The Most Important Question

Back in Episode 38, Quinn & Brian asked: Is it harder to build clean power plants or play in a reputable cover band?Our guest Sean Casten then went on to win the election for congressman of Brian’s home district, Illinois’ 6th! There’s a little more hope in the world, so we want to re-introduce you to these kickass STEM politicians. Sean is a scientist, clean energy entrepreneur, and cover band member who ran against Peter Roskam, who called climate change “junk science,” which is really all we needed to hear to know that Sean is the right man for Illinois’’ 6th district. Plus, Sean is backed by our friends at 314 Action, an incredible group of people who are smarter than us trying to get other people who are smarter than us elected. You can check out our previous episodes with 314 Action founder Shaughnessy Naughton (episode 35) and fellow Congressional candidates Chrissy Houlahan (episode 37) and Joseph Kopser (episode 32).Want to send us feedback? Tweet us, email us, or leave us a voice message!Trump’s Book Club: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver Presents a Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo by Jill Twiss and Marlon Bundo: https://www.amazon.com/registry/wishlist/3R5XF4WMZE0TV/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_ep_ws_2Gr8Ab6RS5WF3Links: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/castenforcongress/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/votecasten Support more candidates endorsed by 314: http://www.314action.org/endorsed-candidates-1/Connect with us: Subscribe to our newsletter at ImportantNotImportant.com! Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com Follow Quinn: twitter.com/quinnemmett Follow Brian: twitter.com/briancolbertken Like and share us on Facebook: facebook.com/ImportantNotImportant Check us on Instagram: instagram.com/ImportantNotImportant Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp Pin us on Pinterest: pinterest.com/ImportantNotImportant Tumble us or whatever the hell you do on Tumblr: importantnotimportant.tumblr.comImportant, Not Important is produced by Podcast Masters

Back in Episode 37, Quinn & Brian asked: Why does Congress need a female Air Force Officer / Engineer / Chemistry Teacher / Mom among its ranks? We found out – and now our guest Chrissy Houlahan is the new congresswoman from Pennsylvania District 6! So we’re playing that episode again to celebrate. We dig into the very personal reasons she ran, what’s so special about Pennsylvania, and the first thing she’s going to do when she gets elected. Plus, how did she collect such an impressive list of bona fides? Chrissy was one of our featured conversations in partnership with 314 Action, an organization working hard to put STEM candidates in office. You can learn more about the organization in our interview with the founder, Shaughnessy Naughton, back in episode 35 and support them at 314action.org. Want to send us feedback? Tweet us, email us, or leave us a voice message! Trump’s Book Club: Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder: https://www.amazon.com/registry/wishlist/3R5XF4WMZE0TV/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_ep_ws_2Gr8Ab6RS5WF3 Links: Twitter: https://twitter.com/HoulahanForPa Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HoulahanForPA Support more candidates endorsed by 314: http://www.314action.org/endorsed-candidates-1/ Connect with us: Subscribe to our newsletter at ImportantNotImportant.com! Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com Follow Quinn: twitter.com/quinnemmett Follow Brian: twitter.com/briancolbertken Like and share us on Facebook: facebook.com/ImportantNotImportant Check us on Instagram: instagram.com/ImportantNotImportant Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp Pin us on Pinterest: pinterest.com/ImportantNotImportant Tumble us or whatever the hell you do on Tumblr: importantnotimportant.tumblr.com Important, Not Important is produced by Podcast Masters

In Episode 50, Quinn & Brian discuss: How D.C. and LA are dealing with urban heat issues.    Our guests are Yesim Sayin Taylor and Molly Peterson. Yesim is the founding Executive Director of the D.C. Policy Center and Molly is a renowned reporter focusing on the environment and climate change (and our first returning guest!).  We all remember when Nelly said, “It’s getting hot in herre,” but not a lot of people remember the whole verse: “It’s getting hot in herre, so take off all your clothes / all of the poor minorities in America are suffering and dying before everybody else / Uh, uh, uh, let it hang all out.” But it’s a shame, really, because if we’d just paid more attention to Nelly’s important message back in 2002, maybe we wouldn’t be facing this problem today.  Want to send us feedback? Tweet us, email us, or leave us a voice message! Trump’s Book Club:  The Old Man Who Read Love Stories by Luis Sepúlveda  Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa by Jason Stearns  Links:  Learn more at https://www.dcpolicycenter.org  Yesim on Twitter: https://twitter.com/yesimsy  Check out https://pactio.us/host/molly-peterson  Molly on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/mollydacious  Greater Greater Washington: https://ggwash.org  Connect with us: Subscribe to our newsletter at ImportantNotImportant.com!  Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com  Follow Quinn: twitter.com/quinnemmett  Follow Brian: twitter.com/briancolbertken  Like and share us on Facebook: facebook.com/ImportantNotImportant  Check us on Instagram: instagram.com/ImportantNotImportant  Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp  Pin us on Pinterest: pinterest.com/ImportantNotImportant  Tumble us or whatever the hell you do on Tumblr: importantnotimportant.tumblr.com  Important, Not Important is produced by Podcast Masters

In Episode 49, Quinn & Brian ask: What can the HUGE food and beverage companies do, right now, to improve U.S. food systems and drive trends towards a more sustainable future? It’s a big and complicated question, but our guest Jennifer Mleczko is going to share the one simple thing you can do to address all of it at once. Jennifer is a consultant at the World Bank focused on sustainable development, specifically agriculture and, even more specifically, livestock. There are environmental, social, economic, and political implications to the food systems we’ve created here in the United States; globalization, international trade, market consolidation, and the ways we produce food affects communities all around the globe. We aren’t always aware of how buying a package of dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets from Walmart affects a small farm halfway across the country or the world, but every choice we make has consequences – and the more we work to bring awareness to these choices, the more we can do to transition to a more sustainable food system. Want to send us feedback? Tweet us, email us, or leave us a voice message!Trump’s Book Club: The Unsettling of America by Wendell Berry Links: Jennifer on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jennifermleczko Jennifer on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifermleczko/ Find Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) near you: https://www.localharvest.org/csa/ Find a Farmers’ Market near you: https://www.localharvest.org/farmers-markets/ Download the Seasonal Food Guide app: https://www.seasonalfoodguide.org/download-app Connect with us: Subscribe to our newsletter at ImportantNotImportant.com! Intro/outro by Tim Blane: timblane.com Follow Quinn: twitter.com/quinnemmett Follow Brian: twitter.com/briancolbertken Like and share us on Facebook: facebook.com/ImportantNotImportant Check us on Instagram: instagram.com/ImportantNotImportant Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ImportantNotImp Pin us on Pinterest: pinterest.com/ImportantNotImportant Tumble us or whatever the hell you do on Tumblr: importantnotimportant.tumblr.com Important, Not Important is produced by Podcast Masters

In Episode 48, Quinn & Brian ask: Why the hell does childhood cancer exist, isn't the world effed up enough as it is, and what can we do to make it go away forever? Our guest is one of our favorite humans, Jay Scott, Co-Executive Director of the Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation. Jay runs the organization with his wife, Liz, in honor of their daughter Alex, who was diagnosed with cancer just two days before her first birthday. She set up a lemonade stand in their yard to help support her doctors and, before she died, she managed to raise more than $1 million. Since then, Alex’s Lemonade Stand has raised over $150 million and funded nearly 1,000 medical research grants for more than 135 institutions across the U.S. and Canada, and they’re not slowing down for a second. This is an awesome, inspiring, and necessary conversation, but be warned: our keyboards are covered in salty man tears and your phone may get wet as well. Want to send us feedback? Tweet us, email us, or leave us a voice message!Trump’s Book Club: Chicken Soup for the Soul by Jack Canfield: https://www.amazon.com/registry/wishlist/3R5XF4WMZE0TV/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_ep_ws_2Gr8Ab6RS5WF3 Links: Support ALSF: https://www.alexslemonade.org/donate Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alexslemonade/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alexslemonade Twitter: https://twitter.com/AlexsLemonade Host an event: https://www.alexslemonade.org/campaign/individuals-families?gclid=CjwKCAiAo8jgBRAVEiwAJUXKqBx6zZOMypRtjWtfenqvysIvRFhjTFzVPu6btuYC2ZYKXkB2oYZwohoCP90QAvD_BwE Connect with us: Subscribe to our newsletter at http://www.ImportantNotImportant.com! Intro/outro by Tim Blane: http://www.timblane.com Follow Quinn: http://www.twitter.com/quinnemmett Follow Brian: http://www.twitter.com/briancolbertken Like and share us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ImportantNotImportant Check us on Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/ImportantNotImportant Follow us on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ImportantNotImp Pin us on Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/ImportantNotImportant Tumble us or whatever the hell you do on Tumblr: http://www.importantnotimportant.tumblr.com Important, Not Important is produced by Podcast Masters

In Episode 47, Quinn goes solo for a minute to discuss: America’s data and the future of digital health. Quinn sits down for a one-on-one chat with Dave Gershgorn, the lead artificial intelligence reporter at Quartz (AKA qz.com), to figure out why our data is different, how the future we were promised is both here and pretty damn far away, and whether/why data is too white. The worlds of healthcare and artificial intelligence are looking – big surprise – really biased right now, but with some effort, we can get to the colorful and diverse future of digital health we talked about with Dr. Indra Joshi and Maxine Mackintosh back in episode 43. Today, Dave provides some journalist-approved action steps that will help us get a little more informed on the subject so that we can all help make that future our reality. Want to send us feedback? Tweet us, email us, or leave us a voice message!Trump’s Book Club: The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo Links: Read Dave’s work: https://qz.com/author/dgershgornqz/ Twitter: @davegershgorn Dave’s Machine Learning Twitter List: https://twitter.com/davegershgorn/lists/machine-learning “If AI is going to be the world’s doctor, it needs better textbooks” Machines of Loving Grace: The Quest for Common Ground Between Humans and Robots by John Markoff AI Now Institute: https://ainowinstitute.org/ Data & Society: https://datasociety.net/ “A Proposal for the Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence” Connect with us: Subscribe to our newsletter at ImportantNotImportant.com! Intro/outro by Tim Blane Follow Quinn: @quinnemmett Follow Brian: @briancolbertken Like and share us on Facebook! Check us on Instagram! Follow us on Twitter! Pin us on Pinterest! Tumble us or whatever the hell you do on Tumblr! Important, Not Important is produced by Podcast Masters

Dr. Claudia Benitez-Nelson is an Associate Dean and Distinguished Professor in the College of Arts & Sciences at the University of South Carolina, and today she schools us on radioactivity in the ocean. Want to send us feedback? Tweet us, email us, or leave us a voice message!

Our guest is Dr. Diwakar Davar, a Professor of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh and a a medical oncologist/hematologist.Want to send us feedback? Tweet us, email us, or leave us a voice message!

Our guest is Dr. James Rogers, founder and CEO of Apeel Sciences and one of our most mind-blowing guests yet.Want to send us feedback? Tweet us, email us, or leave us a voice message!

Our guests are Dr. Indra Joshi & Maxine Mackintosh, the co-founders of One HealthTech.Want to send us feedback? Tweet us, email us, or leave us a voice message!