Mar 30
He Watched His Friend Fall: A Tower Climber’s Story (Devon Collins, 2019) | Tommy Schuch Media
Tommy Schuch Media
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He Watched His Friend Fall: A Tower Climber’s Story (Devon Collins, 2019) | Tommy Schuch Media
Tommy Schuch Media
Who is the best Boy Meets World character? (Round 1)
Devon Collins
Wendy Jansen
ABOUT:
Devon Collins is a guidance counselor at John Adams High.
Wendy is a girl Cory first tried to get a date with using Eric’s ‘fool-proof method,’ but decided he just wanted to be friends. Later, he tricked her into becoming his long-term girlfriend when he just wanted a date to a party. Although he ultimately enjoyed the relationship, she dumped him upon learning his original motives.
Of course the guidance counsellors a woman
2.16: Advocacy and Diplomacy with Science Soapbox
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This week we take a look at the big board of science diplomacy with Devon Collins, Avital Percher, and Maryam Zaringhalam- the team behind Science Soapbox, a podcast about the intersection of science, policy, and advocacy. In a freewheeling interview, we discuss everything from researching biology from multiple perspectives, to the semantics of the cancer “moonshot”, to the complex interactions between science and politics.
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Links and Show Notes
The cover art for this episode was taken from the collection of historical maps of New York maintained by the New York Public Library.
This episode was recorded in the Science Outreach Lab at Rockefeller University. If you’re looking at the cover art (derived from this map specifically), the lab is located in the lower lefthand corner. That weird banging sound heard sporadically through the episode can be attributed to either a set of cheap microphones or the lab’s wobbly table.
Now that the podcast is based in California, conversations around science communication and vaccination suddenly feel significantly less abstract.
How Britain’s EU referendum (a.k.a. Brexit) will effect science is really only a small part of a hugely complex, intensely contentious, and developing situation. However, the reaction from many researchers can be summed up with Steve Cowley’s widely quoted “I fear desperately for the future of UK science.” Though published before the referendum, this data from Digital Science is, at the very least, cause for major concern.
Here is the full clip of John Oliver talking about the fallout from Brexit. His segment on the subject produced before the vote is also excellent.
The image of a newspaper with the “Everything Awful” headline is taken from Matt Fraction and David Aja’s fantastic Hawkeye series.The image of a dog proclaiming “This is fine.” as he is engulfed in flames comes from KC Green’s long running webcomic Gunshow.
The sourdough starter discussed in this and last week’s episode was created using this simple protocol. For the record, her name is Jane “Sour” Dough and her ability to make delicious bread comes her colony of microbiota including Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis.
Avital’s research involves studying microbe-host interactions at the level of chemical biology. Think of it like a real-time strategy game, but with infectious agents.
Devon will talk more about his background and research in our next episode, but it’s worth noting upfront exactly how influential his lab has been in the area of drug addiction. His advisor, Mary Jeanne Kreek, was involved in the initial studies examining methadone as a treatment for opiate addiction.
The conditioned place preference paradigm is a standard way to test for the aversive and/or rewarding effects of drugs. Though the details differ between labs, it involves pairing drug administration with a set of spatial or contextual cues and then examining the behavior of an animal in response to those cues. This chapter provides a nice overview of conditioned place preference and it’s relationship to other techniques like in vivo administration. This article provides a more critical look at what the technique provides to addiction-focused research.
Broadly speaking, Maryam’s research examines gene control. More specifically, she uses high-throughput sequencing and her programming knowledge to investigate gene control in the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma brucei.
Infection by Trypanosoma brucei is the cause of African trypanosomiasis (a.k.a. African Sleeping Sickness). Contrary to that one episode of House, T. brucei is transmitted by the bite of an infected tsetse fly.
Tsetse means "fly" in Tswana, a language spoken by roughly five million people in southern Africa.
Devon is not the first to cite Star Trek as a major influence on his path into science on the podcast.
That myth that humans only use 10% of their brains probably causes no shortage of masterpiece eye rolls for scientists trying to enjoy some popular science fiction. Likely based on a misunderstanding of work by William James, the myth is a central plot point in the 2014 film Lucy.
Contrary to how it sounds, Cancer Moonshot 2020 is not a science fiction film from the 1950s. Rather it is the name of a massive initiative to find vaccine-based immunotherapies against cancer. Spearheaded by Joe Biden, the project has been compared to Richard Nixon’s “War on Cancer”.
The Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative is a massive effort to build up the infrastructure and technology necessary to map the human brain. Despite its focus on developing new tools, the BRAIN initiative is often conflated with the Human Brain Project- a highly troubled and widely criticized effort to simulate the human brain.
The National Microbiome Initiative is a recently announced effort to foster the integrated study of microbiomes across different ecosystems. It’s early days, but the project has been lauded for bringing together research efforts from research centers, disease foundations, and private companies.
Liberty Science Center is an interactive science museum and learning center located in Liberty State Park in Jersey City.
Avital is likely not the only person to study immunity because of Starcraft. Immune Defense seeks to bring the worlds of real-time-strategy gaming and molecular biology together.
Not only are Lego widely used to model DNA in the classroom, but Lego-like bricks comprised of DNA can be used to build self-constructing three-dimensional structures. Lego also sells wildly popular sets featuring women scientists.
No seriously, the L train in New York City is about to experience some extraordinarily long delays. Sorry Williamsburg.
Speaking of WIlliamsburg, one of the biggest stories related to Ebola in the United States was when was revealed that Craig Spencer, a doctor who had treated Ebola patients in Guinea, tested positive for the disease.
Fun fact, Rockefeller’s science outreach team were major contributors to the paper indicating the presence of DNA matching the genomes of anthrax and the bubonic plague in the New York City subway (click here for a nifty visualization). Since its initial publication, a correction has been added to the paper to clarify misleading and speculative text. Jeanne Garbarino, director of the science outreach program, discussed the broader Pathomap project way back in the first season.
There’s a lot to be said about the gigantic failures of communication around vaccine safety, but the science is astoundingly clear: Vaccines don’t cause autism.
For more on the socio-economics of immunity, check out this article. The best (and most empathetic) writing on immunity is probably Eula Bliss’s On Immunity.
According to Pew Research, there is a significant difference in how people with different political affiliations view issues like climate change.
Speaking of incorporating personality while talking about science, Maryam was recently featured on an episode of Story Collider.
Maryam’s list of 50 ways to talk about climate change can be found here.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) offers a variety of fellowships for scientists looking to apply their experience on other arena. While this week’s guests are all thinking about applying for the Science and Technology Policy Fellowship a future guest describes her experience with the Mass Media Science & Engineering Fellows Program.
Though the details are still developing, everything about the Michael Katze scandal is absolutely appalling. For a valuable perspective, check out this expertly written piece on science’s “brilliance” problem.
This week’s Bold Signals Book Club selection is Ten Billion Days and One Hundred Billion Nights by Ryu Mitsuse. This book does not mess around- in 300 pages it covers the birth and death of the universe, a battle between Plato, Siddartha, and Jesus, and all manner of science, philosophy and religion. Think Italo Calvino’s Cosmicomics mashed up with Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light filtered through the lense of Japanese science fiction. Unfortunately, the plot is extremely difficult to follow.
For something on the complete opposite end of the spectrum book-wise, maybe check out White Trash by Nancy Isenberg. For some welcome relief from current events, maybe check out the new season of the Great British Bake Off on PBS.
If you’d like to purchase any of the books discussed in the book club and support the podcast at the same time, take a gander at our Amazon store. The podcast also has an Amazon wishlist if you’d like to donate a book. The full list of book club books is here.
Music in this Episode
“Enterprise 1” by Languis
“Rainy Days" by Erik Jackson
"Leiden Lowlife" by deeB
"Yacht" by deeB
DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.3470093
Special thanks this week to science diplomat Dr. Marga Gual Soler for helping to clarify exactly where the “science” is in science diplomacy. Head over to the fantastic Talk Nerdy podcast to hear her talk about evidence-based diplomacy.
14. Ian and Vik both use to pop pills back in 9th grade.
Some guy, who definitely didn’t go to their school, came up to Vik down in Wonderland, a place that they made home at the start of freshman year since Devon was always at soccer practice (though sometimes did join them when practice was canceled), and started to push the idea of pills onto him as if they were the key to some magical genie lamp. He wouldn’t stop until Vik bought them off him, and Vik shared what he got with Ian. It got bad fast towards the end of freshman year, though, so they quickly detoxed themselves of that addiction. They settled with being potheads, because that was easy to handle and easy to enjoy. Pot was always good to them. The pills simply were not.
(submitted by Lex, both Vik and Ian, that sly dog)
