

[01:25:19]And so they were kind of in their boat and going moving down the fault line taking cores and trying to look at, you know, the sedimentary layers to see for the look for evidence of earthquakes at different points in time. Because looking at the way that the sediments have bounced and shifted, you know, if you take a sifter, it shifts the smaller particles to the bigger particle. You know, the bigger particles go up, smaller particles come down. And the same thing happens in our sedimentary layers around faults. And so they're able to look at the fault around the fault at these cores >> and be able to go, "Oh, okay. Here, and we've got down the fault line. This was definitely a major time. we can, you know, date the materials and are able to go, okay, this is a thousand years ago.

[01:26:09]This was this many years ago and this and they kind of kept kept going down the fault and they thought they were still on the fault and they kept following and then they realized they were no longer on the Cascadian fault line anymore, but they were getting some really interesting cores. They were like, "What's going on here?" It turns out they had just moved down onto like more San Andreas fault material. So they're off offshore and they're finding these fault lines and they saw a reversal of some of the patterns that had been happening along the Cascadian fault where they were like, "Here's an earthquake. Here's an earthquake. Here's an earthquake." And they were like, "What happened? What happened? What happened?" And they realized the two faults act together. So when one goes, the other goes.

[01:27:04]>> Huh?

[01:27:05]>> And it happens within hours or days, not months or years.

[01:27:11]>> Wow. So what they're saying is that there is evidence in the core samples that they took of major earthquakes along the faults that led to both faults actually having major earthquakes >> within a very short period of time.

[01:27:38]So um although >> we haven't seen that in in like in the past >> over 1500 years. Yeah. So it's like over it's like this kind of big earthquake they're talking about like it's over a thousand years. Um so where they're talking about they keep San Andreas fault ready for Cascadian fault ready for oh gez.

[01:28:02]So they suggest that it may not just be the Pacific Northwest that goes when the Cascadian fault does. It could lead to a sympathetic >> earthquake within hours or days across the California coast.

[01:28:22]So it could be the entire West Coast goes in just one day. Chaos.

[01:28:30]>> Crazy.

[01:28:31]>> I don't know. Well, I'd rather go back to that salmon story of the Norwegian Fur.

[01:28:36]>> Yeah, >> I'd rather go back there because that seems like something that we can fix.

[01:28:44]And uh it's always funny because these stories of like where there's some period, you know, some historical pattern of something leads, for instance, there's a historical pattern of ice ages, right? So, but it leads to these things where the the amount of time between them is so huge that you don't know does is this going to affect your life at all or it could tomorrow or it may never you know not for hundreds of years or thousand. Yeah.

[01:29:10]>> Right. And this is this is one of those moments where people are like well it could happen at any point but what is that point tomorrow or 20 years from now or >> even a hundred year because geological time doesn't >> and we don't have a way to actually like pin it down. Mhm.

[01:29:36]>> Do you remember like the in Italy there was a massive earthquake they had like pre-shocks these seismic shocks and then the physicists or the the geoysicists were were sued. They were convicted and they almost went to jail and it was overturned later. But somebody said somebody basically said, "Oh, go have go home. Have a glass of wine. Like you'll be fine. It's great." And it a whole there was a massive earthquake and a bunch of people died.

[01:30:08]>> Yeah.

[01:30:08]>> Like >> Yeah. Yeah. Um what they say uh um um hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

[01:30:20]>> Like I said, get that earthquake kit.

[01:30:24]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[01:30:25]>> Make sure you've got what you need.

[01:30:28]Yeah. Well, I I am cur I would be curious to hear what given all the building regulations that came out of all the earthquakes, you know, things have gotten much much much better. I mean, I remember even living in Los Angeles in the early 2000s. We had a couple earthquakes. You know, fortunately, none of them were like insanely devastating, but I remember them always saying that >> uh in LA, one or two places had some minor damage. Had this been in some other parts of the world, it would have leveled the entire >> place, you know. So, um I wonder what how things would fair under like what what level of uh of shock what what on the RTER scale. I wonder what they're talking about um for this, >> right?

[01:31:10]>> Jumbo.

[01:31:11]>> Yeah.

[01:31:12]>> Yeah. And so what level of shaking has to have happen across the Cascadia fault? Does it have to be the entire fault? How big does it have to be to shake?

[01:31:24]>> Yeah.

[01:31:24]>> The San Andreas and vice versa, >> you know, when one goes, how big does it have to go to make the other go to?

[01:31:30]>> Of course, Cascadia, you got one up on the boring Southern California. You got what? Five volcanoes or something.

[01:31:36]>> Oh, like I like I said, Ring of Fire.

[01:31:40]Hello.

[01:31:40]>> Exactly.

[01:31:41]>> We're so good. I can see three volcanoes from my house.

[01:31:45]>> Wow. Oh, that's pretty cool.

[01:31:46]>> Yeah. Come visit.

[01:31:48]>> Yeah.

[01:31:48]>> Come on. next time you're out here.

[01:31:50]>> Yeah, that'd be great >> for your mist.

[01:31:52]>> I have I have been to um um Mount St. Helens a few times. That is an astounding.

[01:31:57]>> I still need to go >> Oh, you haven't been? Oh my gosh.

[01:32:01]>> Well, I've been, but I haven't like gone hiking.

[01:32:04]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[01:32:05]>> Like I really want to do like a a good hiking trip up Mount St. Helens and like really check it out. But >> yeah.

[01:32:11]>> Yeah. And as Paul Disney is saying, most of our volcanoes are inactive, but that doesn't mean that they are, >> you know, back in there was a time in this country, not extinct.

[01:32:23]>> There's a time in this country where our volcanoes used to do things.

[01:32:26]>> They used to do things. They they still might. Who knows? They're just inactive right now. It's like, I'm taking a nap and then I'll get up really quick.

[01:32:37]>> Yeah. Jeez, >> the natural world is amazing and we love putting our houses near the big pretty scary things.

[01:32:45]>> Yeah.

[01:32:46]>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:32:49]>> Um I'm going to take this moment to quickly say this is this week in science. Thank you so much for joining the show and I do appreciate the time that you're spending here. If you want to take a moment, head over to twist.org, click on that Patreon link, become a supporter of the show. It would really, really help us out monthtomonth.

[01:33:09]We can't do what we do without you.

[01:33:12]Additionally, hit share. Are you watching us on social media? Do you have a podcast player that makes allows you to share with your friends? Please tell people about Twist.

[01:33:26]You can't keep us secret. Don't hold us back. These are important conversations and we really cannot do what we do without you. Thank you for your support.

[01:33:37]All right, Philip, we're gonna come back for a few more stories. Am I keeping you up a little too late tonight?

[01:33:42]>> Seriously, I'm loving every second of this. This is totally great. This is way >> for keeping you up at night.

[01:33:50]>> Oh my god, it's incredible. Incredible.

[01:33:54]>> Seriously, it's great. Yeah. All right.

[01:33:57]So, one thing I'm I've always been very interested in is how our nerves, some of them become covered in a substance called myelin. And myelin is like, it's been described as an insulating sheath.

[01:34:13]People have talked about it similar to like an insulating outer layer of an electrical wire where it is supposed to keep all the current flowing. uh down the wire. This is not an accurate analogy and I will tell you right now, I have learned through the years, it very much is not accurate, but we can still allow it. Imagine it as that outer layer of a wire, that red plastic on the outside of electrical wire. That's like the myelin sheath.

[01:34:49]It's on the outside, but it wraps around the length of the nerve as it extends, say, from your spinal cord all the way down to your foot. There's myelin wrapped around that from your from your brain down your spinal cord. myelin wrapped along those little nerve fibers helping to keep it all healthy, making sure it all works.

[01:35:19]The sheath also is invi involved in the signaling itself and that's why I'm saying it's not act actually accurate um that previous analogy but anyway it's a fascinating the myelin sheath wrapped it's a cell a gal cell that wraps around the nerve.

[01:35:41]And sometime in our development, our bodies go, we're not just going to make more gal cells. We're going to have them turn into myelin and protect the nerves and make sure that our nerve conduction is amazing for our giant body size.

[01:36:00]>> It's very important.

[01:36:03]So, a lot of small organisms, little uh little honeybees, other insects, little animals, they don't have myelin around their nerves.

[01:36:16]Their nerves don't move far enough. They don't have enough going on. There's no myelin needed, no gal cells, nothing involved. In the same way, >> mammals, other organisms that are are bigger than very small stuff, they need that protection to make sure that the signaling propagation works the way that it does.

[01:36:38]When myelin goes bad, very often it's because it's attacked by the body itself. an autoimmune disorder called multiple sclerosis >> attacks myelin destroying it and that leads to problems with signal propagation. It leads to uh destruction of nerve pathways. It leads to the destruction of nerves nerve cells themselves.

[01:37:04]Myelin is an essential part of our central nervous system.

[01:37:09]So at some point in our development, our body goes, but it doesn't happen all at once across the entire central nervous system. It happens differently in different parts.

[01:37:27]How does it know? And this story that came out this week just published researchers at the Advanced Science Research Center at the Okay. City University of New York. Is it CUNI or Sunni?

[01:37:46]>> CUNI.

[01:37:46]>> Oh well.

[01:37:48]>> City University that is uh >> cu n y >> sunni is the state. Yeah.

[01:37:57]>> Okay. Thank you very much. This is why I needed you here today.

[01:38:01]>> Yeah.

[01:38:02]>> Mio Mioaku is uh one of their famous professors.

[01:38:06]>> Oh, yeah.

[01:38:08]>> All right. So, CUNI Graduate Center, this advanced science research center at the CUNI Graduate Center, they just published in Nature Rio uh neuroscience this study of developmental stages 32 to 40 weeks in human gestation. They were looking at mice, not in humans, but they were looking at the development of oligodendritty, which they come from progenitor stem cells and they become myelin. So they they get they they're these nerve ol brain olodendrites. they get turned into brain cells. And during these very critical moments of fetal development, what they determined is that there's this period of time where glucose is heading into the brain area and is just like glucose, glucose, glucose. And so the glucose sets a signal to grow lots and lots of olodendritty.

[01:39:24]These precursor brain cells, they could turn into lots of things. And the glucose is the signal for growth, for division, for multiplication, for just doing all the cool stuff. And then though when you take the glucose away, it's a switch. And that switch is what leads to the development of myelin.

[01:39:51]And they found that there are critical enzymes that are involved that are that are the switches and that these different enzymes in different regions.

[01:40:03]So they could look at the gene expression for these enzymes in different parts of the brain and they were in the mouse brain and able to go, "Oh, so now this part of the mouse brain is going to myate." And it did. They would like turn it off expression-wise.

[01:40:20]They had they could develop a switch that could be like glucose switch on, glucose switch off. And when they did, they basically were turning off cell division and turning on myelination.

[01:40:34]Yeah, the importance of this is that if we understand the switch that controls why or when myelination happens, maybe we can start to understand why and when it goes wrong and maybe we can understand how >> to fix it.

[01:40:57]>> So, yeah, >> that'd be amazing.

[01:41:00]>> It would be.

[01:41:02]>> Yeah.

[01:41:03]Tired of multiple sclerosis in the world. Make it go. Just make it go.

[01:41:09]>> That'd be great.

[01:41:11]>> Make it go away.

[01:41:12]>> Yeah.

[01:41:13]>> No, Kevin Reirden. It doesn't turn into myelin plastics.

[01:41:19]What is that?

[01:41:22]>> And so it's built in in in um it it grows in uh different parts of the body at different times. It's not it's it's almost sounds like a roving construction crew or something, >> right? So, but not different parts of the body. If you can imagine um >> the central nervous system. So, you have the central nervous system that is an extension of your lower spinal cord, right? So the nerves that come out of the lumbar region of your spinal cord, you have the central nervous system that it's your brain, but then you have the central nervous system that goes all the way down your spine. The central nervous system is a contained system and it is its own separate independent not independent really but it's it's its own contained system within the body.

[01:42:18]>> Wow. So the anything that is held within this system, the nerves, the support cells, the bloodb brain barrier, those endothelial cells um that are involved in the capillaries that bring blood and filter the lymph and hemoglobin for uh for the nervous system like Yeah.

[01:42:47]>> Amazing. Amazing.

[01:42:48]>> Yeah. almost any of this stuff you know I biology I didn't uh learn a lot because um in the way I looked at it um when I was in school the physics department was everything was dry you know and like when you do astronomy everything you're studying it's far away you don't have to smell it or touch it let alone cut it open the biology stuff it was in your face it was in your hand it was wet it was smelly and I was just I just couldn't couldn't I love that you're like that's why I didn't let I didn't do biology. That's why >> it was too too close and wet. That's >> I did the dry science. Yeah, >> I do love I saw a a graphic today that was, you know, one of those jokes where it was like, "Oh, biology is the basis of everything." And somebody says, "Well, >> biology is just applied physics." And then somebody else says, "Well, physics is just applied maths." And then someone else says maths are just applied philosophy. And then someone else says well philosophy is just applied biology.

[01:43:58]>> That's really good. Wow.

[01:44:00]>> And I was like full >> total. That's like an awesome rap battle right there.

[01:44:07]>> Yeah.

[01:44:07]>> You got to get all of them in there, right?

[01:44:09]>> Yeah. Yeah. And I must say so so for you know uh all that stuff always just makes me amazed at like evolution right and I'm one of the things I was thinking as as you were describing that just these incredible systems was like I'm I'm going to guess somebody has calculated that evolution had time to build all this stuff through random >> yeah yeah >> so but this is still okay you mentioned random which I think is one of the big discussion points where people come in and they say really it's random it's not planned there isn't a creator like what are you talking about you know and I think this is where it gets very interesting because we see that there is randomness there is random mutation there is you know the impact we've shown the impact of gamma rays or even x-rays on our DNA and how these things can impact change in ourselves to you know lead to cancer or you know other diseases and so the question is okay we've got it in ourselves fine but what about next generation and it's like well you know do you think those rays like don't impact the stem cells or like your sex cells at all But moving beyond that, researchers are looking at the the patterns of inheritance across eons. And so we know there is something that's called the mutational clock. And the mutational clock is actually a basically it's a welaccepted timing of how often mutations occur in DNA and certain amounts of DNA, you know, over a certain amount of time, right? So it's like, oh well, you've been around 10,000 years, you've been around a million years. We expect x number of mutations over that time, >> right?

[01:46:23]But then you play in what we've been learning. So forever it was all just DNA, right? So it's mutations in DNA and that's all we're looking at. And so the question has always been, how is it only DNA that's responsible for all of this?

[01:46:37]And everybody's like, oh, of course it's just Darwinian evolution, you know, natural selection. And it's whatever you've got, it's, you know, going to make you more successful. And so then heritable heritability and you pass it on to the next generation and so on and so on, right?

[01:46:57]And I used to actually laugh at the the whole idea of um what was the what was the dude's name?

[01:47:08]I'm not I'm it's not Mandelian.

[01:47:11]>> Oh. Uh Mendelev or um >> the the giraffe neck dude.

[01:47:18]What the a scientist or a critic?

[01:47:21]>> A scientist who came up with a different idea that was you you your offspring are impacted by stuff that happens to you during your life or that you actually like I want to have a bigger neck and so my offspring have a bigger neck, >> you know. And so there was this whole and I'm blanking on the name right now.

[01:47:40]Lamar >> Lamar. Oh. Oh. Oh.

[01:47:43]>> Thank you, >> Walt Disney. You win. And there's a CK.

[01:47:47]It is your spelling was wrong. But thank you very much. This is why I like having a live show with the chat.

[01:47:56]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[01:47:58]>> Thank you. Lamarian evolution um which is this idea was the idea of accumulated changes during your lifetime being passed down.

[01:48:09]>> And we could not find evidence of this stuff. And everybody was like no Darwin.

[01:48:15]And then and then Mandel and genes and it's just DNA. It's only DNA.

[01:48:26]>> And now there was a study out this week actually and I've seen other studies additionally uh to this that they suggest that it's it's the the extra stuff. So there's control factors.

[01:48:45]We've got RNA. We've got um proteins, enzymes that actually feed back and control how chromatin moves. We have these factors that control how much of a protein is expressed or I mean when I say protein, I mean how much a gene is transcribed to be expressed or how it is held back. And so there is an entire world of infrastructure that lies on top of the DNA >> that we are just beginning to understand.

[01:49:25]>> And this study this week was basically about conserved regions of DNA. And what they were showing is that between these moths and butterflies, which are closely related, but you know, whatever, that they they used the same genes over and over again for their coloration.

[01:49:47]They weren't mutating those genes to get their special coloration. It was all these control factors on top of those genes that allowed for a red here or an orange here or dark colors. And so it's evolution is much more nuanced and the mutation and the change is very different from what we think it is. But what you have though, so in those moths, conserved regions that are responsible for coloration, and somewhere else in the genome, you have regions that maybe have been changed that control the expression of those particular genes that are making the color, >> right?

[01:50:36]>> Yeah.

[01:50:37]>> So, I don't know. That's a long way to for me to just say, "Yeah, you're right."

[01:50:42]>> Yeah. Well, no, it is interesting because like I've I've done, you know, I'm by no means a pro expert programmer or coder as they say now. Um, but you know, if you do any kind of computer coding, um, you if you evolve, you begin with a very simple idea, right? I just, oh, I just need to do this. I need to put this text on the screen. But then this other thing happens and now you have to write another thing for that, another thing for that. very quickly, you know, within an within an hour, let alone a whole day's worth of work, you've got a very complex system that's all interacting and >> some of it good and some of it not good.

[01:51:19]Just >> Right. But I mean, this is like you start with basic andor gates, right?

[01:51:24]>> Uhhuh. Yeah.

[01:51:25]>> You add them to each other and you have one on top of another and suddenly >> it seems so complex but the underlying system is so simple. Yeah. But >> yeah.

[01:51:36]>> Yeah. But this isn't to say there isn't a massive amount of evolutionary change that is taking place. It is just our understanding of it that is evolving at the same time.

[01:51:47]>> Yeah. Very cool.

[01:51:48]>> Um moving from there. Um do you take antioxidants and any vitamins?

[01:51:57]>> No. as you get older.

[01:52:00]>> I do make sure to go out and get sun so I get my vitamin B6 or D vitamin D.

[01:52:07]>> Vitamin D >> I hope >> interacting with the sun. Um yeah, but should I be >> I don't know. Um the people keep talking about how as we age, our bodies don't uh either get certain nutrients out of food as efficiently or use those nutrients or the metabolic processes that end up leading to the basil compounds that we need to get out of food that somehow it's they're not all getting into our body where it needs to be. our systems kind of change and so we have issues like, "Oh my gosh, my mitochondria are slowing down and so my brain cells are moving less quickly and I've got brain fog and oh wait, now I have dementia."

[01:52:55]No. Um, but people take, you know, lion's mane or they take D3 or they take vitamin B12 or whatever. One of the antioxidants that people have in their multivitamins sometimes or even on their own is glutathione. Glutathione is an antioxidant that is composed of cysteine, glycine, and glutamic acid.

[01:53:19]Cyine is actually an amino acid. Um, and glutamate is very important for our neural control. So, glutathione is something that is used by our body as a combination of these things. Our uh cells use it a lot. Antioxidants are great because it helps our cells deal with some of that uh damage caused by oxygen throughout our lives.

[01:53:45]>> Oxygen's wonderful, but we're rusting because of it. And so, >> antioxidants help us not rust biologically.

[01:53:53]>> All right?

[01:53:54]>> And glutathione is one of those things.

[01:53:57]Researchers were just looking at glutathione and they're like, "Hey, glutathione is really awesome. It works really well in cells. It helps our mitochondria stay healthier, >> helps their processes go. But what is it doing and how is it doing that? And so, well, they really took a close look and they found out if you're looking at a model of a cell, you see the nucleus in the middle and it's okay, DNA is in there and it's like coming out of the nucleus and that is a strip of RNA that gets trans transferred to the RNA. I mean, gets to the ribosomes, right? And the ribosomes are like, we're making amino acids. We're making an amino acid chain out of the RNA D. And so then you've got this unfolded amino acid chain and it goes back to the endo wait end. Endoilic. Gosh darn it.

[01:54:57]I have said this word so many times in my life. The eer.

[01:55:06]Yes, it is. uh moving around through the I'm going to look at the endopplasmic reticulum. Jesus Christ.

[01:55:17]Okay. Not Jesus Christ. Endopplasmic reticulum.

[01:55:21]Er versus JC. Um so the endopplasmic reticulum. Yes. My brain and words work all the time. I need more lion's mane apparently.

[01:55:35]>> Yeah.

[01:55:36]>> Menopause is awesome. Just letting you know.

[01:55:40]>> Just so you know.

[01:55:41]>> Noted.

[01:55:44]>> So the endopplasmic reticulum, it takes in this chain of amino acids. And the endopplasmic reticulum is where the protein gets folded. It takes care of all the folding into that three-dimensional structure that becomes an enzyme or a catalyst or whatever it does within the cells.

[01:56:08]The endopplasmic reticulum loves glutathione.

[01:56:11]It takes an oxidized version of glutathione and glutathione is essential for protein folding.

[01:56:22]So this team that was just uh just publishing in their uh in their work in nature cell biology from Rockefeller University >> they realized that the endopplasmic reticulum is not just proofreading. It's not just folding and glutathione needs to be oxidized for the endopplasmic reticulum to use it. And while it's there in the endopplasmic reticulum, it is essential for folding proteins correctly.

[01:56:59]>> If it goes, so if there's a transporter protein that is essential for getting glutathione into the endopplasmic reticulum and if it's not working, the glutathione doesn't work right and you get misfolded proteins. And when you get misfolded proteins, what do you get, Philip?

[01:57:16]>> Disease.

[01:57:17]>> Yes. You get things that don't work. You get disease. You get dysfunction. You get Alzheimer's disease. You get dementia. You get >> so many cellular problems.

[01:57:30]>> So anyway, they have a target within the endopplasmic reticulum for potentially helping with some of these dis diseases of protein misfolding.

[01:57:41]>> Wow. Now, they also have a uh an answer as to why glutathione is so essential in some of these processes.

[01:57:52]>> And you can get it in a pill. You don't need it all the time though. It's a supplements.

[01:58:00]>> Unless you are deficient in things, you do not need supplements.

[01:58:04]>> Right.

[01:58:05]>> That's the >> right.

[01:58:06]>> Yeah.

[01:58:08]Um, that's >> Yeah, go ahead.

[01:58:11]>> Well, I was gonna say this was fas one of those things where it's like they find this just by doing this incredible detective work at this insanely, you know, fine-tuned microscopic level and they discover something that has huge implications throughout.

[01:58:28]>> It's fascinating. Fascinating.

[01:58:31]And I I think there's a lot like that where I don't know, we're seeing things that have impacts across our systems and it's like >> we're like this has a prescription only noted here but then it turns out to impact everything.

[01:58:49]>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I guess also if the rules there are certain rules, you know, there are certain properties or whatever that govern the system and uh they are present everywhere. Um and so if you can find out something that's going on somewhere, if you can then I guess find your way to the >> generalized rule that that governs that uh function, you might be able to do something far beyond that site, I guess, right? Mhm.

[01:59:21]>> Yeah.

[01:59:22]>> Absolutely. I did a a story a long time ago on a compound called ubiquitin.

[01:59:29]>> And it's really interesting because it ubiquitin comes from ubiquity meaning like everywhere ubiquitous, right? Being everywhere.

[01:59:43]>> Um and I had never heard of it before and it turns out it is ubiquitin. is in every cell of our body.

[01:59:51]It is an essential protein. There's a gene responsible for it. It there's multiple factors that impact how it is expressed and what happens with it >> and it's essential for everything and it is one of those things that people know don't know enough about and people ignore all the time.

[02:00:13]>> So, I was just like, "Wow, I want to find more things like this. This is so interesting.

[02:00:20]>> Yeah.

[02:00:21]>> But anyway, yeah, look up ubiquitin.

[02:00:24]>> Ubiquitin.

[02:00:25]>> Ubiquitin. It's fascinating. I have one last story cuz we're getting late late for you. You still look young and and spry.

[02:00:36]>> Very spry.

[02:00:39]>> Okay. This one though, it's, you know, it has to do with yawning. It's the nighttime story.

[02:00:44]>> I thought I love this. Yeah, this is a great question. Yeah, >> this is so sweet. So, published this week today coming out current biology, a cell press journal published prenatal behavioral contagion through maternal yawning and fetal resonance.

[02:01:05]What does this headline mean?

[02:01:07]Babies still in the womb yawn when their mothers do.

[02:01:14]>> What? Wow. Yeah, >> I did not see that coming. Just Yeah, that's amazing.

[02:01:20]>> Yes. So, they were able to look at um you know, they did they did tests on babies in the womb um looking at uh whether or not the mother would yawn and if the baby would yawn. And yes indeed, if the mother was prompted, not even like in a disease state or anything, they were prompting the mother to yawn.

[02:01:54]Yawn, yawn, yawn. The mother yawned.

[02:01:57]Within 90 seconds, the fetus would yawn.

[02:02:05]And they were able to show that it was a connected diad. So that this was not something that was stochastic or by chance, >> but that actually there is a connection between the yawning action in a mother and her uh fetal child.

[02:02:30]>> Amazing.

[02:02:33]But if they don't know the physical, you know, mechanism for that.

[02:02:39]>> No.

[02:02:39]>> Amazing.

[02:02:40]>> No, they just showed that it's like not by chance. This is the first study to actually just show it's not not by chance. And so the question is why? What is happening? Like if the mother yawns when it's a fake yawn versus a real yawn versus like a real like I'm low on oxygen yawn like what are the differences and is it a difference? It's 90 seconds, which is definitely long enough for nervous signaling to take place. But we know that that we have a chemical environment, but the placenta is really like is it pressure from the outside like squeezing the womb because of the yawn or is it blood pressure and a change to a chemical component? It's long enough for either of these things to be true, but a minute and a half later, 90 seconds on average, you have have the yawn.

[02:03:48]>> Or is it some I don't know if this is a legitimate legitimate question, but is it some sort of thought connection? You know, >> their thoughts are connected, right?

[02:03:58]>> I mean, this I think is a it's a huge question, right? Is it >> Oh, but I guess that you could easily test if the moment thought about. But >> yes, and I I can and I can say I never um >> felt a thought connection between myself and my son, but maybe that explains a lot now. I don't know.

[02:04:24]>> Yeah, >> that is what's interesting is that it took this long for somebody to ask that question, right? Like the picture here shows a it's a it's a kind of an illustration, but it shows a woman, >> a mother yawning, and then there's a picture of an ultrasound, I guess, like a 3D ultrasound, right, of the baby. So, you figure those have been around a long time.

[02:04:47]>> Yeah. So, we've known we've actually known for a very long time that >> babies in the womb yawn. It's been seen when we're doing ultrasounds, >> right? It's and and it's the same like especially once the fetus is old enough with the bone and muscular structure.

[02:05:04]It's the same organization. Everything resembles an adult yawn. M >> and people have said, well, maybe it's just babies yawn in uterero as part of learning how to breathe, or maybe it's a brain organization thing where the brain is testing out new signals.

[02:05:27]And and that could still be true, but they also this is the first time that it's been tested as a contagion, which we know it is.

[02:05:41]Right? So like if someone yawns, >> other people yawn, >> but it's usually you see the yawn or you hear the yawn or you're influ, you know, you're influenced by some social factor, right?

[02:05:55]>> How would it be a social factor with the babies, >> right? Oh, that is fascinating. And maybe that what's interesting is right that somehow perhaps the fact that we all that we do yawn when other people yawn goes back to the womb, >> right?

[02:06:11]>> That's kind of >> and that's one of those things, right?

[02:06:14]And we can see >> there's yawning of fish. Like there's all sorts of like evolutionarily yawning is something that goes way back.

[02:06:24]>> Oh, I didn't know that fish yawn. Yeah, yawning is not just a human kind of thing, but there's a >> the way and why humans do it is and especially the contagious part of it >> is what's not understood, >> right? And so the fact that there is a timed diad of the baby's yawning behavior that coincides in a certain way like synchronized with the mothers is >> that especially like in this in this setup it's not even a real yawn. The mother was >> like got a contagious yawn.

[02:07:11]>> Uhhuh. Right. So, it wasn't like the mom the mom was really tired or lacked oxygen or whatever. It was a contagious yawn for the mom and then the baby got a contagious yawn >> cuz the mom is watching in the illustration the mom is watching a computer screen, right? Where somebody yawns on the screen.

[02:07:27]>> Um, >> fascinating. Yeah. You know, I think in the last episode you you had a thing on yawning. There was another yawning thing. Yeah, >> I made lots of people yawn. I think I'm doing it again. I hope.

[02:07:39]But you said there that we don't know why people yawn. And I thought that was fascinating. Actually, my cat I know my cat yawns. She yawns all the time.

[02:07:47]>> Yeah.

[02:07:47]>> I'm clearly not entertaining enough.

[02:07:50]>> There's I'm going to yawn soon. It's like I can feel it in my like >> Yeah.

[02:07:54]>> my throat and my ear area. I'm like, >> "Yeah, >> I can hold it back. It's okay."

[02:08:00]>> Yeah.

[02:08:01]>> Wow. Fascinating. That's a good question. Yeah. So why why how we don't know. Last week we were talking about the yawning and it was >> uh something related to the flow of cerebral spinal fluid and lymph >> versus blood flow.

[02:08:22]>> And but it didn't really have to do with the contagious part of it. It just had to do with what it physiologically might be shifting. Um, but maybe this is doing it too. But why?

[02:08:37]>> This is what we don't know.

[02:08:38]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[02:08:39]>> Don't know the answer.

[02:08:40]>> It's fascinating. I have to confess that on my on my podcast, we this would turn into a question of what if you had a a malevolent overlord who used this to take over somehow, made everybody yawn, and they I don't know, they fell asleep. Yeah.

[02:08:58]Or all they could do was yawn.

[02:09:00]>> That's all they could.

[02:09:01]>> There it comes.

[02:09:04]>> Oh, there it is. It's sitting there.

[02:09:05]It's a It was a small one. It wasn't one of the big yawns, but it was there. It was real. It came.

[02:09:10]>> I made We We made >> We made that happen.

[02:09:14]>> That's very good. But you're refreshed after a yawn. I feel like a little bit little bit >> like a mini True.

[02:09:19]>> Like a mini nap.

[02:09:21]>> Yeah.

[02:09:22]>> Right. which is the cerebral spinal fluid. Getting rid of, you know, waste products, helping to get move the liymph, the the old lymph out and the new lymph in, getting new blood in, you know, it's part of that. It's very important. And it would be important for babies, too. But maybe how how is the contagion taught in the womb?

[02:09:47]I am not going to get over this. Oh my gosh. Um, >> yeah. And have have they I'm going to guess they've tested >> and the malevolent overlord then is teaching the mothers to teach the babies so everyone will always be subject to yawns.

[02:10:05]>> Time for our yawn. Stand up nation.

[02:10:08]>> I am up for our yawn.

[02:10:12]>> Um but have they tested things like the if the mom moves her left hand, does the baby move their hand? The mom moves her.

[02:10:20]Are there other things like that?

[02:10:22]>> I think that's a great question. I I will look into that. They didn't have that as part of it. They were looking at um opening or closing their eyes versus a still face versus a yawn.

[02:10:40]>> And so only facial movements, not body.

[02:10:43]Um but I don't know. So I don't know about other body movements.

[02:10:47]>> Yeah. And so in this case, all they could say was that the yawn was the thing that was connected and not just having a still face or opening opening or closing your mouth, not your eyes, your mouth.

[02:11:06]>> Oh yeah.

[02:11:08]>> So if the mother just opened and closed their mouth, that was not synchronized. That was not connected.

[02:11:18]>> Yeah. Yeah. This I'm so glad they're yawn.

[02:11:22]>> Yeah.

[02:11:24]>> What were we going to say? A yawn.

[02:11:26]>> I'm going to yawn again.

[02:11:35]>> Up later than me. Geez.

[02:11:37]>> Yeah. Yeah. I tell you, New York, you know, we're used to >> it. you from being subject to yawning, I guess. Geez, >> it's true. It's true. Um, I was be a joke in there like, yeah, well, we only do that when we think of Los Angeles.

[02:11:55]That's all >> or New Jersey or, you know, >> humor. I'm a fan.

[02:12:04]>> Yeah. Oh, good.

[02:12:06]I'm so glad there are people out there who uh um look into this situation all these situations.

[02:12:15]>> Thank goodness. Yeah, >> it is a basis of understanding. So, and this is one of those things where people could turn it into like a why were people funded to study, >> right?

[02:12:27]>> Yawns in babies like who cares? What does this really tell us? Oh my gosh, they laughed about it on this podcast radio show, blah blah blah blah blah.

[02:12:38]But when it comes down to it, if we can understand the developmental basis for reflexes like this, for the behavior that we do, it can also help us understand all of like it. It really comes down to understanding dysfunction, >> right? understanding how breathing goes wrong, how sleep apnnea happens, how um gosh, you know, when babies die in the in the crib because of be whatever the crib death. Um I'm sorry I'm putting words lost me again. I didn't lose words. Word words lost me.

[02:13:21]>> That's right. Um but there are so many places where if we can understand the basis for how these behaviors even start we can understand so much more about ourselves as we exist alone independently and with others and we can have a better society. That's what I think but >> that's what I'd like. Thank you F Sids.

[02:13:50]Yes, that's the one.

[02:13:54]>> I should know. I'm a mom.

[02:13:56]>> I read all this stuff once upon a time.

[02:13:59]>> I can imagine.

[02:14:02]>> Um uh what was I going to say? Um >> I don't know.

[02:14:07]>> I know. I forgot it. Um Oh, I I've always often thought I here's I'm often surprised I'm constantly surprised actually >> as a non-scientist as a lapsed scientist. um that how much we don't know, >> you know. Um, and I always thought it would be fun to do a show like it'd be a great TV show or it could be a podcast just what we don't know because I think most people think we know every we know just about everything and we're working on like we're fine-tuning things you know >> there is I mean because there is some of it that is >> yeah let's talk about the >> fine-tuning we don't know right so when we talk about >> our climate change models >> what would what would make them more accurate what what don't we know like what would make them better, but also like what don't we know about the universe? What don't we know about psychology? What don't we know about people? Like, oh, it would be so great.

[02:15:05]And I I I think I used to get mad at like there were a couple of books, one called like the end of science.

[02:15:13]>> Uhhuh. which is, you know, based on physics really, but it's like >> based on this idea that like >> we're getting to the end of asking questions. We're almost done. There we go. And I was like, what do you mean?

[02:15:35]Every every time we find something, there are more questions. Like every I think every time we like talk about something on Twist, >> I have more questions afterwards.

[02:15:47]>> Yeah, for sure.

[02:15:48]>> And sometimes I'm like, I didn't even know that was a question. Now I have more questions. Right.

[02:15:52]>> Yeah, that's right. That's right. That's right. I think in in biology that was sim I remember I think Gabby once was talking about um that early in biology too there. I guess every every science probably went through this period where we're like we're almost done.

[02:16:06]>> Almost.

[02:16:07]>> We've almost figured it out. Yeah, >> that's just a bunch of hubris.

[02:16:12]>> Yeah, >> people people in their >> The worst hubris is the ones who say we have figured it out and we're done.

[02:16:18]That's that's a bad thing. Um >> and there are some scientists who are a little bit like that. Um they get stuck, you know.

[02:16:27]I try not, but you know, >> yeah, >> I try to show people that we can do more and there's more to ask questions about and more to think about. And >> I think it be it'd be nice if I could be wrong, but I feel like we've lost a bit of the sense of wonder like that that used to be more of our culture, right?

[02:16:52]That in the days of Carl Sean or I don't know. Um, >> and Artemis mission, there was a moment, you know, where I think people did sort of look to have that feeling again briefly.

[02:17:04]>> Everybody at the same time, it was so beautiful.

[02:17:09]>> Yeah.

[02:17:10]>> Yeah. But so much of the time everything is so negative, you know, so to be able to connect with that, that's why that's why I love listening to your >> your podcast and others, you know, like it or other shows, too. Um, it's like you just get to learn amazing stuff and hear about people doing incredible things, positive things, you know.

[02:17:32]>> Thank you. I mean, that's what I love.

[02:17:35]That's what I love doing and telling those stories, talking about that stuff and and celebrating the idea and the fact that we can all be curious about this stuff together and that we can all learn new things together and that >> we can all find out that there is more beyond just our dayto-day, right? That there is >> there's so much more out there to be excited about. I I don't know.

[02:18:01]>> That's a beautiful Let's all be curious together. That's a beautiful sentiment.

[02:18:05]I love that. That's very cool. That's very cool.

[02:18:09]>> I think it's fun. So, I'm sitting here and I've got I've got uh no more stories.

[02:18:18]>> All right.

[02:18:19]>> We're at the end of we're at the end of the hour and do you have any any stories that we just didn't talk about? Anything that you want to cover?

[02:18:33]Uh, no, I don't think so. We did a lot a lot at the beginning. That was really good.

[02:18:37]>> Yeah, it was very good. It was very good. Um, >> I mean, we could talk about Well, I could just talk a tiny bit about the art about the science of the Artemis mission.

[02:18:47]>> I would love that. I love the Artemis.

[02:18:49]Yeah, let's talk for one minute about that. Yeah.

[02:18:53]Um so uh the Aremis mission involved um exploration and uh bravery and obviously physics and great engineering and all that kind of stuff and technology. For instance, they even they tried some new technology in communications. They tried using an optical transmission or something like that, you know, to do get bigger files down faster, stuff like that. Um but obviously a substantial part of it was science and um it was really wonderful to get to see if you watched the um the mission over the 10 days or so that it was in operation. It was great to see like the science team get so much press time. You know again you have to watch the NASA press conferences. So, um, I forget her name, but the the young woman who ran the science team, you know, came out and spoke and they showed they had cameras and there were like two >> two rooms full of all these scientists waiting >> for the astronauts to start reporting back about what they saw >> on the on the moon. And something that's fascinating, I'm still want to learn more about this, but you know, we've had satellites going around the moon for a long time. We've had people on the moon.

[02:20:09]We've had satellites going around the moon. We've had telesc telescopes trained on the moon. You know, we we study the moon all the time. And so here were these four astronauts and they were just going to look at the moon and take some pictures. Uh but the looking at the moon and reporting back I I thought was like what a strange thing. Like how is that even valuable? You know, it's just like well it looks kind of cool. I don't know, you know. Um but they had trained they were like look we have this opportunity whatever they're going to be there. what science can they do? And um >> there were two things they said. One that um they can be trained as uh geologists basically planetary geologists, lunar lunar geologists and um Oh, did I lose you?

[02:20:59]>> No, I just I just gave you the stage.

[02:21:01]>> I love it for you.

[02:21:04]>> That's all. I'm sitting right here.

[02:21:05]>> Thank you. Thank you. I'm on the moon.

[02:21:09]So, um they uh they were given all this information about you know this is this is how the geology of the moon works.

[02:21:16]These are patterns you should see. Let us know if you see these patterns. But one of the things just one of the many many things they were asked to report on was colors in the surface of the on the surface of the moon that there are these extremely subtle and it's funny because like I'm color blind. probably yet another reason I wouldn't have made it to the astronaut crew. But um there are these very very >> you you and Blair both >> but it depends on the colors that are varying, right? Is it red green >> or is it like >> blues? What are the what are the colors?

[02:21:52]>> My eye doctor once gave me he showed me those there are these tests, right?

[02:21:56]Where all these patterns of dots and you're supposed to Anyway, so he had 13 of these. He he went through them one, two, three, four and I answered all of them.

[02:22:03]And he says, "Well, you missed a couple." And I said, "How many?" He's like, "14."

[02:22:07]>> All of them. All of them.

[02:22:11]>> Yeah. But we've talked about it before.

[02:22:13]My brother, we found out he was colorblind at the California Exploratorium because they had >> an exhibit with those dot trails within circles.

[02:22:25]>> And I was like, and my brother was like, "What are you talking about?" And my dad went, "What?

[02:22:33]So >> totally >> very familiar totally >> from a distance.

[02:22:37]>> Yeah. But but so there are these very very very subtle and and uh colors even in the sort of in the shadows sort of you could see some colors could be different. So that was one of the things they reported back on and that told them different materials that were on the moon. Um but also they could with all the pictures they took. You can actually go online, you can see they basically turn the saturation up in all the all these photographs and you can see, oh, this these are the colors that they were talking about. Um, but anyway, it just it was fascinating that they they did all that and then they saw the the solar eclipse and and uh they could look back at the earth and see all these different kinds of things. So um uh you know I just thought it was a beautiful moment to get to see people doing science live you know and then the process just to see the excitement of all of them doing it like you saw science live in a way and they just recently and I encourage everyone to go go to the NASA website.

[02:23:33]Oh yeah you found it. Yeah they was that or anyway on the NASA Artemis website now they've just um uploaded like 12,000 of the uh pictures. I think there's even more more coming.

[02:23:45]>> Yeah, some of these are uh these images I'm not exactly sure if they are color assisted or if they're from NASA.

[02:23:56]>> Um, >> right.

[02:23:57]>> Yeah. Well, they're definitely >> I'm just I've just done a what I'm showing right now on our screen is just a Google search. So, >> yep.

[02:24:03]>> If you're watching, do not do not expect that there's a rainbow of fruit flavors on the moon.

[02:24:11]>> Yeah. But but that is I mean I don't know if these are every one of these is exact but that is what the pictures look like. Um especially there that one in the bottom right there you can see. Um yeah really cool. And then um uh somebody then you know took so this basically they would take they would hit the shutter button on their camera often and just shoot like you know a zillion at a time right and so you had a series of them and people are taking those and turning them into little movies because they're essentially little little movies or little time-lapse movies. And Hank Green uh today was showing some that um you could see when pictures of the Earth and you could see the aurora moving along the one side, but then you could see thunder thunderstorms, lightning flashing on another >> and then you could see all around satellites >> uh moving, you know, and he said, "Wow, this is like this planet is alive." Like if you just came here, you'd be like, "Oh, yeah. There's a lot going on here.

[02:25:15]>> There's stuff going on. Yeah.

[02:25:17]>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty cool. Pretty cool.

[02:25:20]>> Oh, I can't wait to I can't wait to dig into these these photos.

[02:25:24]>> Yeah.

[02:25:24]>> From NASA. Thank you for this. I didn't realize.

[02:25:27]>> Yeah. And the the resolution of them obviously is, you know, they're much better.

[02:25:30]>> Super.

[02:25:31]>> Now that they're downloaded, you can see insane insanely high quality. Stunning.

[02:25:36]>> Not just the like very small, you know, 20 bit 20 bits per second that they were sending or whatever.

[02:25:43]>> Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. And you know what one of the coolest things is? I'll end with this that they sent them up there with iPhones so that they could There may have been other reasons for it as well, but basically they they took pictures with very high quality cameras, but they also had these iPhones and they shot >> some of these. This just like a video that literally of them shooting out the window, zooming in. It's all out of focus and then it focuses and like, oh, that's the Earth right behind the moon.

[02:26:11]And it it feels so You can relate to it so much and yet it's the moon. It's like really crazy.

[02:26:17]>> Yeah, there are some the some of the images they're so ridiculous you can't >> Yeah, >> they're gorgeous. And they showing >> There you go. Yeah.

[02:26:29]>> Showing some of these incredible images.

[02:26:32]So for for instance like where the earth is on the other side of the moon >> or um you know where you've got all of them looking out the window looking at things.

[02:26:45]>> Uh >> there's one image and I'm not seeing it but there's one image where like somebody's hand is just barely in front of this incredible image of the moon with the earth just poking up right behind it. And so an interesting thing about that is they the crew asked that they not say that this picture was taken by this person and this picture was taken by that person. Not because of a privacy thing. It's just the crew. And so we don't know whose hand that is.

[02:27:15]>> Interestingly, >> they know.

[02:27:18]>> They probably know. Yeah.

[02:27:20]>> But you know it it's not whose hand it is that matters.

[02:27:24]>> That's right. It's humanity's hand.

[02:27:27]>> Yeah.

[02:27:28]>> Oh yeah. These are amazing pictures.

[02:27:29]Yeah. They're gorgeous.

[02:27:32]But I think um considering the colors of I love this one where it's just the dark >> Yeah.

[02:27:40]>> dark side of the moon. We've got a little bit of the the lit side of the moon with its cratering and the very very tip this edge of the earth showing up over Earth. Right.

[02:27:53]>> You should watch. You can see the the movie of that moment.

[02:27:57]>> Yeah. And they're all like talking and like, "Oh my god, look at that."

[02:28:03]>> What an amazing thing to have been part of. Like these astronauts got to be part of a hugely >> impactful human moment. And it is >> so incredible just >> Yeah. I mean, >> they also had cameras. They put They actually put GoPro cameras, you know, just like things you would use when you're skateboarding. um on the ends of the solar panels that were outside the ship. So they would take take >> Yes. So they did get some out outside.

[02:28:34]Um lawn is gonna turn into a pumpkin. Oh my gosh. Yes. It's getting late for people. I know. Um but with this I mean I think you mentioned the being able to see see Earth and see Earth as a ship.

[02:28:52]>> Yeah. with its own crew and being able to see how delicate and how vulnerable our atmosphere is, how our biosphere is just this thin layer of of protection >> over, you know, over our beautiful blue planet. And I just feel like that is something that um you know when Captain Kirk came back.

[02:29:26]>> Yeah.

[02:29:26]>> You know the the the overlook effect the the impact of going to space and seeing our planet as the blue marbor blue marble where all of humanity is contained.

[02:29:41]>> The impact that that has on people.

[02:29:44]I people want to figure out how to share that so that we can work together as the crew of this ship, >> right? That we can that we can write it before the storms take us out.

[02:29:59]>> Yep. Yeah.

[02:30:01]>> I believe we can >> we should get along.

[02:30:04]>> Yeah.

[02:30:05]>> I mean, or if we don't get along that we have processes to respect each other and figure out a path through. Yeah.

[02:30:14]>> Like I mean I think that is like one of the biggest >> issues is >> now people not talking to each other, people being just angry and only wanting to be angry and not wanting to fix things.

[02:30:30]>> It'll work itself out. This will do.

[02:30:32]Blah blah blah. No. I mean, of course, it will work itself out, but if we want things to work for us as humans, if we want this planet to last, we have to mediate. We have to manage.

[02:30:45]We have to do it >> because no one is making this up except for us.

[02:30:51]Like, I get so frustrated sometimes.

[02:30:56]>> Yep.

[02:30:57]>> But then I get to come here and talk about science with people like you and it's great.

[02:31:02]>> Likewise. Likewise. Everyone in the chat room, don't turn into a pumpkin, but it is probably time for bed. And I will say uh F was trying to remind me that I missed one of my stories tonight, which is about a big giant pit in Sweden. And um in Sweden, what a company is doing is that they are developing they're digging a big giant pit like the size of two football pitches and it's deep and they're going to make a giant flow battery. And so they're going to do a big giant flow battery that could power like 200 300,000 homes worth of battery power like 2 whatever almost three gigahertz or gigawatt not hertz gigawatts of power um with a very fast uh recharge and decharge rate as well where it's over one gig one one gigawatt that very quickly. Um, it sounds like a wonderful technology. I did a video when I was on Twit with Green Energy.

[02:32:12]>> Oh, wow.

[02:32:13]>> Years ago on flow batteries, I got uh really I got help doing a actually drawn by hand whiteboard video.

[02:32:22]>> It's somewhere on the internet, I'm sure.

[02:32:25]>> I got to go find it. But um, >> what is a flow battery? Is it >> a flow battery? is basically using it's it's a lot of water but it's basically using ions >> sodium on one side. So the same way that like a neuron >> is can be powered by the gradient across a membrane >> where if you have more positive charge on one side more negative charge on the other >> it'll lead to a flow across the membrane from the positive to the negative.

[02:32:58]>> Mh. And so you can fill two sides, two tanks across a membrane of a certain composition and >> you can take in solar, wind, whatever energy and put it, pump it into the positive side, >> fill it up, and that battery, it'll flow across to the other side until it is in a homeostatic or balanced state. And then if you need to use the battery, you pull out the plug on the other side and then you have flow and you have charge flow across because as you remove charge from one side, it needs to flow across and so you have a power different a gradient >> a differential that creates current.

[02:33:49]>> Cool. And so flow batteries have been considered as a largecale solution to a lot of our battery problems, but people really really want us to use like these heavy metals and lithium ion and you know metal ion batteries across the board. Um >> but I don't think all solutions are correct for this. This is however the biggest scale test of a flow battery design for like a major use. And what they're planning to do is create a major data campus at this site where it would be a data center. It would also be a technology campus.

[02:34:32]>> It would be a place for companies to build and they're trying to create, you know, create a, you know, a little tech boom in this area.

[02:34:42]We'll see how it works.

[02:34:43]>> Very cool.

[02:34:44]>> I think it's I'm excited about it because it doesn't need to be fossil powered. It doesn't need um >> precious metals to run.

[02:34:53]>> Um >> and storage is the whole storage is the problem with green energy, right?

[02:34:59]Obviously, you have to store the for when it's not the wind isn't blowing or the sun isn't shining.

[02:35:03]>> Yeah.

[02:35:04]>> And it's this is a big storage facility basically. And flow batteries, they're an old technology, a proven technology.

[02:35:13]There's no reason why this should not work, >> especially with modern materials, modern catalysts, modern um modern methods of getting the power in and out. I really think they have a chance. And um I think it's one of the technologies, like I mentioned earlier, the fight is on. And I think it's one of the technologies that is being squashed because of its promise.

[02:35:43]>> Oh, >> but don't quote me on that.

[02:35:47]>> That's a good cliffhanger.

[02:35:50]>> That's a good cliffhanger right there.

[02:35:52]>> Yeah.

[02:35:53]>> All right, everybody. Yeah. No swimming.

[02:35:55]No swimming in the flow batteries, Paul.

[02:35:58]No. No swimming. This is not a swimming pool. The batteries will eat you alive.

[02:36:03]Like, really?

[02:36:05]I'll eat you up. Okay, we're going to close the show. We done?

[02:36:11]We're done.

[02:36:12]>> Thank you for having me. This is really This has been such a pleasure, such a treat. And I've learned so as I always do every episode, but like this one, I actually got to ask direct questions of the doctor.

[02:36:22]>> That's right. As you were listening, you're like, "Oh, well, let me ask you."

[02:36:26]>> It's like, "Wow, high bandwidth this time." Very cool.

[02:36:31]>> Thank you. Thank you. It's an honor to be here and I appreciate it and I hope that Blair gets better and >> I do too, >> everybody.

[02:36:38]>> She's been going through it recently.

[02:36:39]It's >> I would love to have her come back in full health and energy. And speaking of which, oh my gosh, I almost forgot to announce that tomorrow Blair's new podcast is launching. So Blair has a brand new podcast that is about um it's basically taking uh animal cryptozoolology and what ifing and dnding it. And so they're playing they're playing the what if D&D game but with cryptobiology. So could this animal exist?

[02:37:23]>> How would it act? What would it do?

[02:37:26]>> Wow.

[02:37:27]>> Blair's the zoologologist. They've got game players and they are off and running with a lot of creativity. And so, um, let me actually because I forgot to make sure that I had the name of that podcast ready to go. I told Blair that I would share it and then I was like, the ADHD brain went somewhere else. Uh, >> so basically they're going to they're going to like roll for the properties of the creature.

[02:38:00]>> They have. Yeah. So they've got a number of episodes that they've already recorded that are going to be released every week or two and um each one deals with like a different cryptozoological creature with different >> cool >> traits and how would it exist in a particular um in a particular environment. And uh uh uh uh Blair, you're probably in bed right now. FD, do you remember? Yes. A flow battery just flows, man.

[02:38:33]Uh-oh. I clicked on a button and I went to the very bottom of our This is part of the show that Rachel should be editing out. I hope.

[02:38:43]Shout out to the editors. Yeah, I salute editors everywhere.

[02:38:48]>> Thank you.

[02:38:52]Yes.

[02:38:54]Let's see. I'm going to text messages with Blair to see so I can give you the exact information about her podcast so that I'm not telling you the wrong thing. Oh my gosh, I have so many text messages about her being sick.

[02:39:15]I don't think it goes It only goes back to April 1st.

[02:39:19]Ah, that's sad.

[02:39:22]Okay, try again. Blair, look at this. Pepsi Cola, you're laughing at me. I see you.

[02:39:37]Oh my gosh.

[02:39:45]Giant bacon to Oh, you're m user. You're making up new animals. I just figured it out.

[02:39:53]>> Giant bacon tube.

[02:39:55]>> You're cracking me up. Oh my god.

[02:40:06]Twist.

[02:40:08]No.

[02:40:10]I feel like a I feel like Thank you, Paul Disney. You're the best.

[02:40:17]Oh my gosh.

[02:40:19]>> Okay, everybody.

[02:40:21]>> Paul Disney, this was this was a group effort. I really appreciate this because I do not want to let Blair down.

[02:40:28]>> Check out Blair's new podcast. It is released and hopefully F will share this with the Twist social media this week.

[02:40:37]Um, fantastical field guide is the name of the podcast and fantastic ball field guide.

[02:40:55]I think it's on a cast and it's on Instagram.

[02:41:05]Yes.

[02:41:07]and maybe yeah, Fantastical Field Guide. So, I'm going to on Instagram it is fantastical field guide and I'm going to share this tab right now because you will be able to see um Blair and >> her husband Brian >> their dog.

[02:41:33]>> Amazing. Cute little cute little corgi.

[02:41:36]Blair and their co-host. So Blair, Jesse, and Brian.

[02:41:42]>> That's great.

[02:41:42]>> Fantastical Field Guide. And I'm not logged into Instagram right now, so I can't give that to you. But if you look for fantastical field guide, and we will get a link out in the twist show notes for everybody so that it'll make it easy for you to get the first episode and to um make sure that you can check it out.

[02:42:07]>> Very cool. I'll sign up for that.

[02:42:09]>> I love the idea of it. Fantastical field guide. Very cool.

[02:42:17]>> Why is the first big thing? It It's not the right website.

[02:42:24]She sent me a link. I am such a >> I am such a poor mentor helper. Look at me. I'm like, I'm failing.

[02:42:36]Thank you, Paul.

[02:42:38]Yes. Tomorrow. Look for it. Look for her Instagram. look for it on all like if you go to Instagram, if you go to these places, you'll be able to find the links to it and you'll be able to subscribe and I will help share any social media out there about this tomorrow. So, um hopefully we'll get her a lot of listens.

[02:42:58]>> Yeah, >> the fantastical field guide. Okay, we did that. And now, now, thank you. Thank you everyone for reminding me of the thing that I was gonna forget and I had told Blair that I would do not failing entirely. Thank you everyone for keeping me up on all of the of the needs. It's time to end the show. Time to say good night. Time to say thank you. Thank you all of you here tonight.

[02:43:30]Thank you Paul. Thank you, Paul, for helping out with me finding Blair's podcast.

[02:43:38]Thank you for recording the show as well. Thank you everyone in the chat room for being in the chat room, keeping it a great place to be. All of you are just special in the fact that we are able to create this compassionate, respectful commu community that can talk about all this stuff. Thank you for being here and doing this. Vada, thank you for your help with social media and show notes. Rachel, thank you for editing the show. Phillip Shane, thank you for guest hosting tonight on short notice and for being here for the whole time and wanting to talk about science and other cool things for so long.

[02:44:17]>> Absolutely. Thank you, Dr. Kiki, for all your for all your work and all your shows over all those year all these years.

[02:44:25]>> Thank you.

[02:44:26]>> Wonderful.

[02:44:26]>> Where can people find you? Where should they find you as a reminder? What the If? We just talked about Blair's podcast. Where should people find you?

[02:44:34]>> Yeah, you can find out about my podcast.

[02:44:35]Whatthe.com um is a place to find that. And it's also available on all the uh all the finer uh podcast places like Apple Podcast, Spotify, uh Overcast, which I like in particular, and and lots of others. Um come check it out if you've not heard it before. And Patreon, we're also on Patreon as well. And uh you can find out more about my film stuff. Um and also I by the way for those who are interested I teach um classes in AI for creative people just want to learn little little bit of fun stuff uh you can go to my website philipshane.com that's philip with one L that's all my parents could afford shane.com there it is >> that's funny you can contact me now it's all we had all we Awesome. I love that you have an AI class. I love that you have podcast. There's so much that you do. This is great. Thank you for sharing.

[02:45:36]>> Thank you for being a part of this right now. I appreciate it.

[02:45:40]Go Aggies. Yeah.

[02:45:46]And finally, let me give thanks to our Patreon sponsors.

[02:45:54]Thank you to Aaron Anathema, Adam Mishkan, Alan Viola, Alli Coffin, Andrew Swanson, Ardum, Arthur Kepler, Bob Calder, Bob Kohl's, Brendan Minish, Brian Car. I'm I'm not even showing this on the stage. There we are. Brian Carrington, Chris Wniak, Christopher Dryer, Christopher Rapen, Craig Landon, Craig Pots, Daryl Mshacks, Dave Wilkinson, David E Younglug, Don Mundus, EO, Eden Mundell, Eric Nap, Flying Out, Fred 104, G Burn, Latimore, Greg Briggs, Jack, Jason Olds, John Atwood, John McKe, John Ratn, Swami, Johnny Gidley, Ken Hayes, Kent North Coat, Kevin Perachan, Kevin Rearden, Kurt Larson, Lon Makes, Lauren Gford, Marjorie Girtz, Mary Girtz, Marjorie, Mark Kessenflow, Mark Jenkins, Noodles, Patrick Beckeraro, Paul Dne, Paul Ronovich, Philip Shane, Yeah.

[02:46:37]>> Richard Badge, Robert Farley, Rodney Lewis, Rudy Garcia, Day, Sean Clarence, Lab, Shoe Brew, Steven Albron, Steve Leeman, aka Zema, Sue Dostster, Teresa Smith, Tony Steel, and Vagard Chef Stad.

[02:46:51]Thank you for your support on Patreon.

[02:46:54]Can't do it without you. And if anyone would be interested in helping to keep the show going, to help out every month, head over to twist.org, Click on that Patreon link and choose the level of your support.

[02:47:09]Whatever you can give helps. And I did see some new new patrons this month who I am so thankful for. Thank you very much. Woot woot woot. And um I'm going to say all this stuff that Blair and I usually go back and forth about unless you want to do cold read here and be Blair Phillip.

[02:47:31]>> Oh.

[02:47:33]Let me see. Uh >> Oh, wait. What?

[02:47:37]>> Yeah, I could be.

[02:47:39]>> You could be Blair.

[02:47:40]>> This is segment nine close.

[02:47:43]>> Yes, we are in segment nine clothes.

[02:47:45]>> I'll be >> and I'm going to say right now on next week's show. Hopefully Blair will be back and we are going to be speaking with the on the author of Your Unicorn Career, >> Elena Lavine. So, please don't miss it.

[02:48:04]>> And we will be back on Wednesday at 8:00 PM Pacific time broadcasting live from our Twitch, YouTube, and Facebook channels.

[02:48:12]>> And if you want to listen to us as a podcast, search for This Week in Science wherever podcasts are found. And if you enjoy the show, put it on your friends podcast players as well. Get them to subscribe, too, please. That'd be great.

[02:48:27]>> Totally. And for more information on anything you've heard here today, show notes and links to stories will be available on our website, www.twistwis.org.

[02:48:39]And you can also sign up for our newsletter.

[02:48:43]>> That's absolutely true. And I have ideas for the newsletter. Told you last week.

[02:48:49]Maybe something special. I don't know.

[02:48:50]But we'd love your feedback. If there's a topic you would like us to cover or address, suggestion for an interview, please let us know on one of our social media accounts or send us an email. Just make sure you put twist in the subject line so your email doesn't get spam filtered into, let's see, where would it get spam filtered into this time? It would get spam filtered Oh, into that giant pit they're digging in Sweden.

[02:49:18]>> Yeah.

[02:49:20]And uh I am so excited and honored to be able to read this line that says, "We look forward to discussing science with you again next week." And if you've learned anything from the show, remember >> it's all in your head.

[02:49:42]>> This week in science.

[02:49:46]This week in science.

[02:49:49]This week in science.

[02:49:53]This week in science. It's the end of the world. So I'm setting up shop. Got my banner unfurled. It says the scientist is in. I'm going to sell my advice. Show them how to stop the robots with a simple device. I'll reverse global warming with a wave of my hand.

[02:50:10]And all it'll cost you is a couple of grand.

[02:50:16]This week, science is coming your way.

[02:50:19]So, everybody listen to what I say. I use the scientific method for all that it's worth. And I'll broadcast my opinion all over the earth.

[02:50:31]Cuz it's this week in science. This week in science. This week in science.

[02:50:37]Science. Science. This week in science.

[02:50:40]This week in science. This week in science, >> science, >> science, science, science, science.

[02:50:53]>> It's the after show, but Phillip, thank you so much. It was so fun to talk with you tonight.

[02:51:01]>> Super fun. Thank you for having me. It was really great. And I did. I learned so much. I learned so much. It's amazing.

[02:51:07]>> Yay.

[02:51:07]>> Very cool. Yay. This is what I hope that people will listen or watch and go, "Oh my gosh, there's so many things."

[02:51:18]If you learned one new thing, isn't it worth it?

[02:51:21]>> Yeah. Actually, it's it is honestly, it is amazing how much uh you jam into your shows. Like, it's an incredible amount of information. And >> but I mean, it could be long.

[02:51:35]>> You want to you have to listen to it.

[02:51:38]podcast you listen to um you know you you might listen to it all at once or you might listen to it just you know like a book. Um I remember uh Leo when Leo Leaport was just starting uh this week in tech and like around 2000 the year 2000ish he kept trying different lengths of shows and he kept trying he he would even talk about it. He's like, "We're trying to figure out. We don't know what what length do people want."

[02:52:04]And in their mind, they he's like, "They kept going very long. They'd be like two hours long." And he's like, "They clearly nobody wants that." So they kept trying to get it down to an hour. They And then he said >> people watched, the people listened.

[02:52:16]>> That's right. He said eventually people started saying actually three hours turned out to be the preferred length.

[02:52:22]And of course then he ended up doing it 247.

[02:52:26]But >> and now I just have a 24-hour show, >> right?

[02:52:30]Yeah. Yeah.

[02:52:31]>> No. Yeah. It's it is something you know I think the reality is that you will find your people >> and that if you have like our world is what 8 and a half billion people now.

[02:52:49]>> Yeah.

[02:52:51]>> Yeah.

[02:52:54]You can find some people who will want to be a part of what you make. It just like don't be greedy and think I need all eight billion to listen to me.

[02:53:08]>> Find your people. It doesn't have to be it doesn't have to be hundreds and thousands. It doesn't it could be 10. It could be like what is it worth to you?

[02:53:18]>> Like what is it worth you build? Like honestly, I think it's it's it's not just making a show. It's building a a community, right? It's >> Yeah.

[02:53:27]>> It's finding it's finding your people.

[02:53:30]>> Yeah.

[02:53:31]>> All these people here, you all the people in the chat.

[02:53:35]>> Yeah.

[02:53:36]>> Now, I remember when I was at uh >> people when I was at History Channel and we did this Einstein documentary and then, you know, I got to go in and meet with the executives and pitch other ideas for shows >> and um you know, I had this idea, that idea, whatever. and she said uh she said, "You know, I'll be honest with you. Um these are great ideas, but we and she said we need to have a minimum of a million viewers per uh episode.

[02:54:03]That's just how it works out. That's how it breaks even for them.

[02:54:08]>> Yeah, it breaks even.

[02:54:09]>> That's where you realize Yeah, that's why we can you have you have to do something where your infrastructure is not nearly so vast.

[02:54:15]>> Um it's cool to have all Look, it's great. It's great to honestly it's great to do that stuff where you put it on the air and everybody you know sees it.

[02:54:23]>> I mean that's awesome.

[02:54:25]>> Yeah.

[02:54:26]>> Yeah.

[02:54:27]>> That's awesome. I've gotten to be a part of some of those shows, >> right? Like weird shows that like talk about science or history or whatever and like >> people are like, "I saw you when I was at like the car rental place at the airport. Like you you were on the TV."

[02:54:47]What?

[02:54:48]>> Yeah, that's cool. That's cool.

[02:54:50]>> Yeah.

[02:54:51]>> Yeah.

[02:54:51]>> I did.

[02:54:51]>> Well, I I remember we when I was when you were in New York and I was filming a little a little documentary about you and one of the things we did was we went to Rockefeller Center and you talked about Didn't you start out at >> uh WRC? Not Not WRC.

[02:55:06]>> WC WNC. Exactly.

[02:55:09]>> WRC is where I started in Washington.

[02:55:11]>> Yeah.

[02:55:11]>> Um but uh Yeah. Yeah. That's cool.

[02:55:16]>> Yeah. I mean, I just remember writing writing the elevator and at the time, you know, it was um oh gosh, I'm forgetting people's names now. It's terrible. Um >> Hal Roker, >> Alro, >> weather guy. Like always like >> Bernice from Madison, Wisconsin is 120 years old. And >> that's right. and and he was on the on the elevator once and he commented on my outfit.

[02:55:51]>> Huh, nice.

[02:55:52]>> It's like >> fashion check by Al Roker.

[02:55:55]>> Yeah. I was like, "Oh, I'm looking a little bit too like Comic-Con gothy right now." I was like, "Oops."

[02:56:04]>> That's funny.

[02:56:05]>> It is a look. Noted. Noted. And then um Ann Curry >> was uh someone that I ran into and she was amazing.

[02:56:19]>> I just remember even in passing >> and here I was I was like a nobody, you know, I'm on a fellowship. I'm doing the local news, right?

[02:56:33]But something happened and she interacted with me and she was kind and respectful and for the rest of the like I was like, "Okay, I love you."

[02:56:45]>> Nice.

[02:56:45]>> You're my favorite.

[02:56:48]And Curry, you win.

[02:56:50]>> Yeah.

[02:56:51]>> That's cool.

[02:56:53]>> Yeah.

[02:56:54]Yeah. It was interesting. I got in an argument with somebody in the cafeteria about beats.

[02:57:04]But what about him?

[02:57:06]>> About whether or not they tasted like dirt.

[02:57:10]>> Yeah.

[02:57:14]>> I was of the opinion that beets were great and they were of the opinion that they were dirt. And so we ended up like somehow we got like teams across the salad bar from each other.

[02:57:26]>> Pizza dirt. Pizza are great.

[02:57:31]That's funny.

[02:57:31]>> I mean, it was really small teams, like three people, but >> Right. Right. Exactly.

[02:57:36]>> But it's lunchtime at this really like at Rockefeller's Center, and I was like, >> "Yeah, yeah, yeah, >> that's fun. That was humorous.

[02:57:48]I have little memories of stuff like that."

[02:57:52]I'll be back to New York again someday.

[02:57:54]We'll see.

[02:57:55]>> Oh, great. Yeah, >> we'll make it happen.

[02:57:58]>> That'd be great. Yeah, I've gotten to go back to DC a couple of times recently, but not not New York. But >> yeah, DC is nice, too, when it's even when it's >> insane.

[02:58:14]>> Yeah. Recently though, it was Yeah, the first time I went in the fall, there was still a lot of um National Guard.

[02:58:22]>> Yeah, we saw >> Yeah.

[02:58:25]>> Um, excuse me. a month ago there. I didn't see them. It was all local, right? No, they're gone.

[02:58:32]>> They had moved them all out. And I think that is >> was much better.

[02:58:36]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[02:58:37]>> I also saw a lot of very wonderful middle school and high school kids doing their spring DC trip.

[02:58:45]>> Oh, that's good. Yeah.

[02:58:46]>> Yeah.

[02:58:47]>> It seemed like everything was normal in DC, even though it's not.

[02:58:51]>> Yeah. No, it was relatively. I must say, you know, I I grew up there and I just I do think it's one of the most beautiful places and the amount of culture >> given the size of it is like incredible, you know, all these things and everything and the Kennedy Center when it used to be a thing. I actually graduated in my graduation was at the Kennedy Center.

[02:59:11]>> Really?

[02:59:12]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[02:59:13]>> That's amazing.

[02:59:14]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[02:59:15]>> Yeah. So, you must feel >> feel for what's happening at the Kennedy Center these days. I almost can't feel because it's just so weird. It's almost just like doesn't even connect. It's like what?

[02:59:26]>> Um it's totally insane. But yeah, I went to a million concerts there. Actually, even not that long ago, I was there for there's a a a cool conference every year called the Human to Mars, Humans to Mars Summit, you know that?

[02:59:39]>> Yeah.

[02:59:39]>> And I know the guy who runs it, uh Chris Carbury. And um anyway, I've gone to that a few times.

[02:59:44]I would stay uh there was this little little nice little boutique hotel that was just down the street from the Kennedy Center. So I would just walk down there. So every night I would just walk down there and go >> just walking down like by the waterfront.

[03:00:00]>> Yeah.

[03:00:00]>> Go through actually the Watergate. It was interesting. Um, yeah, >> I have yet. So, I've gone like a couple of times and like the hotel I've stayed at is near the Watergate Hotel, but >> I have yet to go actually go and have a drink at the Watergate Hotel.

[03:00:15]>> Oh. Oh, that's fun. I want to go to there. There is a museum there about the whole Watergate break-in in the office that was broken into.

[03:00:25]>> So, in the office?

[03:00:27]>> Yeah. Yeah. It basically turned that into to like a museum.

[03:00:33]I didn't know that. Oh my gosh. Next time.

[03:00:35]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[03:00:37]>> I'm going back, I think, this summer.

[03:00:40]So, >> I'll have to make that. I will check that out.

[03:00:44]>> Yeah.

[03:00:44]>> Because it's a very short walk from the hotel where I normally stay. So, >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[03:00:49]>> That'd be interesting.

[03:00:50]>> And the the Day of Action, they all they have us staying usually right down um around Capitol Hill, which is also really neat area that I wouldn't otherwise >> hang out in. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was really really beautiful. Like you know I must say also when I was growing up much of the city was like abandoned or you know burned down and all kinds of horrible things that happened but everything now is just magnificent. So >> right. So I think that's it's like it's like how they talk about Portland like >> it's like oh it's you know it's it's it's you know it's just not safe. It's not okay. And it's like in the '9s when I was in college, we knew Portland was not a safe place. Like it was ruled by the West Coast mob.

[03:01:37]>> There was like all sorts of crime. It was not >> like I came up to visit once and everybody was like, "Yeah, yeah, stick to the parks. Like hang out in groups, you know?"

[03:01:52]>> Yeah.

[03:01:52]>> You might get mugged. But >> it was it was like a whole thing. I was like, man, am I in like inner city here in Portland? This is weird.

[03:02:02]>> Yeah.

[03:02:02]>> But now it's like, yes, we have crime.

[03:02:05]We have homelessness. Every big city has homelessness. Like, and people keep trying to talk about Portland as if it's this like wasteland.

[03:02:14]>> And I walk around and I'm like, we have salt and straw ice cream. We have >> flower shops. We have like amazing cultural centers and like just so many cool things here and >> it's fine.

[03:02:33]>> Yeah, >> fine.

[03:02:36]>> And then I went to DC and everybody's like, "Oh, of course it's so much crime and you need to we need the National Guard." And I'm like, "I thought they fixed that." And then I went and I'm like, "Yeah, the National Guard are bored."

[03:02:47]>> Oh, yeah. They were all bored.

[03:02:49]>> Them bored. We we saw them in Starbucks and then we saw them at the ice cream truck and just sitting in the park and picking up trash, you know.

[03:03:00]>> So yeah, that was insane, >> right? Like it's like, >> okay, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, yes, issues, >> but things people have worked on stuff and now it's like, as Pepsi Cola says, it's just normal issues. Like there's stuff to be fixed >> for sure, but >> this like this narrative of these places of chaos and destruction and lawlessness, I'm like, >> "No."

[03:03:37]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[03:03:38]>> Can we Can we not let that story spread >> because it's lies?

[03:03:44]>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. or even worse when it's like they're eating the cats and dogs.

[03:03:50]It's total racist insanity.

[03:03:55]>> It is. I mean, it's just I had I had a realization today like the stories that have are turning into what we're seeing happen in front of us politically >> have been seated for decades.

[03:04:16]So, okay, here's my not science. I'm saying this is not science. This is something I came up with today in my own brain. I am not a political pundit.

[03:04:34]>> This is a false tale of just I'm making a thing up right now, but I'm asking for how you >> It's a hypothesis. It's a hypothes.

[03:04:42]>> It's a h I'm making up a hypothesis. How do we feel about it? Yeah. Um, we are now seeing a push for uh not allowing women's rights, >> for getting rid rid of women's reproductive rights and um this idea of return to a traditional family or you know and then >> let's go to social media. Tradife >> has been trending for quite a while which is a patriarchal family dynamic um in which the woman is at home raise takes has kids takes care of kids homemakes right that's it >> I want to go back two decades to like the beginnings of Octoom >> and the Duggars and the push on reality television to normalize having lots of kids >> was so weird back then. It was like, okay, oh yeah, it's like IVF, whatever.

[03:05:52]Oh, and only only uh Mormons or whatever. You know, it's a strange family structure, but it began to normalize the idea of a return to a family structure in which you have lots of kids, women are not working, and the the it's a patriarchal system. Now, additionally, they're getting rid of vaccines, healthc care, um, anything that vitamin K shots when babies are born to prevent excessive bleeding and hemophilia in infants.

[03:06:31]Like, they are removing basic protections for children that have led to us being able to have only one or two children. M >> if you're having a family whereas before you had to have many many kids just so a few would survive >> one or two like I look at my family's ancestry so many deaths ptasus chalera like measles like so many kids died young.

[03:07:16]Then we got vaccines.

[03:07:20]We figured out how to use, I don't know, antivirals. We figured out medicine got better. People, kids started surviving.

[03:07:33]M >> and before the show, Philip, I told you I was reading an article about like this free wild birth movement >> in which not even with midwives.

[03:07:48]Women's bodies are made to have kids and so you will have no problems. If you're healthy, your baby will be healthy. Your birth will be healthy.

[03:07:59]Get just go be free away from doctors, hospitals, and even midwives.

[03:08:07]>> Kids are dying, mothers are dying, people are dying because we have normalized and even sensationalized a reversal in our societal structure.

[03:08:28]And I and it started decades ago.

[03:08:33]>> We go back into our media and look at the stories that started being told 30 years ago.

[03:08:40]>> Mhm.

[03:08:41]>> The seeds of what is happening now large scale were planted then.

[03:08:48]>> Mhm.

[03:08:49]>> And we need to be talking about it.

[03:08:52]Sorry. I I should not be saying this stuff out loud. I'm going to be like taken away in a like patty like I don't know.

[03:08:59]>> Well, might might it also be that you add to that that um that uh there >> that's why I drink on camera.

[03:09:08]>> Oh, there were ways to there were things that would buffer those beliefs, right?

[03:09:15]So, you might have school and the news and if these and other institutions, right? um and maybe stronger >> I don't know healthcare I don't know but um and these things get pulled away get paired down so that the ignorance grows right because otherwise why why would you not believe these things oh also you add to that um major news organizations broadcasting conspiracy theories as if they are real >> and giving giving equal time >> to ideas when they should not >> or more than equal more than equal time to the ridiculous enough stuff. Yeah. I of occasionally had like so I watch my channels preferred channels, right? And um um I often think occasionally I'm like, "Wow, you know, what if they were lying to me? What if they were just totally lying? What if Wolf Blitzer or Joe Scarper or one of these people is like completely lying to me and I I watch him every single day? I would have no idea.

[03:10:21]>> Cuz you used to trust cuz this Oh, of course I trust.

[03:10:25]>> Well, I just mean as a way of imagining what it's like for the other >> side to be watching these things where Fox and the other things are just in the podcast now are just lying to you constantly. You why would you think otherwise?

[03:10:39]Your trusted source is telling me this.

[03:10:42]Mhm.

[03:10:43]>> Yeah.

[03:10:44]>> Anyway, I have this new idea that I think our whole like tradal and the health the the maja >> Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[03:10:58]>> Okay. The the way that the maja stuff is happening, especially within the female half of the population, >> it goes back decades. It's been woven into our social structure and allowed to be normal normalized and um I'm really mad about it but I'm you know >> I don't do anything. I just sit at home.

[03:11:34]>> I'm boring. I don't do anything.

[03:11:37]Well, again, the systems like the Supreme Court that are supposed to buffer these things and correct them or aren't doing it. They're they're abetting it, as they say.

[03:11:48]>> We'll see. The Supreme Court has given a stay to the lower court ruling that took away male um mythopristone. So access to birth control through mail uh that had been brought up by a lower judicial court like a state level regional level court uh last week which was a real concern. The Supreme Court is considering it through I think until like May 11th or 14th or something. So next week we should find out what the Supreme Court really thinks about how women can access birth control across the country.

[03:12:30]>> Oh yeah, >> it's happening too fast and I'm a little upset considering recent developments. But um this is all related to science, >> knowledge.

[03:12:44]>> Yeah.

[03:12:46]>> And agency. And anyway, you bring joy to the world.

[03:12:54]>> Oh, so do you.

[03:12:55]>> Thank you.

[03:13:01]>> That a quick reheversal. Yeah. you do a lot of work to bring joy to the world and I just >> I celebrate the fact that you do that and it's it's one of the reasons I love talking to you and why I'm so glad we were able to connect again and have the show tonight. So, thank you.

[03:13:19]>> Thank you. Me, too. Yeah. And yeah, you you bring plenty of joy and not you know, knowledge is um uh there's a story in um >> the once and future king which is the story of King Arthur, a beautiful rendition of it, right? Yeah.

[03:13:33]>> And um I think White is the author.

[03:13:36]Anyway, um there's there's a wonderful moment in there where Merlin, who who's the wizard, of course, um who cares for uh young Arthur Ar King Arthur as a boy, and at one point Arthur is depressed essentially. He's blue, you know, and Merlin >> what little man depressed.

[03:13:58]>> Yeah. And uh I'm paraphrasing here, but basically Merlin, I'll never forget this. I remember reading this. Merlin said to the boy, you know, if you're ever feeling down, learn something.

[03:14:12]It will make you feel better. It will.

[03:14:14]And I always thought that was true, right? You learn something, you're like, >> it's why I like doing twists every week.

[03:14:22]>> Yeah. No matter how I'm feeling and even if I'm going through the stories again and going >> when I start talking with everyone here when I talk start talking with >> you or Blair or Justin or whoever my co-host is or the people in the chat like when I start talking about it the it just it makes it real >> and for me it creates the fabric >> that connects me to the world. So >> yeah, totally. Yeah. And you say you you sit at home and don't do anything. I mean I think teaching teaching >> might be sitting a little >> right and and helping people understand the complicated I mean that was the that's what I just I looked at Carl Sean and and others Bill and I and others you know who I thought were able to take these things and make it so I could enjoy it. I would there's no way I would be able to enjoy it. Couldn't understand it, but they would make it accessible, >> do that. So, >> but it's that once it's accessible, then you can appreciate it and enjoy it. And that's what we need >> so that we can keep going.

[03:15:36]>> Yeah.

[03:15:37]>> We got to make the accessible happen.

[03:15:38]And that's why science communication is important.

[03:15:41]>> Yeah.

[03:15:42]>> I want the next generation of science communicators to be better, >> brighter.

[03:15:48]>> Yeah. more competent, nicer. Like, I'm so ready. I want to help.

[03:15:54]>> Yeah. No, I've also I forgot about, you know, I've followed the stuff you've been putting on LinkedIn and stuff about the science communication stuff. I think that's amazing.

[03:16:02]>> LinkedIn is where I do all of my >> my bis. It's my business brain. LinkedIn is where I'm like, this is what I really like to do in the world. Mhm.

[03:16:12]>> If you notice, I rarely like I I post like a few clips and things from from This Week in Science, but like >> LinkedIn is my like this is what I can do and what I want to do with the world.

[03:16:25]>> Yeah. Yeah. Totally.

[03:16:27]>> That's what I'm doing there.

[03:16:29]>> Everywhere else I'm like and this and that and bloop and bloop, you know.

[03:16:33]>> Yeah. Are you still doing those the online classes? Those were great.

[03:16:38]I haven't done an online class in a while, but I've been thinking about setting like doing some more. Yeah.

[03:16:44]>> Cool. Cool.

[03:16:45]>> Yeah, I want to do um I want actually want to set up like a little course series for science communication.

[03:16:54]>> Yeah, >> I think it' be awesome. um in including podcasting, but also like how to do live streaming, how to, you know, think about your content so that you can like multi-produce basically like I'm going to do this podcast and then I'll take some of the content and make an audio and make an Insta and do it like how do you think about >> producing all your content? How can you repurpose old content? Like >> I don't know. I would love to help people also be more strategic >> about how they think about like how they're how they think about their science.

[03:17:35]>> Mhm.

[03:17:35]>> And so any researchers that are doing work in the world like >> instead of just being like, "Oh, I'm writing a paper now. I'm going to think about doing a video or not Twitter anymore, but yeah, >> whatever."

[03:17:52]>> Yeah.

[03:17:53]I want to talk with them about let's step back a few years.

[03:17:57]>> Let's go to the beginning and think about how you can strategically put communication through the entire process of all your research >> so that you have more impact so that you work with communities so that you like you like everything is bigger than you ever thought it could be >> like that's what I want to do.

[03:18:18]>> Yeah. And if you ever wanted to include, you know, I'm happy to >> and AI.

[03:18:23]>> I was gonna say I'm happy to suggest any stuff there because like it is huge. Um really powerful for that kind of stuff.

[03:18:30]I mean I use it for the podcast like it's saved me used to take me four hours or so to post to do all the things I had to do after recording the show. The write all the different all the millions of little things you got to write and then make the cover art and and now I've got it down to about 45 minutes. Half an hour 45 minutes. That's amazing.

[03:18:49]>> I just dump the transcript on the thing and it, you know, >> I think that's the cool thing where like because of the way it understands language, you can take the transcript and it can >> they can help you find like the good >> good little clips and it can help you find things faster than you would have otherwise where like you're like, "Oh, I have to go back through this >> in real time."

[03:19:15]>> Yes. Totally. Totally. Totally.

[03:19:18]>> Yeah. Let's go back through. What do we have here now? Three hours and 19 minutes.

[03:19:22]>> Yeah.

[03:19:25]>> Totally. I haven't yet used It's interesting. I don't use it for the clip. I don't actually do. It'd be great if I was posting clips, but I I just never gotten to that level. But um um but another thing is also, you know, I help people understand how to do research with it because like they are, as you know, full of errors. Um, but you can get around that by just if you learn certain principles, you know, >> yeah, you have to figure out how to how to check it and how to make sure that you're not >> being Richard Dawkins by it. Like, >> oh, >> did did you hear like >> did he get caught with >> He recently got caught with uh he called her Claudia instead of Claude.

[03:20:08]>> Nice. Claudia became became so human to him and >> yes so oh so my stepfather is a physicist nuclear physicist >> and um used to treat he treated cancer and stuff like that and anyway um uh a year or two ago you know when chatbt was new you know I was telling him about it and he's like and so he had he was asked to give a speech he went to chatbt he asked it to write the speech it gave him something And he he says, "Well, it wasn't any good. It doesn't work." I was like, "All right." You know, >> but I mean, you know, >> you're supposed to work with it.

[03:20:47]>> You're not supposed to just take You're not supposed to just do the speech.

[03:20:51]>> That's right.

[03:20:52]>> That's not the way you do it.

[03:20:54]>> Right. But that let's say that was a year ago. Um I called I called my parents uh this past Sunday and my mom says, "Oh, your stepfather, he has a new friend." And I was like, "Oh, no. It's judging me to." And I said, "Is it chatbt?" He says, "No, it's Gemini."

[03:21:11]But uh basically, he's like, "It flatters me." He's like, "I I'm very interested in Zoroastrian Astrianism at the moment." And he loves history. And anyway, he's like, "So I ask it." And it says, "What a wonderful question. That's a very insightful question." And I said, "I got to break it to you. I know you're you're a scientist, so you probably want to be getting real information. Half of what you're getting are mistakes, you know, but you can get around it. You could just you just got to write a get a prompt that uh I've I've now got a prompt that works for me that you know gets it to do the right thing, gives me citations, etc., etc. >> But yeah, >> you have to remind it that it's going to hallucinate and that you don't want really what it's going to tell you. You want it to give you what you want. Ex >> right. Well, actually, >> the prompt isn't like it's an interesting thing to fill to fiddle with those things. I mean, a revelation for me was that I actually it was that it it's trying to give me information from its own training and it's always wrong because the training is bad. And so I said, "You're just a conduit.

[03:22:18]you go and get articles and quotes for me and you give me the quote with a link >> and then maybe you do a little okay we can put them together a little bit but I'm I'm only interested in the primary uh information and that's that's a lot more a lot more helpful >> reminded it's not an all- knowing being >> yeah yeah it it in fact the prompt I said now write a prompt >> and I don't I don't want you to flatter me so >> oh that is That's not what you do.

[03:22:51]>> That is in my preferences. And it says, "Don't flatter me. It's insincere.

[03:22:55]You're insincere. You're a machine. You don't have any opinions."

[03:23:00]>> Anyway, blah blah blah. But uh uh for the classes, if you're interested in that sort of stuff, happy to.

[03:23:07]>> I love it. Yes.

[03:23:08]>> Yeah.

[03:23:09]>> Let's Let's collab. I love it.

[03:23:12]>> Cool.

[03:23:13]>> I like working with friends. Let's do more. Yeah, totally.

[03:23:17]>> Yeah. And Oh, yeah. And the environmental effects, those are bad, too. Uh, the water. Oh, interesting graphic. This is like This can go on forever because I'm having so much fun talking to you. You're going to be up until 3 in the morning. Sorry.

[03:23:32]>> Oh my gosh, Phillip. Um, I saw somebody reporting on a national resources environmental NREL, uh, which is governmental environ, uh, office. um they did a study and were looking at the reasons that data centers are placed in different locations and water availability was like 17th on the list of what they were looking for. So where where communities are talking about water availability, >> it's not what is like the top thing for these >> Mhm. Mhm.

[03:24:20]>> data centers to place themselves in certain places. The top things are actually um like how close a a substation is or even a retired power generation generating station. So like old coal generator generators that all those places actually are not completely offline because they're part of the grid. There is still active power being transferred through these places very often >> because they are like a part of the system.

[03:24:58]Even though they're not burning coal anymore, >> they're not actually not part of the infrastructure. And so they could be spooled back up very quickly.

[03:25:10]>> Yeah.

[03:25:11]>> Or I know, right? I mean that >> that's one of the things I was like, >> old hickory fire.

[03:25:19]>> But of course, right? Just rolling coal. There we go. Yeah, >> but at the same time they could also be repurposed and maybe turned into if we actually get it going. I mean, I would love it like >> nuclear fusion plants.

[03:25:39]>> Like that would be amazing.

[03:25:41]>> Yeah.

[03:25:41]>> Take over fision. F. No, fusion. Yeah.

[03:25:47]>> Um, right. Isn't it?

[03:25:49]>> Well, we haven't really solved.

[03:25:51]>> We haven't done it yet, but >> get closer.

[03:25:55]We're not there. Nobody's done it yet, >> right?

[03:25:57]>> But like, you know, we've got Eater and Nif and all these other places and we've got companies like Zap Energy and others that are trying to do different levels of >> fusion.

[03:26:11]>> And we're not there. Not quite there.

[03:26:18]But if we could get there, >> oh yeah, >> it'd be great. Right. And so the data centers, they're wanting to center themselves in these places that are close to tech hubs, close to power.

[03:26:34]>> I mean, power is the big thing and close to power.

[03:26:38]>> Um, >> it's interesting though because the way the message was was like, oh look, they're not even worried about water.

[03:26:47]It's number 17 on their list. But that's undermining how important water is to communities.

[03:26:55]And >> so I feel like there's this communication struggle right now >> of what the energy people want people to think so that data setters can be placed versus how we should be talking to communities to protect water supplies and resources >> and energy bills.

[03:27:23]>> Yeah. Yeah. I would say another part of what they're looking for is local, you know, nearby power, access to the power grid, etc., and a docile citizenry, frankly.

[03:27:36]>> I don't think that was on the list, but that's hilarious.

[03:27:39]>> Yeah, that's on Sam Alman's list.

[03:27:43]>> Oh my gosh, that's funny. Yep.

[03:27:45]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[03:27:49]>> Oh gosh.

[03:27:52]All right, everybody.

[03:27:55]Um, let's see. Master user, you asked about uh Justin. Justin is still working.

[03:28:02]>> He's doing uh genomics research somewhere out in the Central Valley. He got a job.

[03:28:08]>> That's why he's not doing the show cuz he actually has a night job.

[03:28:12]>> So, our timing makes it not work for him right now, unfortunately. Um, how close am I to all prerex and university degrees am I?

[03:28:27]I don't even know what that question means.

[03:28:30]I'm going to I'm just going to move past that. Um, yeah, Atlantis, it's underwater, everybody. It's time for bed.

[03:28:42]>> It's time for >> Atlantis. Atlantis is like the equivalent of on a podcast. Atlantis is like the equivalent of a Mcmeth in the theater.

[03:28:49]>> Yeah. You get to you get there >> once it's said. Yeah, that's it.

[03:28:53]>> Lights out. Curtains. It's curtains.

[03:28:56]>> Thank you. That's >> Well, please give my best to both uh Justin and um Blair.

[03:29:05]>> I will.

[03:29:06]>> I when when I saw you guys in New York, I think Blair was just about to get married.

[03:29:11]>> She's married and she has a child, >> right?

[03:29:15]>> Yeah.

[03:29:15]>> Yeah. No, I've seen I've seen all that happen. But yeah. Yeah, I just remember that that they were about to get married.

[03:29:21]>> Yeah.

[03:29:23]And like I closed out any more prerequisites. I don't even Are you insulting me? I think he's insulting me or it's a joke. Maybe it's a joke.

[03:29:35]>> It's a joke.

[03:29:36]>> I hope it's a joke.

[03:29:38]>> See, everybody, >> you need to use emojis like Pepsi Colaz knows how to do to make sure we know.

[03:29:44]>> Yeah. Nighty night.

[03:29:49]>> All right, everybody.

[03:29:51]>> All right. Thank you, Kiki. Thank you, chat.

[03:29:54]>> Thank you, everybody.

[03:30:00]I have a couple. That's right. I just need more. I just wondering how many more degrees I'm going to get. Yeah, >> I'm a life student. A student of life. I hope I hope you are too. I mean, that's why I'm I mean, that's what we're doing here, right?

[03:30:18]>> I'm a student of life, but I don't do my homework, so I'm really not >> not the best at it.

[03:30:25]>> Oh, come on. Keep going.

[03:30:28]>> Keep going.

[03:30:29]>> This was fun. Yeah. Thank you, Paul.

[03:30:32]Thank you, everyone.

[03:30:34]Thank you so much. You all are great.

[03:30:36]Thanks for being here. Phillip again.

[03:30:39]>> Thank you, Kiki.

[03:30:41]>> Thank you. Say good night, Phillip.

[03:30:44]>> Good night, Phillip.

[03:30:46]>> And then you say, "Say good night, Kiki."

[03:30:48]>> Oh, say good night, Kiki.

[03:30:50]>> Good night, Kiki. Good night, everyone.

[03:30:53]Thanks so much for being here. Stay safe, stay healthy, stay curious, and of course, stay lucky.

[03:31:03]in a