Here We Are

Wearables can do so much more than count your steps. They can also be used for detecting abnormalities caused by Covid up to 10 days before symptoms arise. In this episode, Dr. Michael Snyder explores the many uses of wearable health monitoring technology Michael Snyder is a genomicist, systems biologist, and entrepreneur. He is the Stanford B. Ascherman Professor and Chair of Genetics and Director of Genomics and Personalized Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine. Years ago he started using himself as a guinea pig to test the limits of how modern science can improve health. He used genetic testing, multiple wearables, sensors of every kind to collect all possible data. In the course of that, he detected and prevented his own diabetes and turned his health around. He even discovered he had lyme disease before any symptoms appeared. Now he's developing ways of using AI to sort through the metrics collected by wearables to prevent disease rather than treat symptoms. His new study is essentially a way that anyone with wearable tech can get an alarm when they have a virus before they show symptoms. Immediately after this conversation I bought a Fitbit Versa and joined his study. You can play a part and join the study through this link! https://innovations.stanford.edu/wearables Thank you for watching and being an inquisitive being. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Authors of ‘The Courage to Suffer: A New Clinical Framework for Life's Greatest Crises’ join me to talk about mental health, spirituality, what happens when a crisis makes you rethink the coherence of the very narratives that used to keep you going. Rather than trying to dismiss and escape suffering we can find ways to accept and thrive within it. Sara A. Showalter Van Tongeren has more than twelve years of clinical social work experience in settings such as private practice, foster care, inpatient hospitals and outpatient medical clinics, inter-partner violence shelters, and behavioral health. She has a deep passion to help people cultivate a sense of meaning and develop narratives of resilience following trauma and unexpected life events. Sara specializes in cognitive-behavioral therapy, mindfulness, existential psychotherapy, narrative therapy, brainspotting, and acceptance commitment therapy. https://saravantongeren.com/ Daryl R. Van Tongeren is an associate professor of psychology at Hope College. His research focuses on the social motivation for meaning and its relation to virtues and morality. Specifically, he and his students adopt a social-cognitive approach to study meaning in life, religion and virtues, such as forgiveness and humility. https://hope.edu/directory/people/van-tongeren-daryl/index.html Here are the resources for suicide prevention: 1-800-273-8255 (24hrs/7days a week crisis support hotline) suicidepreventionlifeline.org/chat (free online chat staffed by professionals) text 741741 for crisis text support crisistextline.org to message them through facebook or chat online. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week I talk with my good friend and multi-talented Pete Holmes! I wanted to have a spiritual conversation with someone outside of academia for a change. Pete and I always have really great philosophical discussions and I really appreciate his take on a lot of things. Check out Pete's philosophical/spiritual autobiography "Comedy Sex God" on Amazon or wherever you get your books! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Covid update with my favorite guest on the subject! Nina Fefferman has spent her career modeling future pandemics. Because of Covid, she’s gone from a theoretical to an applied mathematician. Her interdisciplinary makes her one of the most knowledgeable people at the intersection of mathematics and evolutionary biology. She consistently takes us on a path through the either/or fallacies of health VS economy which have become so politicized and guides us through an exploration of nuance and complexity that we should all be so lucky to journey through. More impressively, she does so in an exceedingly accessible way. If only these kinds of conversations were a bigger part of our global conversation. We are exceptionally fortunate to have humans like Nina working on behalf of all humanity and I am grateful that she took 2.5 hours out of her life to try and save the world. Dr. Fefferman is a professor in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department in the University of Tennessee. Her research focuses on the mathematics of epidemiology, evolutionary and behavioral ecology, and self-organizing behaviors, especially of systems described by networks. While the research in the Fefferman Lab frequently focuses on disease in human and/or animal populations, and how disease and disease-related behavioral ecology can affect the short-term survival and long-term evolutionary success of a population, people in the lab have worked on problems as diverse as computer network security to social behaviors in grass-roots organizations that make the movement susceptible to radicalization. Any fun integration of applied mathematics and human or animal processes is fair game!Thank you for watching and being an inquisitive being. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Take a peek inside the life of the people who get to peek inside the lives of others. This week I talk with two anthropologists about what it's like to go and live in an extremely different culture. We talk about shamanism, leadership, witchcraft and what past health care and court systems might have looked like. Zach Garfield is an evolutionary anthropologist who investigates how behaviors such as leadership and followership, decision-making, and economic strategies are related to group-level pressures such as network dynamics and alliance patterns, sociopolitical structures, group context, and cultural norms. https://anthro.vancouver.wsu.edu/people/zgarfield/ Manvir Singh Cognitive & evolutionary anthropologist at the Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse his research program aims to explain why societies develop complex, recurrent traditions such as shamanism, witchcraft, origin myths, property rights, sharing norms, lullabies, dance music, and gods have appeared in human societies everywhere, from nomadic hunter-gatherer bands to complex, industrial, mega-urbanized states. https://www.manvir.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this episode, we chat about biodiversity loss as a key issue in our modern world.  We emphasize the impact it has on increasing of disease in our modern environment which isn’t something normally addressed in public discourse.  This doesn’t just impact humans, but the majority of wildlife has lost habitat and the space needed to avoid pathogen spread.  Additionally, globalization has introduced invasive viruses to novel environments which lack defense to them.   Dr. Debra Miller is Professor and Director of the Center for Wildlife Health in the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture. She has a split appointment between the College of Veterinary Medicine and the Department of Forestry, Wildlife and Fisheries https://vetmed.tennessee.edu/FacultyStaff/SitePages/CVMProfile.aspx?NetID=dmille42   She is also the interim director of the new One Health Initiative which started at UT this year and has over 50 faculty and scientists from numerous departments and colleges in an effort to enhance research collaborations across the state and region to address rapidly emerging health challenges. https://onehealth.tennessee.edu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this rare solo episode, I explore what it's like as a comedian, show producer, and science communicator trying to navigate Covid, the economy, public perception, regulations, and marketing while considering the many additional variables and challenges that come along with planning a tour. Thank you for watching and being an inquisitive being. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Professor Sarah Hill of the Hill Evolutionary Social Psychology Lab at Texas Christian University returns to the show to talk about her new book ‘This Is Your Brain on Birth Control: The Surprising Science of Women, Hormones, and the Law of Unintended Consequences’ Sarah is such a dream guest. In addition to being very funny and not afraid to talk about social taboos, her work is also not just really unique and mind-blowing but is also incredibly important information for anyone and an absolute must for women taking birth control If interested, you can hear her first appearance on the show on March, 1 2016 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

David Hanscom is author of the book ‘Do You Really Need Spine Surgery?’.  He is a renowned complex deformity spinal surgeon of 30 years and his experiences both in the medical industry and with his own health gave him a new perspective on chronic pain, the medical industry, and mental health that is a fresh perspective in a world where questionable surgeries and treatments can often be overprescribed. His pioneering book, ‘Back in Control: A Surgeon’s Roadmap Out of Chronic Pain’ showed suffers how to quiet a turbocharged central nervous system as well as perhaps relieve some of the depression and anxiety that comes along with pain. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Volcanic activity, submarine adventures, and scallop porn are on today’s menu. If that is somehow not enticing enough, you’re also going to find out what percentage of a scallop’s body weight is gametes. Guess high as it may be nature’s most impressive money shot. Skylar Bayer is a marine ecologist who studies population dynamics and marine conservation. She’s also does a ton of science communication including producing the science storytelling show The Story Collider. She even shares a fun story of one of her mishaps being featured on The Colbert Report. Check out her website https://skylarbayer.wordpress.com https://twitter.com/drsrbayer Her Uncharted newsletter signup is here: https://uncharted.substack.com/p/coming-soon Thank you for watching and being an inquisitive being. 𝐀𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐖𝐞 𝐀𝐫𝐞: Stand-up comedian, adventurer and science enthusiast Shane Mauss has been interviewing scientists each week since 2014. Originally from La Crosse, Wisconsin this former factory worker skipped college to become a comedian. His stand up has been on Comedy Central, Conan, Kimmel, Showtime, and Epix https://bit.ly/shaneTV . In the age of podcasting, more people might be familiar with him as a guest on Trussell, Holmes, Kreischer, Vaughn, Maron, or Rogan https://bit.ly/shaneguest. Compelled to talk about bigger ideas, he now travels to universities around the world (when there isn't a pandemic) to interview researchers on a journey to learn what makes us who we are...as well as a bunch of other random stuff you never imagined you would care about. Favorite topics include: psychology, biology, evolution, cognitive biases, behavioral economics, mating, animal behavior, neuroscience, entheogens and consciousness. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices