Inquiring Minds

Each week we bring you an in-depth exploration of the space where science, politics, and society collide. Hosted by neuroscientist and musician Indre Viskontas and science educator Kishore Hari. Produced by Adam Isaak in partnership with the Climate Desk.

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We’ve moved our website.

Check out the new site at https://inquiring.show.

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This week, we welcome back one of our favorite guests, America’s funniest science writer Mary Roach. Her latest book, Grunt: A Curious Science of Humans at War, is a rich exploration of the men and women who work behind the scenes to make the lives of soldiers longer, better and more effective. It’s not about the size of their guns or the speed of their missiles but about the everyday annoyances, hazards and traps that soldiers must endure. Indre talks to Mary about the 22-page tome specifying what types of buttons are acceptable in soldier’s attire, what scientists face when working with the military and how soldiers themselves both benefit from and can be harmed by too much information. 

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When we make big decisions, like which car to buy, college to attend or person to marry, we weigh the pros and cons, mulling over possible consequences. And sometimes we even acknowledge a bit of influence from our gut - or whatever other name you call your emotional tugs.

But are there a host of other influences, to which we bend even in our most rational-seeming decision-making? Jonah Berger certainly has evidence that our social interactions affect us in ways we just don’t consider. In this week’s episode, Indre talks to Jonah about the invisible social influences that shape our behavior. 

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How often does physics make you cry? Sean Carroll’s latest book is a poetic overview of the known universe, with deep insights into the human experience. In this episode, Indre Viskontas ponders the meaning of life with one of the world’s most accessible theoretical physicists. 

If you’ve ever found yourself feeling woefully insignificant relative to the vastness of space and time, then Carroll’s perspective might just change your life. He argues that since we only have a limited time in a tiny part of space, we need to make good use of every heartbeat. 

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What separates the experts from the wannabe-experts? Why can some people put in 10,000 hours of practice and still not master the skill? In this week’s episode, Indre talks to Anders Ericsson, arguably the world’s expert on expertise. Having scrutinized the development of expertise for decades, Ericsson, whose work was the basis for Malcolm Gladwell’s coining of the “10,000 hours rule”, finally points out where the popular press view went wrong. 

It’s not about how much you practice, but how you practice and there are a few key steps in overcoming plateaus. 

In this episode, we mention that expertise in different domains can be easier or harder to develop, depending on how many people are vying for the top spots. This kid, for example, can solve a Rubik’s cube blindfolded. But he’s not old enough to have put in 10,000 hours. 

We also talk about origami robots. You can watch them work here. 

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Americans should expect a surge in deaths from heat waves, flooding, and respiratory disease as the climate warms, according to a wide-ranging White House report released last month. And what spells disaster for humans could also be a boon to infectious microbes and the animals that transmit them.

The guest on this week's episode is Ben Beard, associate director for climate change at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He's one of more than 100 researchers who contributed to the report, and his specialty is vector-borne diseases. These illnesses—which include Lyme disease, dengue fever, and Zika virus—are transmitted by other animals, especially insects such as mosquitos and ticks. Beard talks to Indre about how global warming is poised to alter their spread and whether the changes we're already seeing can be attributed to climate change. 

You can find the table of vector-borne diseases here: https://s3.amazonaws.com/healthreport/Health_Ch00_ExecutiveSummary_PublicDraft_April_7_2015.pdf

Here’s more info about Lyme disease: http://www.cdc.gov/lyme/

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132 Hope Jahren - The Joy and Otherness of Trees

In our third episode on climate change, we reached out to Hope Jahren, whose recent debut non-fiction book has been killing it. She studies ancient forests, among other things, now long covered by tundra and snow above the arctic circle, that once thrived in the very far north. So we wondered whether we should look to this comparatively warmer time on our planet to see what might be in store for us in the future.

But Hope’s work is about more than just fossilized plants, though certainly that would be enough: she’s also spoken out against the mistreatment of women in scientific fieldwork. And hijacked Seventeen magazine’s #manicureMonday, by posting images of her own hands digging into science. But mostly we wanted to talk to her because she’s a funny, touching and brutally honest writer. Her book is a page-turner to say the least.

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Show Notes - #131 - Greenland is Melting!

When ice melts, ocean levels rise. Easy as that right? Well maybe not….

Most of the conversation on sea level rise has focused on Antarctica with good reason, there is the potential  of the ice shelf collapsing. But Greenland has become the hot topic in ice melting – reports have emerged that we’re seeing an acceleration of melting – upwards of 12% quicker than 2015. OMG – amirite?

 And this melting will have dire consequnces both some sea level rise and on ocean currents in the Atlantic. But many questions remain about Greenland.

So this week, we talk with Josh Willis. Josh is the lead scientist on NASA JPL’s OMG, that’s Oceans Melting Greenland project, which is studying melting over the next 5 years using a combination of novel sensors and satellite imagery. We had a ranging discussion on the impact of the melting and the weird dynamics that are involved with fresh water and salt water coming together. Plus we’re joined by a special guest at the end of the episode.

Fresh and salt water interactions on Greenland.

Mother Jones on OMG

Photos from Josh’s latest trip to Greenland/Iceland

Josh Live from Iceland

NYTimes beautiful interactive on accelerating melting

Adventures of Dick Dangerfield

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Show Notes - #130 - Bill Nye - Fighting Climate Denial

Happy Earth Day 2016! We’re making this Earth month by kicking off a series of interviews around climate change, exploring the sea level rise, effect marine life, and human health. Given the lack of discussion of climate change in the current US Presidential election, it seemed fitting to start with a climate communicator. So why climate communicator in Chief – Bill Nye. We love Bill and what he has done for science education, evolution, planetary science – and so much more. Lately Bill has put his money where his mouth is on climate change – particularly confronting climate change deniers. He made a bet this week with  meteorologist Joe Bastardi  who challenged Bill on the temperature data indicating the earth is warming. Bill put up $10,000 that 2016 would be the Top 10 hottest on record – and at least as of this taping, Joe has yet to take up the bet. It’s a bold play – something we don’t see often in science. Directly calling out the deniers publicly and shaming them. We chat about his strategy around climate communication, climate in context of the election, and spoiler alert – he’s pretty mad about it. As Bill said “Quit Your Bitchin’, Let’s get to work.”

Bill Nye’s Forecast Challenge to Joe Bastardi

Joe Bastardi’s article in Patriot Post

Bill Nye and Marc Morano

Michael Mann and white powder intimidation

Our interview with Michael Mann

Yale Climate Communication paper indicating 11% deniers

The Solutions Project - 100% Renewable Energy Plan

Pew Research on Public Policy Priorities 2016

Cuyahoga River Fire

Science in the News

Bees are conscious?

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Show Notes - #129 - Understanding Heart Disease - Greg Marcus

Heart Disease is the #1 killer worldwide – across the board and has been for a number of years. We’ve made gains against coronary artery disease, the #1 killer amongst the various types of heart disease, but one particular type of heart disease – the arrhythmias have posed an interesting challenge. We don’t really know many of the causes for certain types of arrhythmias, so many physicians have been following long held beliefs around the topic. Limit caffeine and alcohol intake because of palpitation risk. And some of these “risk factors” are not holding up to scrutiny.

That’s why we talked with Dr. Greg Marcus at UCSF. He’s the director of clinical research for the division of cardiology and has recently launched a number of innovative studies to track heart disease, particularly atrial fibrillation, using big data.

Mother Jones article on caffeine and heartbeats

UCSF study on caffeine and arrythmias

Health eHeart Inquiring Minds Group

Science in the News:

Science Fairs aren’t so fair - Atlantic

Improving Science Fairs - Wired

Science fairs are as flawed as my solar power hot dog cooker - STAT

White House Science Fair

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Show Notes - #128 The Soul of an Octopus - Sy Montgomery

Here at Inquiring Minds, we fancy ourselves aspiring naturalists, surveying and cataloguing nature’s diversity. When we came across an article on octopuses in Orion magazine entitled Deep Intellect, color us curious. It’s a beautiful article by Sy Montgomery who wrote a subsequent book “The Soul of an Octopus”, which has shaped our opinion on human, yes human, consciousness, because she describes the nervous system of the octopus so beautifully.

And it is definitely octopuses, not octopi. 

Tentacles exhibit at Monterey Bay Aquarium Octopuses are smarter than they look at Mother Jones

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Show Notes - #127 - The Mysterious World of Viruses

We don’t know for sure, but estimates place the total number of viruses on this planet >10^31. That’s more than stars in the universe. Which is exceptional, because we hear a lot about viruses, but just a select few. Zika, Ebola, the flu, etc. Not all viruses are bad - there has to be some good ones in 10^31, right?

If you want to learn about viruses, there is only one source to talk to - Carl Zimmer. He may be the preeminent science journalist in the US, with a weekly column in the NY Times, and a weekly video series as national correspondent for STAT. We talked about this idea that viruses shaped humans more as allies than as enemies. He noted that 8% of our genome can be attributed to viral fragments - fossils of our intertwined evolutionary history. That’s compared to only 1.2% that encodes useful proteins. We had a ranging conversation about the extremes of the bell curves when it comes to viruses, including the very odd giant viruses who may represent a separate branch of life itself.

JOSÉ ANTONIO PEÑAS/SCIENCE SOURCE - A giant mimivirus

Carl’s NY Times column on viruses

Carl on STAT

Giant viruses

DNA folding in STAT by Carl Zimmer

Science in the News:

Size of artist signatures equate to high narcissism and prices for works

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Show Notes - #126 - The Science of Why We Fall for Cons

This past week, Indre traveled to London and got her credit card number lifted on the airplane. And that made her feel like she was conned. So we called up Maria Konnikova, author of the new book “The Confidence Game: Why We Fall for It . . . Every Time”. Maria is a Ph.D. pyschologist from Columbia University, but is best known for her science writing in the New Yorker.

Have you ever been conned? Some people who falls for scams, and we all do, seem to fall for cons over and over again. We explore why this is the case and what that means for our own psychology.

Science in the News:

UC Davis Cannabis Dependence Study

Interview with study author on KQED forum

Prior ep on medical marijuana

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Show Notes #125 - How Deadly are Mosquitoes?

What is the most deadly animal to humans? It’s the humble, pesky mosquito. And I HATE mosquitoes. They are a huge nuisance. I happen to deeply allergic. But mosquitoes might be the most be the most deadly in the world responsible for upwards of 725,000 human deaths per year . Bill Gates has declared war on the mosquito largely because of the diseases and parasites they carry which result in Malaria, Dengue, yellow fever, encephalitis, West Nile, and now Zika.

In this case, we’re most commonly talking about a couple species causing most of the trouble: the invasive Aedis aegypti and Aedes albopictus. So what if we could wipe them all out? This is a raging scientific discussion. No one is ready to take it on as stated, but there is a question about the ecological importance of mosquitoes.

I called up Anthony James, Distinguished Professor of Molecular Biology & Biochemistry at UC Irvine. We talked about various control technologies, including genetic engineering techniques, to eliminate these pests.

Dr. James on malaria blocking mosquitoes

Science in the News:

Dan Gilbert on the reproducibility paper

Brian Nosek’s reproducibility project

Ego Depletion called into question

Let’s stop misusing p-values

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Show Notes #124 - Joanna Ruthsatz and Kimberly Stephens - Is there a link between Autism and Prodigies?

Thanks so much to guest host Rebecca Watson for joining us this week!

This week’s show is about prodigies. Are you simply born with extraordinary talent or can you be influenced by your environment? Of course the answer is a little bit of both. But to explore a possible link between prodigy and people with autism spectrum disorders, we talked with Joanne Ruthsatz. She’s a professor of pyschology at Ohio State. She’sa world expert on prodigies. Joining Joanne is her daughter, Kimberly Stephens a writer/reporter. Together, they wrote a new book, The Prodigy's Cousin: The Family Link Between Autism and Extraordinary Talent.

Science in the News:

A Year in Space

Twins Study

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Show Notes #123 Kenji Lopez Alt - Better Home Cooking Through Science

We've both spent more hours in the lab than we care to admit. Let's just say we have love/hate relationship with the space, but there is one particular lab very close to my heart. My kitchen.

I get it - most don't really treat their kitchen as a true scientific hub, but our guest this week absolutely goes that route so you don't have too. Our guest this week is Kenji Lopez Alt, the managing director of Serious Eats, where he's written an award winning column on scientifically minded home cooking. He's also the author of the Food Lab - easily my favorite new book on science and cooking for the home chef.

I've tried so many of his recipes, but Kenji really doesn't want you to take his work as gospel. That sense of scientific humility makes me appreciates his work even more.

And if you’re looking for any scientifically minded recipe recommendations from Kenji, check out his article on making a smoother hummus or the ultimate chocolate chip cookie.

-Kishore

Eggs cooked at various durations courtesy The Food Lab

Science in the News:

Constantly checking Facebook leads to sleep deprivation

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Show Notes - #122 Nancy Krieger - Police Involved Killings are Public Health Data

Michael Brown, Mario Woods, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Tanisha Anderson, Eric Harris, Walter Scott, Freddie Gray.  We can sadly go on.

These are names burned into American consciousness - all dead - all involved in encounters with law enforcement.  We've spent a number episodes talking about the epidemic of shootings in the US.  And we get to a point on the data related to these shootings - often very unsatisfying when we talk about tracking.

Last year, the UK newspaper the Guardian started a project called the Counted, a first of its kind database for tracking law enforcement involved deaths in the US. In 2015, they identified 1140 killed, with rates per million of 2.92 for "white" people, 7.2 for "black", and 3.5 for "hispanic/latino", 1.34 for "Asian/Pacific Islander", and 3.4 for "Native American".  

I'm not here to pass judgement on right or wrong in these cases -  but its bizarre that we have no governmental system from tracking these deaths.

Last month, Dr. Nancy Krieger made a proposal to change that. She's a Professor of Social Epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Her research focuses on how people’s health can be influenced by the conditions in which they are born, live and work, including how economic policies and systems, even social norms, can affect health. She recently released a paper in PLoS summarizing data from 8 cities on law enforcement involved deaths going back to 1960 and ended with an idea - let's track these deaths as public health data.

Science in the News:

CTE and the NFL

Junior Seau’s suicide