STEM-Talk

Dawn Kernagis and Ken Ford

The most interesting people in the world of science and technology

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197 episodes
Updated July 15

Episodes197

Newest first

May 9, 2017 · 2 hr
Episode 37: Gary Taubes discusses low-carb diets and sheds light on the hazards of sugar
The front pages of Gary Taubes’ new book on sugar feature a blurb excerpted from the magazine Scientific American: “Taubes is a science journalist’s science journalist who researches topics to the point of obsession – actually, well beyond that point – and never dumbs things down for readers.” Gary’s most recent obsession is documented in “The Case Against Sugar,” a book that argues that increased consumption of sugar over the past 30 to 40 years has led to a diabetes epidemic not only in the United States, but an epidemic that’s now spreading around the world. Episode 37 of STEM-Talk features a more than two-hour conversation with Gary about his latest research as well as a look back at other nutrition and science topics that have dominated Gary’s journalistic investigations since the 1980s. Gary first burst onto the national scene in 2002 with an article in the New York Times Magazine titled, “What If’s It’s All Been a Big Fat Lie?” Gary made the point that Robert Atkins and his high-fat, low-carb diet had a better history and scientific record of helping people lose weight than the low-fat diet that was and remains the centerpiece of the nation’s health policy and food pyramid. The article had an immediate impact. As Michael Pollan pointed out in the introduction of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” in the fall of 2002 bread “abruptly disappeared overnight from the American dinner table.” Virtually overnight, wrote Pollan, Americans changed the way they eat. Gary did not set out to become a science journalist. He graduated from Harvard College in 1977 with an S.B. degree in applied physics and went on to earn an M.S. degree in aeronautical engineering from Stanford University. But while at Stanford, he realized he wasn’t that passionate about becoming an aeronautical engineer and decided to enroll in the Columbia School of Journalism to become an investigative reporter. In the ‘80s, Gary became fascinated with flawed science and started writing a series of magazine articles about bad science. That eventually led to a pair of books: “Nobel Dreams” in 1987 and “Bad Science: The Short Life and Weird Times of Cold Fusion” in 1993. After “Bad Science,” Gary turned to nutrition reporting and that resulted in the 2002 article in the New York Times Magazine. He followed up on his research for the article with two books: “Good Calories, Bad Calories” in 2007; and “Why We Get Fat” in 2010. Both books detailed how refined carbohydrates are largely responsible for America’s rising obesity rate and a primary cause of heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and other chronic diseases of the Western diet. His new book, “The Case Against Sugar,” takes this argument a step further and shows how the explosion of sugar consumption and sugar-rich products in the United States has led to a global diabetes epidemic. Dan Barber, author of “The Third Plate,” wrote in a New York Times review of Gary’s book, “Comparing the dangers of inhaling cigarettes with chowing down on candy bars may sound like a false equivalence, but Gary Taubes’s “The Case Against Sugar” will persuade you otherwise. Here is a book on sugar that sugarcoats nothing. The stuff kills.” Below are links to Gary’s books: “The Case Against Sugar” http://amzn.to/2ps8Qbl “Good Calories, Bad Calories” http://amzn.to/2qTwJJ6 “Why We Get Fat” http://amzn.to/2qKuv2u “Bad Science” http://amzn.to/2qTjyrI “Nobel Dreams” http://amzn.to/2pXpRgK
Apr 25, 2017 · 1 hr 7 min
Episode 36: Jeff “Skunk” Baxter Discusses His Life in Rock ‘n’ Roll and the U.S. Intelligence Community
In a rare departure from interviews with scientists and engineers, STEM-Talk Host Dawn Kernagis and IHMC Director Ken Ford interview Jeffrey “Skunk” Baxter about his life as a musician and founding member of Steely Dan, and how he went on to become a defense consultant on the Senate Armed Services Committee. The two fields seem completely different, but Baxter explains the similarities between them and talks about how improvising in jazz is a skill that can carry over into defense analytics and tactics. Baxter’s bio includes playing with a number of well-known bands, such as Steely Dan and The Doobie Brothers. As a studio musician for 35 years, Baxter recorded with Donna Summer, Dolly Parton, Ringo Starr and Rod Stewart. He was a record producer for Carl Wilson, the Beach Boys and Stray Cats. He also composed music for movies and television.
Apr 11, 2017 · 1 hr 57 min
Episode 35: Stuart McGill explains the mechanics of back pain and the secrets to a healthy spine
Back pain has become the world’s leading cause of disability. Stuart McGill has been at the forefront of non-surgical approaches to addressing back pain for many years. His 2015 book "Back Mechanic: The Secrets to a Healthy Spine Your Doctor Isn't Telling You" amzn.to/2oV6eWR is a wonderfully accessible account of his methods and perspectives. Stuart McGill spent 30 years as a professor of spine biomechanics at the University of Waterloo in Canada. His laboratory has become a renowned destination for everyday people as well as Olympic and professional athletes from around the world who are struggling with back pain. He is the author of more than 300 scientific publications and 3 textbooks that address issues such as lumbar spine function and injury mechanisms, patient assessment, corrective exercise prescription, and performance training. McGill also consults for many medical management groups, governments, corporations, legal firms, and elite sports teams. He has won numerous awards, including the prestigious Volvo Bioengineering Award for Low Back Pain Research. He released his landmark text, “Low Back Disorders: Evidence-Based Prevention and Rehabilitation,” amzn.to/2omWe5I in 2002. It changed the way coaches, bodybuilders, athletes and non-athletes approached core training. His new book, “Back Mechanic,” is written for a lay audience and addresses common misperceptions about back pain. It also provides a step-by-step guide of the McGill Method to fix back pain. Backfitpro.com is a web site also geared for a lay audience and is dedicated to providing access to evidence-based information and products that assist in preventing and rehabilitating back pain. Products featured on the website have been tested in McGill's lab at the University of Waterloo. McGill and his staff have also produced a video, “The Ultimate Back: Enhancing Performance,” that synthesizes McGill's approaches for avoiding back injury and enhancing athletic and physical performance. It is available for purchase on Vimeo.
Mar 28, 2017 · 1 hr 23 min
Episode 34: Jim Stray-Gundersen explains how blood flow restriction training builds muscle and improves performance
Blood-flow-restriction training is a topic of growing interest. But as IHMC director and STEM-Talk co-host Dr. Ken Ford points out, there’s also a great deal of misinformation about the training. Episode 34 of STEM-Talk addresses some of that misinformation with our interview of Dr. Jim Stray-Gundersen, who helped pioneer blood flow restriction training and leads the Live Hi/Train Low program for the US Athletic Trust. Since receiving his board certification in general surgery in 1985, Jim has focused his work and research on maximizing human performance, health and resilience. He pioneered the Hi-Low training protocol and played a key role in the development of the anti-doping test, SAFE, which stands for Safe And Fair Events. It is considered the most aggressive blood-profiling test in the fight against doping. He has worked with numerous Olympians in various sports and has an ongoing relationship with world renowned long-distance runner Alberto Salazar, who also is a coach and director of the NIKE Oregon Project. Jeff has been an official physician and consultant of the United States, Norwegian and Canadian Olympic teams. He is an official member of 15 world championships. Jim completed post-doctoral fellowships in cardiovascular physiology and human nutrition at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School. He received appointments as an associate professor of orthopedic surgery and physiology. He spent 20 years on the faculty of UTSW and helped build and direct two human-performance centers at St. Paul and Baylor University hospitals. He has served on international medical committees that include the International Olympic Committee, FIFA, International Biathlon Committee, International Ski Federation and the International Skating Union. Jim also is the sports science advisor for the US Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA), and continues to lead human performance and altitude camps for Olympic athletes, masters athletes, as well as Navy SEALs. He runs The SG Performance Medicine Center and Sport Technologies for Maximal Athletic Performance, overall fitness, weight loss, and recovery in Frisco, Texas, and now the new center in Park City, Utah, located inside The Center of Excellence USSA Building.
Mar 14, 2017 · 1 hr 34 min
Episode 33: Dr. Natalie Batalha talks about exoplanets and the possibility of life in our Milky Way and beyond
Dr. Natalie Batalha’s STEM-Talk interview was so contagious that Dawn Kernagis said it made her dream of returning to school to get a second graduate degree in astronomy. “Hearing Natalie talk about her research had all of us in the STEM-Talk studio buzzing,” said Dawn, the podcast’s co-host. Natalie is an astrophysicist and the project scientist for NASA’s Kepler Mission, a space observatory launched by NASA to discover Earth-sized planets orbiting other stars. She sat down with Dawn and veteran astronaut and IHMC senior research scientist Tom Jones for episode 33 of STEM-Talk. As one of the original co-investigators of the Kepler Mission, Natalie has been a leader in using the telescope to discover exoplanets, which are planets that orbit stars other than our own sun. Natalie has been involved in the Kepler Mission since the proposal stage and has helped identify more than 150,000 stars that are monitored by the telescope. She holds a bachelor’s degree in physics from The University of California Berkeley, and a doctoral degree in astrophysics from UC Santa Cruz. She taught physics and astronomy for 10 years at San Jose State University before joining the Space Sciences Division of the NASA Ames Research Center, which is located in California’s Silicon Valley. In 2011, Natalie received a NASA Public Service Medal for her vision in communicating Kepler’s science to the public, and also for her outstanding leadership in coordinating the Kepler science team. That same year Natalie also headed up the analysis that led to the discovery of Kepler 10b, the first confirmed rocky planet outside our solar system. She joined the leadership team of a new NASA initiative in 2015, which is dedicated to the search for evidence of life beyond our solar system. Called the Nexus for Exoplanet System Science, the program brings together teams from multiple disciplines to understand the diversity of worlds, and which of those exoplanets are most likely to harbor life.
Feb 28, 2017 · 1 hr 22 min
Episode 32: Dr. Claire Fraser explains how our gut microbes improve our health, prevent disease and even play a role in our mental health
Women who are pregnant often talk how careful they are about what they eat and drink. They’re careful, points out Dr. Claire Fraser, because they’re feeding their baby. “Well, we should all think about diet in the same way that pregnant women do,” says Fraser. “Everything we put into our mouths, we’re either feeding or not feeding our gut microbes … And it’s important we keep our gut microbes happy.” Fraser is a pioneer and global leader in genomic medicine, a branch of molecular biology that focuses on the genome. In episode 32 of STEM-Talk, Fraser sits down with host Dawn Kernagis and IHMC founder Ken Ford to explain why we should all pay more attention to our guts, which is the home of more than 100 trillion bacteria. An endowed professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, Fraser is a founder and director of Maryland’s Institute for Genome Sciences. From 1998 to 2007, she was the director of the Institute for Genomic Research in Rockville, Maryland, and led teams that sequenced the genomes of several microbial organisms, including important human and animal pathogens. In 1995, she became the first person to map the complete genetic code of a free-living organism, Haemophilus Influenza, the bacterium that causes lower respiratory tract infections and meningitis in infants and young children. This discovery forever changed microbiology and launched a new field of study, microbial genomics. During this time, she and her team also sequenced the bacteria behind syphilis and Lyme disease, and eventually the first plant genome and the first human-pathogenic parasite. She even helped identify the source of a deadly 2001 anthrax attack in one of the biggest investigations conducted by U.S. law enforcement. Research into the benefits of gut bacteria has exploded around the world in the past decade. In this STEM-Talk episode, Fraser explains the role these microbes play in improving health, preventing disease, and keeping us mentally sharp. She even shares how her diet has changed since she started studying the gut microbiome. Fraser also talks about working with the FBI during the 2001 antrhax attacks and her early work in microbiology that led to the first mapping of a free-living organism’s complete genetic code. Her recent lecture at IHMC, titled “The Human Gut Microbiome in Health and Disease,” can be viewed at ihmc.us/lectures. If you’re interested in learning more about the gut microbiome, Fraser in her lecture recommended “The Good Gut: Taking Control of Your Weight, Your Mood, and Your Long-term Health” by Stanford University scientists Justin and Erica Sonnenburg.
Feb 14, 2017 · 48 min
Episode 31: Dr. Michael Turner, who coined the phrase ‘dark energy,’ talks about the deepest issues in cosmology
Dr. Michael Turner makes a “big bang” in the world of theoretical cosmology. Translation: He’s an expert on the universe—what it’s made of, what’s in its future, and how it came to be. Turner is the Rauner Distinguished Service Professor and Director of the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago. From 2003 until 2006, was Assistant Director for Mathematical and Physical Sciences for the National Science Foundation. He is the recipient of numerous awards and prizes, and he is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Michael Turner and Vera Rubben, who recently passed away. Turner is most well-known for having coined the phrase “dark energy” in 1998, which he calls “very, very mysterious stuff.” Thought to comprise 70 percent of the universe, dark energy is responsible for both the expansion of the universe and the increasing speed at which that expansion is occurring. Another five percent of the universe is atoms, and the remaining twenty-five percent is “dark matter”—what Turner calls “the cosmic infrastructure of the universe.” The universe, he adds, has largely “been a battle between the two dark titans: dark energy and dark matter.” “He [Turner] is able to explain the deepest issues in cosmology with a rare clarity and elegance,” says IHMC Director Ken Ford. “His research focuses on the earliest moments of creation.” With Chicago cosmologist Rocky Kolb, Turner co-wrote the well-known book “The Early Universe.” More information on Turner can be found here: https://kicp.uchicago.edu/people/profile/michael_turner.html and here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Turner_(cosmologist). Turner’s 2011 IHMC lecture, “The Dark Side of the Universe,” can be viewed here: . Turner was also a guest on STEM-Talk for an earlier episode for his interview on the discovery of gravitational waves. Turner is interviewed by regular STEM-Talk host Dawn Kernagis and guest host Tom Jones, a veteran NASA astronaut and senior research scientist at IHMC. 00:37: Ken calls Dr. Michael Turner “exactly the right guy to talk to about dark energy and dark matter. After all, he coined the phrase dark energy. He is able to explain deepest issues in cosmology with a rare clarity and elegance.” 1:04: Ken pays tribute to Vera Rubin, who passed away on Christmas Day. She confirmed the existence of dark matter and transformed modern physics and astronomy. 2:24: Ken asks for feedback on STEM-Talk and reads 5-star iTunes review from BobRXUF: “With all of the garbage we are bombarded with, listening to STEM-Talk reminds me that there is higher intelligence, the hope for mankind.” 3:35: Dawn and Ken introduce Michael and talk about his background. 4:17: Dawn and Tom welcome Michael to STEM-Talk. 4:39: Tom asks Michael to give listeners the big picture about the structure of our universe and explain how we stumbled upon the phenomenon called dark matter and dark energy? 5:14: Michael explains that a half of one percent of the universe is in the form of stars. The other 99.5 percent is dark. 6:29: Michael talks about how dark matter matter provides the cosmic infrastructure of the universe. 7:45: “Our universe,” says Michael, “has really been a battle between the two dark titans: dark energy and dark matter.” 9:49: Michael explains that’s it’s the stars that give off energy and it’s the atoms we’re made of. “We’re the tip of the iceberg. We’re the special stuff.” 10:52: “Michael talks about producing dark matter particles at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Geneva, Switzerland, the world’s most powerful particle accelerator. 11:25: Tom asks Michael what was the original evidence for dark matter and dark energy and who were the people who made that discovery? 13:20: Michael describes how Vera Rubin, a scientist working at the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, was able to confirm dark matter at work in our own galaxy. 15:06: Tom asks if it’s dark matter that holds things together and makes the clock, the universe, tick? 17:37: Michael explains how Fritz Zwicky and Vera Rubin went about building empirical evidence for dark matter. 19:40: Michael talks about research into “neutralinos,” particles that scientists speculate are left over from the Big Bang. “We’re in the midst of this detective story.” 21:24: Tom asks if the facilities and equipment exist to solve the mystery of the neutralinos and the dark-matter particle? 24:31: Commercial break. 24:55: Dawn wonders if our understanding of dark matter and dark energy continues to advance, what future applications might arise from this knowledge? 25:21: Michael explains that if scientists are able to verify the existence of the neutralino, “it would be the first evidence of the super string theory, which unifies all the forces—a very, very bold theory that says there may be additional dimensions in space-time.” 27:20: In continuing to answer Dawn’s question, Michael says, “If history is any guide, any time we understand nature a little better, there will be spin-offs and practical applications that change and improve the way we live.” 27:43: Tom asks Michael to talk about dark energy and the continuous expansion of the universe. 28:54: Michael shares how two teams discovered in 1998 that rather than slowing down, the expansion of the universe is speeding up, suggesting it’s back to the drawing board on the ultimate fate of the universe. 30:18: Michael talks about what he describes as the most profound mystery in all of science: that gravity can be repulsive rather than attractive. 32:48: Michael refers to a theory that could prove to be even grander than Einstein’s. This new theory says that “as the universe thins out, after expanding for 15 billion years, it starts to speed up. 35:27: Tom asks about Congressional funding for the National Science Foundation research and Turner explains that almost every country on earth is grappling with funding allocations for science. 42:22: Michael talks about the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which he describes as big and bold and the kind of project that only the U.S. can do. 43:17: When Dawn asks Michael what led him to become a cosmologist, he talks about how great high school teachers led him into science. 43:51: Michael encourages young people to pursue careers in science. “Just about every challenge that our country and our planet have involves science…trying to understand the secrets of nature and solve the mysteries of mankind are really, really exciting. The career opportunities are good.” 44:41: Michael describes the rewarding nature of his career. “I get to think about the mysteries of the universe. I get to think about how the universe began and how it will end. That’s a pretty good job to have.” 46:3: Tom talks about getting his first telescope when he was 12 years old and how that was a gateway into science. 47:19: Dawn recaps the “mind-boggling statistics” Turner shared in the podcast, staring with 99.5 percent of our universe is dark. 47:38: Ken talks about the great turn of phrases Michael used during the podcast, such as when Michael referred to the evolution of the universe as a “battle between two dark titans.” 48:01 Dawn and Ken sign off.
Jan 31, 2017 · 1 hr 23 min
Episode 30: Art De Vany Talks About Hollywood Economics, the Paleo Way, and the Role of Fitness and Diet in Aging
Dr. Art De Vany is an American economist known for his work on the Hollywood film industry. He is perhaps best known, however, as the grandfather of the paleo diet, a high-protein, high-fiber way of eating similar to the way our hunter-gather ancestors ate during the Stone Age. Born in 1937, he has had a varied career that began right out of high school when he signed a baseball contract with the Hollywood Stars, a minor-league affiliate of the Pittsburg Pirates. Even though he could “run like a deer” and “hit the ball out of sight,” his poor eyesight ended his baseball career and led him the UCLA where earned a doctorate in economics. He spent most of his academic career studying Hollywood and the film industry. His research has ranged from “Hollywood Economics: How Extreme Uncertainty Shapes the Film Industry” to “Quality Revaluations and the Breakdown of Statistical Herding in the Dynamics of Box Office Revenues.” De Vany turns 80 in August and has spent the past 40 years living the paleo way. He outlined his diet and fitness philosophy in “The New Evolution Diet: What Our Paleolithic Ancestors Can Teach Us About Weight Loss, Fitness and Aging.” He is working on a new book that’s tentatively titled “Renewing Cycles: Healing the Wounds of Aging Through Improved Cellular Defense and Systemic Signaling.” De Vany gave a lecture at IHMC in Pensacola last December where he talked about the New Evolution Diet” as well as his upcoming book on aging. In Episode 30 of STEM-Talk, host Dawn Kernagis and IHMC Founder Ken Ford have a wide-ranging conversation with De Vany that covers his statistical study of home-run hitting to the dynamics of box-office revenues to the role that exercise and diet play in aging.
Jan 17, 2017 · 47 min
Episode 29: Leonard Wong Discusses a Culture of Dishonesty in the Army
Dr. Leonard Wong, a research professor at the Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) of the U.S. Army War College, led an important study titled: “Lying to Ourselves: Dishonesty in the Army Profession.” The study, which was published in 2015 generated much discussion as well as some consternation and reflection. www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB1250.pdf In this episode, Host Dawn Kernagis and IHMC’s Director Ken Ford talk with Wong about his study and its implications. Wong also lectured about his study at IHMC in Pensacola last September: http://www.ihmc.us/lectures/20160907/. Wong’s research focuses on the human and organizational dimensions of the military and includes topics such as leadership development in the military profession. He is a retired Army Officer and taught leadership at West Point. He is also an analyst for the Chief of Staff in the Army. Wong’s research has led him Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo and Vietnam. He has testified before Congress and has been featured widely in the media, including the New Yorker, the Washington Post, the New York Times, PBS, NPR, 60 Minutes and CNN. Wong is a professional engineer and holds a Bachelor’s from the U.S. Military Academy. He also has a Master’s and a Ph.D. in business administration from Texas Tech University. 1:43: Ken reads five-star iTunes review from “CC Rider,” which is entitled “Intelligent Podcast: What a Relief:” “What a pleasure to hear intelligent, articulate people discussing worthwhile topics.” 2:17: Dawn describes Wong’s bio. 3:18: Dawn welcomes Wong and Ken. 3:42: Wong describes his role at the U.S. Army War College, as well as the College’s structure. When Army leaders arrive at the War College, they’ve generally been in the Army for twenty years. They’re at the point of thinking strategically about leadership and their roles. 5:27: Wong’s research into this topic started over a decade ago, with the question of how to build more time into the schedule of junior offices to facilitate innovation. Wong and his colleagues discovered an overwhelming amount of requirements, which were stifling Innovation. In the back of his mind, Wong concluded: ‘If we require more than they can possibly do, what are we reporting?’ 6:36: Wong, in conversation with his colleague Steve Gerras, once asked him what he was doing on his computer. He was supposedly doing mandatory training, but not really. He said, ‘I know, I’m just saying I did it.’ Wong realized then ‘how casually we approach lying, but we don’t call it lying.’ 7:15: The theory of Wong’s subsequent study came from a book entitled “Blind Spots: Why We Fail to Do What’s Right and What to Do About It,” by Max Bazerman and Ann Tenbrunsel (http://amzn.to/2gBJtib), along with what David Messick called ethical fading. The methodology was to use focus groups from various ranks throughout the Army, including staff officers at the Pentagon. 8:12: Dawn mentions that Wong’s study had a precedent: In 1970, the U.S. Army War College published a study showing that lying in the Army was pervasive. Digitization, the audit culture, and downsizing have made it worse today. 8:43: Wong says, “The Army is like a compulsive hoarder. It collects requirements, and it never gives any up. We always add more. We keep adding to the pile. Technology has made a huge influence on this.” Now, with email and Internet, we can ask people to provide digital signatures, and do various online trainings. 9:42: Wong characterizes another part of the problem: “The Army has had a giant emphasis on being a profession. It’s a good thing, but it’s made us believe that we are better than we are. We forget that we are humans. We forget that we are talking about people who can fall to the same temptations, go the same route, as an ordinary human.” 10:35: Ken asks about Wong’s description of people in the Army being so overwhelmed that they have to prioritize. 10:50: Wong says, “One of the ways to ethically fade is you take away moral aspects…. So you are void of all the baggage that an ethical dilemma brings.” Euphemisms are a common way around this, and prioritize is one way of saying you lied. “Prioritize means taking a risk: We didn’t do it, but are going to still report that we did it. Prioritize is a convenient way to convince ourselves that we haven’t lied.” 12:00: “What this study isn’t saying is we have an institution full of liars, or a cohort of people with low ethics. We’ve created an institution with a bureaucracy…with a system that is putting an onerous burden on people to do everything and report they’ve done it. Inadvertently it creates a culture in which we have to tell a system what it wants to hear or it won’t get done.” 12:39: Wong recalls the old days and how easy it was to take a leave form (31) for travel. Today there is a complicated trips form, in which you have to specify where you are going, when you are stopping, any medications you’re taking, who is traveling with you, vehicle inspections. 13:51: “We’ve surrounded ourselves with an audit culture where we have to tell a system that something has happened when it really hasn’t.” 14:00: Ken comments these are typically for the benefit of “CYA.” 14:13: Wong cites the good intentions of the people behind these requirements. 14:40: Yet he questions whether this is the best system for the desired outcomes. “It’s well-meaning, yet the system we create encourages people to lie to it.” 15:00: Study’s conclusion was that process and paperwork are replacing leadership. 15:38: “We don’t want to replace leadership with a process because a process will always tell us what we want to hear…A leader might not. We can’t always trust leaders because leaders are human. That’s where we may prefer a process, which gives us a green light. But it may not be telling us the truth.” 16:30: Ken comments that the growth of procedures and lack of discretion left to leaders “almost presumes poor leadership, judgment, and I think is a step in the wrong direction.” 17:10: Wong says, “We grow leaders. We shouldn’t be ashamed to use leaders, but at the same time we can’t expect leaders to be perfect or their people to be perfect.” 17:43: Wong describes an Army storyboard: In the old days, after an event, someone had to brief an intelligence officer on what they saw/happened. Now the storyboard “allows us to create PowerPoint slides, derived from a template, that has pictures, a narrative and a map.” These have become burdensome to create. 18:30: “You stop focusing on what happened and start focusing on making the storyboard look correctly. It encouraged people to copy and paste; or ignore the storyboard. They would either omit it, or they’d duplicate it, and fabricate them.” 20:46: “There are many things that allowed them to think that they did tell the truth, and technology is one of them. The further you move away from the why…from a statement that you know is not truthful, it allows our mind to rest at ease, and technology allows us to do that.” 21:20: One example of this is annual ratings forms to council the rated officers, which is supposed to happen every quarter. “You have to show you counseled them every quarter. The clerk will fill in dates. They’ll agonize over picking the right dates so it doesn’t fall on the weekend. Tens of thousands are turned in every year.” 23:00: Ken observes that, “In many agencies and companies, and most particularly DoD, PowerPoint has become the defacto communication tool. PowerPoint can obscure the paucity of thought underlying a particular slide. In NASA we used to have a saying, ‘This guy is one slide deep.’” 23:53: Wong notes that PowerPoint is a double edged sword — perfect for briefings when used correctly, but it’s very dangerous when used incorrectly. 25:10: Ken comments that “Jeff Bezos famously banned power point on Amazon as a low information communication medium that often supports the illusion that the presenter actually has a coherent position or argument.” 25:35: Wong says, “PowerPoint when used incorrectly is a lazy man’s tool. But when used correctly, it’s a good stimulus for discussion.” 26:40: Ken talks about the APPP: anti-power point political party in Switzerland. Their stance: “Decreasing professional use of PowerPoint and other presentation software, which the party claims, causes national economic damage, and lowers the quality of the presentation in 95 percent of the cases.” 28:44: Some examples of ridiculous training compliance modules: Every Marine, including those that have never smoked, are required to take a smoking cessation class. This year Wong had to take training on fetal alcohol syndrome. “That’s when you get in the mind, ‘This is a dumb requirement,’ and that helps me breeze through it.” 30:00: “The danger of all these trivial examples is that added up, it creates a culture. Some reports are really important…so many reports people view as dumb. Because of this culture we’ve created, we give them permission to lie about what’s dumb.” 31:08: Dawn asks what is worse: the lying, or the pervasive perception that it’s not lying; and that we’re above lying. 31:20: Wong says, “The lying is a problem but can be corrected. If we don’t admit that we do this, then we’re headed for hypocrisy, for hubris, and that’s more of a problem.” 31:42: Commercial break: STEM-Talk is an educational service of the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, a not-for-profit research lab pioneering ground-breaking technologies aimed at leveraging human cognition, perception, locomotion and resilience. 32:24: Wong describes ethical fading as “removing the glare of the bright colors of moral decisions. You make it so it’s not black and white, right or wrong. You make it so it’s gray. One way to do that is to numb us: We start psychologically disconnecting from the ethical part of it.” One example: Every year to use computer systems in Army, they have to sign a statement that says, ‘I have read, understood and agreed with the procedures …” Preceding that is a 1900-word document. “Every single person initials that, and I haven’t met anyone who has actually read it.” 33:26: Wong mentions that in the U.K. they did an experiment where they offered free Wi-Fi to people and one of the agreements was ‘I promise to give my first born.’ “They had to stop that because every single person signed up for it. We don’t think we’re lying to a person; we think we are lying to a system. That distance allows us to convince ourselves that we don’t lie. 34:20: Wong discusses the potentially more serious implications of the lies. 35:05: “You add up all these Iraqi units that were graded green, and we had a very good Iraqi Army on paper. Then we saw what happened when ISIS came in, and suddenly all these green units didn’t perform the way all our power point slides said they did.” 35:28: Wong reflects on his own experience with compliance measures in the Army: “I remember feeling pressured, but not to the degree that they do today.” 36:32: Ken calls Wong’s study “brave.” He asks about the reaction in the Army, and whether it was rank-dependent. 36:55: Wong says it was “eye-opening.” After some initial anger, “I started getting emails, calls, and notes from people throughout the Army: You’ve just exposed what everyone knows about. Senior leaders had a hard time acknowledging it.” 38:02: “The more senior you go in an organization, the less you have to comply with these trivial requirements.” 38:50: After the anger died down, the leadership came to realize people were not under attack, but rather a culture that had been created. “To see policies change because of a 34-page document…I’m glad to be part of that.” 39:09: Ken comments that the military has a track record of leading the way in cultural changes. The problem is much broader than the military; it reflects the culture of which it’s part. 40:18: Wong says the Army could do three things to improve its situation: First, acknowledge the problem…and that it happens at all levels. Secondly, exercise restraint. “Every level of Army likes to create requirements for those below them, but we need to allow those at the bottom to exercise their own judgment.” Third: We have to lead truthfully. 44:30: Ken notes the tendency to make up words so you aren’t committing a bad act; but rather referring to the word. Prioritize is an example. In the Navy, we used to call it, “Gun Decking or Pencil Whipping.” 45:10: Ken says it is often seen as a key role of a leader to provide “high cover” for subordinates. When you unpack that, it often implies that the leader took the hit; that’s who checked the boxes. 46:10: Ken says Wong’s work is not seen as a criticism of the Army or people; rather of the audit culture… “Little by little, it diminishes the integrity of the force.” 46:46: Dawn directs listeners to Wong’s IHMC lecture: http://www.ihmc.us/lectures/20160907/ 46:50: Dawn and Ken sign off.
Jan 3, 2017 · 52 min
Episode 28: Mike Gernhardt Discusses the Overlapping Challenges of Working Undersea and in Space
Mike Gernhardt’s career epitomizes the scientific overlap between the depths of the ocean and Outer Space. A NASA astronaut, Gernhardt started his career as a professional diver and engineer on subsea oil field construction and repair projects around the world. As a child, Gernhardt vacationed in Florida, where he developed a love of the ocean. Like many children, Gernhardt dreamed of becoming an astronaut. But unlike most kids, he stuck with his dream, and began taking steps to pursue it in high school, when, in his own words, he “had already put together that working in space and in the sea were similar.” Gernhardt received his undergraduate degree in physics from Vanderbilt University, followed by his Master’s and Ph.D.—both in bioengineering—from the University of Pennsylvania, where he worked with his life-long mentor C.J. Lambertson, who is considered to be one of the godfathers of diving medicine. Under Lambertson, Gernhardt received unparalleled field work experience, testing real-time the decompression tables that he’d developed and which still constitute the oceaneering standard. In 1992, Gernhardt was selected to be an astronaut at NASA, where he completed four space flights and walks. He also started a company called Oceaneering Space Systems, where he transferred his sub-sea robotics experience to NASA. In his own words, Gernhardt says, “There’s really a lot of synergy between working underwater and working in space, and the design of the task for human and robot compatibility.” Gernhardt has received numerous awards and honors, including the highly coveted NASA Distinguished Service Medal. To view his bios: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_L._Gernhardt ; http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/gernhard.html
Dec 20, 2016 · 1 hr 35 min
Episode 27: Robb Wolf Discusses the Paleo Diet, Ketosis, Exercise, Nicotine … and Much More!
For fitness and Paleo Diet aficionados—and perhaps regular STEM-talk listeners—Robb Wolf is the type of esteemed guest who needs no introduction. Many people already know him by his best-selling book, “The Paleo Solution: The Original Human Diet,” (http://amzn.to/2gB6N4c) or his top-ranked podcast by that same name. (http://robbwolf.com/podcast/) But what some people may not know is that Wolf also started the world’s first cross-fit affiliate gym; that he’s raising his young daughters on a paleo diet—which may account for their mouths having a similar phenotypical expression as hunters and gatherers; and that nicotine—yes, nicotine—can actually be good for you (just not delivered by cigarette) in some contexts. STEM-Talk Host Dawn Kernagis and IHMC Founder Ken Ford talk to Wolf about these and other fascinating insights in this episode. Wolf hailed from a relatively unhealthy family, which pushed him towards discovering good health on his own terms. A keen interest and aptitude in science (he was a biochemistry major at California State University-Chico) set Wolf on the path of evolutionary medicine. He began thinking seriously about pre-agricultural diets in response to his mother’s poor reaction to her consumption of grains, legumes, and dairy. Since that time, Wolf has become an expert, researcher, and self-experimenter of the Paleo Diet. His expertise has led him to become a review editor for Journal of Nutrition and Metabolism; co-founder of The Performance Menu, a nutrition and athletic training journal; and co-owner of NorCal, one of Men’s Health magazine’s top thirty gyms in America. He is also a consultant for the Naval Special Warfare Resiliency Program. Wolf recently gave a lecture entitled “Darwinian Medicine: Maybe There IS Something to This Evolution Thing” at IHMC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qga4A3vnXmg
Dec 6, 2016 · 47 min
Episode 26: Richard Moon discusses deep-sea and high-altitude medicine
Dr. Richard Moon had an unusual inspiration to practicing medicine: a television show, in black and white, entitled, “Medicine in the ‘60s.” He remembers being blown away by watching live surgeries performed on the show. This eventually led him to a career in the operating room—not as a surgeon, but an anesthesiologist. Like many STEM-Talk guests, Moon wears many hats. In addition to being a physician, he is a renowned researcher in the hyperbaric and diving medicine. He is currently a professor of anesthesiology and medicine at Duke University, and the Medical Director of Duke’s Center for Hyperbaric Medicine and Environmental Physiology. http://anesthesiology.duke.edu/?page_id=828766 In this episode, Host Dawn Kernagis, herself a rising research scientist in undersea medicine, as well as a highly experienced diver—earlier this year, she was inducted to the Women Divers Hall of Fame—talks with Moon, one of her mentors. Dawn met Moon when she participated in one of his research projects as a diver, and she went to him with research ideas as a potential research intern. She eventually became one of his graduate students at Duke University. In this lively and informative mentor-mentee discussion, Dawn and Moon talk about the history of hyperbaric medicine, including the establishment of Duke’s world-renowned Center for Hyperbaric Medicine and Environmental Physiology. They talk about medical conditions that can occur in deep sea diving, such as high pressure nervous syndrome and immersion pulmonary edema, as well as high-altitude sickness. Moon shares insights about his experiments in both high altitude and deep sea medicine, as well as his own expedition in climbing Mount Everest. Check out Moon’s home page at Duke: http://anesthesiology.duke.edu/?portfolio=richard-moon-md ; as well as his lecture at IHMC last January: “From the Ocean Depths to the Mountain Tops: How Do Humans Adapt?” http://www.ihmc.us/lectures/20160121/ 00:15: Dawn introduces Ken and describes Moon as a world-renowned physician and researcher who works in hyperbaric and diving medicine. 00:40: Dawn says she was “very lucky to have Dr. Moon as a mentor.” She participated in his research projects, as a diver. She then went to him with research ideas, and he accepted her as a graduate student, and he’s been a mentor and colleague ever since. 1:45: Ken reads a five-star iTunes review from “GTG2010” called “Exploding Kid:” “Dear STEM-Talk, I like your show. The super telescope looking at asteroids is cool. I like it so much I’m going to explode. Love, Griffin, age 6.” 2:38: Dawn runs through Moon’s bio. He holds an M.D. and a C.M. from McGill University in Canada, and a Master’s degree in biomedical engineering from the University of Toronto. He is a member of the Royal College of Physicians of Canada, as well as the American Board of Internal Medicine. He has authored hundreds of peer-reviewed publications. 3:48: Dawn welcomes Moon to the podcast. 4:06: Moon describes what sparked his interest in medicine when he was in high school. He watched a television show, in black and white, called “Medicine in the ‘60s.” “It showed operations. It was mind-blowing, so I decided that I had to go into medicine.” 4:49: In medical school, Moon’s first interest was in pulmonary medicine—simply because in the first-year lecture series on organ systems, the one on the pulmonary system was the best. Yet, he felt compelled to do something different and took a couple of years off to study biomedical engineering. 6:20: Moon went to Duke University with a fellowship in pulmonary medicine as well as an opportunity to undergo scientific training in diving physiology. One of his mentors, Enrico Camporesi, encouraged him to go into anesthesiology. 7:20: “Eventually he [Camporesi] won me over. That’s where I am today.” 7:46: Moon’s interest in diving physiology initially came from the television program “Sea Hunt.” He also read the Jacque Cousteau books, which talked about decompression sickness and carbon monoxide poisoning. “When it came time to figure out where I was going to go after internal medicine, since Duke had this mega lab, the best in the world, and some leading lights in diving physiology, I just couldn’t resist.” 8:48: Dawn comments that the F.G. Hall Laboratory, which is now part of the Center for Hyperbaric Medicine and Environmental Physiology “is considered to be one of the best and prestigious environmental physiology labs in the world. Especially back then, there was research being done that wasn’t being done and hasn’t been done anywhere else in the world.” 9:18: Moon talks about the history of the lab. People have always asked, ‘How did this undersea lab get to be in a place that isn’t near the ocean?’ “It was a confluence of interests at Duke at the time. Herb Salzman was a pulmonologist interested in diving; F.G. Hall had been of an earlier generation and interested in altitude physiology; a surgeon named Ivan Brown was interested in cardiac surgery under hyperbaric conditions. This was an era before heart and lung machines were developed. So, the notion of drenching the tissue with oxygen was very appealing – if you could hyperoxygenate tissues in a hyperbaric chamber during surgery, you would have longer available time to perform surgery.” 11:07: One of the chambers at the Duke Hyperbaric Center was built as a hyperbaric operating room. Enough money was put together to create the facility. By the time the chamber was open, heart and lung machines were in place, so the whole concept of surgery in a hyperbaric chamber was out of date; however, the Duke Hyperbaric Center remained a nice facility to treat patients. 12:03: In 1968, after the nuclear submarine disaster, the Navy realized that it didn’t have a facility to do deep diving. So, Saltzman was asked to develop a deep diving program for salvage operations at 1000 feet of seawater. 12:35: In the late ‘60s through mid-70s, there was a perceived expiration of oil. Several labs were created around the world (two labs in the U.S. (University of Pennsylvania, Duke), one lab in Europe, and one lab in Japan) to study the physiology of humans during exposure to relevant depths for oil exploration (1000-2000 feet). Several problems were identified for humans at these extreme depths, including high pressure nervous syndrome (HPNS, where a diver gets tremors, difficulty standing up, nausea, vomiting). 14:08: Part of the Duke endeavor, called the Atlantis Dive Series, was to work out how HPNS could be overcome. One idea: to put a little bit of narcotic gas (nitrogen) in the helium-oxygen breathing mix; it was felt this might offset HPNS. It did work, but it had other effects such as an increase in breathing gas density. 15:00: With an increase in gas density, did lung work to provide enough oxygen to the tissues and remove carbon dioxide? Duke was the first to measure blood gases, such as oxygen, and pH under those conditions. They found that the lungs actually worked pretty well breathing a denser gas, contrary to common belief. The Duke researchers provided the boundaries on what the lungs could do under those circumstances. 16:15: To get to 2,000 feet, it takes several days: one way to offset HPNS is to add nitrogen to the mix, Decompression is slow – it takes 2-3 weeks to get people to the surface from depth due to decompression issues. 17:10: The Atlantis Dive Series conducted four experiments—each with three male study participants living inside the chamber. “They were stuck inside. If one of them had developed an acute illness, say appendicitis, it would have taken us three weeks to get him out.” They were also in tight quarters and slept in bunks in layers. Food had to be locked in. 18:10: Our part of the experiment was to have each person exercise on an exercise bicycle. The other guys had to place an arterial catheter in the wrist. The blood samples then had to be analyzed in a blood gas machine. “It was an adventure not only in biology, but also in engineering. “ 19:10: Dawn compares it to telemedicine, and asks about the psychological issues of the men in the experiment. 19:40: Moon says there were areas of friction: “Three is worse than two or four because one person is always the fall guy. It was a challenge. They were carefully chosen, and they were up to it, and ultimately did a great job.” 20:00: Dawn mentions linking to Duke University’s F.G. Hall Center: http://anesthesiology.duke.edu/?page_id=1061 20:48: One of the benefits of Duke’s chamber is that it is actually within a hospital. “We can expose people to high or low pressure to simulate altitude and have all the accoutrements of medicine available.” Moon adds they’ve been able to do some very interesting studies. He mentions one, led by Dr. Jake Freiberger, which looks at nitrogen narcosis and any cognitive effects of additional carbon dioxide. 22:21: Another study is looking at immersion pulmonary edema, which is basically “drowning from the inside,” or when divers’ or swimmers’ lungs fill up with fluid. They’ve shown: People who are susceptible to pulmonary edema have higher pressures for a given amount of exercise than others. This issue reached public consciousness because Navy Seals have experienced this malady. “These are young, healthy, exceptionally fit individuals who start coughing up fluid/blood in the middle of what would otherwise be a normal swim.” 24:00: Moon explains that the hearts of people susceptible to pulmonary edema are normal, but just a little bit different. Their left ventricle is a little stiffer than normal when the heart fills up with blood. Therefore, in order to fill it, the pressure is a little bit higher; adding to that is extreme exertion, which raises the pressure even higher. That’s enough to break the barrier between the blood within the lung and the air spaces within the lung, and cause fluid to leak. 25:18: To deal with it, a lot of people (including the Navy) have recommended pushing fluids. Dehydration is a bad thing; overloading with fluid tends to make the problem worse. Some potential drugs could be taken. 26:10: Navy SEALs tend to get it; and triathletes—especially during the swim part of the race – can also experience it. “Triathletes are go-go people; want to win the race. They often see it, not as a health problem so much as something that just slows them down.” 26:54: Commercial break: STEM-Talk is an educational service of the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, a not-for-profit research lab pioneering ground-breaking technologies aimed at leveraging human cognition, perception, locomotion and resilience. 27:40: Problem with altitude boils down to one thing: low levels of oxygen. Because pressure is lower, the partial pressure of oxygen is lower as well…low oxygen has a variety of effects on human physiology. People who go to high altitude often experience acute mountain sickness, which is nausea, vomiting. It can cause high altitude cerebral edema or high altitude pulmonary edema, where lung fill up with fluid. 29:07: If you go to 10,000 feet and then exercise, you realize at altitude you really can’t do it as well as you can at a lower altitude (e.g., you are short of breath). One of the mysteries of altitude is people who have lived there, such as Sherpas…on Moon’s trek to Mount Everest, they were continually surpassed by Sherpas with 80 kilos on their back. They were small guys—150 pounds at most. 30:50: On their way to Mount Everest, their blood oxygen saturation started off in the 70s when their place landed; they were often down in the 60s. If you ask the average physician what would happen if blood oxygen is in the 60s, they would say brain damage. It’s also difficult to do field research. On the other hand, you can do things in the field that you can’t do in a lab-based facility. “It’s always a balance, and you get incremental pieces of information from each type of research.” 32:27: Moon mentions a study that was propelled by John Andrews, a Green Beret before medical school, who had experienced altitude issues. They studied a new drug, called Riociguat (for people for pulmonary hypertension); they are interested in whether this drug would increase exercise performance at altitude. 33:50: They found that pulmonary pressure did go down; the drug worked as advertised; but, unfortunately, it didn’t change exercise performance or improve oxygenation. Had it worked, it could have been a very useful drug for special forces deployed in mountainous areas throughout the world. 34:40: Moon discusses hyperbaric oxygen therapy, calling it “essentially a dive in a hyperbaric chamber breathing 100 percent oxygen at double the atmospheric pressure.” It has therapeutic applications for diving injuries and carbon monoxide poisoning. You can wake people up more quickly, prevent long-term complications, and make people feel better very quickly. It can also be used to treat gas gangrene—an infection of soft tissues that is highly lethal. Hyperbaric oxygen facilitates the killing of those organisms. It is also therapeutic for healing wounds in people with atherosclerosis and diabetes (related foot injuries). 37:14: Moon talks about career paths for people interested in studying diving or high-altitude medicine. He says there are several routes: one is doing expeditionary medicine in the Armed Forces. Another is going into a related field such as surgery, internal medicinal pulmonary medicine or anesthesia, and using altitude medicine as a sideline. 38:25: To do it full-time, Moon suggests programs at Duke or the University of Pennsylvania; or the military. 38:48: Dawn adds there are close ties (and opportunities) between both academic and military research centers. 39:30: Moon says he has read a lot of books written by people (like Jacque Cousteau) and many of the mountaineers. In terms of the medicine of diving, the book that really got him into it was edited by Peter Bennett and David Elliot. It’s a classic called “The Physiology and Medicine of Diving.” Fred Bove also edited a book called “Diving Medicine” for several editions. 40:41: Moon talks about his own expedition to Mount Everest, first noting that during the earliest “Hillary” expeditions, they had to walk from Katmandu. Now people fly into Lukla (in Nepal), “the most dangerous airport in the world. There’s no second chance for the pilot. You’re flying in with wingtips close to mountains…the runway goes cliff, runway, cliff…You have this little landing strip, so there’s no way to turn the aircraft around if you miss the landing.” 42:00: “The first day, you have to go down 1,000 feet, and then up 1,000 feet. At the end of that day, you think: ‘If this continues, I don’t think I’m going to be able to do it.’ But the scenery is spectacular: It starts off tropical. [Then it becomes] almost like a hike in a U.S. National Park. The higher you go, eventually it becomes barren, as trees drop away. Eventually it is snow and ice. By the time you get to base camp, it’s totally snow. But it also has a huge diurnal variation in temperature. When you wake up, you’ve gone through minus twenty degrees Fahrenheit. By lunchtime, you’re sitting with very little clothing on. Once the sun goes down behind the mountain, it becomes very cold again.” 43:36: “The Sherpas are delightful people. There is usually one room only that is warm; with a stove in the middle burning yak gum. Food is pretty good. “Despite eating like crazy because you’re hiking, and you’re hungry, we lost weight … It seems to be an altitude effect.” 45:00: Dawn observes that whenever they bring the tools of the trade into the field, whether deep divers or free divers, there’s always always a lot of interest peaked in terms of the research being done. 45:31: A British group had a full-blown lab at 12,000 feet at Namche, and another group had one at base camp: they were doing muscle biopsies, exercise tests…that data is still being crunched. “Climbing community is like the diving community: it’s a very elite group of people. Everyone’s got their own theory on how to do it, how best to prepare for it. There’s a relative lack of science because the experimental conditions are so tough.” 46:25: Dawn thanks Moon. 46:37: Dawn commentates on being able to interview her mentor, and Ken calls Moon “a broad and fascinating fellow.” 46:50: Dawn and Ken sign off.
Nov 22, 2016 · 1 hr 23 min
Episode 25: James Briscione discusses the art & science of food & flavor
James Briscione’s stellar cooking career began humbly: As a teenager, he washed dishes at a now defunct restaurant (named Jubilee) on Pensacola Beach. He quickly rose through the ranks, at age 24 becoming the chef de cuisine at the Highlands Bar and Grill in Birmingham, Alabama, which is considered one of the best restaurants in the South, and later the sous chef at the prestigious New York City restaurant Daniel. Today Briscione, who lives in New York City, is a top-tier chef, author of three books on cooking, director of culinary development at the Institute of Culinary Education, and a three-time champion on the Food Network’s cooking competition series Chopped. So what is he doing on STEM-Talk, you might ask? Briscione is also versed in the science of cooking and flavor. He partnered with IBM in creating the “Chef Watson” project. This computer-based program generates hundreds of novel flavor combinations based on the compatibility of chemical compounds in food. In this episode, Briscione talks with IHMC Director Ken Ford and IHMC Chef Blake Rushing about the art and science of food, and Briscione’s career as a chef. Briscione’s three books include: “Just Married and Cooking” (with his wife Brooke Parkhurst): http://amzn.to/2eDIpJD; “Cognitive Cooking with Chef Watson”(http://amzn.to/2g04Kq0); and “The Great Cook: Essential Techniques and Inspired Flavors to Make Every Dish Better.” (http://amzn.to/2elhlDr). He also has his own, new television show on the Food Network called “Cooking with Dad.” Briscione, his ideas on cooking and his own culinary creations have been featured in the New York Times, NPR, the New Yorker, Time Magazine and hundreds of other media outlets throughout the world. Briscione’s recent talk at IHMC, entitled “Who teaches the cooks to cook?” can be viewed at http://www.ihmc.us/lectures/20160811/ Dive into this delicious interview—an entertaining and informative conversation between three foodies. 00:32: Ken introduces Blake Rushing as the guest co-host of this episode of STEM-Talk. Rushing is IHMC’s chef, as well as the owner of Union Public House in Pensacola. 1:00: Ken introduces James Briscione as, “Working in the boundary spaces between the science of food, science and taste and even AI systems, such as Chef Watson.” 1:49: Dawn reads 5-Star iTunes review from “Beautronical:” “I am continually enthralled by the variety and depth of ideas presented here. Also, it is rare that one finds great minds matched by great voices. Given the ketogenic bent of certain interviewers, perhaps mellifluous is the wrong term, but I’ll use it nonetheless.” 4:42: Ken introduces himself and Blake Rushing as hosts of the interview; and then welcomes James to the interview. 5:05: James says he remembers the food made by his Italian grandmother. Among them: chicken cacciatore (although the mushy carrots bugged him.) The “greatest mashed potatoes… Sunday red sauce; sausage and meatballs loaded down with pecorino cheese.” 6:55: “True learning doesn’t often happen until you’re in the kitchen every day,” Briscione tells his students. He didn’t go to culinary school, but has been in the kitchen since he was 16. 8:15: At 16, he was a bus boy washing dishes for two restaurants: fine dining upstairs and casual beach dining downstairs. 9:33: As a teenager and at the beginning of college, Briscione thought, ‘There’s no way I am going to spend the rest of my life in a kitchen.’ He was working on a degree in sports medicine in Birmingham, and worked summers at the restaurant [in Pensacola]. After his second summer, something clicked: he changed his course of study from sports medicine to nutrition. 11:00: James knocked on the back door of Bottega Cafe [in Birmingham] http://www.bottegarestaurant.com/cafe/ and said, ‘I want to work here.’ He got a job as pizza maker with a wood-fired oven. He remembers stretching the dough and putting the toppings on it, then handing it off to the next guy. “That and lugging firewood to store underneath giant hearth oven.” 12:54: Briscione talks about working with Frank Stitt, owner and chef at the Highlands Bar and Grill in Birmingham http://www.highlandsbarandgrill.com , whom Briscione calls “a great leader.” He fosters a great sense of family in all of his restaurants; his cooks go and work in the farms for harvesting veggies. Briscione attributes his success to the fact that, “I showed up everyday. I was there, and I was there early.” 16:08: Briscione won on Chopped three times. “I always just try to do a little bit more than everybody else. I always want to out-hustle the other guy.” 17:05: He recalls one Chopped experience: “It’s insanely hot in that kitchen; four stoves; four ovens. No hoods pulling the heat away. It’s a warehouse essentially. I was mincing an onion as fast as I could. You could hear the judges say, ‘It seems like Chef James already has something’…I heard that; everyone else heard that. I at least gave the impression that I knew what I was doing. I never touched that onion.” 19:30: Another theme of Briscione’s career has been “being in the right place in the right time.” 20:00: Ken discusses fat as a taste receptor, and one of many taste receptors that humans have. Our tongues have receptors for detecting fat; he asks Briscione if he considers fat a taste or an oral sensation, or both. 21:00: Briscione says that he thinks it’s both. 21:36: “The tongue is a detector of nutrients and toxins. All of these different nutrients that are essential—I think we have receptors for all of those.” 22:10: Ken remarks that people make a distinction between having a receptor and taste; sensitivity of the fat receptor is modulated by a protein called CD36. People vary in their ability to sense fat, and it’s related to the level of that protein. 23:55: Ken adds that “The Physiology of Taste: Or Meditations on Transcendental Gastronomy,” by Jean Anselme Brillat-Savarin, and translated by M.F.K. Fisher) (http://amzn.to/2f4QkQw) is among the greatest works on food…largely because of the emergence of the wonderful notion of flavor. 24:24: Briscione on taste: When you take a bite of cake, you start to identify it because you smell it. It hits your tongue, which loves the sugar. As you begin to chew, the volatile molecules make their way to the back of the throat and cheeks. 26:00: Commercial break: STEM-Talk is an educational service of the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, a not-for-profit research lab pioneering ground-breaking technologies aimed at leveraging human cognition, perception, locomotion and resilience. 27:00: Chef Watson sifts through data in a way that puts new flavors together. (https://www.ibmchefwatson.com/community) 27:48: Examples include salmon and licorice; pineapple and blue cheese. 29:00: Watson also understands different cultural ingredients. 30:22: Briscione talks about his favorites: gently cooked (sous vide) apples, surrounded by olive oil and fresh sage. Olives and cherries (a jam out of that—the best condiment for a cheese plate.) 31:50: “Mushrooms, strawberries and chicken didn’t make sense. But it works really, really well…. This [Chef Watson] is a great thing: it shows the true collaboration between man and machine.” 33:37: One of Briscione’s favorite compounds: 4-methylpentanoic acid, which is found in pizza. “We have scientific proof that pizza is delicious.” 35:02: A strawberry has 383 compounds that make up the smell of that strawberry; they may not be the ones we recognize right away. The body is still sensing all of those. A lot of matching happens. 35:40: Mesifurane is a key compound in strawberries; on its own, it smells like baked bread. 36:51: Ken and James discuss Chef Watson as a kind of “cognitive orthotic” enabling increased creativity and efficiency in the kitchen. 37:10: “Creating recipes usually means sitting down with a stack of cookbooks; it’s a long and complicated process, and I liken it to decision fatigue.” 38:48: Chef Watson removes this burden by providing a list of ingredients that will work together, so that chefs can focus on the creative process of putting those ingredients together. 39:40: Briscione talks about using the Golden Ratio in cooking; just as in painting, there are those born with an intuitive understanding of the proportionality in the Golden Ratio, and those that learn it. “[Chef] Watson helps you get to that point: I can find hidden pattern in food that helps me be better at what I do.” 40:40: Ken comments that the Golden Ratio is seen elsewhere, such as in mathematics, with the Fibonacci sequence. 41:56: “One of the strongest pairings is between olives and citrus: they have about 60 percent of compounds in common. Wherever olives grow, so do citrus fruits.” 43:27: In Briscione’s upcoming book, he features a lemon curd dessert with an extra olive oil (not butter) finish. The crumble top is a sort of streusel made with oil-cured olives, a bit of rosemary, brioche crumbs and sweetened almonds. “It’s a beautiful savory-sweet interesting dessert.” 44:37: “Computational creativity can break through the bias/blindness in the cultural underpinnings of cooking.” 45:15: In the Watson method, “We’re looking at ingredients with a complete blank slate.” For example, in looking at a tomato, break free from the basil. “Erasing those pre-conceived notions was key to project.” 47:30: More information on Chef Watson can be found at: www.ibmchefwatson.com. 48:40: Briscione talks about sous vide cooking: ‘under vacuum’ is the literal definition. It is very precise low-temperature cooking held at the exact degree of doneness that we want [whatever food] to be. 52:30: Ken talks about how when he was in the Navy, in the late 70s and 80, he invented a super crude version of sous vide. He vacuum-packed food in the same machine used for electronics. It was “seal-a-meal,” but much better than the green mess-hall food. 54:10: Briscione says the next thing in cooking will be precision temperature control, such as Control Freak (an induction top) from PolyScience Culinary; Combi ovens; and CVap (Controlled Vapor Technology) ovens. 56:15: Briscione talks about hydrocolloids or gums: “People have had them in their kitchens for as long as they’ve lived.” Examples include flour and corn starch, or anything that forms a gel in the presence of water. Xanthan gum is the gateway drug to hydrocolloids. Others are derived from seaweed. 1:00:00: Ken comments on the irony of the public perception that chemicals in food are a bad thing, when food is made up of chemical (compounds.) He shares a funny anecdote about walking in and out of popular restaurant in Atlanta that boasted of no chemicals in their food. 1:01:36: Ken asks Briscione what he eats, and he says, “So far, a muffin and coffee today.” As for Briscione’s favorite foods: “Any piece of the pig is going to make me really, really happy.” 1:02:15: “I can eat a large watermelon by myself in minutes. Vegetables make me really happy.” 1:03:00: A favorite recipe using modernist cooking techniques: Vegan ramen broth, with smoked tofu and dried Shitake mushrooms, ginger, garlic and scallions. With soy sauce and pork. 1:04:15: His own favorite restaurants: The NoMad in NYC: for their “wonderful vegetable entrees. They take a single ingredient and present it to you on the plate in three or four forms.” He’s also a fan of the Gramercy Tavern. 1:06:10: His favorite daddy-daughter date is Dominique Ansel’s bakery in NYC. 1:07:00: When Briscione and his wife Brooke Pankhurst (also a Pensacola native) come home to the South, they enjoy good fried seafood such as fried mullet, snapper throats and mullet backbones — as offered at Chet’s Seafood. 1:09:44: Commercial break: STEM-Talk is an educational service of the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, a not-for-profit research lab pioneering ground-breaking technologies aimed at leveraging human cognition, perception, locomotion and resilience. 1:10:25: Briscione talks about his first cookbook, “Just Married and Cooking” (http://amzn.to/2eDIpJD): “The thing I love about that book is that I can open to any page in that book, and point to a recipe, and tell you a story about the first time we cooked that.” He characterizes the recipes as “everyday meals for ourselves.” 1:11:43: Talking about his book, “The Great Cook,” (http://amzn.to/2elhlDr) which came out last year: “It’s really kind of all these great dishes that all cooks should know.” It reads as if Briscione, a great cooking teacher, is sitting there at the kitchen counter and coaching them through dishes. Plus, it has really beautiful photography. 1:13:34: Also last year, the Chef Watson cookbook came out, “Cognitive Cooking with Chef Watson:” http://amzn.to/2g04Kq0. Briscione talks about one recipe: Spanish almond crescent, conceived as a pastry for a breakfast meeting. “I love Spanish food, and Spain. The almond is a seed for Watson to build the flavor pairings off of: saffron, black pepper, cocoa and coconut milk.” 1:16:30: Ken and Briscione talk about their favorite places in Pensacola, including Joe Patti’s fish market, and Chet’s and Jerry’s Drive-In. 1:17:28: Ken says: “When I have people in town, from NYC or San Francisco, food writers or chefs, I don’t take them to our fine dining restaurants. I get an excellent wine and good wine glasses; and we have a whole feast at Chet’s.” Ken’s favorites: marinated flounder or grouper. 1:19:20: Briscione talks about his new television show on the Food Network, “Cooking with Dad:” (http://www.foodnetwork.com/videos/dad-and-daughter-pasta-0251005.html). He describes it as: “What it looks like for a chef to cook at home with his kids…Or what’s it’s like to just put dinner on table every night. Or snack after tap class. Or Sunday morning brunch.” It includes Briscione and Brooke, their 7-year-old daughter Parker, and 14-month-old son. 1:21:31: Ken thanks Briscione for the interview as well as his IHMC lecture, which gathered well over 300 people and can be viewed at: http://www.ihmc.us/lectures/20160811/ 1:21:58: Ken says this episode “this episode combined two of my favorite topics: the science of food spiced with a touch of AI.” 1:22:55: Dawn and Ken sign off.
Nov 8, 2016 · 1 hr 34 min
Episode 24: Doug McGuff talks about resistance training, myokines, strength and health
One could say that Dr. Doug McGuff is one of the pioneers of BMX motocross bike racing in Texas. He built the state’s first race track, having gotten hooked on the sport as a teenager in the 1970s. The sport also triggered a deeper interest in fitness. As McGuff tried strengthen his core for bike racing, he discovered Arthur Jones’ Nautilus training technique and bartered janitorial services for a Nautilus gym membership. McGuff’s interest and aptitude for studying the body led him to pursue medicine at the University of Texas in San Antonio. He specialized in emergency medicine, was chief resident of emergency medicine at the University of Arkansas in Little Rock, and a staff physician at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Hospital in Ohio. McGuff is currently an ER physician with Blue Ridge Emergency Physicians in Seneca, South Carolina. The other side of McGuff’s career is dedicated to fitness, or as he says—helping people never have to go to the ER. Realizing a lifetime dream, he opened up his own fitness facility in 1997 called Ultimate Exercise. The gym is dedicated to the type of high-intensity fitness training using the Super Slow protocol. In this episode of STEM-Talk, McGuff talks about why this type of exercise is better for the body, safer, and able to prevent age-related conditions such as sarcopenia. McGuff is the author of three books: “Body by Science: A Research-Based Program for Strength Training, Body-building and Complete Fitness in 12 Minutes a Week,” http://amzn.to/2fy7vKN (co-authored with John Little), “The Primal Prescription: Surviving the “Sick Care” Sinkhole,” http://amzn.to/2fLTBtl (co-authored with economist Robert Murphy), and “BMX Training: A Scientific Approach.” http://amzn.to/2fUhqPd
Oct 25, 2016 · 1 hr 40 min
Episode 23: Michael Griffin discusses his tenure as NASA administrator and the challenges of space exploration
On March 11, 2005, President George W. Bush announced his intention to nominate Griffin to serve as the 11th Administrator of NASA. He was confirmed by the Senate on April 13, 2005 and served until January 20, 2009. Griffin knew NASA well. He had been NASA’s associate administrator for exploration in the early 1990s, as well as its chief engineer.
Oct 11, 2016 · 1 hr 2 min
Episode 22: Dr. Kerry Emanuel Discusses Hurricane Prediction and Projection
Hurricanes are a leading source of insured losses, and a major cause of human and economics loss in the world. But from an insider’s view, they are also breathtakingly beautiful. Dr. Kerry Emanuel, a leading hurricane expert, compares flying into the eye of a hurricane to being inside a white Coliseum, thirty to forty miles wide, with walls resembling “a cascade of ice crystals.” That’s just one of the fascinating tidbits from this episode of STEM-Talk, with Dr. Emanuel, whom Time Magazine named as one of the 100 most influential people in 2006. The following year, Dr. Emanuel was elected a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. He is a professor of meteorology at MIT, where he also completed his Ph.D. When he returned to teach there, he taught a course in meteorology of the tropics, and discovered that the existing theory of hurricanes was partly wrong. He’s spent the better part of his career disproving that theory and coming up with better theories of hurricane development and progression. Dr. Emanuel is also a book author of “What We Know About Climate Change,”<http://amzn.to/2cWYQ7O> and “Divine Wind: The History and Science of Hurricanes.”<http://amzn.to/2dPXrNb> His recent lecture at IHMC is entitled “Hurricane Risk: Past, Present and Future”: http://www.ihmc.us/lectures/20160324/ STEM-Talk Host Dawn Kernagis interviews Dr. Emanuel about his career, the future of climate change and its impact on hurricane development, and the future of hurricane projection and prediction. 1:11: Ken Ford mentions that he met Kerry in 2005-06 when Ford was on the National Science Board’s Hurricane Task Force, which he co-chaired with Kelvin Droegemeier (also a previous STEM-Talk guest: http://www.ihmc.us/stemtalk/episode-13/). That NSF report was entitled “Hurricane Warning: The Critical Need for a National Hurricane Research Initiative: http://www.nsf.gov/nsb/publications/2007/hurricane/initiative.pdf 2:24: Ken reads a 5-star review from “Wheelsuker”: “I’m not always curious, but when I am, I love STEM-Talk, and the deeply learned folks at IHMC. Subjects range from human physiology to the exploration of space, with thoughtful and probing questions that simultaneously teach and entertain. Highly recommended subscription.” 4:53: Dawn introduces Kerry Emanuel. 5:05: Kerry says his older brother told him that as a toddler, Kerry would get excited about thunder storms at home in Ohio. 6:08: His academic interest in science, and weather, developed in high school: “I started reading more professional meteorology books in high school; I got interested in physics and math. By the time I went to MIT [as an undergraduate], I realized you could put those things together.” 6:33: Kerry describes his academic journey: “I was an undergraduate at MIT, and I also did my Ph.D. there in 1978. Then I went and taught at UCLA and was there for three years. I came back to MIT, and I’ve been there ever since.” 7:00: At MIT, he taught about hurricanes in a course called meteorology of the tropics. “Not only did I not understand the existing theory [about hurricanes], but the existing theory had to be wrong, so I had to go about setting it right.” 7:35: The existing theory didn’t pay any attention to transfer of energy from ocean to the atmosphere. “Ironically, earlier scientists thought that was the guiding principle.” He picked up where they left off. 9:43: “Hurricanes cannot arise out of small fluctuations in atmosphere like a thunderstorm or winter storm. Hurricanes are generated by a pretty big push.” He describes it as a giant engine that takes heat out of the ocean and transfers it to the atmosphere whenever water evaporates. 10:54: “The tropical atmosphere has a different temperature than the tropical ocean. What we don’t understand is how they [hurricanes] get started.” 11:30: In the Atlantic, African-Easterly waves flow from East to West. When they move out over the ocean, they will sometimes trigger hurricanes. 12:49: He describes the feedback loop that propels hurricane intensity: once you get the starter engine going, as the winds accelerate at the surface, the evaporation of sea water occurs faster. The stronger the wind blows the more heat is transferred to atmosphere—until you get up to peak intensity. 14:00: Kerry talks about his roughly 10 flights into the eye of hurricanes. “I think everyone should do it. It’s magnificent,” he says—especially the sight of the eye of the hurricane from the inside. 14:30: “When you’re flying in, it’s just like flying in bad weather in a commercial airline. It’s turbulent, but it’s never been as turbulent as I’ve experienced on commercial airliners. Hurricane pilots really know what they’re doing.” 15:52: The eye of the hurricane is actually calm. He compares it to being inside the Roman Coliseum, except it’s white, and instead of a few hundred feet across, it’s 30 or 40 miles across. Sometimes there’s a cascade of ice crystals on the inside of the eye wall. 16:17: “I have fantasized about starting a hurricane safari operation after I retire.” 16:45: The physics of a hurricane is angular momentum conservation. “If you have a spinning body, when you take some part of the mass and move it towards the axis, the spin increases. The classic illustration for that is a spinning ice skater who draws in her arms; by that mechanism, her speed increases; that’s the conservation of angular momentum.” Likewise, in a hurricane, air spirals towards the center of the hurricane within a few thousand feet of the ocean’s surface; once it has moved in so far, it goes rocketing up, forming the wall of the eye. 19:35: The primary remaining challenge associated with hurricane forecasting is knowing the intensity of the hurricane right now. “For most storms, we don’t have aircraft. Just looking at a satellite image doesn’t show you wind speed.” 22:10: Two things prevent most hurricanes from moving up to potential: wind shear (a dampening force that imports dry air into the core of the hurricane—like throwing water on a fire). And the hurricane’s ability to churn up cold water from deeper in the ocean. 23:24: We don’t know much about temperature of the ocean beneath the surface; that limits our ability to forecast. 24:44: Kerry describes Argo robots that submerge more than a mile into the ocean recording temperature information, and then surface and transmit this newly collected data to satellites. 26:08: Kerry explains the difference between hurricane prediction: whereby you take an existing hurricane and predict where it will go; and hurricane projection, which projects a weak or strong hurricane season based on climate change. 27:00: Prediction of the track of path of hurricanes is a wonderful success story. Predicting intensity has been much less successful. 27:57: In forecasting anything at all, you have to know where you’re starting from. It’s a fine art. 30:32: The atmosphere is chaotic, and getting the initial condition right is the really hard part…we can’t computationally resolve all the things that are physically important in the atmosphere. 31:16: There’s an enormous amount of work that goes into computational modeling; the diversity of models gives you a better forecast/appreciation for how uncertain that forecast is likely to be. 31:46: To analyze the current state of the atmosphere, we start with an old forecast. You update it by incorporating measures in present, which is data assimilation. Every forecast has a little bit of history in it. 33:33: If I didn’t have computers/understanding of physics, I’d say, ‘Let’s look for some close analogies in the past.’ This is called analog forecasting. We know from theoretical work this is not a promising approach. Chaos will always ensure there are differences. 34:25: Computational weather prediction has pulled far ahead of any analog forecasting. 34:32: Commercial break: STEM-Talk is an educational service of the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, a not-for-profit research lab pioneering ground-breaking technologies aimed at leveraging human cognition, perception, locomotion and resilience. 35:07: “We’ve gotten steadily better by all metrics at predicting the track that hurricanes will take. On the other hand, we haven’t gotten much better at forecasting how strong a hurricane will be.” 36:13: “Hurricanes are creatures of warm, tropical ocean waters, and the Gulf of Mexico is a great example of that.” Hurricanes often form in the tropical Atlantic and the Caribbean and then strengthen as they move into the warm Gulf waters. 37:15: “If we look at geological records … we think actually the region (Gulf Coast) has been pretty lucky over the last century compared to what’s been true over the last few thousand years.” 38:40: Dawn asks if the current trend of planetary warming is likely to have any effect on hurricane formation and intensity over the long run. 39:10: Effect of planetary warming on hurricane formation and intensity: “It’s not a solved problem, but there is a kind of consensus developing about what we think will happen. The key points of that consensus are this, we think the frequency of very high-category hurricanes will go up as you warm the climate; but at the same time, there’s a little bit more controversy about the frequency of weaker hurricanes. Most studies suggest that the frequency of these will go down.” 40:00: Eighty percent of the damage in the U.S. has been done by category-3 or greater hurricanes. The consensus is that there will be more of these strong storms in the future. They are associated with strong storm surges. In practice they kill a lot of people. There is also a very strong consensus that fresh water flooding from heavy rains is going to get worse, almost for sure as the climate warms. 42:43: “The theory of chaos is often described as a kind of practical limit on what you can forecast … but it’s much more profound than that, it’s not just a practical limit, it’s a theoretical limit that you cannot go beyond not matter what resources you throw at it.” 44:19: For all practical purposes, the system is not deterministic beyond two weeks. Thus, we will never be able to make precise forecasts beyond that time horizon. 45:25: Discussing how good a forecast is likely to be: “We can forecast how skillful our forecasts are. That is a very profound thing to be able to do. What we have not mastered is how to convey that to the public. We struggle with that everyday.” 47:42: To improve forecasting, we need better measurements, better computer models, and better ways of assimilating improved measurements into the better models. High level research on this is taking place all over the world. 48:30: While this should be a cooperative international enterprise, European governments have monetized weather data. “The bad boys are the Europeans—their governments decided they could make money from selling weather data…. Even at the peak of the Cold War, the US and USSR were freely sharing weather observations.” 49:22: Some of best computer forecasts are generated by the Europeans, from the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. “If we want to see them, we have to pay through the nose for them. Everybody else subscribes to the older idea that since the taxpayer has paid for this data, it should be freely available to all.” 50:33: Economists have demonstrated that even if the only thing you are concerned with is how much money the government would make, it’s an inferior model. The freedom of data has led to small enterprises doing specialized forecasting based on the available data. Those companies create jobs and are taxed; the U.S. government gets more money that way, than the Europeans do trying to sell environmental data. Kerry says there are efforts to get Europeans on board with this “more gracious, economic model of sharing environmental data.” 53:19: On quantifying the risk of climate change: If it’s one degree warming by the end of the century, there’s not much difference. If it’s four to five degrees, the world could erupt in a conflict over water and food shortages. 54:03: In thinking about what we should do, if anything, to reduce the rate of warming, it is rational to consider both risk and the possible consequences. 56:10: Look on bright side [of climate change]: “We have an opportunity here to transform our energy systems ahead of the curve.” If there were no climate change, we would still eventually run out of fossil fuel. 56:45: Discusses the shortcomings of solar and wind energy. The wind does not always blow and the sun does not always shine … and we are not very good a storing energy. 57:10: Kerry discusses the positive potential of next generation fission energy. Fourth generation fission reactors can consume the waste that’s been stockpiling around the world and turn it into much safer waste that can be safely buried. These next generation plants cannot meltdown, they are physical incapable of it. 58:12: Discussing why more fourth-generation nuclear plants are not being built in the U.S.: “It’s almost a “no-brainer” and yet the word ‘nuclear’ is such a red flag for environmentalists and others that the political barriers are immense; the technical barriers are not.” 58:50: “In thirty years are we going to be buying clean energy from China and India or selling it to them? That’s our choice now.” 59:07: Once you put carbon monoxide in the atmosphere, it takes thousands of years for it to go away; unless we develop technology to pull it out of the atmosphere. In next decade or two important decisions will be made. 1:00:06: “If I had a large budget, on the practical side, I would come up with much better ways of monitoring and forecasting hurricanes. One of the great tragic limitations … is we do pretty bad job of estimating their initial intensity. I’d field a fleet of solar powered robotic aircraft in the stratosphere launching pods on parachutes … down into the troposphere to measure the intensity of hurricanes to improve their forecasts.” 1:01:25: Dawn thanks Dr. Emanuel for joining her on STEM-Talk. 1:01:35: Ford comments on the interview: “Kerry is incredibly engaging and insightful about the future of weather and hurricane forecasting. He’s truly at the forefront of this increasingly important field.” 1:01:49: Dawn says that she is eager to follow-up with Dr. Emanuel on his retirement plans to give air tours on hurricanes. 1:01:57: Ford says he also flew into a hurricane when he was in the Navy. 1:02:15: Dawn and Ken sign off.
Sep 27, 2016 · 1 hr 1 min
Episode 21: Yorick Wilks Discusses the History and Future of Natural Language Processing
In this episode of STEM-Talk, we talk to one of our own senior research scientists, Dr. Yorick Wilks, renowned for his work in natural language processing. Wilks is also a professor of artificial intelligence at the University of Sheffield in England, and senior research fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute at Balliol College. A “war baby” born in London in the midst of the Second World War, Yorick was sent away to school due to the bombings. He excelled and went to Cambridge, where he studied with Margaret Masterman, a protégé of philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. Yorick first came to America—L.A. in the 1960s—on a one-year Air Force Research Grant. Yeas later, he moved to Stanford University’s AI Lab, where he worked with John McCarthy, one of the founders of Artificial Intelligence. Yorick’s research interests have been vast and rich, including machine translation, translating, understanding and extracting meaning from language, belief representation and human and machine communication. He has authored 14 books and many more papers, and has been the recipient of numerous awards, including, in 2008, the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) Lifetime Achievement Award. Yorick also speaks several languages, including Swahili and Japanese. Yorick is a senior research scientist at IHMC’s Ocala, Florida facility where he was interviewed for this podcast. STEM-Talk Host Dawn Kernagis and IHMC Associate Director and senior research scientist Bonnie Dorr—who is also a leading expert in natural language processing—conduct this rich interview, full of both historical insight and wisdom about the future of AI. Yorick also spends much of his time in Oxford, England, where he lives with his wife and two beloved dogs, an Italian greyhound and a German Sheppard.
Sep 13, 2016 · 1 hr
Episode 20: Dr. Alessio Fasano discusses the gut microbiome and how it affects our health
When Alessio Fasano entered medical school at the University of Naples (Italy) School of Medicine, his goal was to eliminate childhood diarrhea. Working with a mentor who’d studied the physiology of the gut, Fasano decided to focus on the microorganisms that cause diarrhea. That opened up his world to specialize in overall gut health, and Fasano became a leading expert in celiac disease and gluten-related disorders. Following medical school, Fasano spent three years at the Center for Vaccine Development in Baltimore, and later returned to the U.S. to pursue his career. Today the world-renowned gastroenterologist is chair of pediatric gastroenterology and nutrition at Harvard Medical School and director of the Center for Celiac Research and Treatment. He is also the director of the Mucosal Immunology and Biology Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital. Fasano was the lead researcher of a seminal 2003 study showing that 1 in 133 Americans have celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder characterized by gluten-induced damage to the small intestine. His book Gluten Freedom http://tinyurl.com/zdbcdkk has been hailed as “the groundbreaking roadmap to a gluten-free lifestyle.” He is also the author of “A Clinical Guide to Gluten-Related Disorders.” http://tinyurl.com/zbhme6j His lectures at IHMC “The Gut is Not Like Las Vegas,” (November 2014) http://tinyurl.com/o83y8xz and “People Shall Not Live by Bread Alone: People Shall Not Live by Bread Alone” http://tinyurl.com/pcssk5j have gotten over 70,000 views on YouTube. Fasano has been featured widely in media, such as NPR, CNN and Bloomberg News. In this episode of STEM-Talk, Fasano talks about his early life as a curious boy in Italy, with a scientist grandfather as his first mentor, the impassioned trajectory of his career, and the underlying importance of gut health in determining our overall health.
Aug 30, 2016 · 47 min
Episode 19: Dr. Dawn Kernagis talks about life undersea during NASA’s NEEMO-21 Mission
For this special episode of STEM-Talk, IHMC Research Scientist and STEM-Talk Host Dawn Kernagis sits on the other side of the microphone. This summer, Dawn was one of six divers selected for NASA’s NEEMO (NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations) 21 mission, and we were able to talk to her live from the Aquarius Reef Base, located 62 feet below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. During the 16-day mission, Dawn and her colleagues performed field research designed to test operations and equipment for future space exploration. In particular, the international crew of aquanauts performed research both inside and outside the habitat. During simulated spacewalks carried out underwater, they evaluated tools and mission operation techniques that could be used in future space missions. Inside the habitat, the crew’s objectives include testing a DNA sequencer, a medical telemetry device, and HoloLens operational performance for human spaceflight cargo transfer. In many ways, the NEEMO mission crystalizes Dawn’s career. Her research expertise has been focused on human performance, risk mitigation and resilience in extreme environments—namely undersea and in space. In addition to her accomplishments as a scientist, Dawn is also a long-standing diver, and this year was inducted into the Women Divers Hall of Fame. Conducting the interview is IHMC Senior Research Scientist and former NASA astronaut Tom Jones. Dawn shares aspects of her daily life in the undersea habitat, from eating freeze dried food to watching thousands of fish from the galley window every night before bed. She also delves into the research that she conducted, which included testing a mini DNA sequencer and deep water dives to collect samples of several coral species and weighted walks on the ocean floor to simulate space walks. STEM-Talk’s Billy Howell and Jason Conrad, key players in the production of each episode, also join the impromptu conversation with “fanboy” questions for Dawn. Dawn kept a blog about her experience, which you can read at: http://www.ihmc.us/blog/neemo 2:00: Dawn discussed her experience as manager for the world record-breaking diving exploration project Wakulla Springs. 2:24: On her induction, last April, into the Women Divers Hall of Fame, she said, “It was cool to be sitting with women I have looked up to since I was a little girl.” 3:23: Dawn described certain challenges faced by people working in extreme environments such as Navy divers, deep sea divers and astronauts: decompression sickness, oxygen toxicity and nitrogen narcosis. 5:02: Ken Ford read a 5-star iTunes review (which are piling up): “The best podcast. It is as if the double secret selection committee has hacked my Google search. Keep up the great work, team.” 5:37: Tom Jones explained that the NEEMO mission, now in its 15th year, is an analog to deep space expedition. 6:09: Dawn said her voice sounded high because of the increase in air density in her undersea habitat. 7:14: Dawn explained that for the in-water work, they gear up and jump out of the habitat in hard hat diving supplies. “There is constant communication with the habitat,” she says. 9:30: “It makes such a difference to have a great team.” 9:50: “The nice thing is we have support divers who bring supplies up and down on a daily basis. It is not as isolated as space expeditions.” 10:50: Dawn described some of the physiological effects of being at a pressure of 3 atmospheres and 62 feet deep: “I can’t whistle; I have a high voice; we can feel swells pick up overhead—the pressure changes, so our ears are constantly popping. We’re hungry all the time.” 12:12: They performed simulated space walks to identify different species of coral for the Florida International University marine sciences team. 13:25: They used geology sample tools and water-resistant iPads. 14:20: They tested medical telemetry equipment (like miniPCRs for DNA sampling) that may be used at the International Space Station; then relayed the data back to physicians. 18:40: With the cheek swab and saliva samples, they looked for epigenetic changes that occur in response to living in a saturation environment. 19:11: Every morning, they got up around 6:00 or 6:30 and make coffee. Then they did the first round of medical telemetry: collecting blood pressure readings, oxygen saturation, hydration levels, and weight. Those were also collected in the evenings. 20:54: “Every evening we’ve been spending watching the amazing night life outside our window.” 21:07: The free time was spent at the galley window, watching all the different fish swim by. Dawn described a lion fish swimming by…She also saw eagle rays and squid. 21:45: She looked for modifications that occur in response to living in a saturation environment. “We are trying to get a baseline idea. Molecular tags change the way a DNA is read out, expressed, and what protein product is made.” 22:52: Their findings may one day be used to prepare for a Mars expedition. “The Software/hardware in the habitat and planetary exploration analog has been focused on long-range space duration, specifically Mars.” 24:40: “The food has been way better than anticipated; but we can have food sent that’s fresh.” They ate mountain house camping food, using hot water and a microwave. She was able to stick to her vegetarian diet. 25:43: They all bunked out at around the same time. There was a round-the-clock mission control on Aquarius Reef. 26:29: Commercial break: STEM-Talk is an educational service of the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, a not-for-profit research lab pioneering ground-breaking technologies aimed at leveraging human cognition, perception, locomotion and resilience. 27:07: Dawn lauded the NEEMO team: “The people are forward thinking; everyone on this team communicates very well. The mentality where you prioritize team over self; for a mission like this (and space) have to be thinking about team. 28:08: The team comprised astronauts, physicians, engineers, molecular biologists. 30:00: Prior to the mission, they had a week of solid training at Johnson Space Center in Houston. They also had a week of hands-on training in the Keys before going under water. 31:09: Dawn is startled by support diver in galley window 31:40: In December, Dawn talked to NEEMO founder Bill Todd, about her epigenetics experiment. During that conversation, he asked her to be part of the dive crew. “I couldn’t speak … I said absolutely, it wasn’t even a question. I was honored.” 34:10: Dawn described the challenge of being in such a beautiful research environment: “Not only are you testing out the procedures; you’re doing it in a place where you enjoy it, and a bad move could be detrimental. You’ve got to keep your situational awareness up and running the entire time while you are doing these other tasks.” 34:47: Tom recalled being in space, enjoying the view of the earth, when his colleague said to him, “Just think Tom, we’re just three inches away from instant death.” 35:15: Before leaving the habitat and returning to the surface, the aquanauts underwent a 16-hour (largely overnight) decompression procedure while breathing 100% oxygen. 38:15: Billy asked Dawn if she can feel the above sea weather in her habitat: “When the seas are rougher above us, you can definitely feel it down here; the habitat connected to life support buoy. With the swells, the pressure changes in your ears. You can see fish moving with the swells. One cool thing… the lightening storms at night: You can see water light up, and it’s absolutely beautiful.” 39:57: Massive heavy dry pots were used to send materials up and down and keep everything dry; the support divers worked really hard to move them back and forth. The electronics were wrapped in plastic bags, in case of any kind of leaking. 42:07: Sometimes there were delays in communication during bad weather. 43:45: Dawn described her experience as a support diver for a day. 46:14: “It was a lot of fun to be on the other side,” she said of the interview. “And having a simulated space walk in the background while I was doing an interview was priceless…” 46:36: Ken said that this live interview from the bottom of the sea “is the kind of thing you’ll only hear on STEM-Talk.” 46:53: Dawn and Ken sign off.
Aug 16, 2016
Episode 18: Dr. Colin Champ talks about how the right nutrition and exercise can help treat cancer
As STEM-Talk Host Dawn Kernagis points out in this interview, guest Colin Champ looks like he could be featured on the television show “The Bachelor.” But the striking young doctor (who alas, is in a serious relationship) is a radiation oncologist at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Center. Dr. Champ is also deeply invested in researching how exercise and nutrition can help treat and prevent cancer. In his very popular book entitled, “Misguided Medicine: The Truth Behind Ill-Advised Medical Recommendations and How to Take Health Back into Your Hands,” Champ tackles several commonly-held myths regarding health such as the perils of salt and meat intake. Take a look at: http://tinyurl.com/jokel72 Dr. Champ’s web site, The Caveman Doctor, http://www.cavemandoctor.com/start-here/, also challenges conventional wisdom and governmental guidelines on nutrition. Dr. Champ received his medical degree from Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia and his bachelor’s in chemical engineering from MIT. He grew up, in his own words, in the “blue-collar, steel town” of Pittsburgh, in a mixed lineage family of Austrians, Irish and Southern Italians. At an early age, he excelled at both sports and science. Dr. Champ’s lecture at IHMC, “Augmenting Cancer Therapy with Diet,” can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ot96y5-D_K0 He also regularly writes for Health Wire: http://www.myhealthwire.com/editors/dr-colin-champ