STEM-Talk

Today’s guest on STEM-Talk is Dr. Chris McKay, a leading astrobiologist and planetary scientist with the Space Science Division of the NASA Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. Chris’s interview covers a diverse range of topics ranging from the origins of life to the possibility of manned missions to Mars. For the past 30 years, Chris has been advancing our understanding of planetary science. He graduated from Florida Atlantic University in 1975 with a degree in physics and earned a doctorate in astrogeophysics at the University of Colorado in 1982. He was a co-investigator on the Huygens probe to Saturn’s moon Titan in 2005, the Mars Phoenix lander mission in 2008, and the current Mars Science Laboratory mission. His research at NASA has focused on the evolution of the solar system and the origin of life. He also has been heavily involved in NASA’s Mars missions including the current Mars rover — Curiosity.  In addition, Chris has thought deeply about the human exploration of Mars. He has spent considerable time studying polar and desert environments to better understand how humans might survive in Mars-like environments. His research has taken him to the Antarctic Dry Valleys, the Atacama Desert, the Arctic, and the Namib Desert. In 2015, the Desert Research Institute named Chris the Nevada Medalist, which is the highest scientific honor in the state. Links: STEM-Talk Episode 33, interview with NASA’s Natalie Batalha – http://www.ihmc.us/stemtalk/episode-33/ Chris McKay’s NASA profile page – https://spacescience.arc.nasa.gov/staff/chris-mckay/ Show Notes 3:53: Ken and Dawn welcome Chris to the show. 4:05: Dawn asks Chris if it is true that the television series Star Trek inspired him to take up science and start studying planets as a kid. 4:34: Dawn comments on how Apollo happened almost 50 years ago when Chris was a teenager and asks him where he was for Apollo 11 and what it meant to him. 5:24: Ken asks Chris how he learned about Florida Atlantic University, as it was a relatively new university at the time, and asks Chris why he chose it. 6:54: Dawn asks Chris if he was thinking about becoming an astronaut when he decided to major in physics. 7:27: Ken asks Chris what it was like to be a summer intern in the Planetary Biology program at the NASA Ames Research Center around 1980. 8:52: Dawn asks Chris how he chose the University of Colorado, where he earned a PhD in astrogeophysics. 10:42: Dawn asks Chris to discuss his transition from mechanical engineering to astrogeophysics. 12:11: Ken discusses how Chris ended up back at NASA Ames as an astrobiologist and planetary scientist after graduate school. 13:53: Dawn comments how Chris’s research is taking him to extreme places, and asks him to explain what extremophiles are and what their relevance is in the search for life beyond Earth. 17:26: Dawn comments on her experiences searching for extremophiles while working on cave diving projects. 18:12: Dawn asks Chris what his most recent search experience for extremophiles on our planet was. 19:49: Dawn asks Chris what he takes to be the most exciting extremophile discovery out of all of the work he has done. 22:40: Dawn asks Chris to talk about his favorite and least favorite aspects of field research. 24:06: Ken asks Chris to define some terms related to the search for life beyond Earth. Specifically,  whether we have a definition for life itself and if not, what exactly we are searching for when we say we are searching for life. He also asks Chris to talk about alien life and how it differs from life on Earth. 26:21: Ken asks Chris how tough it would be to recognize alien life if it is based on fundamentally different chemistry than life on Earth. 29:16: Ken asks Chris where NASA’s secret alien life storage room is. 31:03: Ken asks Chris what the scientific importance of discovering life in another world is. 32:49: Dawn asks Chris where the most likely environment to hold life beyond Earth in our solar system is. 33:47: Dawn asks Chris what makes Mars an ideal candidate for life beyond Earth. 36:47: Ken discusses how we have been searching for life on Mars for decades, but how Chris questions the way we have been going about this. Chris was quoted to say, “If we are going to search for life, let’s search for life.” Ken asks Chris to explain what he means by this. 39:07: Dawn asks Chris what he thinks would happen if we did discovered life on Mars, and whether he thinks there would be a profound societal reaction. 40:57: Ken asks Chris if it is likely that life on Earth may have seeded life on Mars, or perhaps vice versa. 42:57: Dawn asks Chris what motivated his interest in the atmospheres of Titan. 45:14: STEMTALK BLURB 45:39: Ken asks Chris to talk about the search for life on Europa. 47:06: Ken comments that Chris has noted that life chooses, chemistry does not. He then asks Chris when we will be able to send capable robots to examine the chemistry of Titan or the other frigid satellites mentioned. 50:23: Ken asks Chris if the evidence for life on Titan is compelling enough to devote the resources to actually send a mission to look for it. 53:04: Dawn discusses how Chris has spent a lot of time over the past 30 years looking into the origin and evolution of life. She then asks Chris how his understanding of the origin of life has changed over these three decades. 54:46: Dawn asks Chris which place he thinks has the highest probability of having life beyond Earth. 56:19: Dawn asks Chris how returning samples from Mars would fit into human exploration. 58:18: Ken comments on how it makes sense that more experience with entry, descent, and landing on Mars would make the astronauts more comfortable. 58:29: Dawn asks Chris which he believes is going to happen first: discovering life elsewhere in the solar system or receiving a message from an extraterrestrial civilization. 1:00:12: Ken asks Chris to briefly discuss the Drake equation, a probabilistic argument used to estimate the number of active communicative extraterrestrial civilizations in our galaxy. 1:02:19: Ken discusses how he interviewed Chris’s colleague, Dr. Natalie Batalha, about the Kepler mission, exoplanets, and the possibility of life on STEM-Talk episode 33. He then asks Chris what he sees as the prospects for finding life on extra solar planets. 1:04:46: Dawn asks Chris if he has a favorite book about the search for extraterrestrial life. 1:05:56: Dawn comments on how Chris is an advocate of human exploration of Mars and asks him to discuss his reasons for that position. 1:07:18: Dawn asks Chris what his thoughts are on planetary protection, particularly the controversy regarding humans “contaminating” the surface of Mars. 1:09:19: Ken discusses how he believes that it is unfortunate that some regard any human expansion into the solar system as being an undesirable human infestation of previously pristine places. 1:11:40: Dawn asks Chris if humans were to live elsewhere in the solar system, where he thinks would be the most promising destination. 1:12:40: Ken comments on how Chris has given the notion of terraforming Mars a lot of thought and asks him to explain the concept of terraforming. 1:14:41: Ken asks Chris what it will take to terraform Mars, and whether or not Chris sees this as a realistic possibility. 1:17:03: Dawn discusses how Chris has nurtured an entire generation of students and asks him what it has been like for him to work with them. 1:18:32: Dawn asks Chris to explain what Mars Underground is, as he is one of the cofounders. 1:19:45: Dawn asks Chris what he would propose if he were in charge of NASA’s Mars strategy. 1:20:21: Ken and Dawn thank Chris for joining them on the show.          

 Today’s interview features one of the nation’s foremost hypnotists who is also the associate chair of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Stanford University Medical School. In this episode, Dr. David Spiegel talks about how hypnosis can help people not only quit smoking and lose weight, but also relieve chronic pain and reduce people’s dependency on medications. David earned his Bachelor’s at Yale College and graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1971. His mother and father were psychiatrists and his father started practicing hypnosis just before World War II. David now has more than 45 years of clinical and research experience studying psycho-oncology, stress and health, pain control and hypnosis. In addition to his role as the Willson Professor and associate chair of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Stanford, he is also the director of the Center on Stress and Health and the medical director of the Center for Integrative Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine. David has published 12 books, including one with his father. He has written more than 380 scientific journal articles and 167 book chapters on topics ranging from hypnosis to psychosocial oncology to trauma to psychotherapy. Last year David was featured in Time magazine about the therapeutic uses of hypnosis. In terms of the nation’s escalating opiate problem, David has gone on record saying that hypnosis can and should be used instead of painkillers in many cases. “There are things we could be doing that are a lot safer, cheaper and more effective,” said David, “but we’re not because as a society we have the prejudice that hypnosis is voodoo and pharmacology is science.” David’s research has been supported by the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute on Aging, the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Dana Foundation for Brain Sciences. David is the past president of the American College of Psychiatrists and the Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, and is a member of the National Academy of Medicine. Links:  David Spiegel Stanford profile page “Group Therapy for Cancer Patients” — http://amzn.to/2wd7c39 “Living Beyond Limits” — http://amzn.to/2vlTzzZ Show Notes     3:42: Ken and Dawn welcome David to the show. 3:56: Dawn comments on how both of David’s parents were psychiatrists, and how his father started practicing hypnosis just before WWII. She then asks David if it was always his plan to follow in his parents’ footsteps. 4:53: Dawn discusses how David got his Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and then decided to attend Harvard Medical School. She asks David why he decided to specialize in hypnosis. 7:26: After graduating from medical school, David made news for refusing pain medication after his operation. Ken asks David to describe what he did. 8:51: Dawn asks David to give an overview of hypnosis. 11:48: David talks about how hypnosis and mindfulness are similar and different. 13:48: Ken asks David if people who are easily hypnotized are also more likely to be able to successfully practice meditation or mindfulness. 14:44: Dawn discusses how she has colleagues that are interested in studying mindfulness for conditions such as PTSD or pain management, but they have had trouble finding funding on these topics. She then asks David who typically funds the work that he does. 15:31: Dawn comments on how David has written about how hypnosis is the oldest western conception of psychotherapies and asks him to give a short historical tour of hypnosis. 20:35: Dawn discusses how David has had more than 40 years of clinical and research experience studying hypnosis, psycho oncology, pain control, psychoneuroendocrinology, and the use of hypnosis in the treatment of PTSD. Specifically, David was involved in two studies that showed that Vietnam veterans with PTSD had higher than normal tendencies to be hypnotized. Dawn then asks David to discuss these studies and the utility of hypnosis as a treatment for stress and physical trauma. 24:09: Ken asks David if he has found hypnosis to be an effective treatment for PTSD. 24:35: Ken asks David about using hypnosis to treat phobias. 26:32: Ken asks David if hypnotherapy can be used to reveal suppressed or impaired eyewitness memories and whether the courts raise questions about it. 29:17: Ken discusses a landmark study, published in the late 1990s by Pierre Rainville, looking at hypnotized people who placed their hands in really hot water. Many have said that this study changed the whole landscape of hypnosis. Ken then asks David to discuss this study and its importance. 31:06: Ken comments on how not everyone can be hypnotized, and how David has used functional MRI scans to figure out why some people are not susceptible to hypnosis. In 2012, David shared results of a study that showed hypnosis changes the way blood flows to different areas of the brain. Ken asks David to share the importance of this finding and what it revealed to him. 34:02: Dawn discusses how David has also found research that shows that hypnotizability correlates with dopamine levels in the brain. Dawn then asks if that means that dopamine is a key driver of the ability to be hypnotized, and if so why. 35:08: Dawn asks if the effect of dopamine is linear, with those with the highest levels of dopamine being the most hypnotizable. 37:04: STEMTALK BLURB 37:27: Ken asks David to talk about Parkinson’s in the context of hypnosis. 39:09: Ken asks David if there is a practical way to gauge whether someone will be receptive to hypnosis. 40:07: Ken asks David if it is possible to change people’s susceptibility to hypnosis. 41:38: Dawn asks if someone who does not believe in hypnosis can be hypnotized. 42:21: Dawn comments on David’s work in a children’s hospital and asks him if it seems like children are more susceptible to hypnosis than adults. 43:16: Dawn asks David how effective self-hypnosis is and if there are any notable limitations. 44:41: Ken asks David if response to the placebo effect is associated with hypnotizability, and if so, if people who are easily hypnotized are more likely to benefit from any placebo effects of hypnosis. 46:12: Dawn comments that the placebo effect is unable to directly change underlying physiology, and asks if there is any evidence that hypnosis can directly alter disease states themselves. 48:00: Dawn discusses how Robert Sapolsky would say that dopamine is produced to provide motivation to achieve a goal, and that it is even greater when the result is uncertain. She then asks David how this view of dopamine ties into the ability to be hypnotized, and whether there are physiological effects that are related. 49:48: Ken asks David if there are environmental factors that might make it easier to achieve a hypnotic state, and whether hallucinogens and other drugs have a role in hypnosis. 52:11: Dawn comments on how acupuncture can be blocked with opioid receptor blockers and asks David if there are any receptor blockers that inhibit hypnosis. 53:06: Dawn asks David which technique with hypnosis is generally most effective or whether it depends on the individual. 54:40: Ken asks David if there are any notable potential hazards associated with hypnosis or its practice. 56:04: Dawn asks David if there have been any studies looking at molecular level changes that have been associated with hypnosis and if he has an animal model equivalent that can be used for studies of brain tissue specifically. 57:04: Ken asks David if we see a true hypnotic effect in animals other than humans. 57:55: Ken discusses how over the years David has worked with hospital physicians on ways to use hypnosis in addition to anesthesia in the operating room. Ken then asks David to talk about his findings on hypnotized subjecting using less medication, experiencing less pain, and feeling less anxious than other groups who were not hypnotized. 1:00:22: Dawn comments on how radiologist Elvira Lang at Harvard’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Lang has gone on to continue these studies on hypnotized patients having better results. 1:01:11: Dawn asks David why many physicians remain skeptical of hypnosis, despite David’s research findings. 1:03:44: Ken asks David if there has been any research done on the efficacy of hypnosis in the context of elite sports or tier-one military units, with respect to recovery or overtraining. 1:06:04: Ken asks David whether heart rate variability could be improved via hypnosis. 1:06:51: Dawn asks David to talk about some of the ongoing areas of research in his field. 1:08:16: Dawn asks David if there are any large scale clinical trials that address hypnosis as a potential therapeutic approach. 1:10:33: Ken comments on how there appears to be a renaissance on medicine built from two metaphorical houses. Ken then asks David what might be the evolutionary imperatives that brought about the ability to experience hypnosis, and what its purpose is. 1:14:15: Ken makes a comment about his own research in AI in regards to the belief in machines replacing physicians. 1:15:14: Dawn asks David what his thoughts are on the likelihood of insurance companies starting to support hypnosis therapy. 1:17:10: Ken and Dawn thank David for joining them on the show.

Today’s podcast features Ken Ford and Dawn Kernagis interviewing their colleague, Dr. Jerry Pratt, a senior research scientist at IHMC who heads up the institute’s robotics group. In 2015, Jerry led an IHMC team that placed second out of 23 teams from around the world in the first-ever DARPA Robotics Challenge. IHMC also placed first in the competition which featured humanoid robots that primarily walked bipedally and first among all U.S. teams. Jerry is a graduate of MIT, where he earned a doctorate in electrical engineering and computer science in 2000. As a graduate student at MIT, Jerry built his first robot which was also one of the first bipedal robots that could compliantly walk over rough terrain. As you will learn in today’s interview, it was called “Spring Turkey” and is on display in MIT’s Boston museum. The second robot he built as a graduate student was called “Spring Flamingo,” and is on display in the lobby of IHMC’s Fred Levin Center in Pensacola. After graduation, Jerry and some MIT colleagues founded a small company called Yobotics, which specialized in powered prosthetics, biomimetic robots, simulation software and robotic consulting. He joined IHMC in 2002 and has become a well-known expert in bipedal walking. His algorithms are used in various robots around the world. Recent work on fast-running robots has resulted in ostrich-inspired running models and robot prototypes that are currently believed to be the fastest running robots in the world. Jerry has six U.S. patents and was inducted into the Florida Inventors Hall of Fame in 2015. He lives in Pensacola with his wife Megan and their two children. He and he wife founded a science museum called the Pensacola MESS Hall, which stands for math, engineering, science, and stuff. The MESS Hall is a hands-on science museum for all ages that just celebrated it’s five-year anniversary. Show notes: 4:37: Ken and Dawn welcome Jerry to the show 4:54: Dawn asks Jerry to talk about the time he once stole a science book from school. 5:45: Dawn asks Jerry to discuss his first invention, the knockout keyless door lock, that he came up with for his tree fort when he was a teen. 6:21: Dawn asks Jerry if he recalls his first computer program he wrote on the Commodore 64. 6:47: Ken comments on how in addition to writing computer programs, Jerry had an interest in electronics, particularly Heathkits. 7:08: Dawn discusses how Jerry played a lot of sports as a kid, going on to run varsity track and cross country at MIT. 7:46: Dawn asks Jerry if it was as an undergrad or a graduate student that he first became interested in robotics. 8:20: Ken discusses the first two robots Jerry put together: Spring Turkey then Spring Flamingo. He then asks Jerry to talk about the machines and how he came up with the names. 9:16: Dawn comments on how a few of Jerry’s colleagues have mentioned that much of our understanding of dynamic walking is still based on some of the original work Jerry did at MIT, and she then asks Jerry to talk about that work. 10:03: Ken asks Jerry to talk about how he and his wife, Megan Benson, met. 10:54: Ken asks Jerry to discuss the experience of co-founding Yobotics, which specialized in powered prosthetics, biomimetic robots, simulation software, and robot consulting, with his colleagues at MIT. 11:36: Dawn discusses the growth of robotics at IHMC since Jerry joined the team. She then asks Jerry to give a summary on the types of robots that he and his colleagues have been working on over the last 14 years at IHMC. 13:55: Dawn asks Jerry to talk about the books he often reads on organizational culture and teambuilding. 15:08: Dawn comments on how she has heard that Jerry is one of the worst motivational speakers ever and asks if it is true. 15:28: Ken comments on all of the work that Jerry and the IHMC team put into the DARPA Robotics Challenge, where they placed second in the world and first among the United States teams. He then asks Jerry to describe the experience. 16:24: Ken asks Jerry what it would look like if he were designing a new challenge focused on robotic mobility. 17:03: Dawn comments on a story about Jerry’s daughter Annie telling her kindergarten teacher that her daddy builds robots that fall down. 17:42: Dawn discusses how Jerry has spent most of his career thinking about how humans balance themselves to keep from falling, and how we use these strategies to help balance robots. She then asks Jerry to walk through that process. 18:35: Dawn asks Jerry what happens when a robot recovers its balance. 19:13: Dawn comments on how Jerry’s focus has been on bipedal walking. She then goes on to ask why engineers design robots with legs, and even more specifically, two legs. 20:03: Ken states that one of the advantages of a humanoid robot or bipedal robot is that the physical built world was built assuming our human form factor. 21:02: Ken comments on how Jerry mentioned that walking can be thought of as modeled by an inverted pendulum and asks Jerry when this approximation is valid and under what conditions this simplification breaks down. 21:47: Dawn asks Jerry which is a more limiting factor in having a bipedal robot perform as well as a human: the software or the hardware. 22:29: Dawn comments on how bipedal robots are able to walk but asks Jerry what the challenges are in getting them to run. 23:22: Ken discusses how our robots are comprised of lots of actuators and sensors and perform many complicated hundreds and perhaps thousands of calculations per second. He then asks Jerry how practical and robust this approach is in the real world and how their fundamental research into open-loop running robots such as the planar elliptical runner could be leveraged into advances in humanoid robots, or whether they are distinctly separate tracks with no cross talk. 24:54: Jerry talks about  how his group is looking at how to use robots to do other things in the real world than just walking, such as going up to valves, turning valves and flipping switches. And because this needs to be done super reliably, the group is using more mathematically reliable techniques to create systems and controllers that exploit natural dynamics. 25:18: Dawn asks Jerry to explain some of the potentially practical applications of bipedal robots. 25:49: Ken comments that he has noticed that Jerry and others have been working to get a humanoid robot, Atlas, to walk across a plank of wood that seesaws up and down. He then asks Jerry why he is doing that. 26:37: Dawn asks what some of the most efficient gates are as far as different animals go and how bipedal walking and programmability compare to some of those gates in terms of efficiency. 28:49: STEM-TALK BLURB 29:16: Ken discusses how Jerry has been spending a lot of time thinking about how robots can help us explore Mars. He goes on to comment that the robots currently on Mars are all wheeled or tracked machines, and asks Jerry if he sees the need for robots with legs on Mars, and why. 30:16: Ken asks Jerry how walking and running differs on Earth versus different gravity environments like Mars. 31:24: Ken asks Jerry if we would walk on Mars or hop, or if it would partially be a function of the spacesuit design. 32:52: Ken comments that as far as sensory input goes, the skin is our largest sensory organ that we have as humans. He then asks Jerry if he sees the ability to integrate things like synthetic skin with robots to improve their interaction with the environment. 34:22: Dawn discusses how in undersea robotics one of the major issues is developing a hand with dexterity that simulates a human is very difficult. She then asks Jerry the challenges in this and where the field stands with respect to developing a good hand. 35:57: Ken comments that understanding robotics and AI doesn’t seem to diminish our appreciation for humanity, but rather seems to elevate it. 36:21: Dawn states that when Jerry and his wife Megan moved to Pensacola 14 years ago they had a dream of creating a science museum. She then asks how he managed to make this happen. 38:36: Ken asks Jerry in what ways mechanical mobility is starting to surpass human mobility, and where Jerry sees the next breakthroughs coming in machine mobility. 40:27: Dawn comments on how about 10 years ago researchers set a goal that we would have a robot soccer team that would beat a human team by 2050, and she then asks Jerry if he thinks that this is still possible. 41:50: Ken discusses how Jerry’s team also works on powered exoskeletons for people with paralysis, but all of the balance is provided by the user. He then asks if there are ways to utilize Jerry’s work on walking and balancing algorithms in powered exoskeleton developments, so that the exoskeleton itself can be a more active partner in balance. 42:51: Dawn asks Jerry what his advice is to a race walker who wants to do well without cheating. 44:56: Dawn asks Jerry about the role of AI techniques in helping to advance mobility. 45:25: Jerry talks about how the deep reinforcement learning community may start looking at bipedal walking as one of its next big challenges. 46:45: Ken comments how deep learning algorithms are an ideal for bipedal walking because one doesn’t have to explain how the capability to walk was arrived at. 48:03: Jerry agrees but talks about how deep learning might someday help us understand walking in a new way and afford new insights. 48:37: Dawn asks Jerry what he sees as the emerging commercial opportunities for robotics. 50:02: Dawn asks Jerry about opportunities for entertainment. 50:43: Ken asks Jerry to give a quick update and sketch on IHMC’s role in the MegaBot adventure. 51:17: Dawn asks Jerry to talk about his pleasure in puzzles and games, and proving the odds of them. 52:00: Ken and Dawn thank Jerry for joining them.

Today’s episode features an important interview with Dr. Jeff Volek, a researcher who has spent the past 20 years studying how humans adapt to carbohydrate-restricted diets.  His most recent work, which is one of the key topics of today’s interview, has focused on the science of ketones and ketogenic diets and their use as a therapeutic tool to manage insulin resistance. In 2014, Volek became a founder and the chief science officer of Virta Health, an online specialty medical clinic dedicated to reversing diabetes, a chronic disease that has become a worldwide epidemic. The company’s ambitious goal is to reverse type 2 diabetes in 100 million people by 2025. Earlier this year, The JMIR Diabetes Journal published a study coordinated by Volek and Virta that showed people with type 2 diabetes can be taught to sustain adequate carbohydrate restriction to achieve nutritional ketosis, thereby improving glycemic control, decreasing medication use, and allowing clinically relevant weight loss. These improvements happened after just 10 weeks on the program that Virta designed for people. In addition to his role at Virta, Volek is a registered dietitian and full professor in the department of human sciences at Ohio State University. He is a co-author of “The New Atkins for a New You,” which came out 2010 and spent 16 weeks on The New York Times best-seller list. The book is an updated, easier-to-use version of Dr. Robert Atkins’ original 1972 book, “Dr. Atkins’ Diet Revolution.” Volek has co-authored four other books, including “The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living” and “The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Performance.” Both books are co-authored with and delve somewhat deeper than “The New Atkins” did into the science and application of low-carb diets. Volek received his bachelor’s degree in dietetics from Michigan State University in 1991. He went on to earn a master’s in exercise physiology and a PhD in kinesiology and nutrition from Pennsylvania State University. He has given more than 200 lectures about his research at scientific and industry conferences in a dozen countries. In addition to his five books, he also has published more than 300 peer-reviewed scientific papers. Although numerous studies have confirmed the validity and safety of low-carb and ketogenic diets, Volek and others who support carbohydrate restriction are often criticized for being so one-sided that their work comes across as more advocacy than science. But in “The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living,” Volek writes: “What is the proper response when three decades of debate about carbohydrate restriction have been largely one-sided and driven more by cultural bias than science? Someone needs to stand up and represent the alternate view and science.” As Volek explains in episode 42 of STEM-Talk, this has become his mission. Links: “New Atkins for a New You” — http://amzn.to/2uOjLkF “The Art and Science of Low-Carbohydrate Living”– http://amzn.to/2hh1W9k “The Art and Science of Low-Carbohydrate Performance” — http://amzn.to/2f2oPMV New York Times article: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/11/well/live/tackling-weight-loss-and-diabetes-with-video-chats.html?_r=0 JMIR DIABETES paper: http://assets.virtahealth.com/docs/Virta_Clinic_10-week_outcomes.pdf https://www.virtahealth.com Show notes: 3:016: Ken and Dawn welcome Jeff to the show. 3:32: Dawn asks Jeff when and how he first became interested in science. 5:24: When Jeff was studying to be a dietitian, he was looking at a low-fat, high-carb diet. But when he began to work with diabetics, something did not seem right. Dawn asks Jeff if that is what led him to begin studying low-carb diets. 6:39: Ken comments on how diabetes is perhaps the greatest healthcare challenge we face as a society, which drives costs to more than $300 billion a year. 7:59: Dawn asks Jeff about the effectiveness of traditional treatment and management approaches for people with diabetes. 8:27: Dawn asks Jeff to talk about Virta Health, a company Jeff helped found, and a recent paper and JMIR Diabetes Journal. The paper reported on the results of a study that looked at whether sustained carbohydrate restriction and nutritional ketosis could be part of a comprehensive intervention that would allow people with type 2 diabetes to improve their health. 11.54: Dawn asks Jeff why this approach would work at the cellular level, whether it is the reduction in glucose alone or if the ketone bodies are playing a role. 14:13: Ken asks Jeff why he thinks some patients respond so remarkably and others not as much. 16:27: Dawn discusses how Virta’s mission is to reverse diabetes for 100 million people by 2025. She asks Jeff if this is a realistic number or a stretch goal. 18:28: Ken asks Jeff to briefly talk about the business model of this process and how he sees it shaking out. 20:09: Dawn asks Jeff how he and Sami Inkinen, founder of Trulia and another co-founder of Virta, crossed paths. 22:00: Dawn asks Jeff what his thoughts are on the possible epigenetic effects of the ketogenic diet, with respect to general health and wellness. 25:46: Dawn talks about an athletic friend of hers with Crohn’s disease and how she had positive health outcomes from following a ketogenic diet. She then asks Jeff if anyone has seen improvements to conditions like Crohn’s disease or rheumatoid arthritis when considering the inflammatory nature of these diseases processes. 27:54: STEMTALK BLURB 28:23: Dawn comments on how she has been a vegetarian for more than 20 years, and how it is difficult to be on a ketogenic diet with no meat as a fat source. She then discusses how “The New Atkins for a New You,” has a chapter devoted to a low-carb diet for vegetarians and asks Jeff if he has any tips to share for vegetarians or vegans. 29:59: Ken discusses a conversation he had with a woman about the difficulty of a ketogenic diet for someone who is fat-phobic. She has the idea that if she eats fat it will soon be on her. Ken then asks Jeff if this “fat fear” is something that he finds in working with patients. 32:30: Ken comments on how Rob Wolff reports that lipidologists are quite wary of the LDL-P, the particle numbers that they see in some people trying the ketogenic diet. As a result, these people have to increase their carb intake. Ken then asks Jeff what his thoughts on this are. 35:33: Ken discusses how LDL-P is more strongly correlated with heart disease than LDL cholesterol in the literature. 41:02: Dawn asks Jeff if he thinks that someone on a ketogenic diet would need a different amount of fiber per day compared to what has been recommended by the Institute of Medicine. 41:44: Dawn discusses how for decades recreational and competitive athletes have religiously consumed a diet rich in carbohydrates to fuel their performance, and the conventional wisdom has been to avoid fatty foods. However, in recent years these beliefs have been questioned. Dawn asks Jeff to give an overview of this trend. 44:58: Dawn asks Jeff to expand on why he thinks there was no difference in muscle glycogen between the two groups. 47:56: Dawn discusses a recent paper published in The Journal of Physiology where Louise Burke looked at elite race walkers while on the ketogenic diet. The team found that this diet impaired performance in elite endurance athletes “despite a significant improvement in peak aerobic capacity.” Her primary point was that race walkers showed increased oxygen demand for a given speed. Dawn then asks Jeff to share his thoughts on this paper. 49:40: Ken asks Jeff to briefly explain the role of PDH, and whether Jeff looked at this enzyme in his studies on athletes who were keto-adapted. 51:40: Ken discusses how in contrast to endurance sports, some more power-oriented athletes have reported that when on a ketogenic diet they experience low energy levels during the most demanding moments in the sport, but others do not experience this at all. Ken asks Jeff if he has any thoughts on power athletes on a ketogenic diet. 56:29: Dawn discusses how Jeff has spent a good amount of time studying keto-adapted elite ultra-runners, such as the western states 100 record holder, Tim Olson. Dawn asks Jeff what he learned at this event with regards to a low-carb endurance athlete, and how this informs recommendations he would make to athletes when they are fueling for a competition of this kind. 59:07 Dawn asks Jeff if he sees more athletes shifting towards a low-carb diet. 1:00:37: Ken discusses the use of exogenous ketone esters in the Tour de France races. He then asks Jeff for his opinion on this and to briefly address the confusion on this topic 1:04:01: Ken comments on how Jeff wrapped up the confusion nicely. 1:05:14: Ken and Dawn thank Jeff for joining them.

Frequent STEM-Talk listeners will more than likely recognize today’s guest, veteran NASA astronaut Tom Jones, who joins us today to talk about the threat of near-Earth asteroids. Tom occasionally helps co-host STEM-Talk. But for episode 42, regular co-hosts Ken Ford and Dawn Kernagis turn the microphone around to interview Tom about his days as an astronaut, planetary defense and asteroids. It’s a topic, as you will hear, that Tom is quite passionate about.  He also has a great deal of expertise in the field. Before he became an astronaut, Tom earned a doctorate in planetary science from the University of Arizona in 1988. He’s also a graduate of the United States Airforce Academy. His research interests range from the remote sensing of asteroids to meteorite spectroscopy to applications of space resources. He became an astronaut in 1991 and received the NASA Space Flight Medal in 1994, 1996, and 2001. He also received the NASA Exceptional Service Award in 1997 and again in 2000. In 1995, he received the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal. Tom logged 52 days in space, including three space walks totaling more than 19 hours. He is the author of several books, including Sky Walking: An Astronauts Memoir, which the Wall Street Journal named as one of the five best books about space. His latest book is Ask the Astronaut: A Galaxy of Astonishing Answers to Your Questions about Space. Below are links to Tom’s books as wells the STEM-Talk interview with Pascal Lee, which Ken refers to while interviewing Tom. Links: Pascal Lee interview: http://www.ihmc.us/stemtalk/episode-17/ New Yorker article: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/02/28/vermin-of-the-sky TFPD Report: http://www.ihmc.us/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/TFPD-FINAL-Report-to-NAC-10-6-10_v2.pdf Tom Jones books: “Sky Walking” – http://amzn.to/2t8dSQn “Ask the Astronaut” – http://amzn.to/2vhUxZD “Complete Idiots Guide to NASA” – http://amzn.to/2uWZHun “Planetology” – http://amzn.to/2unXgnP Show notes: 3:36: Ken and Dawn welcome Tom to the show. 4:11: Ken comments on the interesting path that Tom has travelled throughout his life and asks Tom to give a synopsis of his path of reinvention. 6:56: Dawn asks Tom to talk about the goals and highlights of the four shuttle missions he went on. 3:39: Dawn welcomes Tom as a guest on STEM-Talk. 9:23: Dawn comments on how Tom no longer flies in space, but he and some of his colleagues are now involved in another space mission that could save the Earth or a large part of it from destruction. Dawn then asks Tom how he became interested in planetary defense from asteroids. 11:30: Ken asks Tom to explain the differences between asteroids, comets, meteoroids, meteors, and meteorites. 13:37: Ken asks Tom how he would define a near-earth asteroid. 14:06: Dawn asks Tom how frequently asteroids strike the Earth. 16:27: Dawn asks Tom how likely she is to die in an asteroid catastrophe, statistically speaking. 18:27: Dawn discusses an article on planetary defense titled, Vermin of the Sky, published in The New Yorker in February of 2011. She comments on how Ken is quoted in the article as saying, “The very short perspective we have as humans makes the threat of asteroids seem smaller than it is. People of all sorts find it easier to kick the can down the road and hope for a mystical solution.” 20:04: Ken comments on how in the same article Clark Chapman notes that “Unlike Hurricane Katrina, we can do something about an asteroid, the question is whether we would rather be wrong in overprotecting or wrong in under protecting”. Ken then points out that one can imagine a near societal collapse should it be announced that, with high confidence, an asteroid was on a collision course with Earth, and that as a society we have no means to deflect it. Humans, Ken adds, would come to envy the dinosaurs who had no time to ruminate about their fate. Ken asks Tom if he can even imagine the societal disruption of such an announcement. 21:50: Dawn discusses how in January of this year the U.S. Government released a strategy for preparing for a Near-Earth Object (NEO) impact. She then asks Tom if he thinks the strategy is on the right track. 23:29: Dawn asks Tom to give a sense of how NASA deals with the asteroid hazard today. 25:04: Dawn asks Tom if he thinks that as NASA’s interests in asteroids has increased, if it is striking the right balance between science, exploration, and planetary defense. 26:59: Ken discusses how Tom and Rusty Schweickart co-chaired the NASA Advisory Council’s Ad Hoc Task Force on planetary defense, and how in October of 2010, their task force made five primary recommendations. Ken asks Tom to review them and briefly discuss what has transpired in the years since in a lightning round. Recommendation number one: organize for effective action on planetary defense. 28:17: Recommendation number two: acquire essential search, track, and warning capabilities. 29:10: Recommendation number three: investigate the nature of the impact threat. 29:41: Recommendation number four: prepare to respond to impact threats. 30:39: Recommendation number five: lead U.S. planetary defense effort in national and international forms. 32:05: Ken praises Tom on the successful lightning round. 32:08: Dawn asks Tom what the current score card is on our detection of NEOs and how the percentage of the NEO population discovered is. 33:49: Dawn asks Tom why we do not get more notice of the approaching objects. 34:53: Dawn comments on how Tom talked about the limitations of the ground-based detection. She then asks Tom to discuss why ground-based detection has these limitations. 36:10: Dawn asks Tom to talk about some of the cons of these space-based detection missions and whether or not there are solutions to these cons. 38:16: STEMTALK BLURB 38:42: Dawn asks Tom what we learned from the Chelyabinsk impact in 2013. 40:36: Dawn asks Tom how much it will cost to deal with the asteroid threat effectively. 41:55: Ken comments that clearly these relatively modest preventive costs would be entirely dwarfed by several orders of magnitude for any significant impact on Earth in a populated area. 42:57: Ken states that to put it in perspective, the initial annual cost estimated in the report is essentially the cost of a single, frontline jet fighter. 43:27: Dawn discusses Tom’s role as a science advisor for the B612 Foundation that is now creating a new asteroid institute at the University of Washington. She then asks Tom what his take is on the new activities that this institute will be enabling, aside from searching for NEOs. 45:05: Dawn comments on how Tom is associated with the Association of Space Explorers and asks why they are interested in planetary defense. 46:16: Ken asks Tom to imagine that we have detected an NEO that seems to be on a collision course with Earth. He then asks Tom to review the leading proposed ideas on how humanity might deflect it sufficiently for it to actually miss the Earth. 49:45: Ken asks Tom if once we divert an asteroid collision whether or not it is gone for good. More specifically, how we can prevent an asteroid on its elliptical orbit from passing through a gravitational keyhole and returning to threaten Earth again. 52:37: Dawn comments on how ESA and NASA have been discussing a joint-asteroid deflection demonstration mission. She then asks Tom what the prospects are for that mission. 54:36: Dawn asks Tom if he thinks that the UN is the best organization to plan for a public safety hazard of this magnitude. 56:32: Ken asks Tom to talk about the natural uncertainty associated with projecting the exact place of impact on Earth and the implications for planning a deflection mission. 59:30: Dawn asks why it is that the topic of NEOs seems to fly under the radar and be of so little interest in comparison to other threats of much less gravity. 1:01:20: Ken comments on how he believes that this topic suffers from the sky is falling syndrome, evoking the story of Chicken Little. Also, that political leaders tend to think in terms of best election cycles and that it is hard to get them excited about potentially cataclysmic events that are nearly certain to happen in the long run. 1:02:50: Dawn discusses how NASA’s 2017 budget eliminates funding for the asteroid redirect mission, which is to return a boulder from a Near-Earth Asteroid and put it on the moon. She then asks Tom if this cancellation affects our planetary defense efforts in any real sense. 1:04:10: Dawn asks Tom how we can use Near-Earth Asteroids and their resources to aid our human space flight exploration efforts. 1:05:13: Ken comments on how he finds Phobos and Deimos, moons of Mars, absolutely fascinating. He goes on to state that these may in fact be asteroids. He then asks Tom to talk about Phobos and Deimos and why they are of such great interest. 1:07:56: Ken recommends that the listeners interested in Phobos and Deimos check out an earlier STEM-Talk podcast with Pascal Lee. (See link above.) 1:08:14: Ken asks Tom what he sees as the role and timing of the lunar activity in the larger scheme of human space exploration. 1:09:53: Ken asks Tom what he sees as the best way for government to conduct its programs so as to help enable the success of commercial space products and service providers without directly subsidizing them. 1:11:39: Dawn comments on how Tom has had a very impressive career path and asks him what advice he would give to others who would like to someday work in space or explore the solar system. 1:14:03: Dawn discusses the four books Tom has written on space flight: “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to NAS;” “Sky Walking: An Astronauts Memoir;” “Planetology: Unlocking the Secrets of the Solar System,” and “Ask the Astronaut: A Galaxy of Astonishing Answers to Your Questions about Space Flight.” 1:15:23: Dawn asks Tom if he deals with the asteroid hazard or planetary defense in any of these books. 1:16:19: Ken comments that Tom should heavily distribute The Complete Idiot’s Guide to NASA in certain quarters of D.C. 1:16:46: Dawn asks Tom what other interests he pursues in addition to space. 1:17:31: Ken and Dawn thank Tom for joining them.

Dr. David Diamond, a USF professor, discusses his research on fat, cholesterol, and statin drugs in heart disease. He challenges the low-fat, high-carb diet and highlights the flaws in medical research. The podcast covers optimizing cardiovascular health through diet and exercise, addressing misconceptions about inflammation and fats, and the controversy surrounding statin drugs.

Joining us for this special edition of STEM-Talk is Robb Wolf, who will co-host today’s show with Ken Ford, STEM-Talk’s regular co-host and chairman of the Double-Secret Selection Committee which selects all the STEM-Talk guests. Wolf is the New York Times best-selling author of “The Paleo Solution” and “Wired to Eat.” He’s also a friend of today’s guest, Allan Savory, a world-renowned ecologist who advocates for the restoration of the earth’s grasslands. “I’ve known Allan for years as a passionate advocate for restoring the health of the earth, especially grasslands. So when Ken invited me to join him and co-host the podcast with Allan, I jumped at the chance,” said Wolf, who is filling in for regular STEM-Talk co-host Dawn Kernagis. Grasslands take up a third of the earth’s land surface. And, as you will learn in today’s podcast, they are in serious trouble. Seventy percent of grasslands have been degraded by global trends ranging from deforestation to droughts to agricultural and livestock practices. As more and more of earth’s fertile land rapidly turns into deserts, Savory travels the world promoting holistic management as a way to reverse thousands of years of human-caused desertification. Savory is an ecologist, international consultant and the president of the Savory Institute, which promotes large-scale restoration of the world’s grasslands. Desertification, which Savory says is just a fancy word for land that’s turning to desert, directly affects more than 250 million people worldwide and has placed another billion people at risk, according to the United Nations. Savory was born in Southern Rhodesia, which is now the nation of Zimbabwe, and went to college in South Africa where he majored in zoology and biology. He went to work as a research biologist and game ranger in what was then known as Northern Rhodesia, but is now the nation of Zambia. Later in his career, he became a farmer and game rancher in Zimbabwe. As a game ranger in the 1960s, Allen made a significant breakthrough in understanding what was causing the degradation of the world’s grassland ecosystems and became a consultant who worked with groups on four continents to develop sustainable solutions. Most of his time as a game ranger was spent in the country’s savannas and grasslands among antelopes, elephants and lions. It was then that Allan started to notice that the healthiest grasslands were those in which large herds of wild grazers stayed bunched together and were constantly on the move because of predators that hunted in packs. It was this insight that led Savory to develop what he refers to as a “holistic management framework,” a planning process that mimics nature as a means to heal the environment. Once an opponent of livestock, he grew to believe that increasing the number of livestock on grasslands rather than fencing them off for conservation was the way to stop desertification. But when civil war broke in Rhodesia in the ‘60s, Allan ended up leading an elite military squad to fight communist guerrillas. In the latter days of the civil war, Allan became a member of Parliament and the leader of the opposition to the ruling party. He was exiled in 1979 as a result of his opposition to the ruling party and immigrated to the United States. In 1992, Savory and his wife, Jody Butterfield, formed the non-profit Africa Centre for Holistic Management and donated a ranch that serves as learning site for people all over Africa. He and Butterfield then co-founded the Savory Institute in 2009, whose mission is to promote restoration of the world’s grasslands through holistic management. The couple lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and have co-authored books together, including “Holistic Management: A Commonsense Revolution to Restore Our Environment,” which came out last year. In 2003, Allen received Australia’s International Banksia Award for the person or organization doing the most for the environment on a global scale. In 2010, he received the Buckminister Fuller Institute’s Challenge award for work that has significant potential to solve humanity’s most pressing problems. The Savory Institute also is one of 11 finalists in the Virgin Earth Challenge, a $25 million initiative for the successful commercialization of ways to take greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere. Links: Savory Institute –  http://www.savory.global “Holistic Management: A Commonsense Revolution to Restore Our Environment” – http://amzn.to/2sHBkmm “Holistic Management Handbook – http://amzn.to/2sI0Is7 Show notes: 4:51: Ken and Rob welcome Allan to the show. 5:01: Ken comments on how Allan has travelled an incredibly varied path through life and asks Allan to discuss his experiences as a biologist and park ranger in Africa. 8:23: Ken discusses the time Allan spent fighting communist guerrillas when civil war broke out in Zimbabwe in the 1960s and comments on the elite military group that Allan hand-picked and trained. Ken asks Allan to talk about how and why he was selected to lead this unit and about his methods of selection and training. 10:43: Rob asks Allan about the significance of the herds of wild grazing animals, that Allan observed when he spent time in the savannahs and grasslands as a game ranger and solider. 14:38: Rob discusses how in the later days of the civil war Allan served as a member of parliament, but in 1979 ended up being exiled and emigrated to the United States. Rob then asks Allan to talk about this part of his life. 17:50: Ken comments on how Allan has led an interesting life and taken on numerous difficult positions, never shunning a painful choice or controversy. 18:35: Rob discusses Allan’s frame of reference, now called holistic management, that he began developing. Holistic management mimics nature and also draws on organizational skills learned in the military and is considered by Allan as a legitimate option to heal the environment and reverse desertification. Rob asks Allan to clarify what holistic management is and when and how it developed. 22:09: Rob asks Allan to describe the desertification and the impact it’s having on the earth. 30:31: Ken asks Allan to discuss how he met his wife, Jodi Butterfield, and how the two of them created the Savory Institute, which works to promote preservation of the world’s grasslands through holistic management. 32:25: Ken asks Allan to share the activities and goals of the Savory Institute. 36:37: STEMTALK BLURB 37:04: Rob comments on how the world seems to always bifurcate into two ideological camps. On one hand there are malthusiasts, or folks who have predicted a number of collapse scenarios, resource depletion, mass starvation, etc., and although extremely convincing at times, their predictions are usually wrong. The other ideological group may be referred to as rational optimists, who make the case that markets and innovation will always save the day. Today, it is generally argued that rational optimists win the debate, but Rob has a gut sense that this may not go on indefinitely. Rob asks Allan what his views on this topic are, and whether he is a malthusiast or rational optimist. 44:06: Robb talks about advances in evolutionary medicine and how traditional medicine often chases symptoms in lieu of finding solutions. Robb asks Allan if he sees a parallel with sustainability in food production, and if this evolutionary framework could inform our approach to a sustainable future. 48:18: Ken comments on how many people are surprised to learn about the predator-prey interaction in the holistic management process and asks Allan to talk about this interaction. 51:41: Rob asks Allan to expand upon the constant battle of the topic of holistic management and properly managed grazing animals. 54:30: Ken remarks that many people have jumped on Allan’s claims regarding the potential of carbon sequestration, both supportive and critical. Ken then asks Allan to elaborate on his views of the efficacy of carbon sequestration in the framework of holistic management. 56:23: Rob asks Allan what the largest benefits are for the farmer adopting the practice of holistic management. 57:54: Ken comments how Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms is a large proponent of holistic management, and how he credits the approach as a key element in transforming Polyface Farms from an uneconomic farm into a prosperous operation, which serves as a model for many other diversified farm operations around the world. https://youtu.be/4dq8vsVvvOc 59:13: Rob asks Allan if there are any specific conditions that he could see the adoption of holistic management in agriculture proceeding either faster or slower around the world. 1:02:05: Ken asks Allan how new technology, such as robotics, may help holistic management practices. 1:04:41: Rob asks Allan to discuss his new book, Holistic Management: A Common Sense Revolution to Restore Our Environment, released in 2016 by Allan and his wife, Jodi. This book is a revised third edition of Allan’s book published in 1990: Holistic Management: A New Framework for Decision Making. Rob comments on how the new book’s subtitle has a more urgent message and asks Allan to talk about why he chose to revise the subtitle. 1:05:47: Rob asks Allan if down time exists for him and what he does for fun in this time. 1:07:03: Allan ends the interview by talking about how it’s important that people take a position and stop sitting on the fence.

Prior to Dr. Suzana Herculano-Houzel’s research, scientists assumed that the brains of all mammals were built in the same way and that the overall brain mass as compared to body mass was the critical determinant of cognitive ability. It was to resolve these conundrums about brain mass, body mass, and intelligence that Herculano-Houzel turned to chainsaws, butchers’ knives, and kitchen blenders to concoct what she refers to as brain soup. As STEM-Talk co-hosts Ken Ford and Dawn Kernagis point out during their interview with Herculano-Houzel, epsisode 39 of the podcast turned out to be not only an enlightening conversation, but also one of the most fun STEM-Talk interviews to date. Herculano-Houzel is a Brazilian neuroscientist who devised a way to count the number of neurons in human and animal brains. She writes about this in her book, The Human Advantage: A New Understanding of How Our Brain Became Remarkable. Her method of counting the neurons of human and other animals’ brains allowed her to study the relation between the cerebral cortex and the thickness and number of cortical folds in the brain. She is currently an associate professor of psychology and biological sciences in Vanderbilt University’s psychological sciences department and the Vanderbilt Brain Institute. She grew up in Brazil and received her undergraduate degree in biology at Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. She went to Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, to get her masters in neuroscience, and completed her Ph.D. in visual neurophysiology at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt, Germany. After completing her doctorate, Herculano-Houzel returned to Rio and went to work for the Museum of Life where she designed children’s activities. In 2002 she returned to her alma mater and began researching how human brains compared to other animals. In 2004, she devised a way of reducing brains to liquid as a means to count the number of neurons in them. It is technically known as the “isotropic fractionator.” In 2004 she won the Jose Reis Prize of Science, and in 2010 she received the James S. McDonell Foundation’s  Scholar Award in Understanding Human Cognition.  She is also the author of a biweekly newspaper column on the neuroscience of everyday life for Folha de São Paulo, the major newspaper in Brazil. Going into its 11th year, the column has appeared more than 270 times since 2006.  In addition to “The Human Advantage,” Herculano-Houzel is also the author of six books in Portuguese that focus on the neuroscience of everyday life. She also has a popular blog called “The Neuroscientist on Call,” which she describes as not-so-random thoughts about brains, the universe and everything. She lives in Nashville, TN, with her husband, son and two dogs. Links you may be interested in: “The Human Advantage”: http://amzn.to/2rtvNOY The Neuroscientist on Call blog: http://www.suzanaherculanohouzel.com Show notes: 5:32: Suzana talks about growing up in Rio and how she became interested in science. 7:07: Ken asks Suzana about her work at Rio’s Museum of Life. 12:55: Dawn asks Suzana when she firsts became interested in neuroscience. 16:00: Dawn follows up with a question about the composition of cells in the brain. 29:21: Suzana talks about how the brain represents just 2% of the average human mass, yet requires 25%of person’s energy. 33:14: Dawn tells Suzana she’s curious about Suzana’s method of counting neurons and asks her to talk about how she came up with the idea of brain soup. 38:58: Break 39:24: Dawn reads a portion of a book review that described how Suzana turned to chainsaws, butcher knifes and blenders to concoct brain soup and asks her to elaborate. 42:03: Suzana talks about some of the difficulty she had in locating brains for her research. 53:07: Suzana shares some of the lessons she’s learned from analyzing the brains of more than 100 species. 58:52: Ken asks if the cerebral cortex is the best overall predictor of cognitive ability across species. 59:50: Dawn wonders about whales and asks Suzana what we know about the intelligence of aquatic life. 1:05:41: Ken asks if there are neuronal differences in humans. 1:09:33: Suzana talks about how cooking helped homo erectus, the first modern human species, to double its brain size. 1:14:49: Ken reads an excerpt from an excellent review of “The Human Advantage” that ran in The New York Review of Books. 1:18:35: Ken and Dawn thank Suzana and sign off.

Thyroid cancer is one of the fastest growing cancers in the United States, especially among women. In Florida, thyroid cancer trails only melanoma skin cancer as the state’s fastest rising cancer. Today’s guest on episode 38 of STEM-Talk has made it his mission to not only treat thyroid cancer, but also raise awareness about the disease. Dr. Mark Lupo is founder and medical director of the Thyroid and Endocrine Center of Florida which is based in Sarasota. A graduate of Duke University, he went on to earn his medical degree at the University of Florida where he worked with the world-famous thyroid expert, Dr. Ernie Mazzaferri. Dr. Lupo also did his internship and residency in internal medicine at Florida and then won a fellowship in endocrinology, metabolism and nutrition at the University of California San Diego and the Scripps Clinic. Dr. Lupo’s research and practice are particularly focused on thyroid nodules, which are abnormal growths of thyroid cells that form a lump within the thyroid gland. Although the vast majority of thyroid nodules are benign, a small proportion do contain thyroid cancer. His practice is centered on diagnosing and treating thyroid cancer at the earliest stage and helping people avoid unnecessary surgeries. He also is very involved in teaching neck ultrasound, thyroid cancer and general thyroid disease to other physicians at the national level.  He has published book chapters and several articles on thyroid disease and thyroid ultrasound.  In addition to his work as the medical director of the Thyroid and Endocrine Center of Florida, he also is a clinical assistant professor on the faculty of the Florida State University College of Medicine. Dr. Lupo also was named the 2017 recipient of the Jack Baskin Endocrine Teaching Award, which is annually presented by the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists.  You can learn more about the Thyroid and Endocrine Center of Florida by visiting http://www.thyroidflorida.com. Show notes: 3:21: Ken and Dawn welcome Mark to the show and ask him what led him to study medicine at Duke. 4:52: Dawn asks Mark how he ended up choosing endocrinology with a particular interest in thyroid nodules and cancer as a specialty. 6:40: Dawn asks Mark how he found the time to go on incredible adventures, such as climbing Mount Kilimanjaro as he worked to establish a practice. 8:40: Mark provides an overview of the thyroid. 9:46: Dawn asks Mark to clarify about whether a thyroid nodule is the same thing as a goiter. 10:25: Ken comments on how thyroid nodules and cancer seem to be epidemic and how there has been an increase of instances in the United States. He asks Mark if there is a greater incidence of disease or if there is just better detection or a combination of both. 14:33: Dawn asks if we know why thyroid nodules and cancer seems more prevalent in women. 15:01: Dawn inquires about the survival rate for those diagnosed with thyroid cancer, and whether or not it has changed over the years. 17:45: Dawn comments on how she has been looking forward to this interview as a result of a thyroid scare she had in graduate school where there was an inconclusive biopsy. She asks Mark how common it is to have an inconclusive finding and unclear results about a sample. 20:52: Ken comments on his personal experience with thyroid nodules that led to surgery and a positive outcome, and how he met Mark early in this experience after hearing him on a podcast discussing fine needle aspiration. After hearing this podcast, Ken concluded that he most likely needed this procedure. Ken asks Mark to talk about this. 23:37: Dawn asks Mark how often the thyroid nodules are discovered incidentally. 27:34: Dawn asks if there are certain characteristics you can see by ultrasound that give you an idea as to whether you are looking at a benign or malignant nodule. 29:53: Dawn asks what the histological differences are between a benign adenoma and a malignant nodule. 31:16: Ken brings the discussion back to the topic of indeterminate diagnosis, and comments that more of the biopsies are being read as being indeterminate, which leads to more surgeries. Ken asks Mark to discuss this phenomenon. 39:28: Dawn asks which institutions are doing specialized tests. 41:11: Break 41:38: Dawn asks Mark to go into further detail about what we are looking at when we do testing for molecular subtypes. 44:48: Dawn asks Mark if there is a genetic predisposition to any types of thyroid cancer. 48:13: Since positron emission tomography has been helpful in diagnosing metastatic disease in hurthle cell carcinoma, Ken asks if it makes sense to use a ketogenic diet as a supplemental approach to managing the cancer. 52:26: Dawn asks Mark what his thoughts are on the current interest and understanding that cancer is at least partially a metabolic disorder. 53:21: Dawn asks Mark to discuss the different treatment options for thyroid cancer. 1:04:20: Dawn asks Mark to describe the treatment of immunotherapy and how it relates to thyroid cancer. 1:05:56: Dawn asks Mark if thyroid cancer metastasizing varies by subtype. 1:06:58: Mark talks about how lifestyle and environmental exposures might impact the prevalence of thyroid nodules and cancer. 1:09:48: Dawn comments again about her thyroid scare, and the doctors believing that it may connect to her soy intake as a result of her being a vegetarian. 1:10:43: Ken asks Mark about the impacts of dental x-rays. 1:12:20: Ken comments on how thyroid shields should be used in dental x-rays. 1:12:39: Dawn asks Mark what, if any, prophylactic measures we can take to minimize our risk of thyroid nodules or cancer. 1:13:41: Ken asks Mark to talk about the correlation, and possible causation, between insulin resistance and the development of nodules. 1:15:27: Dawn asks Mark about his thoughts on screening individuals for thyroid cancer, since roughly 50 percent of the population has thyroid nodules. 1:18:21: Ken asks Mark if observation should be the standard care for non-palpable thyroid nodules under ten millimeters. 1:20:07: Dawn asks Mark what the quality of life consequences are for patients who are unnecessarily treated for thyroid cancer. 1:21:38: Dawn asks Mark to talk about the options for people who end up with benign nodules. 1:23:52: Dawn asks Mark if the ionization of salt backfired and contributed to the increase in thyroid nodules, cancer, and autoimmunity. 1:27:20: Ken discusses a New York Times article about doctors reclassifying a thyroid tumor, where they reported that noninvasive follicular thyroid neoplasms with papillary-like nuclear features are no longer considered a type of cancer. Ken asks Mark to discuss this shift in categorization and its consequences. 1:31:46: Dawn asks Mark about his work travelling around the country teaching surgeons and endocrinologists how to use clinical features to minimize unnecessary surgeries and about using ultrasound to risk stratify the nodules. 1:33:15: Ken asks Mark about receiving the 2017 Jack Baskin Endocrine Teaching Award from the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists. 1:34:20: Dawn asks Mark what else he likes to do in his spare time other than his mountain adventures. 1:35:09: Dawn and Ken thank Mark and sign off.

The front pages of Gary Taubes’ new book on sugar feature a blurb excerpted from the magazine Scientific American: “Taubes is a science journalist’s science journalist who researches topics to the point of obsession – actually, well beyond that point – and never dumbs things down for readers.” Gary’s most recent obsession is documented in “The Case Against Sugar,” a book that argues that increased consumption of sugar over the past 30 to 40 years has led to a diabetes epidemic not only in the United States, but an epidemic that’s now spreading around the world. Episode 37 of STEM-Talk features a more than two-hour conversation with Gary about his latest research as well as a look back at other nutrition and science topics that have dominated Gary’s journalistic investigations since the 1980s. Gary first burst onto the national scene in 2002 with an article in the New York Times Magazine titled, “What If’s It’s All Been a Big Fat Lie?” Gary made the point that Robert Atkins and his high-fat, low-carb diet had a better history and scientific record of helping people lose weight than the low-fat diet that was and remains the centerpiece of the nation’s health policy and food pyramid. The article had an immediate impact. As Michael Pollan pointed out in the introduction of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” in the fall of 2002 bread “abruptly disappeared overnight from the American dinner table.” Virtually overnight, wrote Pollan, Americans changed the way they eat. Gary did not set out to become a science journalist. He graduated from Harvard College in 1977 with an S.B. degree in applied physics and went on to earn an M.S. degree in aeronautical engineering from Stanford University. But while at Stanford, he realized he wasn’t that passionate about becoming an aeronautical engineer and decided to enroll in the Columbia School of Journalism to become an investigative reporter. In the ‘80s, Gary became fascinated with flawed science and started writing a series of magazine articles about bad science. That eventually led to a pair of books: “Nobel Dreams” in 1987 and “Bad Science: The Short Life and Weird Times of Cold Fusion” in 1993. After “Bad Science,” Gary turned to nutrition reporting and that resulted in the 2002 article in the New York Times Magazine. He followed up on his research for the article with two books: “Good Calories, Bad Calories” in 2007; and “Why We Get Fat” in 2010. Both books detailed how refined carbohydrates are largely responsible for America’s rising obesity rate and a primary cause of heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and other chronic diseases of the Western diet. His new book, “The Case Against Sugar,” takes this argument a step further and shows how the explosion of sugar consumption and sugar-rich products in the United States has led to a global diabetes epidemic. Dan Barber, author of “The Third Plate,” wrote in a New York Times review of Gary’s book, “Comparing the dangers of inhaling cigarettes with chowing down on candy bars may sound like a false equivalence, but Gary Taubes’s “The Case Against Sugar” will persuade you otherwise. Here is a book on sugar that sugarcoats nothing. The stuff kills.” Below are links to Gary’s books: “The Case Against Sugar” http://amzn.to/2ps8Qbl “Good Calories, Bad Calories” http://amzn.to/2qTwJJ6 “Why We Get Fat” http://amzn.to/2qKuv2u “Bad Science” http://amzn.to/2qTjyrI “Nobel Dreams” http://amzn.to/2pXpRgK Show notes: 4:41: Ken and Dawn welcome Gary to the show and ask him to talk about how a Harvard physics major ended up going to journalism school to become an investigative reporter. 12:53: Dawn asks Gary to tell the story behind his 2002 article in The New York Times Magazine, “What If It’s All Been a Big Fat Lie?” 21:13: Gary shares how his work for “What If It’s All Been a Big Fat Lie?” led to additional research and the book, “Good Calories, Bad Calories.” 31:00: Gary explains how his study of physics gave him a passion for understanding the history of theories, and how that passion has helped him over the years as an investigative reporter. 43:44: Dawn asks Gary to share lessons he learned from the Nutrition Science Initiative (NUSI). 50:06: Ken refers to reports about Kevin Hall, a researcher at NIH, who essentially claims he’s disproven the carbohydrate-insulin hypotheses of obesity, and asks Gary for his thoughts. 1:02:40: Dawn asks Gary if he thinks there are specific populations where it would seem less appropriate to be on a low-carb diet? 1:06:44: Ken asks if elevated LDL-P should be a concern for people on low-carb diets since it’s a concern for people on normal diets. 1:13:17: Gary talks about the history of sugar in America. 1:18:08: Ken asks Gary to provide the background on how diabetes is now becoming a worldwide pandemic. 1:31:31: Gary elaborates on the sugars found in cane sugar and high fructose corn syrup. 1:34:43: Dawn asks Gary, “If you could remove sugar from the modern environment, but keep everything else the same, do you think we would have an obesity epidemic?” 1:37:21: Gary talks about what brain scans reveal about the addictive effects of sugar. 1:41:53: Dawn asks Gary to share the background on a 2015 report in The New York Times that Coca-Cola initially subsidized the Global Energy Balance Network. 1:46:55: Gary talks about the role of the microbiome. 1:51:31: Ken asks Gary to share his thoughts about the possible effects of artificial sweetners. 1:54:33: Dawn asks Gary how his personal dietary approach has changed over the years. 1:59:01: Dawn and Ken thank Gary and sign off.