STEM-Talk

For this special episode of STEM-Talk, IHMC Research Scientist and STEM-Talk Host Dawn Kernagis sits on the other side of the microphone. This summer, Dawn was one of six divers selected for NASA’s NEEMO (NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations) 21 mission, and we were able to talk to her live from the Aquarius Reef Base, located 62 feet below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. During the 16-day mission, Dawn and her colleagues performed field research designed to test operations and equipment for future space exploration. In particular, the international crew of aquanauts performed research both inside and outside the habitat. During simulated spacewalks carried out underwater, they evaluated tools and mission operation techniques that could be used in future space missions. Inside the habitat, the crew’s objectives include testing a DNA sequencer, a medical telemetry device, and HoloLens operational performance for human spaceflight cargo transfer. In many ways, the NEEMO mission crystalizes Dawn’s career. Her research expertise has been focused on human performance, risk mitigation and resilience in extreme environments—namely undersea and in space. In addition to her accomplishments as a scientist, Dawn is also a long-standing diver, and this year was inducted into the Women Divers Hall of Fame. Conducting the interview is IHMC Senior Research Scientist and former NASA astronaut Tom Jones. Dawn shares aspects of her daily life in the undersea habitat, from eating freeze dried food to watching thousands of fish from the galley window every night before bed. She also delves into the research that she conducted, which included testing a mini DNA sequencer and deep water dives to collect samples of several coral species and weighted walks on the ocean floor to simulate space walks. STEM-Talk’s Billy Howell and Jason Conrad, key players in the production of each episode, also join the impromptu conversation with “fanboy” questions for Dawn. Dawn kept a blog about her experience, which you can read at: http://www.ihmc.us/blog/neemo 2:00: Dawn discussed her experience as manager for the world record-breaking diving exploration project Wakulla Springs. 2:24: On her induction, last April, into the Women Divers Hall of Fame, she said, “It was cool to be sitting with women I have looked up to since I was a little girl.” 3:23: Dawn described certain challenges faced by people working in extreme environments such as Navy divers, deep sea divers and astronauts: decompression sickness, oxygen toxicity and nitrogen narcosis. 5:02: Ken Ford read a 5-star iTunes review (which are piling up): “The best podcast. It is as if the double secret selection committee has hacked my Google search. Keep up the great work, team.” 5:37: Tom Jones explained that the NEEMO mission, now in its 15th year, is an analog to deep space expedition. 6:09: Dawn said her voice sounded high because of the increase in air density in her undersea habitat. 7:14: Dawn explained that for the in-water work, they gear up and jump out of the habitat in hard hat diving supplies. “There is constant communication with the habitat,” she says. 9:30: “It makes such a difference to have a great team.” 9:50: “The nice thing is we have support divers who bring supplies up and down on a daily basis. It is not as isolated as space expeditions.” 10:50: Dawn described some of the physiological effects of being at a pressure of 3 atmospheres and 62 feet deep: “I can’t whistle; I have a high voice; we can feel swells pick up overhead—the pressure changes, so our ears are constantly popping. We’re hungry all the time.” 12:12: They performed simulated space walks to identify different species of coral for the Florida International University marine sciences team. 13:25: They used geology sample tools and water-resistant iPads. 14:20: They tested medical telemetry equipment (like miniPCRs for DNA sampling) that may be used at the International Space Station; then relayed the data back to physicians. 18:40: With the cheek swab and saliva samples, they looked for epigenetic changes that occur in response to living in a saturation environment. 19:11: Every morning, they got up around 6:00 or 6:30 and make coffee. Then they did the first round of medical telemetry: collecting blood pressure readings, oxygen saturation, hydration levels, and weight. Those were also collected in the evenings. 20:54: “Every evening we’ve been spending watching the amazing night life outside our window.” 21:07: The free time was spent at the galley window, watching all the different fish swim by. Dawn described a lion fish swimming by…She also saw eagle rays and squid. 21:45: She looked for modifications that occur in response to living in a saturation environment. “We are trying to get a baseline idea. Molecular tags change the way a DNA is read out, expressed, and what protein product is made.” 22:52: Their findings may one day be used to prepare for a Mars expedition. “The Software/hardware in the habitat and planetary exploration analog has been focused on long-range space duration, specifically Mars.” 24:40: “The food has been way better than anticipated; but we can have food sent that’s fresh.” They ate mountain house camping food, using hot water and a microwave. She was able to stick to her vegetarian diet. 25:43: They all bunked out at around the same time. There was a round-the-clock mission control on Aquarius Reef. 26:29: Commercial break: STEM-Talk is an educational service of the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, a not-for-profit research lab pioneering ground-breaking technologies aimed at leveraging human cognition, perception, locomotion and resilience. 27:07: Dawn lauded the NEEMO team: “The people are forward thinking; everyone on this team communicates very well. The mentality where you prioritize team over self; for a mission like this (and space) have to be thinking about team. 28:08: The team comprised astronauts, physicians, engineers, molecular biologists. 30:00: Prior to the mission, they had a week of solid training at Johnson Space Center in Houston. They also had a week of hands-on training in the Keys before going under water. 31:09:  Dawn is startled by support diver in galley window 31:40: In December, Dawn talked to NEEMO founder Bill Todd, about her epigenetics experiment. During that conversation, he asked her to be part of the dive crew.  “I couldn’t speak … I said absolutely, it wasn’t even a question. I was honored.” 34:10: Dawn described the challenge of being in such a beautiful research environment: “Not only are you testing out the procedures; you’re doing it in a place where you enjoy it, and a bad move could be detrimental. You’ve got to keep your situational awareness up and running the entire time while you are doing these other tasks.” 34:47: Tom recalled being in space, enjoying the view of the earth, when his colleague said to him, “Just think Tom, we’re just three inches away from instant death.” 35:15: Before leaving the habitat and returning to the surface, the aquanauts underwent a 16-hour (largely overnight) decompression procedure while breathing 100% oxygen. 38:15: Billy asked Dawn if she can feel the above sea weather in her habitat: “When the seas are rougher above us, you can definitely feel it down here; the habitat connected to life support buoy. With the swells, the pressure changes in your ears. You can see fish moving with the swells. One cool thing… the lightening storms at night: You can see water light up, and it’s absolutely beautiful.” 39:57: Massive heavy dry pots were used to send materials up and down and keep everything dry; the support divers worked really hard to move them back and forth. The electronics were wrapped in plastic bags, in case of any kind of leaking. 42:07: Sometimes there were delays in communication during bad weather. 43:45: Dawn described her experience as a support diver for a day. 46:14: “It was a lot of fun to be on the other side,” she said of the interview. “And having a simulated space walk in the background while I was doing an interview was priceless…” 46:36: Ken said that this live interview from the bottom of the sea “is the kind of thing you’ll only hear on STEM-Talk.” 46:53: Dawn and Ken sign off.  

As STEM-Talk Host Dawn Kernagis points out in this interview, guest Colin Champ looks like he could be featured on the television show “The Bachelor.” But the striking young doctor (who alas, is in a serious relationship) is a radiation oncologist at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Center. Dr. Champ is also deeply invested in researching how exercise and nutrition can help treat and prevent cancer. In his very popular book entitled, “Misguided Medicine: The Truth Behind Ill-Advised Medical Recommendations and How to Take Health Back into Your Hands,” Champ tackles several popularly-held myths regarding health such as the perils of salt and meat intake. Take a look at: http://tinyurl.com/jokel72 On Dr. Champ’s web site, The Caveman Doctor, http://www.cavemandoctor.com/start-here/, he also challenges conventional wisdom and governmental guidelines on nutrition. Dr. Champ received his medical degree from Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia and his bachelor’s in chemical engineering from MIT. He grew up, in his own words, in the “blue-collar, steel town” of Pittsburgh, in a mixed lineage family of Austrians, Irish and Southern Italians. At an early age, he excelled at both sports and science. Dr. Champ’s lecture at IHMC, “Augmenting Cancer Therapy with Diet,” can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ot96y5-D_K0 He also regularly writes for Health Wire: http://www.myhealthwire.com/editors/dr-colin-champ In this STEM-Talk episode, Dawn and IHMC Director and CEO Ken Ford talk with Dr. Champ. 3:33: Dawn introduces Dr. Champ as a radiation oncologist focused on breast cancer, cancers of the central nervous system, clinical nutrition/exercise relating to cancer treatment/prevention. He is board certified in both radiation oncology and integrative medicine. 5:00: Champ discusses his upbringing outside of Pittsburgh. “My family structure greatly influenced my life…. My grandfather was the son of Austrian immigrants. My grandmother was Southern Italian. My dad’s side was also Southern Italian and Irish. My grandfather ran the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie railroad accounting with no college education. He built most of his house and was always into health/fitness. He had an organic garden and left a strong imprint on me.” 6:15: Champ’s mother was “a good cop,” and very loving. His father pushed him to work hard, and there were three cornerstones to Champ’s upbringing: sports, health and academics. “Certainly sports played a huge role in my upbringing. I was involved in sports. I played basketball until I hated it.” 7:00: Science was also pushed heavily in the household. “I was good at science and math at a young age.” 7:50: Champ’s father wanted him to go to the Air Force Academy. Champ realized it wasn’t for him and went to MIT instead. 8:55: “From there it was just kind of a springboard of science and really questioning things.” That led him to medical school. 11:20: Champ discusses what drew him to radiation oncology: “I get to see patients everyday. I don’t think in any other field of medicine that you see people so often. It allows you to forge relationships with people. Providing cancer patients with hope is rewarding.” He added that the science of it (for example, working with giant linear accelerators) is a fun aspect of the job. 15:00: Champ says the low-fat diet is a medical myth that makes certain false promises: to make you skinny, prevent diabetes and cancer, and stop your arteries from clogging. Other myths include the need to decrease your salt intake; exercise by running marathons; and stay out of the sun (which has a lot of health benefits). And, “a little stress is not bad for you—it causes body to fight free radicals as innate antioxidant mechanism.” 17:15: Champ discusses the fallacies of the American dietary guidelines. 20:15: Instead, one way to approach diet is by asking questions such as: If you were to not eat anything for the next five days, what would your body eat? A small amount of carbs (50-150 grams per day, for example.) 23:25: Champ says that if you work out a lot, you need to salt load. 26:00: Some epidemiological studies show that eating less fat cholesterol decreases your risk of dying from a heart attack. But that doesn’t decrease your risk of dying from everything else. 29:00: Champ discusses the widely publicized association between processed and red meat and cancer. The findings are based on flawed studies, Champ says: “A lot of the studies group red meat with hot dogs, etc. People are eating these things wrapped around a bun.” 31:20: Meat provides a nutrient-dense resource for our bodies. “Every food can be dangerous to some degree, but we need foods to survive.” 33:20: Vegetarians can also follow the ketogenic diet; they should lean more on macadamia nuts, diary, eggs, and safer oils including those made with avocado, macadamia, and palm. 35:30: Champ discusses his own diet: It’s short on carbs (50-150 grams/day) and high in fat. “I cook a lot; cooking is like meditation. If you don’t cook, it’s pretty hard to maintain a healthy diet.” For breakfast, he eats bone broth or eggs with spinach or Bok Choy; or an omelet; and tea. For lunch, he has a green leafy vegetable, cooked in a fat source like ghee or grass-fed butter; and fish or organ meats. Dinner resembles lunch. The evening before this interview, Champ ate feta cheese-wrapped lamp meatballs, Brussel sprouts, dark chocolate, and red wine. 38:50: Champ does martial arts/lifts weights 3-4 times per week. Low level activity is very good for burning fat; high intensity is good for stimulating muscle growth. “I’m not a fan of long-distance running. It provides a mental benefit for many people. But it wears and tears at the joints and heart.” 42:35: Sun exposure is linked to some skin cancers; squamous and basal cell carcinoma (the latter of which are almost always non-cancerous); and the bad one, melanoma. 44:00: But sun exposure is also associated with a decreased risk of prostate and breast cancer. The sun confers other health benefits including making bones stronger; and lowering blood pressure. 49:00: Mice studies show that combining radiation and the ketogenic diet can kill tumors. “The intriguing thing is that as metabolic therapies come out, the ketogenic diet may provide an escape mechanism for cancer cells.” 54:00: Taking exogenous ketones may make the ketogenic diet easier to follow. 55:00: Commercial break: STEM-Talk is an educational service of the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, a not-for-profit research lab pioneering ground-breaking technologies aimed at leveraging human cognition, perception, locomotion and resilience. 59:00: Although it’s not completely certain that the ketogenic diet does help cancer patients, Champ says, “we have to keep trying.” Especially for patients with low life expectancy, such as those with glioblastoma, who on average survive only 15-17 months. 1:00:53: AMPK down regulates mTOR (one pathway that tells cancer cells to grow.) It pulls sugar from our blood and up regulates mitochondrial biogenesis. It puts body in an anti-cancer state. 1:07:50: New data is coming out that says fasting 13 hours a day may improve breast cancer outcomes. 1:09:10: It’s the era of the active patient: both exercise and diets (like the ketogenic diet) are allowing patients to take control of their own health. 1:09:38: Champ started the Caveman Doctor web site as a medical resident: to look at the whole medical/healthcare system from a historic point of view: evolutionarily, culturally; common sense wise. And, to make it simple for people to understand. “The goal is to get the average person healthier.” 1:11:10: Champ also tries to get people to question their own food narratives. “I have a lot of issues about how our health is dictated by cultural/societal norms. No one thinks about eating organ meats—or insects.” 1:12:50: Champ wrote a Health Wire article entitled: “Is Exercise Making You Fat?” “If you don’t exercise the right way, and don’t eat the right kind of food, exercise might actually make you fatter.” 1:14:35: Champ follows, and tells his patients, to follow this protocol: Question things first; figure out the answers; implement those. “More often than not, in medical school, we avoid numbers one and two and go to three. We’re taught not to question things.” 1:16:15: “The best patients are those that ask questions. More people need to do that with their own health, especially people on a low-fat diet.” 1:19:30: The whole argument against cholesterol/fat was based on a rabbit study; but rabbits eat nothing like humans, Champ says. There are many non scientific interests with clinical trials. “Even with gold-standard trials, special interests come into play.” 1:21:30: Champ travels regularly to Italy and talks about his favorite (non-pasta/pizza) food there: Italian cheese and wine; squid, octopus, Roman tripe; Florentine steak. 1:25:16: The “Mediterranean diet” is a term that gets used a lot, but what does it really mean? In Italy (and Spain), it means “whole foods; but a lot of cured meat; certainly not a low-fat diet; but it’s real food.” 1:26:50: Champ’s health advice in a nutshell: eat real foods; get eight hours of sleep per night; limit carbs; take the stairs, not the elevator, and park far away; cook your own meals. 1:28:50: Ken calls Champ “impressive on many levels.” Champ’s knowledge provides “a ray of hope in a sometimes bleak medical landscape.” 1:29:26: Dawn and Ken sign off.        

Dr. Pascal Lee is not the first Renaissance man to be interview on STEM-Talk, but his impressive biography merits that moniker. “An artist, helicopter pilot, polar researcher, planetary scientist, and a pioneer in thinking about possible human futures in space,” as described by IHMC Director Ken Ford, Lee has an impressive list of accomplishments to his name. He is co-founder and chairman of the Mars Institute, director of the NASA Haughton-Mars Project at NASA Ames Research Center, and senior planetary scientist at the SETI Institute. Born in Hong Kong, he was sent to boarding school in Paris as a child, and later graduated from the University of Paris with a degree in geology and geophysics. During his year of civil service after college, he lived with 31 other men in Antarctica—a formative experience that gave him a thirst for field work and hands-on exploration. As Lee himself says in this interview, “Forever in my life there will be before and after Antarctica.” Lee went on to study astronomy and space science at Cornell University, where he was also Carl Sagan’s teacher’s assistant. He then did a post-doc at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, where he has been ever since. He continues to search for “new life” in the universe, with a particular interest in preparing for future exploration of Mars. This summer marks Lee’s twentieth summer field trip on Devon Island, the largest uninhabited earth with geological evidence similar to what Lee suspects would be found on Mars. Lee is also the author of a children’s book, called Mission: Mars, about what it would take for humans to travel to the planet. He is also currently working on a book for adults addressing similar questions. Several of Lee’s lectures are available on YouTube, or at his page on the SETI website: http://www.seti.org/users/pascal-lee. His personal web site is http://www.pascallee.net. In this episode, STEM-Talk Host Dawn Kernagis and IHMC senior research scientist Tom Jones, also a veteran NASA astronaut, interview Lee. 00:49: Ken Ford describes Lee’s accomplishments, adding, “Pascal and I share a passion for the moons of Mars—especially Phobos.” 2:10: Ford reads a 5-star iTunes review from “podcast file”: “The STEM-Talk podcast is a must listen. I appreciate how the format of a podcast stays focused and on topic. It is packed with outstanding content that lives up to its name. I truly found useful information and perspectives that impacts how I understand and see the world.” 3:57: Lee describes his upbringing in a Hong Kong that was booming. His father was ethnically Chinese, and his mother was French. As a child, he was sent to boarding school in France—without yet knowing how to speak French. “I started a new life at age eight. I stayed there for fifteen years.” 5:10: He always loved space travel. “I thought that was really inspiring and exciting. It wasn’t just the travel itself. [It was also the fact that there was] more to the universe than what we had on earth. Mars came into the picture a little later, as a teenager. That’s when I got serious about becoming a scientist.” 6:05: Carl Sagan’s book Cosmic Connection “really changed my life at the time…. From that day on, I decided that the planetary sciences were what I wanted to do. The rest was easy because once you have a goal and a focus, it makes a lot of decisions for you.” 6:38: Lee studied science and physics at the University of Paris. He spent his obligatory year of national service in Antarctica. 7:30: “On my way South [to Antarctica], I posted a letter to one graduate school—where Carl Sagan taught. In the middle of winter, I get this Telex from Cornell that I’d gotten in.” 8:28: Lee says his 402 days at a station in Antarctica “was an other-worldly experience. We were 31 people. All men. Forever in my life there will be before and after Antarctica.” 9:48: He went on his first helicopter ride off the coast of Antarctica. Flying through a glacier “was like flying through downtown Manhattan, with ice cliffs on either side.” 10:48: “Helicopters are like the lunar modules of the earth: take you exactly where you want to go.” In Lee’s case, that was an iceberg in the middle of the sea. 11:22: Lee was Carl Sagan’s last TA. After a few snowy winters in Ithaca, Lee was done with cold weather and headed to California. He had a post-doc at NASA Ames and has been there ever since. 12:30: Lee continues to describe his time in Antarctica. “I was expecting it to be trying. In the end, I took more books than I could read. I was so busy doing my work, exploring with colleagues and friends. I can’t say I experienced boredom one minute.” 13:25: He talks about being in a “resource-poor” environment. “You can’t go to a store. All the sudden, small things take on a life of their own. Questions like ‘Who took my pen?’ come up. Tensions arise.” 15:00: Lee was an “ambassador” of the cliques that inevitably formed. “When team leadership is not strongly exercised, then the group splits up into smaller factions. This happens on ships and submarines. That was my experience.” 17:15: He recalls falling into frozen sea ice, which was three-four feet thick when he started walking on it. “Beneath is an abyss of dark, cold, gloomy water. At some point the ice got darker (with the current). It was thinner, and I fell through the ice. I was lucky to be able to swim back to shore and threw one foot onto the ice; my friends came and rescued me.” 18:52: Commercial break: STEM-Talk is an educational service of the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, a not-for-profit research lab pioneering ground-breaking technologies aimed at leveraging human cognition, perception, locomotion and resilience. 19:23: Lee’s driving motivation in science is the search for new life. “I got particularly interested in places you could one day go to: such as the moon, asteroids, Mars.” He did his Ph.D. thesis on asteroids. 21:10: For Lee’s post-doc, he proposed studying a place on earth as Mars-like as possible. “This was a way to go back to the polar regions,” he said. 22:00: He describes Devon Island, where he went for field work, as a “polar desert…. It was cold, dry, barren, dusty, windy—similar to Mars.” 25:25: “We knew from our first summer on Devon Island, that this is a place where we would have to go back, probably for many more years.” 25:40: This summer marks Lee’s twentieth consecutive field trip to Devon Island. “We go to this place for two reasons: to learn about it, so that we can interpret the Martian landscape better; the other reason is that we are using the place as a set where you can test equipment: hardware, space suits, rovers, drills that astronauts or robots could deploy on Mars; airplanes or drones…. It’s an amazing testing ground.” 27:10: Devon Island is also a great place to test operational procedures for a future Mars exploration, in figuring out issues such as how many people should go out on an exploration and how many of them should actually explore at once (versus protect safety.) “Unless you understand exactly what it takes field exploration, you don’t have good requirements for what you want to design and take to Mars. 29:15: Mars has finger-shaped valleys known as small-valley networks. They formed in a thick, warm atmosphere, which became known as “the faint early sun paradox.” 31:10: When they formed, the sun was about 25 percent dimmer than it is today. “The sun was a young star. It was still turning on, and at the time, the valley networks were forming.” 32:54: Lee saw similar things on the valley networks of Devon Island, which were formed by melting ice sheets. 35:40: The two moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos, are important to study because they are in Mars’ orbit. “Going to Mars’ orbit is a lot easier than going to the surface of Mars itself. You don’t have to re-invent the space suit, for example. It can be done much sooner. It would allow ball to get rolling in Mars exploration.” 38:10: There are several theories about how Mars’ moons developed: that they are giant asteroids; captured comets; or bits and pieces of Mars blasted out into space. 39:40: One of the more substantiated ideas, Lee says, is that they are captured comets. 41:44: The near-Earth Asteroid known as 3552 Don Quixote is emitting CO2. It is the largest D-type asteroid (very dark and red) in the inner solar system. Lee says this is evidence that it’s likely a captured, dying comet. 43:37: Phobos and Deimos are similar to 3552 Don Quixote. “They might be ice-rich bodies captured early in history. There are no signs of ice, but who knows what is happening 100 meters down: there could be lumps of ice. This could be a game-changer for getting humans to Mars…. If we had ready access to ice in Mars’ orbit. You can use it as rocket fuel to break down hydrogen and nitrogen in the water.” 44:55: The Russians looked for Phobos and Deimos in 1988; in their second probe, they made it to Mars’ orbit, but an electronics failure blunted the mission. 45:50: In 2011, the Russians again attempted to go to Phobos. They had a launch problem, causing them to fall back into Pacific Ocean off coast of Chile. They don’t have the finances to repeat such a mission. 46:48: However, the Russians are part of the European Phobos return mission. They conducted a detailed feasibility study this summer. 47:48: The Japanese space agency is pursuing a sample return mission called MMX (Mars Moon Exploration), with a goal of launching in 2022, and bringing samples back to earth in 2025. 48:00: Meanwhile, NASA had three missions to Phobos proposed, but they didn’t select any of them. 50:36: Commercial break: STEM-Talk is an educational service of the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, a not-for-profit research lab pioneering ground-breaking technologies aimed at leveraging human cognition, perception, locomotion and resilience. 51:20: Johnson Space Center and others are looking at human missions to Phobos; a lot of questions are coming up: “I think what we’re seeing is a pretty significant robotic precursor mission that NASA will have to put together.” 52:28: NASA has announced it’s sending a new Rover to collect samples on Mars; in 2022, NASA would launch a Mars communications orbiter. 53:22: Gravity on Phobos is 1,700 times less than the gravity on earth. It’s still not the same as zero gravity. 56:15: Water could be in form of ice; or minerals that are hydrated. Many are carbon-rich and clay-rich. Other resources would be organics. 57:17: These places have loose regolith (soil): that means you could move materials around easily; and shelter yourself from space radiation. 59:10: The regolith on Phobos is “the Library of Alexandria” of life on Mars. The surface of Mars is very oxidizing; aggressive chemicals. 1:00:33: “The irony is that the best record of early life on Mars may be on Phobos.” 1:01:03: Lee says asteroid mining will be hard to pursue, especially without a high enough return on the investment. 1:02:39: “Going to Mars is the mother of all camping trips. But it’s a lot more complicated; and it will never be completely safe. But you need to be able to put the odds on your side to survive the effort.” 1:04:10: “I see NASA being able to do it [go to Mars.] But it will take a certain type of leadership. We’re going to need six or seven rockets before putting a human on Mars.” 1:05:15: Lee discredits certain initiatives aiming to establish a permanent human settlement on Mars, namely one called Mars One, a Netherlands-based not-for-profit foundation: “These undertakings have no technical credibility or underpinning,” he said. 1:06:40: “I think we need a space suit that is significantly lighter; we have one that weighs 300 pounds on earth. That suit, if you took it to the Moon, would have a felt weight on the moon of about 50 pounds. If you take that same suit to Mars, it would have a felt weight of 125 pounds. That is too heavy for a field worker.” 1:12:25: “It’s important that we go back to nuclear thermal rockets, which were developed in the 1960s. Nuclear thermal propulsion is a mature idea that is being tested in the desert. It was tested by Nixon in 1960s, but it’s being revived in a quiet way now. The key way to making a human mission to Mars happen is to cut down on the travel time to Mars.” 1:14:42: “The beauty of a NTR is that the only gas emitted is hydrogen. It could cut the travel time to Mars down to just a few months.” 1:15:50: “There’s a way to do safe nuclear in space. For our future on Mars, and space exploration in general, we have to go nuclear. It’s the way stars are powered, and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t do that in space ourselves.” 1:16:58: Lee describes his reason for writing his children’s book, Mission: Mars. “When I was the age of the kids that this book targets, people were walking on the moon. It was clear that the next step would be to go to Mars. There was no book on that for Mars. That was a big incentive for me to write the children’s book.” 1:19:44: Asked what other books he recommends, Lee cites Tom Jones’ memoir Sky Walking, about the ins and outs of being an astronaut; and Bold Endeavors: Lessons from Polar and Space Exploration, by Jack Sester. 1:21:30: Lee is currently working on another book (for adults) dubbed From Earth to Mars, about the necessary steps in getting us to Mars. 1:22:06: Dawn and Ken wrap up. 1:23:17: Dawn and Ken sign off.  

If you want to feel like an astronaut, lie in bed all day. That may seem counter-intuitive, but the body experiences the two scenarios in a similar way. The absence of gravity in space mimics the affects of lying down flat—and not using gravity to our physiological advantage. Gravity expert Joan Vernikos talked about this and other insights on how gravity affects us, in this episode of STEM-Talk, hosted by Dawn Kernagis and Tom Jones. Vernikos spoke to them right before her IHMC lecture in Pensacola, entitled, “Gravity is Our Friend” Vernikos’ first mentor in life was her father, who at 17 years of age, left his native Greece for France, determined to study medicine, which he did. His specialization in infectious diseases took him to Egypt, where Joan and her sister were educated at English boarding schools. Her sister became a physician, while Joan “chickened out,” becoming a pharmacologist instead. After entering academia, she was recruited to NASA, where she became the director of the Life Sciences Division. Since retiring from NASA 16 years ago, Vernikos says that she’s had “a lot more time to think.” She is the author of the provocatively-titled book, “Sitting Kills, Moving Heals,” which was published in 2011. Her forthcoming book, “Designed to Move,” is about how sedentary lifestyles contribute to poor health and early death; and how movement that challenges gravity can dramatically improve life and longevity. A dynamic speaker, Dr. Vernikos has given dozens of lectures, some of which can be found at https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=YouTube.com%2FDrJoanVernikos. You can also check out her web site at www.joanvernikos.com 00:47: Ken Ford describes Vernikos as a pioneer in how living in a micro-gravity environment adversely affects astronauts, compared to the benefits of gravity for those of us on earth. “Living in space is like accelerated aging,” she says—which might be instructive for thinking about preventing and treating age-related conditions such as sarcopenia and osteoporosis. 2:01: IHMC Director Ken Ford reads a 5-star iTunes review from “Fellow Musician”: “Unlike the majority of podcasts I find, STEM-Talk is a long format show with extremely in-depth discussions. I can’t believe how much serious information was packed into the first few episodes. A plus.” 2:25: Dawn gives a brief bio of Vernikos, as the former director of life sciences at NASA, who pioneered research in how living in a micro gravity environment adversely affects the health of astronauts. She also studied the effects of microgravity on the physiology of astronauts in space and aging on earth. 3:37: Vernikos talks about the influence of her physician-father, her first mentor. “I learned by apprenticeship, which is the best way to learn.” 5:05: “What I learned from father, which is fundamental to my approach, is that you listen, you ask questions, and you diagnose …. He would discuss cases at the dinner table; he would ask us, what would we do in that case. That was a fantastic preparation that served me well.” 6:24: In Egypt, which was then a British protectorate, Vernikos went to an all-girls’ English school, with other girls of 27 different nationalities. She studied pharmacy at the University of Alexandria, and then pharmacology in the U.K. 8:00: Vernikos talks about a Greek woman physician who was also a mentor. This woman developed the first drugs that lower blood pressure. “She was very unusual…headstrong…attractive…She insisted we go to the hairdresser every week.” 10:23: Commercial break: STEM-Talk is an educational service of the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, a not-for-profit research lab pioneering ground-breaking technologies aimed at leveraging human cognition, perception, locomotion and resilience. 10:50: Vernikos describes her jump from academia to NASA. She was teaching pharmacology at Ohio State, and the physiology chair there was hired at NASA to start a group in biology/biomedical sciences. He needed someone in the stress business, and picked Joan. 12:36: Vernikos talks about her frustrations in pitching gravity as a medical issue to physicians. “To this day, the word gravity has not made it into the medical school textbooks.” 12:57: “I was very fortunate in my career; I never had to apply for a job. Somehow or other, I was invited to do something and it happened.” As such, she was tagged to become the Life Sciences Division Director at NASA. “I ended up in headquarters, which meant it was the end of my research career, but I never really stopped doing research.” 14:12: She calls her role there “very international” in terms of collaborating with the scientific community. She also managed the Division’s budget. 16:37: The program was observational, she said. “Every bit of information was cumulative in figuring out that gravity was more important than we thought.” 17:50: They discovered that in space, muscle wasting occurred, first because of dehydration. Muscles and bones also atrophied. Animal experiments showed that within six hours of flight, protein synthesis stopped in muscles and bones. “The signal for synthesis was gravity-related.” 20:20: She cites other cardiovascular changes: the heart got smaller, and cardiac output was reduced. The endothelium gradually disappeared with time. Joints, ligaments, collagens were lost. 20:53: “It’s not a catabolic state, but it’s a wasting state,” she said, of the micro-gravity environment experienced by astronauts. 21:17: “I think we’re flogging the same thing over and over again,” she said, in answer to Tom Jones’ question: ‘Do astronauts today preserve bone, muscle strength?’ 22:03: “All the data we have in space is in the presence of the exercise countermeasure.” 24:29: “Since I left NASA 16 years ago, I had time to think, which I didn’t have when I worked there.” 24:58: “We never really sat down and asked: ‘What is the signal the body sees? / What do you need to replace?’” 25:45: The stimulus that is needed to maintain a physiologically-intact body in a gravity micro-environment is low intensity/high frequency intermittent exposure to gravity. 26:12: The minute you stop exercising in space, you revert to a micro-gravity environment. That is not true on earth. Exercise on earth is different. The minute you stop you are still in gravity. 26:40: The space exercise experiments of astronaut Steve Hawley—who purports to have exercised as hard as he possibly could in space, then felt completely normal in the aftermath—made Vernikos conclude: “We should map what happens right after exercise. To this day, no one has looked at after-effects of exercise.” 27:54: “We are perpetual motion machines. We need to move…exercise every day does not counter act all the sitting we do.” 28:34: We need intermittent gravity stimuli for at least 16 hours a day. 29:42: Even just standing up, if it’s frequent, is better than shorter-term walking. 30:33: Vernikos says astronauts need an artificial gravity device that they can get on and off of easily, many times a day. 31:48: All of the body needs to be stimulated, especially the vestibular system, “the clearing house for blood pressure regulation,” as well as other activities central to the bone and muscle. “When the vestibular system goes silent, you’re in trouble.” Calls for systematic research on future implants. 35:20: Jones says that it took three days for his coordination and balance to come back after space flight. That’s because the maps in the brain telling you where you are in environment disappear. 38:00: A form of anabolic resistance may be at work in space…It’s similar to what happens when you lie in bed. 40:50: We don’t know how the glymphatic and lymphatic system in the brain are affected by a gravity-less environment. But without gravity, our body’s “whole detox system is fouled up.” 43:48: All impediments to detoxification result in inflammation. In space, the body is in a state of chronic inflammation, not to mention stress. 44:25: In space, the light intensity and light cycles are altered. Sleep is not sleep; there is an accumulation of carbon dioxide. “The whole life support system must be looked at again. These are crucial to the design of exploration missions, before we even begin to think about the counter measures.” 48:58: “I think it’s crucial that astronauts go on the ketogenic diet. There is a good chance that it will protect them, preventing a variety of conditions, including inflammation.” 50:00: Vernikos compares astronauts to hibernating animals, who don’t lose muscle and bone while hibernating. Their body temperature drops a little; they rely on fat for energy. They breathe more slowly; and even go through pregnancy. 51:17: Astronauts have trouble sleeping and do not feel refreshed when they wake up. Sleep is important for cognitive function. 53:55: “I firmly believe that space has revealed how gravity affects us here on earth; how it is important to our well-being; and how we should use it to maintain our health.” 55:42: The less we move the more like astronauts we become. The changes in bone loss, from one percent a year on earth to 10-20 percent a year in space has confirmed a ten-fold greater loss of bone in space than on earth. 57:05: From age twenty on, we sit more and more. We are designed to move. One time a day exercise is not enough to counteract the absence of movement throughout the day. 1:00:45: Vernikos discusses her book, “Sitting Kills, Moving Heals.” The catchy title brought initial attention to the book, and public interest in it has grown. She highlights the importance of the last, and often over-looked, chapter called gravity therapy. 1:03:29: Vernikos discusses certain longevity secrets of Greeks. Among them: they use their arms when they speak (part of using gravity); they follow a mostly ketogenic diet; their movement, socialization, and emotional expressiveness is all is conducive to longevity. 1:04:53: Longevity in rural areas is greater—in Greece and around the world. 1:05:32: In her free time, Vernikos reads mysteries. “I feel science is a mystery. I think I am a sleuth who solves a problem.” 1:06:11: She says, “I don’t like studying the human body in pieces. It is a whole; you have to look at the whole picture and see how your approach can solve the problem.” 1:07:21: Dawn and Tom thank Vernikos. 1:07:39: Ford sums up Vernikos’ driving message: “Our willingness to interact with gravity will substantially improve how we age.” 1:08:20: Dawn and Ken sign off.

Brian Shul speaks softly and carries a big stick. The American war hero every bit worthy of Roosevelt’s words flew 212 missions in the Vietnam War before his nearly fatal crash. With his body severely burned, Shul was in so much pain that he wanted to die. Then one day, lying in his hospital bed, he heard children playing soccer and the voice of Judy Garland singing “Over the Rainbow” on the radio. Suddenly, Shul, at 25-years-old, realized he had a lot to live for. He set himself on a determined road of recovery that would span 15 reconstructive surgeries and countless hours of physical therapy. Shul eventually turned his amazing story of survival into his greatest strength, and he went on to be one of fewer than 100 people to pilot the SR-71 Blackbird, a U.S. spy plane largely operational during the Cold War and thereafter. Shul and flight engineer Walter Watson flew multiple missions in which they escaped missiles over enemy territory including the Soviet Union and Libya, gathering footage and information that would help the U.S. win the Cold War. Unlike other STEM-Talk guests, Shul is neither engineer nor scientist, but he piloted and knew intimately of one of the greatest feats of both. The plane went 3,400 feet per second, which is faster than most bullets and is the speed of traveling between LA and D.C. in an hour and four minutes. For more information on Brian Shul, visit his Wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Shul. Also, check out the YouTube video of his IHMC lecture, “From Butterflies to Blackbirds,” which has had more than 180,000 viewers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kIMTJRgyn0. Shul is also the author of Sled Driver: The World’s Fastest Jet: http://amzn.to/29ml4LH and The Untouchables: http://amzn.to/29fn1Yk. Here is a link to Shul’s recently opened photo gallery in Marysville, California: https://galleryonepublishing.com/sleddriver/galleryone.html 00:35: Dawn introduces herself and Ken Ford. 00:51: Ford says the SR-71 was the “remarkable product” of a sustained United States investment in STEM. 2:23: Ford reads an iTunes 5-star review of STEM-Talk from PTL Stan: “I love these interviews with the people who are leading these fields. Good science with amazingly friendly interviews by the experts themselves. The quality is amazingly good, and the subjects move right along with my thinking. Thank you, IHMC.” 2:54: Dawn describes Shul’s background. He became an airshow demonstration pilot and taught at the Air Force’s Top Gun School. He retired from the Air Force in 1990. 3:58: Shul was born in Quantico, Va. His father, who had spent 32 years in the Marine Corp, encouraged Shul to join the Air Force because of his strong interest in flying. 5:30: Shul describes the “moment of peace” before his plane crashed during the Vietnam War. “The inevitability of impacting the earth became quite clear…. For a very brief moment, you could actually see your life flash before your eyes. In a nanosecond, I could see the funeral; I could see my parents standing at graveside. And then of course the crash and the fire brought you back to reality.” 6:43: Shul describes his blind escape from the burning plane: “The heat of the fire and the reality that I had not died and was still alive became apparent to me with the pain of the fire.” 7:40: Shul describes his will to live, despite periods of deep depression and wanting to die. 10:32: ‘I’m the product of a lot of people who helped me along the way, from therapists, to surgeons, to nurses, to doctors, to Air Force flight surgeons. There were a lot of people who had a lot to do with getting Brian Shul out of a hospital bed back into the cockpit.” 13:00: “I was in awe of my own body that wanted to heal itself…. You had to want to do your therapy, and it’s not an easy thing to want when it’s just going to hurt the whole time you’re doing it.” 14:15: Shul describes his tenure of teaching at the Air Force Top Gun school. 15:30: Shul underwent a series of intensive selection process in order to fly the SR-71. 16:25: Brian describes what he means by coming out of his crash experience ‘fearless:’ “You’re not afraid to live your life fully. We’re all terminal; we’re all terminal everyday. Once you’ve come that close [to dying] you have a renewed vitality. Until that happens, you don’t want to miss a minute of [life]. That puts you on a little different frequency than the average person…” 18:16: Commercial break: STEM-Talk is an educational service of the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, a not-for-profit research lab pioneering ground-breaking technologies aimed at leveraging human cognition, perception, locomotion and resilience. 18:37: Ford notes the SR-71 was developed in secrecy by Lockheed Martin Skunk Works. A legendary engineer, Kelly Johnson, played a key, pivotal role in its design. 19:00: Shul refers to the plane as “the most remarkable aircraft of the twentieth century.” It would be exposed to 500 to 900 degrees Fahrenheit; they had to come up with oil, hydraulic fluid and fuel that would work in those temps. 24:04: Missiles were launched against the SR-71 over 4,000 times in 25 years; they never shot one down. 24:39: Shul describes evading two missiles over Libya on April 15, 1986. While evading the missiles, Shul and Watson reached the remarkable speed of Mach 3.5. 25:00: The faster it went, the better it flew. 27:22: “In a way, it’s a difficult shot, but you never feel invulnerable [despite the high altitude and speed.] When you’re sitting out on the tip of the sword, and penetrating enemy air space, and know that everyone is pointing his missile at you…” 28:37: “It was your ’57 Chevy. It was solid. You knew you were in the best thing that was ever built.” 32:35: “It was alone in its superiority to all other planes…. Just in the way it looked.” 35:45: “The spike inlet system was the heart of why they have never been able to duplicate this system.” 36:57: Shul describes refueling right after take-off and then refueling 3-5 times on a mission. 41:24: Reagan went to so many SALT talks, and he’d come home with some concession; people assumed he was the master negotiator. What you didn’t know was that the Russians would say that they weren’t testing those missiles. But we could say, “Walter and Brian have a photo of it…So you knew you were having an effect in fighting Communism and winning.” 42:52: “It was the epitome of Yankee technology.” 43:51: “Walter [Watson] and I are best friends to this day. Brilliant engineer: only African-American officer in Air Force history involved with this program. You needed a guy like that in the back seat. He is the heart of the mission. I kidded that if we were ever shot down, he was the spy; I was just the driver.” 45:22: “You had to learn to work together as a team because both cockpits were radically different. That’s why the training took one year.” 49:18: Shul has a life-long love of photography that started with Sports Illustrated action shots. He got himself a small instamatic during pilot training, when he just started taking pictures. He’d always been a nature lover, too, especially birds and butterflies. 51:04: “As an aviator, I found a deep passion and love for nature’s fliers. I’m in awe of how they do it; what they do. It centers me.” He is now opening up a photo gallery called from Butterflies to Blackbirds. 51:48: “One of the things I learned lying in that hospital bed is if you’re not doing your passion in life, and doing the things you love, you’re wasting those minutes; because it’s all over all too quick.” 53:57: “On April 11th, of every year, I celebrate my second birthday in life; I could have easily had my life over at 25 years old. I’ve had 42 extra years.” 54:32: Shul’s advice: “Fearlessly approach your passions and do them because you don’t know how many years you have.” 56:27: After retiring from the Blackbird, Shul turned his attention to his lifelong passion of photography. “There’s more to life than just flying an airplane. There’s more to life than just one chapter. I hope my book has more than one chapter.” 58:14: Dawn and Ken sign off.

Dominic D’Agostino looks like a bodybuilder. But that doesn’t mean that he eats a diet typical for that sport; on the contrary, the research scientist—and amateur athlete—can go an entire day without eating and says his performance—both in the lab and in the gym—improves because of it. D’Agostino is perhaps rare in the world of science in that he practices what he preaches. As associate professor in the department of molecular pharmacology and physiology at the University of South Florida, and a visiting research scientist at IHMC, D’Agostino develops and tests metabolic therapies for a range of diseases and conditions for which the ketogenic diet is the cornerstone. The low-carb, moderate-protein, high-fat ketogenic diet is what he also follows for health and greater mental clarity. The ketogenic diet for decades has been used, albeit perhaps sparingly in the clinic, to treat epileptic seizures. D’Agostino is working on the development of exogenous ketones in the form of ketone esters for cancer and neurological disorders as well. For more information on D’Agostino and his research, visit: http://health.usf.edu/medicine/mpp/faculty/24854/Dominic-DAgostino.aspx or http://www.ketonutrition.org. His IHMC bio is at http://www.ihmc.us/groups/ddagostino/; and his IHMC talk “Metabolic Therapies: Therapeutic Implications and Practical Application”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gONeCxtyH18 D’Agostino is a long-time friend and colleague to STEM-Talk Host Dawn Kernagis, and the two engage in a rich, cutting-edge conversation with knowledgeable input from IHMC Director Ken Ford in this episode. 00:37: Dawn introduces D’Agostino, who goes by ‘Dom,’ and Ken Ford as co-host. 2:14: Ford reads an iTunes five-star review of STEM-Talk from “A Sweet 81,” which is entitled BAM: “Amazing podcast. It’s like candy for the brain. That is, if candy was good for your brain. So it’s like ketones for your brain.” 2:48: Dawn describes Dom’s research: He develops and tests metabolic therapies for CNS oxygen toxicity, epilepsy, neurodegenerative diseases, brain and metastatic cancer. Main research focus past five years: understanding why the ketogenic diet and ketone esters are anticonvulsant and protective to the brain. 4:15: Dom says his interest in science started in high school: He was a football player and wanted to improve his athletic performance. His honors biology teacher got on him to study hard. “I saw biology and science as a way to understand my own biology and physiology to maximize my performance.” 5:23: During his Ph.D. program in neuroscience and physiology at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, his mentor urged him to be an independent thinker. He describes being “thrown into the fire” when he was asked to apply basic science research to medical situations. He specifically looked at how the brain responded to hypoxia. 7:12: He did a post-doc with Jay Dean and also became a recreational diver. “Dean was the only person studying cellular and molecular mechanisms of extreme environments.” 8:36: Of Dean, he said, “The tools he created are filling gaps in the understanding of dive physiology.” 10:19: Nutritional ketosis is important for the metabolic management of diseases, especially seizures. 10:45: Nutritional ketosis works similarly to fasting: you liberate free fatty acids from the adipose tissue and break down stored glycogen levels in the liver. Once the glycogen levels reach a certain level, you start accelerating the oxidation of fatty acids in liver. 11:11: Dom explains how ketosis works: the heart (and muscles) prefers fatty acids over glucose, but they don’t readily cross the blood-brain barrier. So brain energy metabolism will transition from glucose to a fuel source called ketone bodies, which is a by-product of accelerated fat oxidation in the liver. These represent water soluble fat molecules that readily cross the BBB; they help preserve, maintain and enhance brain energy metabolism in the face of starvation. 11:54: The ketogenic diet has a macronutrient ratio that mimics the physiological state of fasting: high fat, moderate protein, and very low carbohydrate. 12:22: Nutritional ketosis has been used for over 90 years to manage drug-resistant epilepsy. 13:25: The ketogenic diet helps control seizures because it’s effective at achieving brain energy homeostasis. 14:28: The Office of Naval Research has played the key and primary role in sponsoring Dom’s research program to develop and test exogenous ketone esters for mitigation of CNS oxygen toxicity in Navy divers. 14:46: “Here was a substance that could potentially mitigate CNS oxygen toxicity; but also at the same time potentially enhance physical and cognitive performance.” 15:27: Of all the ketone esters that Dom and colleagues tested, the one that would elevate beta hydroxybutyrate and acetoacetate more or less in a one to one ratio was most efficacious in controlling seizures. 19:09: The ketone ester worked in every single experiment we did, which was remarkable. 20:20: Dom says they want to move into human studies of testing cognitive resilience under hypoxia using exogenous ketones. 21:00: Dom talks about the potential for ketones to protect against radiation in space as well as in cancer treatments. Adrienne Scheck at the Barrow Neurological Institute has done animal studies on glioblastoma showing that “If animals are in a state of nutritional ketosis, sensitizes tumors to radiation, and makes the radiation much more lethal because ketones have an anti-cancer effect.” 22:30: Basic science supports idea that nutritional ketosis could preserve cognitive and physical functions under conditions of hypoxia; and also preserve the cellular, tissue and physiology of people exposed to radiation. This is especially important for astronauts, who may suffer long-term from cancer. 23:16: Commercial break: STEM-Talk is an educational service of the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, a not-for-profit research lab pioneering ground-breaking technologies aimed at leveraging human cognition, perception, locomotion and resilience. 23:40: Dawn mentions that Dom is taking a metabolism-centric approach to so many conditions, including seizures, cancer, traumatic brain injury, Alzheimer’s Disease, ALS, and muscle wasting. “How to have traction in so many diseases?” 24:37: Dom explains that cellular metabolism relates to so many different disorders. 27:32: A lot of people are turning their attention to cancer metabolism. Cancer growth is tightly linked to insulin, and the liver creates ketones in response to decreased insulin. 30:31: The ketogenic diet abolishes those spikes in glucose/insulin. “That’s a powerful part of efficacy as a metabolic therapy for cancer/managing seizures.” 31:00: Ketone bodies were once considered a bad thing. But in the past ten years ago, they have been appreciated an efficient metabolic substrate for cells; and in the last five years, a powerful signaling molecule that can influence inflammation and endogenous anti-oxidant in cell. 38:33: Anecdotally, patients with Parkinson’s Disease have improved in nutritional ketosis. 40:00: They are also encouraged by research on the effects of nutritional ketosis on brain injury and stroke. 40:50: Nutritional ketosis can, in some cases, mitigate the consequences of traumatic brain injury. 43:08: 80-90 percent of people with brain injury will have seizures. The VA system is looking into this. “Exogenous ketones would be the way to go. Something could be developed that could be taken to the field—either orally or via IV.” 47:45: Undoubtedly cancer is a genetic disease in that certain oncogenes are activated that can cause transformation of a healthy cell to a cancer cell. We believe that the initial insult associated with genomic instability results from a decrease in mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation. And the nucleus senses that. 48:18: Mitochondria are ultimate tumor suppressor; one way to keep them healthy is by feeding them fuels that are metabolized exclusively in mitochondria; ketones (and fatty acids) are metabolized in the mitochondria. We need to enhance our mitochondrial function and biogenesis. “The more we have, the greater bio-energetic potential the cell has for preservation under stress.” 49:20: We’re studying a bunch of disorders, including Angelman Syndrome, a rare disorder characterized by drug-resistant seizures and severely impaired motor function. 50:50: Nutritional ketosis (perhaps specifically the use of IV esters) could also avert the use of anti-seizure drugs that in children can cause developmental delays. 51:18: Brain cancer patients would be great candidates for nutritional ketosis for managing cancer. 53:34: He notes several challenges to getting ketone esters into widespread medical application: funding; IRB approval; patient recruitment. Many institutes will not run a diet trial for cancer. Metabolic-based therapies are not recognized at this time as an effective treatment for disease management. Medical school students are not taught nutrition. 56:10: Ford shares his own positive experience on the ketogenic diet, which he has been on off and on throughout his whole life and continuously for the last decade. He reports a range of physical and cognitive benefits; and is hopeful about the prophylactic potential for age-related diseases. 57:00: Dom shares his experience on the ketogenic diet, which he embraced in 2009. “I thought it was important for a strength athlete to eat six meals a day; on a carb-based diet I was hungry every few hours.” His hunger went down on the ketogenic diet. 58:30: He says making the transition from glucose to ketones was rough. He had glucose withdrawal symptoms in the brain. “I felt foggy initially; but then, there was clarity after two to three weeks. The more I followed the diet, the easier it got for me.” Specific benefits include cognitive resilience when fasting and improved sleep. 1:02:50: Fasting is the quickest way to activate AMPK; the ketogenic diet mimics caloric restriction that will activate AMPK (the suppression of insulin.) The drug metformin also activates AMPK. 1:07:38: They are also doing a lot of studies on the tissue-specific effects of metformin. 1:10:05: The ketogenic diet mimics metformin. One question is: If we use both, can we get a twofer? 1:13:09: Benefits from ketogenic diet are more beneficial (than metformin) for anti-aging. Using both may be synergistic. 1:14:12: They need to do clinical trials of metformin and ketogenic diet, in order to study the metabolic biomarkers. 1:14:35: Commercial break: STEM-Talk is an educational service of the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, a not-for-profit research lab pioneering ground-breaking technologies aimed at leveraging human cognition, perception, locomotion and resilience. 1:16:37: Dom says the data on mTOR is fascinating; and in some ways confusing and conflicting to get through it all. Ketogenic diet can cause suppression of mTOR. 1:18:18: There are studies on how the ketogenic diet impacts the immune system. Adrienne Scheck published recently a paper on how the ketogenic diet could make the immune system hyper-vigilant in seeking out cancer cells. 1:19:00: The ketogenic diet activates AMPK and decreases mTOR.  Ford and D’Agostino discuss the subtle interplay between AMPK and mTOR and the possible trade-offs between health-span and longevity, especially in the context of sarcopenia. 1:19:25: The ketogenic diet, caloric restriction, intermittent fasting, and metformin converge on these pathways that are of intense interest to pharmaceutical companies. 1:20:00: Dom recommends a ketogenic diet to anyone who has had cancer and wants to prevent its recurrence. “The emerging animal data is enough” to convince him of its efficacy; he also would recommend metformin and intermittent fasting. 1:25:00: Branch chain amino acids that work through the activation of mTOR can preserve weight in animals with cancer cachexia. Could also be useful for sarcopenia. 1:26:52: Dom’s recommendation for muscle building/maintenance: “Lift heavy stuff and eat just enough to recover.” 1:27:55: Ford calls IGF-1 a “Goldilocks hormone: low and high levels both seem problematic.” 1:29:46: Dom says it’s important to make the distinction between circulating and local IGF-1. Strenuous, low-bearing exercises can increase local IGF-1, and the ketogenic diet sensitizes the body to local IGF-1. 1:32:22: Chronically elevated IGF-1 levels are not a good thing. 1:34:00: Ford recounts a significant decrease in his own circulating IGF-1 levels as a result of the ketogenic diet. 1:34:45: Ford notes that aging athletes avoid the ketogenic diet because they think it will lower IGF-1 and therefore lower their muscle protein synthesis. “But they are not making the distinction between local and circulating IGF-1; nor the distinction between a denser collection of receptors and more sensitive receptors.” 1:35:20: Athletes who do well on the ketogenic diet include those doing distance running, cycling, rowing; weight-class restricted sports. 1:36:00: The Elite Gymnast published a study of athletes on a modified Atkins diet and the ketogenic diet; those on the latter had maintenance of strength and more significant body alteration. “The use of the ketogenic diet for performance really shines in the context of trying to make weight for a certain event.” Or where the power to weight ratio is important, such as in wrestling or cycling. 1:37:37: Dom cites study of elite-level endurance athletes by Jeff Volek and Stephen Phinney. 1:39:00: Another study showed that testosterone was 25-30 percent higher in people on the ketogenic diet (vs the Western diet); they also gained muscle strength and size. 1:41:10: We typically become increasingly carb-intolerant with age. 1:42:45: Dom would most like to see FDA approval for exogenous ketones in epilepsy patients soon. 1:43:30: “Developing metabolic-based treatments (where nutritional ketosis is the cornerstone) for neurological diseases and cancer… is the thrust of what I want to accomplish as a scientist.” 1:44:40: Dom mentions a number of people in his lab who are doing excellent work, including his wife Csilla Ari, who spearheaded work on an ALS project and is studying the effects of nutritional ketosis in behavior disorders such as anxiety. Her work showed that animals in nutritional ketosis were easier to handle. 1:48:00: Dom says ketones might have application for treating PTSD in the military. 1:49:00: Dom and Csilla have a rescue dog from the Tampa Humane Society: “He’s our recovery. We go on nightly walks; we go to the beach a lot and bring our dog with us whenever we can.” They also love international travel and visited several countries in Southeast Asia on their recent honeymoon. 1:51:00: Dom explains his optimistic outlook and good nature: “To a large extent, it’s who you surround yourself with. If you’re grateful, it’s hard to be angry.” 1:52:30: His advice to young scientists: “You really have to follow what you’re passionate about. Identify people who are doing what you want to do. Contact those people; follow their paths. If you’re really passionate, and your research is meeting a need for someone, you’re going to be happy and fulfilled.” 1:54:35: Ford calls Dom’s research “important, innovative and impactful.” 1:54:55: Dawn and Ken sign off.

When Kelvin Droegemeier watched the Wizard of Oz as a child, the tornado scenes scared him so much that he didn’t want to look. Today, the esteemed meteorologist watches storms for a living—with a particular interest in tornados. From his upbringing in central Kansas—where he grew up marveling at weather and storms—to his undergraduate internship with the National Severe Storms Lab, Droegemeier was primed for a brilliant career in meteorology. Droegemeier is currently the vice president for research at the University of Oklahoma, where he is also Regents Professor of meteorology; Weathernews Chair Emeritus; and Roger and Sherry Teigen Presidential Professor. He is also the vice-chairman of the national science board at the National Science Foundation. In 1989, he co-founded CAPS, the Center for the Analysis and Prediction of Storms. This center pioneered storm scale numerical weather prediction with data simulation, which ushered in a whole new science of studying the weather. Droegemeier talks with STEM-Talk Host Dawn Kernagis and co-host Tom Jones about the past, present and future of weather prediction, both in the U.S. and globally. For more information on Droegemeier, check out his home page at the University of Oklahoma: http://kkd.ou.edu as well as his biography at the National Science Board: http://tinyurl.com/zwwvav9. Here is also the report that came out of that, entitled “Hurricane Warning: The Critical Need for a National Hurricane Research Initiative: http://www.nsf.gov/nsb/publications/2007/hurricane/initiative.pdf 00:47: Ken Ford describes Droegemeier as a pioneer in understanding thunderstorm dynamics and predictability, computational fluid dynamics, aviation weather, modeling and predicting of extreme weather, among other areas. 1:13: Dawn says: “Kelvin has greatly shaped the scientific landscape in meteorology and storm prediction and tracking. His work has no doubt saved many lives.” 2:00: Ford was co-chairman on the National Science Board Task Force on Hurricanes, Science and Engineering in 2005-06. “Living in Pensacola and having just experienced Hurricane Ivan, and then Hurricane Katrina, I was highly motivated to work on this problem…. Around here we’ve come to fear hurricanes with Russian names like Ivan and Katrina.” 3:20: Ford reads iTunes review from “ARFO6C”: “Brilliant, just brilliant.” 4:37: “Growing up in central Kansas, I was exposed to interesting weather year-round. I remember as a child being fascinated by the power and the grandeur of the atmosphere, and how quickly the weather could change.” 7:00: Droegemeier is especially interested in spring storms and wind. “To me, the perfect day is 60 degrees, low clouds, winds at 40 mph…. [There is something] so wonderful and powerful about the wind.”. 11:06: As a child, Droegemeier was interested in science, but it wasn’t until his undergraduate work study job at the National Severe Storms Lab, where an advisor suggested graduate school, that his academic interest in weather was sparked. 12:35: He went to graduate school at the University of Illinois to work with a person who was a pioneer in using super computers to make 3D models of thunderstorms. They looked at storms’ rotation, or the pathways to understanding how tornados form. 13:50: He describes “seminal changes in the last 20-30 years in meteorology, driven by high-performance computing.” 15:04: Twenty years ago, the first national network of Doppler weather radar also emerged. This allowed sensing the directional movement of precipitation particles. 17:30: He says the data simulation models have “dramatically improved over the last two decades. We are able to predict up to 72 hours more precisely than what we were able to do twenty years ago [predicting] up to 36 hours.” 18:00: CAPS is one of the first 11 science/technology centers funded by the NSF. It was selected out of 323 applicants. The premise was the following question: ‘Could you use a computer model to predict thunderstorms in advance of their occurrence?’ 21:45: Droegemeier talks about project Hub-CAPS, with American Airlines, to predict storms. They then created a private company to commercialize the forecasting technology to different types of industries worldwide, including communications and transportation. That company was called Weather Decision Technologies, Inc. 22:49: Commercial break: STEM-Talk is an educational service of the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, a not-for-profit research lab pioneering ground-breaking technologies aimed at leveraging human cognition, perception, locomotion and resilience. 26:05: Climate models are much more driven by boundary conditions than initial conditions. Boundary conditions include vegetative cover, changes in biogeochemical cycles, the solar cycle, volcanic eruptions and things like that. 28:01: “Science never ends, and models are never perfect, but I think they’re getting better and better all the time,” Droegemeier says, in describing new climate models that include information about microbiomes and organisms in the ground and how these influence the carbon cycle. 28:33: “The amount of money we spend on research is a pittance compared to the massive economic loss we have from devastating storms.” 28:58: “Fifty percent of the population in the U.S. lives within fifty miles of the coastline.” One area in need of improvement is better building codes. 29:16: Cumulative disruptive events, not just big events, have a major impact/economic toll. They cause delays in construction projects, cancelled flights and energy plant closures. 30:05: Droegemeier emphasizes the importance of the human element in storm tracking and prediction. “The key thing is we are dealing with people who have to make decisions. It’s also a human behavioral problem.” The key to preventing death, he adds, is taking a more comprehensive view of the issues. 31:16: “When someone receives a warning, the first thing they do is seek confirmation: they call a neighbor, turn on the TV. They lose time.” 33:30: In 1956, 519 people died in tornados. In 2011, 550 people died. The population has increased, so this is a successful result, but to reduce the death toll even further, Droegemeier insists on the human element. 34:12: “Understanding how people receive, interpret and act on information. Those pieces are very important. I think once we crack the code on that, we’ll see the death toll go down.” 34:53: Droegemeier says “My mantra is zero deaths.” He compares his goals to reduce tornado deaths to the reduction of wind shear accidents in commercial aviation: There were a lot of deaths in the 1970s; but through training, and better technology, there has not been a crash since the mid-80s. 35:48: The big snow storms in Washington D.C. and New York City last January were well-forecasted. “People saw it coming from a long way away.” 37:20: Droegemeier talks about intense storms in Moore, Oklahoma, where he lives. 38:20: “During a tornado, the last place you want to be is in your car, which becomes like a missile.” Despite this, people will flee en masse in cars after hearing the media report tornado warnings. 39:50 Hyperbolic messaging inspires people to flee instead of stay put (which they often should do.) 40:10: “We have to become more sophisticated in our messaging. It’s not a one-size-fits-all audience.” 42:00: Social media is having a more prominent role in weather prediction/messaging. The challenge is that people are now bombarded with multiple sources of information. The National Weather Service is the single authoritative source. Television stations have their own radars, add their interpretations. 43:00: “How do people navigate this tremendous blast of information? Trust is extremely important; most people seek confirmation.” 43:43: Droegemeier says misinformation risks creating upheaval, but he has never (fortunately) seen that happen. 44:25: Commercial break: STEM-Talk is an educational service of the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, a not-for-profit research lab pioneering ground-breaking technologies aimed at leveraging human cognition, perception, locomotion and resilience. 45:05: There are computing facilities in Maryland, and a back up facility in Florida; plus 168 Doppler radar networks (with dual polarization capability; they can detect/distinguish different types of precipitation.) 47:28: Cybersecurity is extremely important for National Weather Service. 48:00: Social scientists at Oklahoma University gather data from Facebook and other social media sources. 49:00: Droegemeier and Ford, when they were on the National Science Board, proposed a National Hurricane Research Initiative. This involved researching hurricanes in a new way; creating a virtual lab; modeling both human behavior and buildings’ reactions. 51:30: The proposal received some Congressional support for a couple of years, but no money was appropriated. That was ten years ago, and the ideas in the report haven’t gone away. 53:03: Hurricanes such as Ivan, Katrina and Rita still have lingering impacts, particularly the economics of closed businesses, lost insurance coverage, etc. 53:40: A lot of building codes just aren’t enforced. A lot of property loss could be prevented. 54:17: Ed Lorenz said that large scale events have greater predictability because the physics driving them is simpler; two dimensional. Forecasting individual clouds/cloud coverage is very difficult. 56:48: Two weeks is the theoretical limit of weather prediction, which we will never be able to surpass. 57:30: Droegemeier foresees the development of a global model for individual thunderstorms in the next 30-40 years. 58:30: Every part of the atmosphere talks to every other part of atmosphere. 58:50: There is a lot of storm energy in the space from the ground up to two or three miles high in the atmosphere, but we don’t have sensors sitting in this area. Drones show promise for getting information. 1:02:39: Droegemeier has personally been very close to tornados, but he has not yet been in a hurricane. He has experienced winds at 120 mph, and been in a situation where his car was totaled. 1:04:30: Studying weather can be comprehensive, involving even humanists: He knows a classics professor studying climate change in Ancient Greek culture/how that affected human health. 1:06:25: The Space program has been valuable in weather forecasting since the 1960s, with the use of satellites. Thunderstorms produce X-rays. 1:08:00: We still have students willing to chase storms and lightning. 1:08:15: Dawn thanks Kelvin for being on the show. 1:09:00: Dawn and Ken sign off.

‘Would you rather remember: the latest episode of Friends, or how to speak?’ asks Dr. Dale Bredesen, a nationally-recognized expert on neurodegenerative diseases. We don’t have to think about the answer to that question. In fact, we are biologically programmed to preserve speech and forget the television show. But physiological changes occur as we age, which begin to affect our ability to speak, walk, and remember names and faces. The most extreme and recognizable form of this is Alzheimer’s Disease, which Dr. Bredesen states is the third leading cause of death in the United States. He has come up with a novel therapeutic approach that first investigates the underlying metabolic changes leading to the disease. Bredesen’s approach, called MEND (metabolic enhancement for neurodegeneration) helped a 65-year-old woman recover her functional memory, after her first physician had written her off as bound to the same demise of her mother, who suffered and died from Alzheimer’s Disease. Bredesen shares these and other insights in this episode of STEM-Talk, where he and host Dawn Kernagis engage in a rich and thought-provoking conversation about the future of treating neurodegenerative and other diseases. Bredesen has been on the faculty at UCSF, UCSD. Currently, he divides his time between UCLA and the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, of which he is founder and CEO: http://buckinstitute.org/bredesenLab For a close-up look at Dr. Bredesen’s work, check out his papers in the Journal Aging: http://www.impactaging.com/papers/v6/n9/full/100690.html ; http://www.impactaging.com/papers/v7/n8/full/100801.html. As well as is his paper on ApoE4 in the Journal Neuroscience: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26791201 00:55: Dawn introduces Dr. Bredesen as a nationally-recognized expert on neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s Disease. 1:17: Ford explains that Bredesen’s research has found that AD stems from an imbalance in nerve cell signaling. In the normal brain, specific signals foster memory making, while balancing signals support memory breaking. In AD, the balance of these opposing signals is disturbed. Nerve connections are suppressed, and memories are lost. 1:47: Dawn adds that Bredesen’s findings, which support the view that AD is a metabolically driven, neurodegenerative process, are contrary to the popular belief that the disease is derived from an accumulation of plaques in the brain. 2:50: Ford reads Mark Riff’s 5-star iTunes review: “Fantastic line-up. And what a wealth of cutting edge information. Just having access to these incredible minds is unbelievable. Can’t wait to see what’s coming up.” 3:15: Dawn describes Bredesen’s background: college at Caltech, medical school at Duke University, Chief resident in neurology at UCSF, where he was also a post-doc in Nobel Laureate Stanley Prusiner’s laboratory. 4:02: Bredesen describes how he got into research, first as an undergrad at CalTech. He went to medical school to understand how diseases affect the brain, and specifically alter learning and memory. 4:47: “The whole molecular neuroscience revolution of the 1980s and 1990s has really offered us the novel tools to understand these diseases,” adding that until now, treating and reversing neurodegenerative diseases like Huntington’s and Lou Gehrig’s has been the greatest area of biomedical failure. “This is exciting time where we are starting to develop therapies.” 5:52: The development of large data sets and systems biology is having a major impact on illnesses. People would formerly spend their whole career on one mechanism, but now we’re realizing disease is multi-factorial. 7:05: AD is a network imbalance that is very analogous to osteoporosis. Signals contribute to osteoblastic activity, which is laying down the bones. Other signals contribute to osteoclastic activity, or taking up the bones. For most of our lives, these signals are “beautifully balanced,” which becomes imbalanced as we age. In AD, similarly, synaptoblastic activity is imbalanced with synaptoclastic activity, which destroys synapses. 9:53: Bredesen talks about the “dozens and dozens of signals that alter the synaptic balance” in AD, including: ApoE4, estradiol, Free T3, Free T4, testosterone, exercise, sleep, melatonin. 10:50: AD for most people is not a disease. It is a programmatic downsizing of the synaptic network. Much like apoptosis, or synaptosis. “Imagine you have a company of 10,000 employees that is essentially headed for the red. APP (beta-amyloid precursor protein) is essentially like your CFO who is looking at all inputs. The first thing you do is shut down hiring. First thing in AD is you do not store new memories.” 12:20: You’ve spent your whole life selecting out the most important knowledge, much as we are actively forgetting things all the time. 12:43: AD is three subtypes: two are programmatic downsizing and one is truly an illness. 13:13: Commercial break: STEM-Talk is an educational service of the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, a not-for-profit research lab pioneering ground-breaking technologies aimed at leveraging human cognition, perception, locomotion and resilience. 16:02: ApoE has turned out to be extremely important, even evolutionarily. When as a species, we transitioned from simians to hominids 5-7 million years ago, an over-representation of inflammatory genes accompanied that change. That is what partly allowed for the transition: We went from being arboreal creatures to roaming the savannah, and fighting with each other/other animals. So we suddenly had to heal wounds and eat microbes in raw meat, which pro-inflammatory genes allowed us to do. 17:30: ApoE4 has conferred certain survival benefits; but it has also increased our risk for AD, cardiovascular disease and is under-represented in centenarians. 19:28: ApoE4 enhances NF-kB and reduces activation of SIRT1. 20:40: ApoE4 helps us during the first forty years of our lives, and if we are living in more challenging, third-world environments. However, later in life, it’s a negative. But it allows you to do well with little food. But bad with too much food. 26:00: With cancer you have tumor suppressor genes and oncogenes; if you have a mutation, you end up with a run-away full forward process of tumor cells. 28:00: Back in 1993, they discovered receptors that respond to withdrawal of trophic support. 30:30: Numerous receptors signal the presence or loss of trophic support. 31:30: APP is an integrating dependence receptor over many of these trophic influences. 32:54: “There is a trophic, anti-trophic balance that is out of balance in people with AD. We can alter this balance in people and make them much, much better.” 33:45: Bredesen describes a 65-year old woman who was having AD symptoms. She consulted Bredesen, who put her on MEND, and three months later, she was back to work, with her memory better than it had been in thirty years. 35:26: You don’t just try to tweak one input, but as many as you can. 36:08: With HIV, it took three drugs to change the landscape of HIV. AD is more complicated. 37:40: This approach works well in all stages, except late stages. 40:10: AD pathophysiology is related to metabolic changes. We start by evaluating the person’s metabolic profile, including: red blood cell magnesium; inorganic and organic mercury status; free and bound testosterone; iodine status. These are things that drive the imbalance. 43:03: People with AD express 10-25 abnormalities; asymptomatic people only express a few. 44:27: Unlike cancer drugs, which often come with side effects, the drugs they are using for these metabolic imbalances in AD first make people feel healthy. The cognitive function follows from the metabolic function. 45:20: AD has been called Type 3 Diabetes. 47:20: For thousands of years we’ve been dealing with small data sets. “But here [with the brain], we are dealing with a very complicated organism. Physicians have had to be intuitive, good guessers.” 48:03: “For 21st century medicine …. The future is for larger and larger data sets, and less and less guesswork.” 49:13: Why did you get this/what’s driving it metabolically? This is a 21st century approach to AD. With so many disparate risk factors, this is not a simple situation. 52:00: Contributing factors include insulin resistance; various inflammatory mediators like NF-kB; hormonal imbalance; exposure to toxins like mercury. 55:20: ApoE4 protects against the third group of AD, which is amyloid positive. It strikes younger people. Agraphia (inability to write) anomias (recall names of common objects)—associated with cortical presentations instead of hippocampal presentations. 58:45: Clinical trials deal with one variable. We have to look at multi-variable and personal trials. 1:02:30: The functional medicine movement looks at the biochemical parameters affecting the underlying problem. 1:04:45: In the early 1800s, a doctor named Ignaz Semmelweis was looking at why women were dying after childbirth, at least those whom medical students had delivered. The women using mid-wives did not die. He discovered that it was because medical students were working on cadavers and were transferring something to the women, so they developed hydrochloride approach to preventing this, and the mortality dropped to almost zero. The point is that small overlooked points in medicine can provide big change. 1:7:00: Commercial break: STEM-Talk is an educational service of the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, a not-for-profit research lab pioneering ground-breaking technologies aimed at leveraging human cognition, perception, locomotion and resilience. 1:8:05: 75 million Americans are ApoE positive. We should have a national program to get your genome tested and see if you are ApoE positive. “If we initiated this globally, you could dramatically reduce global burden of dementia.” 1:12:42: Bredesen describes his first spark for studying the brain: I was a freshman at CalTech and read the Machinery of the Brain, and I was hooked. 1:14:00: I wanted to go to medical school and study the big picture of driving what’s happening when you get hit in the head, or Huntington’s disease. 1:14:53: There is a schism between 20th century medicine, where you ask what the problem is; and 21st century medicine, where you ask why the problem exists. 1:15:55: The metabolic approach will be the foundation upon which future drug development is based. 1:16:45: Bredesen describes his first aha moment: when he discovered that the receptor that was supposed to be involved in supporting neuronal growth instead induced death. 1:21:25: Bredesen says that over the years, he’s modified his diet, with the help of his wife, an integrative physician, to counter the high simple carb tendency in the American diet. 1:22:22: High stress and little sleep…unquestionably impact AD-related balance. 1:23:44: Dawn thanks Dale. 1:25:07: Dawn and Ken sign off.

If we could only sell people on the importance of sleep as successfully as we sell them on the pleasures of sex, we’d have a much healthier—and happier bunch. This is one of sleep expert Kirk Parsley’s messages. Parsley calls sleep “the greatest elixir,” and places its importance above that of both exercise and nutrition. Yet, this simple physiological need is hard to satisfy in a society that glorifies business and overworking—and loves its electronics, which don’t exactly prepare the body for sleep. Parsley discusses these and other issues with STEM-Talk host Dawn Kernagis. He talks about how his background as a Navy SEAL led him to a career in medicine, focused on sleep. He also explains why sleep is important—and how you can get more of it. Parsley served as the Naval Special Warfare’s expert on sleep medicine, and has been a member of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine since 2006. He is also the inventor of the Sleep Cocktail, a supplement designed for the sleep optimization of Navy SEALs: http://www.sleepcocktails.com A much sought-after sleep expert, this podcast marks Parsley’s 100th podcast interview. You can find more information on him at his web site: www.docparsley.com. You can find his TED talk at http://tinyurl.com/pw9h7qz 4:10: Dawn welcomes Kirk. 5:00: Kirk joined the Navy SEALs after high school and stayed for nearly seven years. “I quickly realized that was a young, single man’s job, and I was becoming neither.” 6:09: Kirk volunteered at the San Diego Sports Medicine Center to qualify for physical therapy school, but found the field too limited, so he shadowed doctors and decided to pursue medicine. 7:00: He attended the military’s medical school. “They were going to pay me to go to medical school instead of the other way around…” 9:58: The SEALs came to him for medical advice. “The most palatable way for me to talk about it in the military was through sleep. They didn’t really want me talking about testosterone. Adrenal fatigue is sort of a pseudo-scientific term. So inadvertently I became a sleep guy.” 10:40: “I don’t think there’s any area of your life that isn’t significantly impacted by sleep. Good quality sleep is probably the most important elixir there is.” He places it above both nutrition and exercise. 11:35: Sleep is a hard sell, with the advent of factory jobs and the idea that time is money. 13:55: “My message is the more you sleep, the more work you get done.” 14:58: “The big problem with sleep is …. Once you fall asleep until you wake up, you don’t really have any objective experience of that.” 15:50: Polysomnographs reveal that some people wake up 300 times a night, but say they slept fine. 16:13: You don’t need the same amount of sleep every day. Seven and a half hours is the average amount of sleep we aim for to enhance the immune system. 17:05: Kirk compares proper sleep to taking your daily vitamin. “You can’t really tell the true benefits of proper sleep until you’ve done it for a month or so.” 17:40: Wearable tech gadgets such as Fitbit and Jawbone measure how much you move during sleep and equate that with sleep quantity. “The truth is you could stare at your ceiling, never move, and never sleep, and it would say you got this awesome night of sleep.” 19:00: Some devices also measure heart rate variability; others, placed under your pillow or on your nightstand, record your respiratory rate. Some iPhone apps capture snoring. 19:40: Polysomnographs are the gold standard for determining how much somebody sleeps. 20:00: Everyone has a different sleep metric: mood, athletic performance, project completion rate/satisfaction. 21:12: Sleep deprivation leads to anxiety, which is already a big problem for entrepreneurs and other professionals. 21:20: Commercial break: STEM-Talk is an educational service of the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, a not-for-profit research lab pioneering ground-breaking technologies aimed at leveraging human cognition, perception, locomotion and resilience. 22:55: Stage 1 sleep is the decision to get in bed and try to start falling asleep. 23:19: Stage 2 is “pre-sleep”: when you are not quite asleep, but somewhat aware of your environment. 24:10: Stage 3 and 4 sleep is deep sleep. Delta and Theta brainwaves occur. Predominantly the first four hours are deep sleep; the last four hours are REM (rapid eye movement). 24:53: What happens during deep sleep is the opposite of fight or flight. The immune system is at its highest function; you are secreting maximal growth hormones/testosterone. It is the only time the body is repairing itself. 26:00: Some medications and alcohol interfere with deep sleep. 26:55: During REM, you experience the most most vivid dreaming; emotional categorization. 27:20: People who sleep adequately say they dream a lot because they have gotten lots of REM. 28:00: If you wake up during deep sleep, you’re going to feel bad. The adrenals have to ramp up. 29:25: Kirk discusses iPhone apps that measure sleep cycles. 31:00: During sleep, neurotransmitter changes occur in the brain, and a cleansing of the glymphatic system. 32:32: When we are tense, there is a build-up of adenosine; that’s why when we’ve had a hard day, we feel like sleeping. Sleep pressure is driven by adenosine. 33:34: People with intense schedules fall asleep easily because of a lot of sleep pressure: a lot of adrenal hormones are circulating throughout body. As soon as they flush out all of the neurotoxins/adenosine, the adrenal function wakes them up. They often say, “I fall asleep in 30 seconds” as well as, “I sleep for two hours, and I’m wide awake.” 35:24: We are the only animal that sleep deprives ourselves on purpose. The only time other animals don’t sleep is if they are being stalked by a predator or the brain senses famine. 36:42: Chronic sleep deprivation compromises our pre-frontal cortex-executive functioning, which means: our ability to make decisions and solve problems; our reaction time and attention span. 38:00: When the body is sleep-deprived, it is less anabolic; is has to secrete stress hormones to get through the day; that’s why people use stimulants. 39:17: Sleep adaptation studies show that the average person living in the Western industrialized lifestyle settles down at needing 7.5 hours of sleep. 43:05: A genetic variant allows some people to sleep less and not suffer sleep deprivation as badly as the average person. 45:00: “If you were about to have surgery, and while you were reading consent forms, the surgeon has a shot of whiskey, no one would be comfortable with that. If that guys takes a shot every two hours, he’s performing like someone who has been up for 18 hours in a row; and we accept that all the time.” 45:44: We put pilots in air who have been sleep deprived for four nights—especially transcontinental pilots. 49:28: Commercial break: STEM-Talk is an educational service of the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, a not-for-profit research lab pioneering ground-breaking technologies aimed at leveraging human cognition, perception, locomotion and resilience. 50:15: Sleep drugs go after the GABA analogues. 52:45: Sleep drugs on average shorten the time it takes to get to sleep by 15 minutes, and lengthen it by 30 minutes; but they fundamentally damage sleep architecture and damage REM sleep by 80 percent. 53:13: Over the counter drugs such as Benadryl block histamines. 53:34: Alcohol affects stages 3 and 4 sleep and REM. 54:32: Sleep drugs are helpful to get back on track if you are jet lagged or confronted with an emotional trauma. But 69 percent of people taking sleep drugs take them every night. 58:28: Kirk encourages engaging in sleep rituals with the same regularity as you might stick to a workout schedule. 1:00:24: Improve your sleep by decreasing stimulation to the brain an hour before bed by doing yoga, meditation, reading. 1:04:20: Melatonin is major hormone involved with sleep. Most people take way too much, decreasing their brain’s sensitivity to melatonin. From the time the sun goes down, your brain will only produce between 3 and 6 micrograms of melatonin. 1:08:18: Kirks discusses the link between sleep deprivation and depression. 1:09:00: Kirk discusses his sleep supplement. It can cross blood brain barrier. It’s low-dose, for sleep initiation. It’s meant to compensate for whatever is sub-optimal about sleep habits. 1:11:19: Mentions web site: www.docparsley.com where you can see other podcasts, read blogs, find more information. Web site is being re-launched: Will have new blog. 1:12:15: His sleep drug, sleep cocktail, will be renamed because a lot of people think it’s an alcoholic drink. 1:13:43: Dawn thanks Kirk. 1:14:09: STEM-Talk’s “double secret selection committee” may invite Kirk back for a second interview as there is much more to discuss. 1:14:23: Dawn and Ken mention that Dr. Parsley will be visiting IHMC and giving a public lecture in the Evening Lecture Series. 1:14:29: Dawn and Ken thank the audience for terrific support during the launch of STEM-Talk and mention that STEM-Talk was immediately featured in iTunes’ New and Noteworthy category and was actually in the top position at one point.  It has pretty consistently been #1 in both the Science & Medicine and Natural Sciences categories. 1:15:02: Dawn invites the audience to visit the the STEM-Talk webpage where one can find the show notes for this episode and all others. 1:15:10: Dawn and Ken sign off.

In many respects, Barry Barish is the quintessential scientist: soft-spoken and modest, he is also completely dedicated to the pursuit of pure science. Barish is currently the Linde professor of physics at Caltech. He’s a leading expert on gravitational waves, and his leadership and advocacy to the National Science Foundation about the need for LIGO (laser interferometer gravitational wave observatory) played a key role in convincing the NSF to fund it. Barish was the principal investigator of LIGO in 1994, before becoming its director in 1997. The pay-off of Barish’s effort and the NSF decision was huge: Last February, Barish and other scientists announced to the world that they had detected gravitational waves four months before, marking the first ever direct detection since Albert Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves in 1916. The proof came via a chirping sound—played below in this interview—which was the sound-wave translation of the merger of two black holes more than a billion light years away. Barish talks to STEM-Talk host Dawn Kernagis and co-host and IHMC Director Ken Ford about the history of Einstein’s theory and the science that later ensued to set up this significant discovery. He also talks about the scientists who made it happen. Barish gave an IHMC lecture in 2009 entitled “Einstein’s Unfinished Symphony: Sounds from the Distant Universe” Here is a link to the LIGO press conference on the gravitational waves detection: https://cds.cern.ch/record/2131411 1:36: Audio of “the chirp” signaling the detection of a gravity wave emanating from two black holes merging one billion light years away. 2:57: Ford reads a five-star iTunes review from CCPABC: “Love the science-based discussions, which also includes the interviewers, who also know and understand science, a rarity amongst podcast hosts. Love the funny comments along the way. For example, “Stay curious my friends.” And “Walk into a Walmart to see epigenetics at work.” Outlines (show notes) are also helpful for those of us who want to listen to specific sections again for better understanding.” 3:37: Dawn recaps Barish’s career, calling him a “leading light in several areas of physics.” 4:04: In October 2002, Barish was nominated by President George W. Bush to serve on the National Science Board of the NSF. Ford was also on the board. “We immediately connected and worked on the NSB for six years,” Ford said. 5:15: Barish discusses his upbringing and initial interest in science. Born in Omaha, Nebraska, to parents who had not gone to college, Barish said, “I was probably a scientist before I knew it.” The first science question he asked his father was why ice cubes float on water. His father’s answer didn’t satisfy him. “His answers never satisfied me, which I think is kind of the scientific mind.” 6:36: Ford, Kernagis and Barish recall one of their first scientific questions on why the sky is blue. 7:20: Barish grew up around Hollywood, California. “The furthest horizon I could see was Caltech, and that is where I thought I would go to college.” He went to Berkeley instead because he could start mid-year there, and he immediately fell in love with it — and a young girl. 8:55: Barish started as an engineering student, but he liked neither his surveying course nor his engineering drafting course. “By default, I ended up in physics. It’s where I belonged because physics has been great for me.” 11:15: In 1905, Einstein discovered: E=mc^2; and the theory of special relativity: “These solved some long-standing problems in physics in no time at all.” 11:42: In 1915, Einstein came up with the theory of general relativity, which was an extension of the theory of special relativity that added accelerations instead of just velocities. 13:30: In Newton’s theory of gravity, there’s instantaneous action at a distance: When the apple falls, you see it immediately. When something happens in space (a star collapses), it takes light years for the information to get to us. The concept of instantaneous action and distance doesn’t really work for gravity at long distances and Einstein probably realized that. 14:10: In early 1916, Einstein realized in analogy to the theory of electromagnetism, that there would be gravitational waves, but he didn’t prove it very well. He did it by analogy instead of fundamental proof. 14:45: In 1920-21, a British physicist went to the Southern hemisphere and saw a phenomenon that wouldn’t happen in Newton’s theory of gravity, but did in Einstein’s: He had predicted the bending of light: eclipse of sun and as stars went behind the sun their light bent at exactly the amount that Einstein had predicted. “That’s actually what made Einstein a household name.” 15:20: Einstein predicted gravitational waves as a concept, but thought they were too small to ever detect. “Of course that’s because one hundred years ago, he couldn’t envision the types of technologies we would develop.” 16:06: In 1960, Joseph Weber, a student of John Wheeler’s at Princeton decided to look for gravitational waves, using a very clever technique: He made a big cylinder of aluminum, of a diameter equal to his own height and two-three meters long, and if you banged it with a hammer, it rang at some frequency. If a gravitational wave came through, it would ring. “He’s responsible in a very positive way, for starting this field.” 17:10: That student, who turned out to be a “good technologist, but a lousy scientist,” Barish said, wrote a paper touting his own discovery of gravitational waves, which was shot down. “He was bitter that people didn’t believe that he saw gravitational waves, yet he was the one who started the field.” 17:55: A gravitational wave, if it goes through you, stretches you in one direction, and squashes you in another. “It’s like one of these mirrors in an amusement park, where you get taller and thinner if you look at one, and shorter and fatter if you look at the next one. So you get taller and shorter, thinner and fatter at the frequency of a gravitational wave.” 18:25: Barish discusses the creation of interferometers. There are two: in Hanford, Washington (near a Dept of Energy site), and in a pine forest of Louisiana. 20:53: They proposed a final decision to the NSF in 1994. It was the biggest thing at that time that the NSF had ever considered taking on. 21:08: Barish says they made a technical mistake in calling it LIGO, which stands for laser interferometer gravitational wave observatory. The word ‘observatory’ is not a physics word. It is word used by astronomers for their telescopes, and the astronomers thought it was a crazy project. 22:09: “In order to try to find something new, you pretty well have to do something that’s risky, and pushes the technology and pushes the ideas that you have, and oftentimes it doesn’t work. So taking on high-risk, high pay-off projects is something the NSF uniquely does.” 22:30: “Increasingly high-risk projects are getting harder to support. I’m not sure what we got approved in 1994 would get approved by today’s NSF.” 23:00: Ford, referring to the period when Advanced LIGO was under review by the National Science Board, said, “At the time, I was chairing committee on programs and plans (CPP), and certainly I got an earful about why it was a dreadful idea.” 23:50: Barish commends the NSF for taking on a very expensive, high-risk project—and staying with it for 22 years— despite the fact that it had had a certain amount of controversy, and “especially despite the fact that we had not much to show for all those years.” 24:13: The total cost of LIGO was 1.2 billion dollars. 24:36: Barish talks about the major players in getting LIGO up and running: Princeton’s John Wheeler, the father of the general relativity field after Einstein’s generation, and his student Kip Thorne. 26:45: A robust R&D effort started in Europe. At MIT, Ray Weiss assigned his students the idea of doing interferometry. 29:00: Ron Drever from Scotland was brought to Caltech to work on gravitational waves experimentally. MIT and Caltech worked on them together, but Ray was analytical, Drever was intuitive, and they didn’t get along. 30:23: By 1990, a proposal was turned into the NSF, which stimulated the NSF to ask lots of questions. 30:50: The original idea was that the two interferometers would be near the Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California; and in southern Maine. The NSF said that there should be a national competition to decide the respective locations, which as a result, ended up being Washington state and Louisiana. 32:40: “The plan was to make it evolutionary: Build the infrastructure to be flexible enough that we could keep evolving the interferometers as we learned how to do the technology.” That was not the way projects had been done before. 34:37: At a certain point, Barish says that the project got in trouble…it was being done by scientists alone in labs who didn’t get along that well together. 35:20: The NSF was right on the verge of canceling the project when the super collider was canceled by Congress in October of 1993, and around Christmastime, the head of Caltech’s physics department and its president asked Barish to take it over. Within a year, he had hired a lot of good people who were available from the demise of the super collider. 37:00: In 1994 Kip Thorne and Barish testified before the NSF, which is normally done by project managers. The NSF approved LIGO. 37:37: “Continuing with a very strong R&D program through the years has been key to its success. We didn’t over-spend, we met time scale goals. Even though we hadn’t yet made any good science, we managed to satisfy all the goal posts …. They never lost confidence in us.” 38:28: Ford says the detection of gravity waves is a wonderful story: “from Einstein’s initial discovery to the long march of scientists standing on each others’ shoulders…. All of this was for no commercial, military or geopolitical purpose. It was just to know, driven by human curiosity.” 39:08: Barish says, “It’s really emblematic of what the NSF should be about, and of what pure science should be.” 40:09: Barish says we’ve heard the first “beat” or chirp in “Einstein’s Unfinished Symphony” (referring to the title of his IHMC lecture.) 42:22: “Everything we know about our universe comes from the electromagnetic spectrum: looking at visible light, infrared, ultraviolet, x-rays. What we know about the universe has grown tremendously as we move beyond just the optical spectrum.” 43:19: However, all phenomena don’t emit light…black holes don’t emit light. “The two objects we saw were about thirty times the mass of our sun, and about the size of Los Angeles greater area.” 44:20: “It’s going to take years to make more sensitive detectors…both in terms of the future of astronomy/astrophysics and the future of studying the most fundamental things in physics itself…all of this just has a really bright future.” 45:00: Interferometers need to be in extremely quiet environments. But in the Washington location, there were wind generators 10-15 miles away that shook the earth. In LA, huge pipes carried oil from Southern states to Northern states, and they could “hear” the rumbling below. 46:16: “We start with an environment that’s pretty quiet, and then we have to isolate ourselves from everything that’s noisy…but no matter how much we work at it the earth below us shakes at low frequencies, and we have to minimize that.” To do that, they created “a very fancy set of shock absorbers.” 48:24: Barish talks about the international linear collider. “I’m perennially a graduate student; I’m most excited when I’m learning something new.” 52:35: Barish talks about how he pulled together the best physicists from around the world to work on the international linear collider. 55:20: When talking about the likelihood of the international linear collider actually being constructed, Barish said that if it were to be built, that it would probably be in Japan and that the current situation is that the Japanese government has been conducting “super due diligence.” 56:33: Barish discusses being a junior science working with Friedman, Kendall and Taylor (SLAC physicists who won the Nobel Prize for investigations on the deep inelastic scattering of electrons on protons and bound neutrons). Barish turned down the opportunity to work with them on the project well before their award-winning work. 58:15: Barish talks about his lifelong love of storytelling and fiction. 1:00:46: Dawn thanks Barish for the interview. 1:01:15: Dawn and Ken wrap about the interview. Ford says, “LIGO is a story of courage, curiosity, and intellectual audacity that will be noteworthy for a very long time.” 1:02:10: Dawn and Ken sign off.