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Copyright: © Richard Jacobs
Bee keeping is an ancient practice: even prehistoric cave paintings in Spain depict a keeper reaching for a hive to collect honey while holding a smoker to calm the bees. Cameron Jack shares some of the more interesting details of this ancient art with lucky listeners. Tune in and hear
Cameron Jack holds the unusual position of one-hundred percent lecturer at the University of Florida. He's still involved in research and extension work, but his full lecturer designation means his beekeeping course list at the University of Florida is probably the most extensive college-level beekeeping instruction out there. He teaches seven different beekeeping courses, covering everything from evolution, biology, the annual cycle involved in beekeeping, and more. The courses are complete enough to turn out people who can actively be beekeepers. In this interview, he describes everything from why 3/8 inches is a magic number to how bees find and maintain hives in the wild.
Honey bee behavioral adaptations of course take center stage. For hive building, beekeepers who want to maximize honey production must learn such behaviors to know why they might, for example, sequester the queen in the lower level. Bees build their combs vertically and are considered a superorganism—"the whole animal is the whole colony," he adds. They are able to determine their hive sizing in multiple ways and if it gets too big, they swarm—one colony becomes two. Furthermore, the queen designation doesn't mean ruler. She's a producer, laying as many eggs as she can in a systematic spiral through her level of the comb. Cameron Jack's primary interest is the management of pests and diseases bees face like types of mites, beetles, and even wax-eating moths. While the interaction of mites and bees is the most concerning, diseases even involve microorganisms in honey bees' guts. Listen in to hear more about this amazing superorganism.
For more see the University of Florida Honey Bee Research and Extension Lab page. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
We think about heart disease prevention, but what about bone health? Margie Bissinger brings listeners numerous bone health boosters and facts, keeping listeners flexible and stronger. Listen and learn
Margie Bissinger is the host of the Happy Bones, Happy Life podcast. She's a physical therapist, author, nutritionist, and health coach with an expertise in orthopedic physical therapy. Years ago, a group of doctors asked her to focus on struggling osteoporosis patients and the experience opened her eyes to how patients didn't even know where to start. She started working on a state level in New Jersey with osteoporosis outreach programs and wrote a book to reach a nationwide audience. As she continued researching, adding more knowledge about bone health nutrition, she realized the degree to which our actions can have an impact.
Bone health actually starts in childhood, she says, by exercising, jumping, and getting forces through our bones with any type of resistance. This extends to exercise at all ages, especially moves that "load the bones." When we're older, it's important to seek bone health exercise guidance, however, as some studies show difference in flexion versus extension of the spine and fracture correlations. Margie also provides very helpful information about the kinds of testing and tools available to determine bone density and what questions to ask your doctor. She emphasizes finding out any root cause to bone loss and osteoporosis and describes how functional medicine can address such causes.
For more, see margiebissinger.com.
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Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
He set out to prove his wife wrong. That's what lead Physician Assistant Kevin Davis to first research keto diet plans and efficacy. But the more he researched, the more he found she might be on to something. Listen and learn
Kevin Davis is the host of Our Ketogenic Life podcast and works with clients to craft an appropriate ketogenic diet meal plan to fit their needs through different life stages. He's worked as a Physician Assistant since 1994, and after his wife suffered unexplained inflammation and pain, he researched the ketogenic life style based on her own findings that it might help her issues. The more he researched it, the more the ketogenic diet food list and process made sense with how foods interact with our body, especially through hormone balance.
After he and his wife both took on the ketogenic life style and he started helping patients do the same, he's continued studying it. The more research he does on chronic diseases like heart disease, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and diabetes development, the more he sees how the ketogenic diet addresses these long term conditions. So while clients find him for weight loss, he knows these potential underlying problems will also be addressed. "If I see they have joint pain or a family history of insulin resistance, I know this will also help those things," he says. He emphasizes that practicing the diet should not lead someone to feeling nonfunctional or too hungry to work: this should not be part of ketogenic side effects. Rather, through guidance, the diet will ultimately lead to more energy, less inflammation, and better overall health and wellbeing.
For more, see ourketogeniclife.com. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
They're everywhere, even the trees. Petr Klimes researches the ecological roles of insects, especially ants in Papa New Guinea, where many species are less accessible for research. He shares interesting ant facts and tales along with questions he's pursing. Listen and learn
Petr Klimes is the laboratory head of the Laboratory of Ecology and Evolution of Social Insects with the University of South Bohemia Biology Centre CAS. He's interested in ants that live in tropical trees and spread across the islands in the pacific, specifically their evolution and interaction with plants and other animals. One remarkable aspect of ants' life cycles and habits is the vast diversity among different species. Unlike bees, which are exclusively pollinators, or wasps, which are predators, ant interactions vary widely. Some are predators, some are omnivores. Some ant colony structures include more than one ant queen and some don't. Some are highly specialized in food and nest choice and some are opportunistic, eating whatever and living where ever is available.
Petr Klimes spent time in Papa New Guinea comparing ground and arboreal ants. Ground ants are mostly predators, but tree ants tend to work with other insects like aphids. He shares many fascinating examples of ant interactions, from parasitism to symbiotic relationships with plants or other insects like aphids. Unlike ant species in the U.S., which look fairly similar to each other, the morphology in the tropics is extreme. One species, for example, lives in leaf litter and is about 1 millimeter long, has triangle-shaped "hats" and predates with sharp mandibles, eating tiny, fast-moving insects. In Borneo, another large species lives in trees and are dimorphic, with large soldiers and small foragers. He hopes to embark on a new project soon to study species interaction and biology in terms of how climate change and forest change is influencing ant communities.
For more, see his lab's website: antscience.com. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
All light is not the same, and Eran Ben-Shmuel has produced a technology that will make that clearer than ever. They've remade how light is produced, resulting in a high-quality, high-functioning, and versatile smart light. Listen and learn
Eran Ben-Shmuel is the CEO and Founder of Juganu, which brings new light technology to multiple applications. They are transforming the infrastructure of light to a digitized area—marking multiple points and making that area "smart." They transform the colors with a different technology, taking a silicon chip and immersing it inside a light guide, causing total reflections to catch surfaces of light. This process allows them to highlight almost every aspect of light, from efficiency to quality.
They can then control the different parameters of light such as the spectrum or gamut of light as their needs demand, modulating that light from daylight to sunset colors and more. An essential elements is their ability to maintain the "perfect" white—changing the colors while in what's called the "blackbody curve." This produces a very high quality of light by controlling almost every slice of the spectrum. They can use this technology for multiple applications, from street lighting projects to horticulture to medical needs. By choosing the right spectrum and controlling it, they can even stop the spread of viruses and other pathogens like bacteria.
For more, see juganu.com. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
Those tiny ants are actually heavy weights. In terms of biomass, ants make up about 10% of all animal weight on earth. That means if humans are on one side of the scale, ants can balance us out on the other. The ant life cycle is as interesting as this weight implies. Listen and learn
Laurent Keller is a professor at the University of UNIL in Switzerland with the Department of Ecology and Evolution. He researches the social behavior of ants and describes some amazing elements of ant behavior. His lab has identified a supergene in two fire ant species. Found in cooperation with a colleague from the University of Georgia, this genetic difference between the species determines their different social organization structures. This supergene designates dispersal habits as well—the queen in one species is large and fat, and can travel far and start a new colony on her own. The other smaller ants can't travel as far because of their size and the queen begins her work in an already-established colony close by.
Keller shares some amazing traits of an ant's life. Because they reproduce through parthenogenesis and sexual reproduction, the males are short-timers and only live long enough to mate. Meanwhile, the queen usually mates only once, but is able to store sperm and use it over 20 years in a special organ called a spermathecal. These two reproduction methods offer double benefits: both diversity and clonal reproduction. He offers several more interesting ant facts, including their nest types and the methods researchers use to painstakingly attach tags to each ant for tracking and observation purposes.
For more, see the Keller Group, their lab's website. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
It's estimated that 20% of our food is dependent on honey bee pollination. Meanwhile, recent news has highlighted concerns like viral diseases of the honey bee to mites to invading "killer" bees. It's hard to keep straight where honey bee diseases and treatments stand. This conversation does the trick, leaving listeners with a clear and fascinating vision of what's up with the honey bee.
Listen and learn
Jamie Ellis is the Gahan Endowed Professor in the Entomology and Nematology Department at the University of Florida. Fascinated with bees since childhood, he took care of his first honey bee hive at age 12 and hasn't looked back since. He's not alone: humans have been interacting with honey bees for thousands of years.
While there are 20,000 of bee species worldwide, only 9 of those species are honey bees. Even more daunting, 8 of those 9 are specific to Asia. That remaining species is the one we're familiar with and it inhabits Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and North America. Honey bees are actually not native to North America; rather, Europeans brought them over hundreds of years ago.
Are the populations of this one honey bee species that inhabits such disparate regions the same? Well, while it is the same species, entomologists divide it into about 30 subspecies or races, such as the African bee, which the press has misnamed the "killer bee." North American honey bees have been facing population struggles lately because of a mite, and Ellis describes various pest control and pest management plans, including nature's own adaptation through honey bee evolution.
He also helps listeners with the big picture of the many reasons to raise honey bees. While many are familiar with bee hives used for honey, pollination services are also a tremendous business. Others raise colonies to sell and some keepers specialize in raising queens.
For more information, including resources on your own bee keeping, see the University of Florida Honey Bee Research and Extension Lab page.
Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
Cancer prevention and early detection programs hold a major place in today's research, and one company is releasing an assay that takes a major step forward with an early cancer detection test for multiple cancers. Listen and learn
Dr. Josh Ofman is GRAIL's Chief Medical Officer. In addition to time in academia, he's worked in the biotech field for several years. He brings good news to listeners as he describes a cancer detection machine-learning system they've developed that detects multiple cancer types with one test. At this point, numerous cancers are only found when they're advanced and deadly. He says that we only have the capability to screen for 5 cancers in this country, and most deaths occur in cancer types with no available screening such as ovarian, pancreas, stomach, head and neck, and liver cancer. This is why GRAIL was started: to investigate how to find signatures of cancer in blood and detect them early.
He explains what finding signatures means: as cancer grows in the body and the cells die, they shed DNA bits in the blood. GRAIL did a foundational study and found the best way to look at those DNA bits and identify where in the genome to look. They found that epigenetic changes, or methylation changes, provided the best signals. They then utilized machine learning to recognize the patterns of cancer signals in hyper and hypo methylation regions. In addition, the methyl groups indicate where in the body those epigenetic directions are sending the cancer cells. He adds that their test should be commercially available by mid-2021. Listen in for some promising news in cancer research.
For more, see their website: grail.com. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
We know how artificial intelligence "remembers," utilizing data encoding techniques to translate information into a complex pattern of 1s and 0s. But human memory storage continues to pose many fascinating mysteries. Researchers like Jason Shepherd are tackling these neuroscience puzzles on a molecular level. His lab investigates how our neural network is able to store information and retain a lifetime of memories despite the short life of proteins within cells.
Listen and learn
Jason Shepherd is an associate professor of neurobiology and anatomy and an adjunct associate professor of ophthalmology and visual sciences at the University of Utah School of Medicine. He works at the molecular level to understand how the cells in our brain are able to store information and experiences over a lifetime.
He reminds listeners that when we learn, there's a specific set of cells that are active and encoding that experience. What is data encoding for the brain? Well, there's a consolidation period when those active neurons become connected to each other through synaptic connections. Scientists call this synaptic plasticity, when the connections between cells that've retained the experience are wired together. That specific circuit is activated when we recall the memory and they think that plasticity process stores the memory.
That's where the master regulator gene called Arc comes in. If the gene is removed from mice, they cannot remember anything for long periods of time. The short to long-term memory conversion requires this gene, and based on its appearance, they think it evolved from an ancient viral element that infected an ancestor. It's retained a lot of the viral biology, such as utilizing a capsid.
Because scientists have learned so much about retroviruses like HIV, Shepherd and his team are able to use that knowledge in how they approach Arc research. The gene enables signaling from one cell to another through this capsid, which viruses usually use to transfer their own genetic material. He's taking a focused look at what exactly the capsid enables.
For more, see his lab's website at shepherdlab.org and find him on Twitter as @JasonSynaptic.
Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
The Behavioral Diabetes Institute brings clinicians, researchers, and resources together to address diabetes. President William Polonsky drops the listener in the midst of this informative team, providing a helpful image of what it means to manage type 2 diabetes. Listen and learn
William Polonsky is the president of the Behavioral Diabetes Institute and an associate clinical professor at the University of California, San Diego. While the institute offers resources educating patients on the mechanisms of type 1 & 2 diabetes, considerations for insulin pumps versus injections for type 1 diabetics, and nutrition intervention for obesity, their primary focus is emotional and behavioral care for diabetic patients and family. He and Richard discuss type 2 management in this conversation, from the challenges to the numerous reasons to have hope. He reminds listeners that what makes managing it so difficult, and what those of us without it don't realize, is that having it is like working another job without vacation. Furthermore, there's a lot of misunderstanding about the causes and, while obesity intervention strategies may sometimes be a component of care, there are variety of reasons for developing the disease, including genetic.
He tells listeners of many opportunities for high-quality management of type 2, from new medications to supportive techniques. But he also discusses the mix of information out there. On the one hand, the general public is much more aware of the meaning of terms like A1C, and diet and prevention of type 2 diabetes advice columns are prevalent. On the other hand, a lot of diagnosed people never get formal education about how to care for themselves and "wing it." He reminds listeners that numerous professionals, from endocrinologists to institutes like his, are out there and eager to guide and support type 2 diabetics. "It's really important to have hope and know it's not by any means a death sentence: your efforts can make a difference," he says. Listen in for more encouraging words and ways to take care of diabetes.
For more see behavioraldiabetes.org. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
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