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Copyright: © Richard Jacobs
Senior program officer at The Kresge Foundation, Jalonne White-Newsome, joins the show to discuss equitable climate resilience and urban flooding and health. Tune in to discover:
The Kresge Foundation mission is to expand opportunities in low-income American communities through grant making, where the focus is to help build climate-resilient communities in ways that are grounded in equity. This environmental program is where White-Newsome carries out most of her work at The Kresge Foundation. She explains that climate resilience is about reducing sources of pollution that drive climate change and helping people adapt to the new normal because of climate change. It's also about making sure that those who are impacted the most are a part of the solution.
White-Newsome has been an integral part of The Kresge Foundation's Climate Resilience and Equitable Water Systems (CREWS) initiative, which aims to address climate-driven urban flooding—the kind of flooding that doesn't always make the headlines like the flooding that occurs during major national disasters. However, White-Newsome explains that the same level of anxiety and disaster can come from the flooding that occurs in urban environments, especially when it causes significant property damage, requires people in low-income communities to relocate, and leads to mental and physical health effects for those impacted.
"What has been underappreciated is the way we solve the problem; it's not just…throwing up a levee or creating some type of physical infrastructure to…contain the water…the other critical piece is making sure that…we're addressing the social infrastructure problem," says White-Newsome.
Press play for all the details of this important conversation, and learn more by searching for the CREWS initiative at https://kresge.org/. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
Chelsea Rochman is an assistant professor of ecology at the University of Toronto and scientific advisor to the Ocean Conservancy. On today's episode, she shares important insight from her research on anthropogenic contaminants in the environment and the organisms within it. Press play to learn:
Rochman's research revolves around anthropogenic contaminants—what happens when they are added to the environment, how they interact with animals and plants, how they impact species and aquatic ecosystems, where they most frequently enter the environment, and what types of effects different contaminants have on different aspects of the environment.
For over ten years, Rochman has focused on plastic contamination. By taking samples from various environmental sources and the guts of organisms, she quantifies and characterizes the plastics found, which allows her to not only conduct further research on how specific contaminants impact organisms, but also propose to industry and municipalities more sustainable ways of utilizing and managing plastics. Much of the research in this field has shown that the smaller the plastic, the more likely it is to have an impact on organisms, and those impacts range from changes in growth patterns to low offspring viability.
In addition to discussing these topics in depth, Rochman touches on types of ecotoxicology research, trophic transfer of microplastics, bioaccumulation and biomagnification of microplastics, and the chemistry of the environment.
For more information on Rochman's work, visit https://rochmanlab.com/. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
Frankie Wood-Black has a PhD in physics and is on the faculty at Northern Oklahoma College. She explains how she found herself in the field of chemical health and safety and shares her expertise on these matters. Tune in to learn:
Chemicals are everywhere; walk through a grocery store and you're likely to pass by hundreds or more. Who regulates all of these chemicals? Who identifies health hazards and responds to environmental exposures? Who keeps the drinking water safe for drinking? Wood-Black answers all of these questions and more. She discusses the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the Clean Air Act, how chemical regulation has changed over the past few decades and years, what the TSCA "reboot" accomplished, the role of the Food and Drug Administration and Environmental Protection Agency in the establishment of laws and regulations, how chemicals are categorized into "classes," what types of hazards and challenges are encountered in the field of chemical health and safety, and so much more. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Political Science at Duke University, Michael C. Munger, joins the show to discuss what he believes is the way forward for addressing poverty and more efficiently using resources. Tune in to learn:
Interested in woodworking but nowhere near financially prepared to purchase everything you'd need for a workshop? Wishing you could put your money toward a particular project in your community? Wondering what you'd do with your time if you just…didn't have to work anymore?
These questions may seem entirely unrelated to each other, but according to Munger and many others, they're not. In fact, each one of these questions is raised and discussed in this episode on what it would mean to have a "platform" economy—a voluntary, private space where people use smart contracts and apps to coordinate the sharing of resources rather than the purchasing and owning of resources.
"Until fairly recently, most of us thought that we needed jobs because we needed money so that we could go buy stuff and own it and pay to store it; platforms allow us to share things in a way that reduces our footprint on the environment...and make much more efficient use of the stuff we have," says Munger. He explains all the details of how this system would work, how it would solve the problem of triangulation, and the main challenges that must be overcome. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
Dr. Andrea Gambotto is working on potential vaccine candidates for COVID-19. In 2003, his group was the first to develop a vaccine for a coronavirus. He discusses developing the COVID-19 vaccine based on its epidemiology. He explains
Dr. Andrea Gambotto is an associate professor of surgery at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He's worked on vaccines for MERs and SARs in the past decades and now his group is developing a prototype for COVID-19. Thus far, they have tested it on animal models and hope to move to testing on people soon. He explains the attributes necessary for the vaccine based on its epidemiology.
Along the way he describes basic vaccine elements such as the difference between a protein and virus platform and the challenges of meeting yield requirements. He notes that the first group they will test is a subunit protein. Protein platforms are safer, he notes, because they are easier to manufacture large scale and to administer. Their prototype could be stable at room temperature, which is important because it needs to be used and stored all over the world. He comments that they are looking at delivery through microneedle patches and explains this process in more detail.
He also tells listeners how the spike proteins in the vaccine induce antibodies that bind with the real virus and block it from entering the cell, which is called neutralizing a virus. He elaborates on this, explaining that ultimately the vaccine would have hundreds of different protein antibodies. He describes additional challenges of achieving the perfect balance in vaccine development particular to COVID-19.
To find out more, see the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine website coverage, and keep an ear open for media updates. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
Trent Northen studies the chemistry of microbiomes. More specifically, he studies how exogenous metabolites structure a microbial community, and, in turn, how those microbes change the metabolite pool and grow the microbial population. Because his work is primarily funded by the Department of Energy, he's focused on the microbial community in soil and on plant roots. He describes
Trent Northen is the Interim Deputy of the EGSB Division and a Chemist Senior Scientist at the Berkeley Lab of Biosciences. He begins the podcast describing the rich and complex cycles of plant, metabolites, and microbes, noting how plants feed microbes that live in and around their roots and how those microbial populations in turn help the plants with nitrogen-fixing, excluding pathogens, and transporting phosphorous, among other processes.
His work mostly focuses on bacteria that live in close proximity to the roots, but he describes how fungi can interact with plant roots over very large distances. For example, biological soil crusts use fungal hyphae in extraordinary ways. He explains this process and ecology in more detail and then he describes his research into the microbial community attached to the roots of the plants—the rhizosphere. He also explains the mechanism of soil depletion in big agriculture, how the compost and organic carbon cycle of decaying plant materials is absent from larger farming systems. Furthermore, he elaborates on ways the work of his lab can and might address such problems as well as studying which plants might grow in low nutrient environments and heal the soil as well as practices for soil carbon restoration and other advances.
For more information, see his lab's website, northenlab.org, and eco-fab.org. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
Is wifi radiation harmful? Dafna Tachover asked this after experiencing extreme symptoms that began with a laptop purchase. She shares her research and efforts since then with podcast listeners. In this episode, she addresses
Dafna Tachover is the director of Stop 5G & Wireless Harms Project, a part of Children's Health Defense, and an attorney in New York and Israel. She begins by relaying her own experience in 2009 while living in Princeton, New Jersey, and starting her own law practice. After buying a new laptop, she noticed disturbing symptoms while in proximity with the computer that continued despite returning and trying other laptops. These symptoms included tingling in her fingers and feet, headaches, and heart palpitations. She explains that she doesn't like the term "sensitivity" for this condition—rather, the word "injury" is a more accurate word for this. She had worked with wireless for years before and it had taken its toll, injuring her system.
She describes why our biology is affected and why we need EMF protection from this pulsation modulation. She also explains the pushback to this claim and notes that there is a huge amount of studies that answer "is wifi radiation harmful?" with a definitive "yes." She notes the extreme financial incentive for wireless companies to cast this in the light of conspiracy theory and then explains what 5G is and how it will increase this radiation. Finally, she offers several ways listeners can fight back and make decisions to hardwire their own homes and eliminate radiation in their surroundings.
For resources on how to hardwire to the internet within your home along with other information, see childrenshealthdefense.org. Other resources include saferemr.com , mdsafetech.org, and buildingbiology.com. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
Professor Zhiyong Fan is a Professor in the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering and head of the Functional and Advanced Nanostructures (FAN) Laboratory at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and he joins the show to discuss the development of a new bionic eye that would enable robots and people with blindness to see. In this episode, you'll learn:
Fan's initial inspiration for his current work stemmed from something that's a source of inspiration for many: sci-fi films. In particular, he was amazed by the idea of creating a sophisticated artificial eye structure that could function like the human eye.
He explains that all of the current technology utilizing light sensing materials are restricted by flat rather than spherical substrates…that is, until about 2016 when Fan had the idea to use a porous hemispherical template to host light sensing material to form an artificial retina. This template is filled with semi-conductive nanowires which form a 3D array in a way that allows them to stand vertically inside the template and point toward the center of the sphere. The result? A structure very similar to that of the human retina.
Fan goes on to explain the next step in the creation of this aptly named "bionic eye," the details of the processes which have led to the current product, how a bionic eye of this sort would work, the potential ways in which this technology could be further developed, and the feasibility of developing a bionic eye that can be fully implanted into a human eye socket.
Interested in learning more? Tune in and check out https://eezfan.home.ece.ust.hk/. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
Simon Roux is a member of the metagenome project at the Joint Genome Institute, which is a part of the Berkeley Lab. In this episode, he discusses his research on viruses that affect microbial life. Tune in to discover:
These days, it seems all the world has its focus on one virus, but Roux reminds us that there are likely billions of viruses in the universe, with at least one for every species on Earth. Over the course of the last five years or so, we've gone from having discovered just a few thousand virus genomes to now two million virus genomes. This is a massive amount of growth in data, and according to Roux, viruses will just continue to be discovered for the foreseeable future.
As part of the metagenome project, Roux uses a number of 'omics' to study the genetic composition and function of viruses, including metatranscriptomics and metabolomics. He focuses exclusively on viruses of microbes, whether bacteria, archaea, or protists. He explains that contrary to what many people think, viruses don't just kill their host cells, but carry out an array of activities and may choose between a lytic infection and a chronic infection.
Roux discusses a number of topics involving phage, the viruses of bacteria. With over ten years' worth of data at their fingertips, Roux is one of many researchers asking questions about the nature of the interactions between host cells of different types of microbes and viruses across microbial species.
To learn more about the work being done at Berkeley Lab and the Joint Genome Institute, visit https://www.lbl.gov/ and https://jgi.doe.gov/. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
Christian Frezza focuses on tissue-specific carcinogenesis and specifically metabolic pathways in an attempt to achieve the prevention of cancer progression. In this podcast he addresses
Christian Frezza works at the Medical Research Council (MRC) as a program leader in the MRC Cancer Unit at the University of Cambridge, a unit that investigates carcinogens, other cancer causes, differentiations between functionality of cancer types, and the prevention of cancer. His lab focuses specifically on metabolic determinants of cancerous transformation, which means understanding how cancer cells find their nutrients to grow and proliferate. He explains that this area of research is very exciting because they are revealing new aspects of cancer biology that can address therapies for different cancer types as well as a way to understand carcinogens.
He explains how tumors and metastases have very different the nutrient needs. For example, a metastasis has a metabolism need closer to the nutrient needs of tissue around it. Furthermore, while they know that all cancer causes increased glucose consumption, there are many differences between how cancer types metabolize.
He describes two important questions of his research: first, whether they can restrict some specific nutrients to affect growth; and second, if they can find that by using specific nutrients, they can identify certain markers of cancer transformation through identifying metabolites. Finally, overall this research will help understand the pathophysiology of cancer and mechanistic aspects of it. He also explains complications of the research and their findings as well as important steps and discoveries in the field.
To learn more, see his lab's website at mrc-cu.cam.ac.uk/research/Christian-frezza-folder and follow him on twitter as @FrezzaLab. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
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