17 Burst results for "Ira Flatow"
KQED Radio
"ira flatow" Discussed on KQED Radio
"This is science Friday. I'm Ira Flatow. There's an old expression. You are what you eat. But sometimes other creatures become what you eat, especially if what you consume our drugs. How do we know? Check the wastewater and you'll find it contains a grab bag of chemicals. There's industrial runoff bits of animal and viral DNA. And then there are compounds that trickle out from our households. Medicines were flushing down the toilet or releasing through urine are making their way into countless bodies of water. Because anti depressions frequently end up in the environment. A team of scientists wanted to study the effects of these anti depressants on streams winding their way through ecosystems, so they looked to none other than the crayfish. They found that crayfish exposed to these drugs were a bit bolder. The results were published this week in the journal Echoes Fear. Joining me now to fill in this story are two authors on that study. Lindsey Rice Singer is an insistent professor in the fisheries and aquatic sciences program at the University of Florida in Gainesville. AJ Rich is an assistant professor in the soil and water Sciences department, also at the University of Florida. Welcome to science Friday. Thanks. Thanks for having us Now, before I ask what does Boulder meaning a crayfish? I have to apologize to folks who called them crawfish, right? Depends on where you live A J. Please tell us what happens when you take an antidepressant. Let's begin right there. How much of the drug ends up in waste water or streams? Yeah, so or prescribed a certain dose by our doctor. That dose is to ensure that we get enough of the medication into our bodies to have the proper effect, but human bodies aren't 100% efficient at metabolizing drugs. And so different bodies can break down the medications that they take in at different rates. And so anybody might use 70% 90% of whatever medications if they can. I'm not sure of the exact percentages. And it will vary by compound and by individual but some portion of what you take into your body as medication. Your body won't break down. And so therefore it will be excreted directly into your wastewater when you go to the bathroom, and Lindsey, So why is crayfish a good candidate to look at? Yeah. So there were several reasons why we chose crayfish. So one reason is that they just tend to be really abundant and there are large, so they make up a large biomass in freshwater ecosystems so they can have major impacts. Another reason is that some species are tolerant of polluted conditions so we might find them and a lot of streams or lakes that are receiving some wastewater. Um and then. The third reason is that Craig Fisher actually major model system to look at behavior, and so we know a lot about Chemicals like serotonin and its effects on crayfish and how that can translate into behavior. Well, we didn't know is whether trace amounts of chemicals in the water. Could affect crayfish behavior. And you looked at one antidepressant in particular called Settle a prom. The brand named Celexa. You conducted this in the lab and experimental stream. Lindsay, What did you find? So we tested them in an aquarium where we first we're looking at how quickly they came out of a shelter into a novel environment, and the ones that had been exposed to the drug came out almost twice as fast as the ones that were not exposed. We were pumping in water into this aquarium. Some of the water was from a bucket with a food source so that water smelled like food. And then the other water had another crayfish in it, So it smelled like a crayfish, and we looked at how much time the crayfish spent going after one of these two Scented waters, and if the crayfish had been exposed to the drug, they spent almost three times more going after the food water compared to the crayfish water. Whereas the other crayfish spent an equal amount of time in both sections. Is that a bad thing for a crayfish to do well, It's not necessarily a bad thing, particularly the fact that the crayfish came out of the shelter more quickly and are bolder suggests that they might be more vulnerable to predators. And if they are spending more time going after food, they could have different impacts on the ecosystem. Mm. And a. J. You also looked at possible downstream effects talking as we are about the ecosystem. How could the ecosystem be affected by having these antidepressants in the crayfish and the water? Within the stream ecosystems themselves these artificial stream ecosystems. We found that the crayfish increased the amount of algae in the water column, and they also increase the amount of organic matter at the bottom of the street. But we found that it didn't matter if the crayfish had been exposed to the antidepressants or not, they answered. The president had a major effect on the crayfish behavior that Lindsay talked about earlier. But that change in behavior didn't seem to change their impact in our artificial stream ecosystem. However, we think that might be because our study was fairly short. It was only a two week study and so the crayfish it takes a while for that crayfish behavioral response to to show up. This is all hypothetical because we didn't run the experiment for longer. But a boulder crayfish that spending more time foraging for food might be moving around where the nutrients are available and might be changing the bacteria, microbes and bugs that are in the system. And so, therefore reducing the overall cycling rates in the streams themselves, Lindsay any idea what might happen to the animals that eat the crayfish? That have eaten the chemicals. Yeah, that's a really great question. So one interesting thing that our collaborators have looked into in another study. Is that some of these compounds and antidepressants can accumulate in animals. So specifically, they were looking at aquatic insects. And so it might be that the concentration of the antidepressant in the crayfish and in these other aquatic organisms Is much higher than it would be in the background stream water if a predator is eating a bunch of crayfish or a bunch of these aquatic insects that do accumulate The antidepressant. You could get a higher dose. And so we don't know exactly what what That dose would be. But this is something to think about. For sure. You know, I'm thinking of a study a few years ago. I think it's probably a famous study by now about birth control and wastewater and the feminizing of fish. AJ. Are you familiar with that one? This sounds a little bit in the same ballpark. Yeah, absolutely. That That term is called endocrine, disrupting compounds, So it changes the endocrine system of these organisms and its endocrine, disrupting compounds. They don't kill the fish, but they change their behavior. They change their reproduction. They change their life history. In a previous study that I was a co walk around. We actually argue that pharmaceuticals have a similar effect on the ecosystem. We re coined the term ecologically disrupting compounds for pharmaceuticals. Because typically, these pharmaceuticals are not high enough concentrations to kill organisms to kill animals in the environment, But a large large breath of studies are now showing that they do have sub lethal effects. Changing things like crayfish behavior, fish feeding rates or algal photosynthetic rates that sort of thing. So despite not having a toxic effect, not killing any animals, they are changing the overall interactions among various parts of aquatic ecosystems. My last question is so is there anything we can do to limit the amount of drugs that get into the water? A. J. The first thing that I tell people when they ask me that question is First off. I'm not telling you. I'm not asking people to stop taking their medications. So do not stop taking any medications because he wants to protect the water quality. However, there are proper ways to dispose of your medications. Often, local pharmacies or drug stars will have medications take back locations. So drop boxes, cabinets or daily event one day events where they will take any unwanted medications..
WBEZ Chicago
"ira flatow" Discussed on WBEZ Chicago
"In episode five times a week, thoughts on the market. This is science Friday. I'm John Donne Kaskey in for Ira Flatow Later this hour, we'll talk about the 15 to 20% of Americans who are still in wait and see mode about getting the Koven vaccine. And we'll look at how drought in the Southwest is affecting the Colorado River basin. But first, depending on your perspective, Wednesday was a bad day to be an oil company or a good day to be a climate activist. Three major oil companies had climate change pushed higher on their agendas. Shell was ordered by a Dutch court to cut its greenhouse gas emissions, Chevron was told by shareholders To reduce not just its emissions from oil production, but also those of its customers and it Exxon's annual shareholder meeting, a small climate advocacy group managed to score seats on its board of directors. So where did these climate Koos come from? And what could come next box staff writer who Mayor or fund is here to talk about this big story? Welcome back to the program of Mayor. Thanks for having me. So I just ran through these oil companies. Story's pretty quickly Maybe you can dig into them in a bit more detail. Ah, what happened on this one Big day? Yeah, That's right. You know, the one of the biggest ones was at shell. This is major international oil company and a Dutch court ruled that essentially they have to control their greenhouse gas emissions in line with the Paris agreement. Now Shell did put out a plan a few years ago, saying that they were going to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. But crucially This ruling says that they have to account for what's going on a scope three, which is basically not just the emissions that they produce, but emissions that are produced from burning their product by their customers. And so that means that they have a much larger scope of responsibility here. And what this ruling will likely mean is that they'll have to actually stop, you know, combusting and also drilling for more oil, So this is a fundamental change their business model. A fundamental change. They're coming from the courts. In some ways, though, these other moves that are really shareholder based, might make even more of an impact. Talk us through those right. So these shareholder owned companies mean that you know, investors have a say in how these companies are run, and more recently, a climate activists have found that they could get a seat at the table by buying stock in these companies. And in the case of Exxon this week, Yes, there was an investment firm that literally got seats on their board, and they have two of them potentially get up to three seats. On dis is a way that they've been able to, you know, make their voices heard. Essentially, they have these big meetings at these companies are required to hold. They could make their case for why actually addressing climate change is a good business decision, but also that continue to drill for oil is a bad decision. And that's kind of what's interesting here with both conical Phillips and Chevron is that they're making the case that this is a business. Benefit to address and mitigate climate change and that it's causing harm if they don't what are some of the limitations of the power that shareholders actually have to force any change in these companies, though. I mean, the big thing is that these companies are obligated to generate a profit for their shareholders, and so anything that requires an investment up front has to translate into something that's going to generate a profit down the line. And so that business case has to be made there legally obligated to do this. They can actually be sued if they do things that are counterproductive to their shareholders. So it's really hard to make that case. But in recent years, you know with this global push for climate action, with companies coming up with their own development of technologies, and also government starting to impose more restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions. These shareholders, These activists are actually able to make a compelling business case that it makes sense to actually start addressing climate change to start diversifying the business portfolio and dealing with the world past oil. Despite all this good news for climate activists, though, it should be clear that there are plenty of big oil companies that just can't be forced to change at all through these kind of avenues. That's right. You know they these air the investor owned oil companies, right that we're talking about. But the largest share of oil production right now is being held by nationally owned oil company. So these are basically government run corporations. And for these governments, you know, particularly those around the Middle East countries like Saudi Arabia. Oil is the dominant source of revenue. They don't really have much of an alternative and because they're owned by governments, there is less opportunity for individuals and activists to get a seat at the table to try to sway their decisions. And so these companies are increasingly making up a larger share of oil production, and they're becoming harder and harder to sway. Let's move on to some covert 19 news here. Visors vaccine was approved for adolescents earlier this month and later on in the program. We're gonna be talking about vaccine hesitancy, including and parents. But in the meantime, now Madonna has some promising results for this 12, the 17 age group in this latest set of data, tell us more about what we heard. Right. The company Majorino reported this week that they found 100% efficacy and Children ages between the ages of 12 and 17 with no serious safety issues, and now they want to seek FDA approval to administer this vaccine to younger people, just like visor did. So visor had similar results. Visor has already been approved. What took Madonna's along? Well. Part of the reason is how Fizer got their initial emergency use authorization when they filed for that initial approval. They looked for approval for ages, 16 and up so they were able to vaccinate teenagers this whole time murdered. His approval was primarily for ages. 18 and older and Fizer also being a U. S biotech company..
KQED Radio
"ira flatow" Discussed on KQED Radio
"On the market, offering concise takes on current events and their implications for financial markets. Three minutes and episode five times a week. Thoughts on the market and buy the listeners of KQED. Mostly sunny skies Today, Heisman fifties to upper seventies and we're heading into a warming trend. It should be relatively warm on Memorial Day. In fact, may see triple digits. They'll be an excessive heat Watch for parts, the Sacramento Valley area that'll starts Sunday afternoon. This is science Friday. I'm John Jankowski in for Ira Flatow Later this hour, we'll talk about the 15 to 20% of Americans who are still in wait and see mode about getting the Koven vaccine. And we'll look at how drought in the Southwest is affecting the Colorado River basin. But first, depending on your perspective, Wednesday was a bad day to be an oil company or a good day to be a climate activist. Three major oil companies had climate change pushed higher on their agendas. Shell was ordered by a Dutch court to cut its greenhouse gas emissions, Chevron was told by shareholders To reduce not just its emissions from oil production, but also those of its customers and it Exxon's annual shareholder meeting, a small climate advocacy group managed to score seats on its board of directors. So where did these climate Koos come from? And what could come next box staff writer who mirror Fong is here to talk about this big story? Welcome back to the program of Mayor. Thanks for having me. So I just ran through these oil companies. Story's pretty quickly Maybe you can dig into them in a bit more detail. Ah, what happened on this one Big day? Yeah, That's right. You know, the one of the biggest ones was at shell. This is major international oil company and a Dutch court ruled that essentially they have to control their greenhouse gas emissions in line with the Paris agreement. Now Shell did put out a plan a few years ago, saying that they were going to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. But crucially, this ruling said that they have to account for what's going on a scope three, which is basically not just the emissions that they produce. But emissions that are produced from burning their product by their customers. And so that means that they have a much larger scope of responsibility here. And what this ruling will likely mean is that they'll have to actually stop, you know, combusting and also drilling for more oil. So this is a fundamental change their business model. Ah, fundamental change. They're coming from the courts. In some ways, though, these other moves that are really shareholder based Might make even more of an impact. Talk us through those right. So these shareholder owned companies mean that you know, investors have a say in how these companies are run, and more recently, a climate activists have found that they could get a seat at the table by buying stock in these companies. And in the case of Exxon this week, Yes, there was an investment firm that literally got seats on their board, and they have to move potentially get up to three seats. On dis is a way that they've been able to, you know, make their voices heard. Essentially, they have these big meetings at these companies are required to hold. They can make their case for why actually addressing climate change is a good business decision, but also that continue to drill for oil is a bad decision, And that's kind of what's interesting here with both ConocoPhillips and Chevron is that they're making the case that this is a business. Benefit to address and mitigate climate change and that it's causing harm if they don't what are some of the limitations of the power that shareholders actually have to force any change in these companies,.
NEWS 88.7
"ira flatow" Discussed on NEWS 88.7
"This week. Chef Eric Repair teaches us how to make vegetables, the star of any plate. Plus, we take a deep dive into the food and cooking of the eastern Mediterranean. Adam got Nick reveals his four food heresies, and we learned how to make Japanese milk bread coming up this week on Mill Street radio from Pierre X. That's the Sunday afternoon at two o'clock here on news 88 7. Imagine writing a bunch of country hit songs than chucking it all. Moving to Sweden and taking up pending chart topping euro pop. Murder, Manu said. The next town square up close and personal with Eurovision song writer sharing von that's coming up this afternoon and three o'clock. This is science Friday. I'm Ira Flatow. In case you're just joining us. We're continuing our conversation about the latest covert 19 questions with my guest, Dr. Angela Rasmussen, Research scientist at Vito Inter Vac. That's at the University of Saskatchewan's Vaccine Research Institute and Saskatoon says Catch one Canada You get the impression from following the course of this disease and the immunity and the antibodies that sooner or later we're going to need a booster shot. I think it's possible. The one thing that we didn't look at in the clinical trials is durability. And how long the protection that the vaccines confer last. Right now. I think that the possibility of meeting a booster is higher because of potential loss of durability over the long term the same way that way will get an MMR shot one where I think, too, and then we'll get another one when we're 10. We may need a booster like that right now. Anyways, it doesn't look like we're gonna need a booster specifically to address variants because, as I mentioned before the vaccines do still work and our protective against all the known variants of concern. That's a possibility, too, if new variant should emerge there even more capable of evading vaccine induced community right now, that's not the case. So I do think, though, that there's a good likelihood that we might need a booster. In the coming years just to maintain those long term protective immune responses. And what can we do for people who are immuno compromised and for whom the vaccine may not work? That's pretty simple. We can get vaccinated on by that. That really is the benefit of herd immunity, community immunity, population immunity. If there are enough people vaccinated than the virus can't spread within the population, and that indirectly protects people who can't take the vaccine, And it's not just immuno compromised. People who aren't responding well to the vaccine are developing immune responses because of it. There's also people who can't take vaccines for a variety of reasons. Maybe they have some kind of allergic condition. Maybe they don't have good vaccine reactions. There are many reasons why people may not medically be able to take a vaccine. So that's why it's even more important that people who can take vaccines do take vaccines. Let's talk about for a moment, the grave shortages of vaccine among developing countries. What are your thoughts on how to overcome that? So this is a really tough problem. And this has been unfortunately exacerbated by countries like the U. S. And Canada and the European Union, all of which have purchased a number of vaccine doses and really Put their own people first. And while this is somewhat understandable, and it's also reflecting the political realities of each of those countries or groups of countries It's not how we should be approaching global health going forward. We we really should be doing these efforts from day one. We should be planning ways to distribute vaccines equitably. Among all the countries of the world because of pandemic by definition is a global crisis. So right now, the Kovacs initiative has purchased a number of vaccine doses. Basically for countries that are not able to purchase it for themselves. Those air primarily AstraZeneca, Johnson and Johnson and the Novaks vaccine, which is currently finishing phase three clinical trials. Because those three vaccines are easy to distribute in a number of different situations, regardless of needing specialized infrastructure, such as ultra cold freezers. I think that you know, over time. Unfortunately, many countries that are depending on Kovacs have have started to see that since they're getting AstraZeneca and Johnson and Johnson, they're worried that they're getting, you know, sort of the B plus vaccine instead of the A vaccine. That's the Emory. Any vaccines both in terms of efficacy, and in terms of their safety records s. Oh, that's something that we really do need to combat. We need to make it clear and that's one of the reasons I've been so vocal about getting Johnson and Johnson as ah, privileged American who was able to effectively choose my vaccine. I wanna really get the message out there that these vaccines are fantastic and again after doing the risk benefit calculation. No, it didn't stop me from getting it. I would hope that these vaccines are distributed to the rest of the world. But this is something that I think needs to be priority number one. After the emergency phase of this pandemic is over, and we all sit down to try to figure out how to not go through this again. What about relaxing the patents on these vaccines so that the country's themselves can make them? Well, It's not that simple. And I would say that first of all before I say anything about this. I am not an expert on intellectual property or technology transfer. But I do think that it is a good idea to not only relax the patents on the trips waiver, which is a waiver of intellectual property rights that's been called for by Indian South Africa is one mechanism for doing that. It's not the only mechanism for doing that, but we not only need to relax the patents. We also need to share the technology for manufacturing these vaccines because it's not just about getting the ingredient list. It's about getting the actual recipe and being able to build the infrastructure to manufacture these things that scale. I think that that Is often left out of this discussion because people say, Well, why don't they just share the patent rights? This? You know that wouldn't cost them that much other than profits, Potentially But it isn't that simple in. It really is about this larger tech transfer issue on building capacity in different countries that want to have these manufacturing capabilities, and I leave that to the experts to figure out the best way to do that. But in general, I do think that people should not be worried about patent protections or intellectual property rights. During a global crisis like this, if it can help get more people worldwide immunized faster. We should do that, Angela, as always, great talking with you. Thank you for taking time to be with us today. Absolutely. IRA any time factor. Angela Rasmussen research scientists at Vito Inter Vac University of Saskatchewan's Vaccine Research Institute and Saskatoon says Catch one Canada For the rest of the hour and update on a story we first told you about back in 2014, a computer program called Dr Phil that could solve crossword.
NEWS 88.7
"ira flatow" Discussed on NEWS 88.7
"This is a really important part of our vaccine program, including globally, so I think that it's really important that our regulatory systems and accept the advisory Committee for immunization practices. Really took their time. T look through all of the data thoroughly, but given that they did I think that what the data shows is that there are way more benefits to continuing to use this vaccine than there are drawbacks. Just a quick note that I'm Ira Flatow and this is science Friday from W. N. Y C studios. Variants. Our listeners tell us are still on a lot of people's minds. I want to play question we got from listener, Ken in Cleveland on our science Friday. Box pop back Well, if it all do the current vaccinations protect us from the variations, especially be 117. So all of the data so far suggests that all of the vaccines that are available currently are very protective against be 117 on bats. Great news because, as you know, there are several variants, and I know it can be tough to keep them all straight, given that their names aren't exactly really catchy, but the B 1351 variant from South Africa, which does have Some potential capabilities to evade immunity. Some immunity they're not completely. They don't render the vaccines useless at all that that Varian is also in the U. S. And conveniently, Johnson and Johnson did one of their face three clinical trials in South Africa when that very was circulating widely, and that vaccine is still protective. Against the most critical outcome, so hospitalization and death. The Johnson and Johnson vaccine performs very well against the 117 pretty much just like it performs against all other stars. Coronavirus, two variants. Are not variance of concern, but the ones that people are worried about, like the 1351, which which again may be able to evade some antibody responses. The vaccine's still work against that Johnson and Johnson Fizer Madonna, all of the vaccines that have been tested are are still effective against all the known variants in terms of protecting against the most severe outcomes. And in many cases protecting against disease all together, I want to shift gears a bit and talk about antibodies because a new study in the journal BMC Infectious Diseases Says that after 100 days on Lee 44% of covert 19 patients still had antibodies. What do you think of that? Well, so this is one of the troubles with doing antibody studies like this. Just because you can no longer detect antibodies with the test that you're using doesn't mean that those people don't have some degree of long term immunity on bears. There's a part of the immune system that's called the animalistic response. In which somebody who has been infected or vaccinated with another pathogen previously will be re exposed to that, and they may not have detectable antibodies, but they do have memory B and T cells. In their immune system that will recognize that and the antagonistic responses when those memory diesels start making just a ton of antibodies, so they rapidly crank up antibody production really quickly. Many of those people who tested negative for antibodies after recovering within 100 days, they may well have memory immunity. That is just more difficult to measure because they don't have a lot of antibodies actually circulating in their blood. That doesn't necessarily mean though, that they've gone back to square one, and they're completely susceptible. But this is an area of ongoing study where we don't really know what the typical immune response looks like, especially over the long term for somebody who was infected with SARS coronavirus to We do know that there is a pretty big range of different antibody responses that people can have. So I don't make too much out of that. Other than to say that if you had covert before, you shouldn't rely on your natural immunity. You should get a vaccine because we know that vaccines reliably induce very high tigers of neutralizing antibodies, and they can only boost whatever immune response you will have carried over in your in your memory. From a natural infection. We have to take a break, and when we come back more of the latest covert 19 news with Dr Angela Rasmussen, stay with us..
NEWS 88.7
"ira flatow" Discussed on NEWS 88.7
"Public media dot or g'kar slash Amazon Smile. Thanks. This is science Friday. I'm Ira Flatow a bit later in the hour answering evolving Cove in 19 questions and it crossword puzzle solving computer program that beats human competitors, But first Even as the U. S approaches a third of adults fully vaccinated, covert 19 cases continue to rise in other countries. We've talked about India, where health care systems are verging on collapse, but cases are also rising in Nepal, Thailand, Cambodia and elsewhere. To address the disparity of vaccine access between rich and poor nations, The Biden administration announced this week it would support waving intellectual property rights for covert 19 vaccines. This would allow countries to manufacture their own. Some, like the U. S. Great. Britain and the European Union have objected in the past two waving patent rights, so negotiations remain ahead for the World Trade Organization. Later in the hour. In our conversation with neurologist Angela Rasmussen, we will talk more about why waving the patent restrictions alone may not be enough. But first Fizer announced today it will seek full authorization from the FDA for their covert 19 vaccine. And earlier this week, Fizer announced that it would also seek emergency authorization for use of their vaccine and Children. 12 to 15 years old. Here to tell us more about that. Plus other stories from the week is fivethirtyeight senior science reporter Maggie Kurth. She joins us from Minneapolis. Hey, Welcome back, Maggie. Hi. Thanks for having me here. You're welcome. You know, I'm many parents and grandparents of adolescence find this news. Very exciting. They would love to see that age range for Fizer. Vaccine expanded, right? Yes, very much. And I am a parent of a seven and five year old and I am very exciting is it means we're getting a little bit closer to my kids getting something So that means we should expect then. If this is successful for this age group that, of course, right down the line, we might go even younger. What is sort of happening in the news right now is we're in this kind of like weird news about news That hasn't happened yet thing going on where A lot of outlets are reporting that the FDA is planning on giving Fizer that you way for the 12 to 15 age group soon. But we don't know exactly when that's gonna happen could be any day at this point. Some have said next week, others this week, others next month. But we do know that fighters also said that they're going to be submitting for the easy way for the 2 to 11 age group as early as September. Wow, That's good news for a lot of people. But there are some public health experts who have suggested that younger kids should not be such a high priority because there are other countries still struggling to vaccinate their adults. I mean, are we going toe? Unethical debate here? I think we're definitely in a weird ethical debate space. You know, kids are extremely low risk, but it's not no risk and a vaccine would help protect them. It'll also help reduce transmission through the community, especially in that 10 plus age group. That is a lot more susceptible TomKat ching and transmitting the virus than younger kids are, but you know there is a finite supply of this stuff. I think it's a really difficult ethical space and try to figure out How you're going to get that stuff allocated. I don't know that there's like a good political way to like. Ask parents to give up shots that they would give to their Children to give Tol across the ocean. It's a tough space to be in, I think, And it's one that The Codex program was sort of Intended to avoid, but that didn't work out the way that we wanted it to. Yeah, it's a continuing involving problem that we have been watching and will be continuing to discuss that. Let's move on to some worrying new climate change models that have.
KPCC
"ira flatow" Discussed on KPCC
"Well, I am honored and star struck. No, don't No, don't We're actually honored that you would be willing to toe support us and what we do here. I'm happy to be doing my part. Paul. Thank you so much for your support Kpcc. This is science Friday. I'm Ira Flatow Next week theme are is 2020 mission arrives at its destination And if all goes as planned, the Perseverance Rover will land on the Red Planet next Thursday. Joining me now for a look ahead to the New rover mission, and what it's planning to do is Worry Glaze. She's director of NASA science Mission director. It's planetary science division in Washington. D C. Welcome to science Friday. Dr Glaze. Thank you. Glad to be here. Could you sum up for us this mission? What? What is the What's the main mission here? The key objectives of this mission. It's a lander that's going to land in a place called jazz Row crater on Mars when it's actually gonna Rove around. This will be our Fifth Rover on the surface of Mars, and the primary objective is to understand the geology in that location, Understanding the geologic history of Ezra Crater, but also really looking at the astrobiology history at that location where Astro Biology is the science of understanding what types of environments Can support life and actually looking for potential chemical markers of early microbes that may have existed 3.5 billion years ago. And then the third major objective is to collect samples of rocks and soils and store them on the surface for eventual return back to Earth. And then finally, it's also has a goal to help us better prepare for eventual future human exploration of Mars. So let's let's see if we can pack some of this because there are a lot of interesting mission objectives here. The landing site. Is there something special about this site that would help you accomplish what you want to do there. Yes, there is something special. So we are landing and J zero crater. There were lots of potential great landing sites on Mars with lots of great science questions that could be answered, But this particular landing site was intriguing. Because we can tell by looking at orbital images of the surface of Mars and looking at just zero crater that there was a river that once flowed into this crater, and that there must have been a standing body of water that persisted for a very, very long time because we can see that as that river flowed into the standing body of water that it dropped sentiments onto the ground onto the floor of the lake and created a river Delta. Right in there inside the crater, And we also know that that crater and this river Delta system would have been active about 3.5 billion years ago. That's about the time that life was starting to form on Earth, and we know that Mars was much warmer and wetter as evidence by the rivers and Lake. And that had life started to form on Mars. At that same time, this would be exactly the kind of deposit that would preserve those really early microbiological fossils in the river Delta. In addition, because it's a river Delta The river would have been picking up sediment from a huge catchment area and then delivering it all into this more less confined spot right in jazz row crater. So as we're thinking about trying to address questions about the early evolution of Mars and understanding whether or not life ever existed on Mars, this is the ideal place or one of the most ideal places on Mars that we can visit. So this would have been a catch basin for any kinds of life forms that once lived there. Exactly. So what kinds of experiments do you have on board? Several. The instruments are really designed for this understanding the geology and the astrobiology history. We have Sherlock, which is an instrument to help us better understand the organic chemistry that's present. We also have pixel, which is an X ray instrument that also is looking at chemistry of the surface. And then we also have another instrument called super Camp, which is again another remote instrument that shoots rocks with a laser to help us better understand what chemistry is present. So those three instruments as a package or doing ah, lot of work, trying to understand the chemistry and mineralogy of the Rocks. We have another instrument called Rim, fax the ground penetrating radar to understand the structure of the crust just beneath the rover. We also are carrying a whole bunch of camera systems that are going to be able to do panoramic images and stereo images for context to help us both with navigation, but also to understand what we're looking at. We have a meteorological station that will be taking regular measurements of temperatures and pressures and winds on the surface. We actually have microphones that will help us hear what's happening on the surface of Mars for the first time. And then we also are curing a really cool experiment called Moxie, which is a technology demonstration to actually convert the carbon dioxide of Mars's atmosphere and convert that into breathe a bull oxygen, and this is an experiment that's being sponsored by human exploration. To help us better prepared to explore Mars with humans and take advantage of the resource is that can be found there. Inside you. Perseverance, be able to look at a rock sample and say, Hey, this has a greater chance of having life. Let me pick that one up versus the one next to it. The perseverance Rover has a fantastic sweet of really amazing instruments that will be able to look at the rocks and tell us what the chemistry of those rocks is What the minerals are that are present in those rocks. And we'll be looking for those kind of chemical markers, molecules and minerals that contain carbon hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, those key building blocks to life, answering the question of whether or not life is there or was there in the past doing that remotely. Uh, is very, very challenging. So that's why those instruments will help us identify as you said the right samples that we really want to drill and store for return back to Earth. How will those samples the rover collects? Make the return trip to Earth. That is a great question and one that we are really excited that we are starting to embark on right now is the Mars sample return mission. This is a really complex endeavor and one that we are not going to take alone as NASA were actually partnering very closely with the European Space Agency in our early development and planning for Mars Sample return. We just started what we call phase, eh? Which is the very beginnings of those planning's. We're working towards a launch in 2026. What That mission will look like well actually include two launches from Earth a NASA launch which would carry a sample return lander to the surface of Mars, and that lander would carry AH, Fetch Rover. That would drive out and collect the samples that the perseverance has picked special locations to drop a bunch of the sample tubes that these cashing locations so the Fetch Rover would go to those specific locations and pick up those tubes and maybe several of those cash depots and then carry them back to the sample. Return Lander load them into a return capsule that's then launched from the surface of Mars on the Mars ascent vehicle and place that capsule into orbit around Mars. The European launch, Meantime, has sent an orbiter that is an orbit around Mars, and we'll rendezvous with that sample container and capture that sample container to bring it back to Earth..
KQED Radio
"ira flatow" Discussed on KQED Radio
"Is science Friday. I'm Ira Flatow. When you consider the history of science, The modern field of genetics is quite young genetic engineering, which we take for granted dates back just to the early 19 seventies. Then, in the late 19 eighties, when an international team of scientists decided to press forward to create a full sequence of the human genome It morphed into a monumental Moonshot like effort that would cause $300 million and take 13 years from start to finish. This month marks 20 years since the first draft of that genome was published simultaneously in the journals, Nature and Science in 2005. We were still discussing the Human genome project on this program. In terms of its potential. Here's geneticist Huntington Willard, talking about how genomic sequencing could change medicine if we can evaluate a given individual's entire genome at the cost of 1000, or maybe a few $1000 that fundamentally changes the way we address disease, where you would bring people into the health care system, scan their genome and look for the variance that might predispose to different types of disease. If we could do that genome wide for thousands and thousands of diseases for literally everyone in the country that was entering the health care system that would fundamentally change the way we provide health care in this country and around the world into a much more personalized form of health care. So now in 2021, What can we say about what we've actually gained and it would price first here to look back with us is Dr Shirlee Tillman, a molecular biologist at Princeton University, former president of Princeton. She served on the advisory council that oversaw the project from Start to finish. Welcome, Dr Tillman. Thank you. Glad to be here. Nice to have you please take us back to a time when this monumental project was first kicking off. Did you think it would succeed the way it has Well, I thought it would succeed. I never questioned that if we put our mind to what we would be able to organize a project to determine the order of the 3000 bases in the human genome. Biology. Unlike physics, for example, had been a very cottage industry kind of science. It'd never embarked on something very grand. Very large. And so could I have anticipated back in the late 19 eighties, the the impact it has had probably not. Let's start with some of the numbers. Can you put a number for us and how many scientists were involved in this project from start to finish from start to finish? I would have to say that we're talking about hundreds, if not thousands of scientists who were involved. The project did not Begin in 1988 with the sequencing of the human genome. It began by sequencing organisms is simple as bacteria in use, and it was during that time when so many scientists who never for a minute thought they were interested in the human genome. Cannon becoming interested in how to do large scale organism all sequencing. Was that the story of your involvement to first getting involved in this simple sequences of this small organisms and thinking, Oh, maybe we can expand to the human. It was actually my interest, and I think as I participated in those early early deliberations on even whether we should sequence the genome For one thing. The idea of sequencing three billion base is of human genome was just daunting at the time, so it made a great deal of sense for us to take a much simpler organism with a much smaller genome. And say, Well, let's learn how to do this properly by taking on a small project and expanding to larger and larger organisms, larger genomes and thereby By the time we really began in earnest, sequencing the human genome we had had at least a dozen years off learning how to do cost effective and timely DNA's sequencing. I'm trying to remember the figure that was thrown around back. Then the first time they talked about the sequencing what it would cost to sequence the first genome. Something like it was in the Million's, wasn't it? So probably the best way to think about what happened to the cost is that when I joined the National Academy Committee in 1987 88. I had been sequencing myself, and it was costing roughly $100 a base to do good sequencing at that time and to sequence let's say 1000 bases would take you. You know, at least a week. We knew that if you extrapolated those numbers, and they didn't improve, there was no way we were sequencing the human genome. Today we're at the place where an entire three billion base human genome can be sequence for under $1000 and then well less than a week. So that's the magnitude of the technology advances that have happened since those early days of the genome Project. Fair of World lot of surprises that came out of The sequence. I mean on. I think the biggest one that I can recall at the moment as we speak is basically how small it was, or is And if by small you mean how many actual genes there are in the genome? Absolutely. This came as an enormous surprise. And if I may say so, Ah, humbling Surprise. Torto. Those of us who would always seen humans at the very top of the very large evolutionary tree and to discover that to be human did not require many more genes than it took to be a fruit fly or its soil worm was quite a shock. I think everybody involved in the community And not only that, but this this concept of junk, Edna Yeah, I remember. In the early days when we talked about on science Friday, the 20 years ago, I said, we can't call it junk DNA's. It's been preserved for how many thousands and thousands of years has got to be doing something. Correct and one of the most famous statements about junk Edna was made by the great molecular biologist Sydney Brenner, who said, you have to distinguish junk from garbage. Junk. It's what you put in your attic until it's re use becomes evident to you and city was absolutely right that the regions of the genome that did not appear to encode genes themselves have turned out to be some of the most important regions of the genome to understand. Because those air the regions that are controlling the activity of genes, whether it gene turns on or turns off in the right place, and at the right time. That's what's being controlled by what we used to call jock. Let's talk about other surprises. I think one thing That surprised me toe learn as that There are still portions of the genome that we haven't fully sequenced. How can that still be? I know it seems amazing 20 years later that there are still unknown parts of the genome. The parts of the genome that are most challenging to sequence are what are called repetitive regions of the genome and these air regions where there's a simple secrets, and it's repeated over and over and over and over again. And so when people break up the genome and go into sequences, there's no way to know once you've broken it up whether the repeat came from here or came from here or came from here. So there's still a little bit of uncertainty in these very repeated regions about what the actual sequence is. And one other thing that we thought we would learn is we would find out there was a gene for this. There was a single gene for that. But it turns out there are very few diseases where one gene is actually going to change your outcome. And I think the even bigger surprise has come from an expectation going in that if you take very common diseases like heart disease or stroke or hypertension. The thought was, well, maybe they're going to be five or six or seven genes that are important in determining whether you have a higher alot grist for those diseases. There are very, very few common diseases for which that is true. And that for these very common diseases. The genes that are affecting your likelihood are probably in the hundreds and maybe even in the thousands, which makes it very, very difficult to identify anyone that's really important. Interesting. Now you're a biologist before we had a sequence Human genome. How did work like yours change In the aftermath of all of this? I think the genome has profoundly changed the way in which many, many biologists go about their work for the vast majority of my career. I studied one gene at a time. I picked a gene that I thought was interesting and important. I studied it to death until I knew absolutely everything about it. And when I was done, I would then go on to another gene. What scientists do today is very different. You can now design an experiment in which you don't ask what one gene does in an organism. You can ask what all 22,000 genes they're doing. And you can ask yet all at once in one experiment, and that has radically changed the way in which we think about and do experiments in biology..
KQED Radio
"ira flatow" Discussed on KQED Radio
"Friday. I'm Ira Flatow. If you're the squeamish type, you might want to prepare yourself for this next conversation because we're going to talk about peeling eyeballs. Fish eyeballs that is Because you know how they say the eyes are the window to the soul. Well for fish, the eyes are the window to the stomach. Turns out that fish eyes air like a little tiny diet journal of everything that creature eight. But to read that journal. You have to peel back the layers of the eye like it's the world's tiniest onion. Why would someone go to these lengths to understand what a fish ate? Who will have to ask my next guest? Miranda tell Cock, assistant research specialist at the Center for Watershed Science. University of California at Davis. Welcome to science Friday. Thank you for having me. That was a great introduction. So you could really do this. You can really peel a fishes. I to find out what it ate Exactly. So, just like you said, they act as this Amazing Little Diet journal, and they're composed of each of these individual layers, and each of these players represent a different period in this fish is life history. And what you can do is you can then put these pieces together to reconstruct their life to see what they were eating. And if you know what they're eating, And if you understand the isotopes, these chemical fingerprints that are in our environment, then you can then make meaningful interpretations for these individual layers in a fish and better understand what they ate, and importantly, where were they eating that food? Well, I understand that you study the should examine in the California River system. Tell us about why you want to study with the salmon are eating their salmon. A Chinook salmon in California are extremely important to us here in the Pacific Northwest. They're important culturally to the indigenous populations here, they're important economically. There is both a commercial and recreational fishery for you standing because people like to eat them. They're more commonly known as King salmon in the stores when you go to buy salmon They're also really important ecologically. They bring a lot of marine drive nutrients really far inland, but also should examine play a role in our water supply. Here in California, which is always a really hot topic. If you have low population of salmon, that means that they can limit the amount of water that can be pulled from the river for agricultural in urban use. And so if you have a healthy population, this could lead to more sustainable water use. R Agon Urban uses Do you share with the fish eighth? You do You share this data with other organizations of people who need to know Absolutely. We work with many different organizations, Tonto better manage for salmon and using the lens to study what a fish is eating and ultimately what habitat they're using. This is really important for management and conservation. And this is something that the agencies here would like to know about. And so if we can have this tool in our toolbox, Toho better understand what officials doing individually. We can make better management actions and decisions for on a population level to help increase these numbers of our standard populations. Yeah. I found that really wild that you study the lens of the fish to understand what it's eating. How did you arrive at that? So we originally solve this amazing Prester and Florida from the lab that was lurking on large marine species. And when we first saw that my first thought for that is that this sounds too good to be true because At the time, I was trying to understand the isotopic values between these different food webs of the flood, plain and the river. The two pathways that salmon are likely to take here in California before going to the ocean. And the fish that I was working on was significantly smaller. The mews marine fish. I mean, we're talking like 3 to 4 inches Max for these juvenile salmon, and not only did we want to see if we can use this to reconstruct the life history for these juvenile fish. But also be able to use it for three isotopes instead of two carbon, nitrogen and sulfur. And so it was quite the long process of actually teaching myself this method and understand how it actually works in adapting it for this much smaller fish here in California and seeing if we can actually apply this on a much larger scale. Yeah, because I watched the video of a fish eye being peeled, and that looks like it took a wild toe Learn. Yes, It was a long month with us very steep learning curve where I smashed a lot of eyeballs in that time trying to figure out how this actually works, and it became this kind of balance between you know you don't want the lens to be too wet because if it's too wet, you're going to smash it in the layers. They're gonna smush together, and it's not gonna work. But on the other side if it gets too dry, one of two Things end up happening. It's becomes really brittle. It'll actually shatter like glass and your lens is going to be in like hundreds of little pieces. Or you can actually shoot it off your tray like a tiny game of pool. And then the lens gets lost into oblivion somewhere in lab never to be seen again. Yeah, I hate it when that happens. Yeah, I found it fascinating that the actual that the eye has layers to it is that unique to fish that they have layers that they're like tree rings that grow another layer. Yeah, So, So far, I found it the only be unique to more of the aquatic species. It has been done and various cephalopods successfully. I've tried doing it in birds and frogs and was extremely unsuccessful. Their eyes are not the same. I have yet to try a mammal. I But I hope to try something at once. We can get back into a lab. Speaking of eyes, then where do you get your eyeballs from? Don't mean you personally. I mean, for the worst way actually get our rivals from carcass Survey said. Likely for us when we study should examine they spawn and they die. And we have agencies that go around and actually do population counts and estimates based on the number of carcasses in the river, and then they're very kind. And they pull tissues for scientists like me who might call them up and ask them. Hey, can you also pull eyeballs from these fish that I can look at there? I am and you know, they take all that in stride, and they pull the eyeballs for me. Put them in little film canisters actually on. That's how we store them in our freezer. And so they will send me hundreds of eyes every fall. Did you ever think when you started out in your career, you'd be pulling fish eyeballs? Absolutely not. I think the scientist that was starting out virus six years ago would be absolutely shocked at what I'm doing now and wondering, why would I do that to myself? They're very smelly. When you get home from work to people say you've been pulling fish eyeballs again. I can smell it. Yeah. My husband doesn't like it. If I have samples stored in the freezer at all before I take them to a lab. And I do notice that a lot of the dogs at my work suddenly started liking me a little bit more. Once I started doing fish. Tell me a bit more about how the eye records. What? The salmon Eight? Yes, So the way the lands is going, it starts off as this very small core. That's this little clear ball. And the layers are going to start to form around this ball, and this layer is forming is actually going to be integrating the food that that fish is consuming at that period in their life, so like when they're first developing, and they have that yolk sac you can actually see in Merlin's that they have this really high ocean value in there, I even though they're living in fresh water, but it's because they have all that money nutrients that their mom brought back for them. And so that actually integrates inset layer and then the layer will then Press and it's no longer undergoing was called protein synthesis, meaning that is effectively locking in that ice a topic value from that food Web at that time in their life, and it's not going to change and it's going to stay there permanently and then, and I just that process just keeps happening as they move through their lives down the river or into the ocean recording the food Web they're eating at that time. I also learned from watching you. I guess it was you in that video. It willing the lens that you know, we normally think of the lens being lens shaped sort of, you know, oval, but the lenses here look like they're kind of round. Yeah, they're like a little pearl, right there in the eye..
KPCC
"ira flatow" Discussed on KPCC
"S Constitution that lay out our freedoms and how democracy works. Sixth and then that was ratified in 17 91 as part of the bill of rights, and it covers the rights of people accused of a crime. The accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of the state and district where in the crime shall have been committed. And to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation. To be confronted with the witness against him to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense. 89.3 kpcc. Democracy needs to be heard. This is science Friday. I'm IRA Flatow. The rollout of covert vaccination programs around the world has been anything but smooth. Complicating the effort is the virus itself. The original Corona virus genome on which are vaccines were based has mutated, resulting in three variants that have experts somewhat concerned. How will the vaccine scientists have worked so hard to make fare against these three variants and even future ones? Here to tell us everything we want to know about vaccines and variants is Dr Steven Goldstein, a postdoctoral researcher in evolutionary Veron Aji at the University of Utah. Thank you for having me hope I didn't put you off. I say you're going to tell us everything We want to know. I'll do my best. I'm sure you're well. Okay. Let's talk about what a variant is. Now The virus is constantly mutating, right? And that is that. What causes these variants? That's exactly right. So the virus is constantly mutating. And there are many different variants. Most of them not of concern, these three that we've Kind of all become more familiar with our water term variants of concern, And that's because they have particular mutations or sets of mutations that do give us concerns that they may be more transmissible. Or, you know, effect Vaccine efficacy as you alluded to We have been hearing the word variant and the words strain being used interchangeably. Is that correct? Are they the same? We probably shouldn't use them quite interchangeably. You know, Like I said, there are variants associated with all the different mutations that are happening all happening all the time. We'd probably shift variant over into the strain category. Once we've confirmed that there is some different biological property about it, So is it more transmissible? Is it more or less deadly? And so some of these? Probably, you know, the The 117 vary in particular that's come out of the UK. We can probably call that a strain at this point, the other two, probably also, but maybe there's some difference of opinion on whether were there not Let me talk about the UK variant first. Because of that, you bring it up. There is a report that the UK virus, the one that is more contagious, has acquired the worrisome mutation scene in the South African virus and the mutation found in the Brazilian virus. Does that double dip, making an extra burden for the vaccines? So it just brings it closer to what that South African Varian and the Brazilian variant already appear to be. It's a particular mutation that shared by the South African and Brazilian variants. That's some viruses in this UK lineage appear to have acquired most of the virus circulating in the U. K doesn't have that particular mutation right now, and it's not clear if that, as you call the kind of double dipping variant is really going toe takeover, not we'll have to wait and see. It would pose similar concerns that the South African and Brazilian ones pose right now, but I don't think we're quite there yet, as far as really kind of looking down that barrel. I've heard that some of the mutations in these variants effects quote unquote neutralization. What does that mean? The neutralization is the term looking at what's going on in the lab. So it basically Means how well the serum from somebody who's either recovered from Cove it or been vaccinated with one of the vaccines. You take their blood serum and you mix it with the virus and look at how much of that serum you need to prevent or reduced the infectivity the infection by that virus, And that's what we call the level of neutralization the amount you can dilute that person serum by And still say reduce infection in the lab by 50% or 80%. You can pick whatever number you want. Let's talk about effective vaccinations. What do we mean? When we say we hear vaccines or less effective against variants? What? What does less effective me? It's a good question, because we have to really think about what the vaccine trials were measuring. So most of them are measuring Symptomatic Cove. It could be mild, moderate or severe. And so that in many cases, you know, modern advisor at least specifically means any one of the symptoms associated with covert. So if you've got a cough or fever, whether alone or together And that's the worst that happened that would be considered a event. That's a vaccine failure. But what we have seen is these vaccines still seemed completely effective against the variance at preventing severe disease, hospitalization and death, which are really the bottom line for most of us, If you know the vaccines lose some efficacy of preventing you from essentially getting a cold. Your chances of getting really sick or dying or still 0%. That's the pretty great outcome Still, so if you have a vaccine that's effective, let's say at 50%. That's still pretty good because it could prevent you from developing the severe part. Of complications. That's exactly right. So that Novavax trial where we saw the efficacy in South Africa was 50% instead of the 90% that was seen in other parts of the world. There was still no body infected with that South African varying who was hospitalized or died. So that's why we have to be careful about these efficacy numbers. It still looks like you're in pretty good shape here. Let's talk about these vaccines. The Fizer, the Moderna Johnson and Johnson, Nova vex..
WNYC 93.9 FM
"ira flatow" Discussed on WNYC 93.9 FM
"And AM a 20 NPR News and the New York conversation. is science Friday. I'm Ira Flatow. President Biden has the most ambitious climate change agenda of any US president. A big part of that plan is a shift away from fossil fuels to clean energy, like wind and solar. A new member of Binds energy team wants to prioritize something we don't normally hear from the federal government. Energy justice, making sure communities are not left behind or stepped on. And the pursuit of a greener world. Shalonda Baker is author of a new book, Revolutionary Power and Activists Guide to the Energy Transition. She is the new deputy director for energy justice at the U. S. Department of Energy and a law professor on leave at Northeastern University in Boston, where she's talking to us today. Welcome to science Friday. Thank you. I want to say congratulations. You're the new White House administration with a first ever position. How does that feel? Well, you know, I'm honored. It is very much the culmination of a career's worth of work at the intersection of energy and equity, and I think it will be the thrill of a lifetime to work with this administration to create an energy system that works for all of us. Let's talk about the core phrase in your new title. Energy justice. How do you describe this concept? In my mind? Energy justice is really about ensuring that the benefits and burdens of the energy system are equitably distributed. And further, it's about centering the voices of those who have been most harmed and most marginalized by the existing system. So it's a paradigm shift. It's about participation, and it's about equity and ensuring that you know, folks have a leg up in this new system. The cover of your book evokes the black power fist. Why is this important for you to have this imagery front and center? Sure, you know, it's funny. I think that the cover could be interpreted in so many different ways. You know, some folks said, Oh, it looks like the sword supplied shares. You know either so many different ways that you can interpret the cover, but I really wanted to evoke this sense of people power. I wanted to evoke the sense of folks coming together to create a system that works for them. And you know, there is also an image of Someone holding up a wind turbine, which is to say that we're moving into a clean energy future And we very much have a stake in that future. So there a lot of different ways to interpret the cover, But But I love the idea that this speaks to the lexicons in the imagery of the black power movement as well. But it's interesting that you put it that way. Because if you have a fist holding up ah, wind turbine that's a new kind of power. It really is. It really is. And so you know, I come to this work having observed energy transitions in Mexico's I spent Yes, you know, a decade almost of my academic career, looking at the impacts of large scale wind energy developments in Oaxaca, Mexico, and I also had a front row seat to Hawaii's energy transition from 2014 in 2017, and in each case, it was clear to me that the leaders the stakeholders, the decision makers who were engaged in that transition. We're basically seeing the transition is a technical one right one where we're simply switching out the fuels from fossil fuel based energy sources to clean energy sources, but they didn't see the deeper Structural transformation that is possible in this transition. And so yes, this is very much a call to communities to get engaged in the very, very, very technical policy elements of this transition. And how would they do that? How can these communities get engaged this way? Sure. Well, so I stand on the shoulders of so many activists who have been engaged in justice movements since the black power movement that you spoke about. But you know, we can really mark engagement and environmental issues to the late seventies and early eighties, where we had just seen this incredible decade of environmental legislation get passed in a bipartisan manner by Congress and you know, it was really a high water mark for the environmental movement. But in the late seventies and eighties, communities of color realized that those laws were not impacting their lives and beneficial ways. And they were still sort of being sought out for the sighting of, you know, waste the sighting of polluting facilities, and so the environmental justice movement really emerged. In the eighties as a counterbalance in some ways to the mainstream environmental movement. And from there, we also saw the climate justice movement really takes shape in the in the nineties in 2000, and now we have this thing called the energy justice. I would call it a movement that is very much about ensuring that this clean energy transition Doesn't leave them behind. And so there's already an infrastructure of activism and advocacy related to the environment and climate. And so folks need only plug into those networks to get engaged in this new movement. And what would be the metrics that you would use to judge whether this new movement is getting the results that you talk about? And this is where it gets really exciting. IRA. So we're transforming every aspect of our energy economy were transforming the transportation sector were transforming the energy system, which is to say the electricity system. We're in need of again that deep, deep transition that deep Dick organization work away from fossil fuels to clean energy. And what I would use as sort of a measuring stick or a couple things one. Our communities meaningfully engaged in this transition process. So you know the rubber hits the road and not to get too wonky on you. But the rubber hits the road on energy policy in regulatory proceedings around the country, So our communities really engaged in those regulatory proceedings. Are they getting support technical assistance to participate? In those hypertechnical proceedings that are really the place where the benefits and burdens are ultimately distributed. So we're talking about the sighting, which is to say the locating of energy facilities. Are they engaged there? The second piece of that is the distributor justice, peace so hard communities actually getting the benefits the economic benefits that inevitably will flow from this transition. And so that means communities of color, which so far have been left out of the solar transition have increased penetration of solar in their communities. There are other mechanisms such as community solar, where renters and condominium dwellers can engage in this transition by Signing into a project are coming together as a community to create their own energy projects. So those are the things that I'll be looking at. I'll also be looking at the end of the day. How much people are paying for electricity and energy. Are Bill still extraordinary right now? We know That low income communities and communities of color are more likely to pay a disproportionate amount of their overall income simply to meet energy needs, which some have seen as a human, right. And so in this country, we've got to reckon with all of those aspects of our energy system. Let's talk about that energy system. Is there an actual formal plan and legislation to bring about the kinds of jobs and the kinds of industry changed that you're talking about? Also the nominee for the Secretary of energy at Governor Granholm. Jennifer Granholm is currently making her way through the process, and we're all anxiously waiting. And to see what her priorities will be is she hopefully takes that role in the coming weeks. Right now. There are a few different bills. I think that are on the table in Congress, but there is no actual legislation that has been passed. That is specific. To this particular energy transition, So we're sort of in this this'll all you know, we're waiting to see kind of again what the executive branch comes out with. And I as an employee and really waiting for that. And we're also I think gonna let Congress kind of work. It's process out. But I would be remiss without mentioning this sort of groundbreaking executive order that the White House did issue last week was on climate Day, which very much spoke to issues of equity and justice..
KPCC
"ira flatow" Discussed on KPCC
"I'm Ira Flatow. About later in the hour will tackle your questions about covert vaccines. But first President Biden campaigned on re entering the Paris climate agreement. His first day in the White House. He made good on that promise, and the new president has also taken additional steps focused on reducing carbon emissions and adapting to the changing climate. Joining me now to talk about that, and other science news of the week is Sophie Bushwick, Technology editor at Scientific American. Always good to have you, Sophie. Thanks, IRA. All right. Let's get into this. Let's talk about some of the climate items the Biden administration brought up this week. So So far, President Biden has been using executive orders and memoranda telling the federal agencies what to do to get started on his goal of eventually having zero emissions. Electricity in the U. S by 2035. So that's a pretty aggressive goal. He's almost certainly going to need to work with Congress in order to actually meet that goal. But in the meantime, he's getting started on things like eliminating fossil fuel subsidies, stopping new oil and gas leases on public lands, starting to have federal Agency study how climate change is affecting up Global conflict and disadvantaged communities, and generally sort of changing the emissions reductions targets for the U. S. These specific hard policy actions, or is this more just signaling some of this is signaling. So, For example, one of these orders is about having federal agencies when they purchased no vehicles. Have those vehicles be zero emissions vehicles made in the U. S when they when they set up their electricity have them try to buy clean electricity. But he sort of told them to do that, but not giving them a ton of specifics, So some of that is going to be up to the individuals within the Biden administration got it. Let's move on to a climate news OBIT because there's news that the planet just keeps on melting it incredible rate. Yes, A new study looked at the total loss of ice all over the Earth since the nineties, and they found that we've lost 28 trillion tons of ice from the mid nineties. Up until about 2017. And the majority of this loss is driven by climate change. That's right so back and they looked at this. The number in the nineties, they say, was about 800 billion tons of ice per year being lost and buy today that number has gone up to 1.2 trillion tons of ice per year. You know that's a number that's almost difficult to get your head around, would let the size of an ice cube would look like with that much ice. It's really, really hard to imagine so, for example, I've tried comparing it, You know, I was looking up comparisons like how How many blue whales would this be, But it's a number again. That's so high that it's still hard to picture. It's just incredible loss. Yeah, and we're not just talking about Where most of the rate of climate change is happening at the polls. This is a worldwide figure. That's right. So, the researchers added up the ice loss for the ice sheets over Greenland and Antarctica. They looked at the sea ice in the Arctic and Antarctic at the polls, and they also looked at mountain glaciers all over the world. And they added up all those ice loss is to reach the 28 trillion ton number. And mortuary fall environmental news. If there is some some kinds of environmental damage might be fixable. That's always good to hear. What what do you mean by that? So at the border between the U. S and Mexico, especially the end of the Trump administration, there was a rush to build a border wall. But a lot of this was happening in areas that were impossible for humans, but that was a good Habitat for wildlife and in those cases, the wall, which also includes more than 100, FT, of cleared vegetation and a road on either side that has blocked the ability of animals to migrate In some places. The wall has blocked the flow of rivers or of water, which has contributed to erosion and it's just caused a lot of ecological damage, so President Biden has ordered a halt on wall construction. And conservationists are asking him to take down specific parts of the wall in the places where it is most damaging, and they think then that the damage can be restored or reversed. Yes, for some animals, For example, ocelots which might create on foot and their migration has been sort of cut off by the existence of this wall. The conservation is think if they take down the wall that this population Will be okay that their ability to move will be restored. But I mean, there's other animals that have been living in areas where there's been wall construction or barrier construction on and off for years, and it might be more difficult for them to recover. Yes. So even just stopping. The construction is a positive foot for the environment there. Yes, The construction is really disruptive. It involves, you know, digging a trench. It involves having a lot of noise and light that's just very disruptive to the local flora and fauna. Let's move on to vaccine news this week. There's some news from several vaccine teams go through that with us. Sure. So first of all, Merc was developing two different vaccine candidates, and they've dropped both of them. They released a statement that said that the ability to um Boost the immune response. It wasn't they called it inferior in comparison to the amount of immune boost you get from either having survived a case of covert 19 and having that protection or from getting a vaccine from Fizer or from Madonna, so they're no longer going to be developing the vaccine candidates, although they are continuing to develop treatments. On the other hand, we've got news from Johnson and Johnson that there Corona virus vaccine is about 66% effective against the virus, but it's 85% effective against severe disease. So if you have that vaccine even if you get sick, you're much less likely to get the very severe case that would require hospitalization, for example. And that's important because that as you say, if if you don't go to the hospital if this prevents people from going to the hospital that takes the burden off the people in the hospital, they could work on people who are really in worst case than you are. Exactly one other announcement took. That's that's interesting, which is coming from Novavax. So Novavax is also working on a vaccine and it works very well. Their efficacy rate was almost 90%, but it's not as good on the variant that has come out of South Africa. So in that case, it's still work somewhat, but the rate is only at 50. It's actually under 50% instead of as high as you would want it to be. We'll be talking more about vaccine efficacy and answering our listener questions later in the hour. Let's move off the planet for a while. There's some space news this week. Tell us about it. So, um, Axiom Space, which is a private space company has announced the first entirely private mission to the space station. So in the past space tourists have hitched a ride on, for example, the Russian Soyuz flights up to the space station, But this is the first case where you've got a private spacecraft. They're going to be flying in a space X crew dragon. And you've got a private crew going up into space. And of course, I heard that the price was astronomical to get on that axiom flight as a space traveler. That's right. You have to pony up $55 million to join this voyage. Wow. Okay, That's that's first class, right? The I'm sure the tourists. Well, there isn't gonna be a tourist class. I mean, I don't know if you can expect to be served, You know cocktails on the flight up, but it's definitely a price tag. That's kind of eye watering. I'm thinking of 2001 Space Odyssey, where they have their serving drinks and flight..
KQED Radio
"ira flatow" Discussed on KQED Radio
"Dot com Science Friday will continue until nine o'clock tonight and then stay with us for the Friday news round up on NPR's one, eh? And at 10 O'clock on forum with Michael Krasny. We will listen back to this morning show about the rollout of the covert vaccines as California pushes to accelerate immunizations. That's the Forum re broadcast tonight at 10 O'clock here on KQED FM, 88.5, San Francisco and Qet QE II F M 89.3 North Highland Sacramento. It's 8 40. This'll is science Friday. I'm Ira Flatow. Back in the early 19 seventies, when the environmental movement was just beginning. A very prominent ad caught the eye of TV viewers. A Chode litter being tossed carelessly onto the roadside crashing at the foot of a native American who was weeping at the site. The punchline of the ad People started pollution, People can stop it. It was intended to distract you from casting your gaze at industrial polluters missing where pictures of rivers so clogged with industrial wastes, they actually caught fire. Air so thick with smoke and soot. Headlights were turned on during the day. Michael Man devotes a chapter in his book. The New Climate War to the Parallels between this Madison Avenue figure, the Crying American Indian and what the fossil fuel industry is doing today, distracting us from holding driver's of climate change from accountability. The Fassel fuel industry. But man writes there's room for hopeful optimism. President elect Biden campaigned aggressively on climate issues so What can President Biden do? It is 1st 100 days to show us he's serious about enacting climate policy. Michael Mann is here with some advice. He is professor of atmospheric science director of the Penn State Earth Systems Science Center at Penn State University, author of the New Climate War. The Fight to Take back our Planet. Welcome to science Friday. Thanks so much Ira, Always a pleasure to talk with you. You know, it's interesting. It seems that that crying Indian is gone. But 51 years later. The message is still the same. You dedicate a whole chapter in your book, as I say to the image of the crying Indian. What does that image have to do with the fossil fuel industry today? Yes, it's a classic example of a deflection campaign. It's the defining example perhaps of a deflection campaign, which is aimed at distracting Us and deflecting attention from the needed systemic changes policy changes to individual behavior as if individual behavior us being better people is you know how we solve these problems, and you know it was extremely effective. And so the fossil fuel industry has sort of Taken that same playbook and run with it in their effort to deflect attention from the need for carbon pricing and incentives, renewable energy and leveling the playing field in the energy industry so renewables can compete fairly. They don't want any of that. So they'd rather make it about individual behavior, our diet, Whether we fly and hey, if they can get us, pointing fingers at each other and behavior shaming each other. It's a twofer because then they divide and conquer the climate advocacy community on we no longer speak with a unified voice demanding change. So if the Biden administration came to you, and I don't know if they have or not, and said, Michael, we need your help. Tell us what we can do in our first year in office. That would be the fastest what would be the most effective for combating climate change? What advice would you give them? Yeah, I would, You know, say in part, continue doing what you guys were doing. I think they've got enough to a great start on climate. The first and most important thing was to communicate to the world community that we're serious about this that the U. S. Is willing to, um to not only support global efforts, the Paris agreement and going beyond the Paris agreement, but once again be a leader on this issue as we were under President Barack Obama. And has signaled that to the world community by, for example, appointing John Kerry as the special envoy on climate so called climates are John Kerry have negotiate the Paris summit. The bilateral agreement between the U. S and China. He has a real different diplomatic bona fii days in the world community. But he also helped Shepherd one climate bill about 10 years ago. It didn't ultimately passed Congress, but he's advanced legislation as well. So we've got very serious, you know, actor in place to help convince the world that we're back and we're willing to do our part, and we're willing to lead and meanwhile, Biden has also integrated climate policy into every Single cabinet in every single appointment that he's made, which is sort of a revolutionary idea. In the past, climate action has sort of been confined within the executive branch to the EPA. Maybe the Department of Energy, but here it's really spread out across all of the Various cabinets and agencies, and it's a recognition that this is now a problem that permeates every sector of modern life and to solve it. We need to advance policy measures. In every sector. We'll give me an idea of what advancing policy. What kind of legislation? How do we hold the fossil fuel industry responsible? And what do we do to get past that? Yeah, exactly. And you know that's sort of the carrot, but we need to stick to we need To disincentivize polluters carbon polluters on their various ways to do that, when could certainly do that, by no longer providing subsidies for additional fossil fuel infrastructure, and Biden is indicated. That he won't do that won't promote the building of new pipelines, like the Keystone XL pipeline that was green lighted again under Trump. But, you know, we also need a price on carbon polluters have to pay for the fact that they're doing damage to the planet and we need to level the playing field in the energy market. Place of renewable energy control. Eat. Compete fairly against fossil fuel energy. And so I think that their ways to do carbon pricing such that it is progressive, in fact, and that's the way it's been implemented in places like Canada and Australia, where On lower income individuals and families who actually benefited so it Zen Shal that we make sure that any of these mechanisms are done in a way that's just and that doesn't put undue burden on those who have the least resources and that the least responsibility creating the problem, and I hope that there might be room now, for some sort of bipartisan compromise. Climate legislation Look We probably won't get a green new deal and expands of new climate green new deal through a 50 50 Senate, But I think we can get some meaningful legislation accomplished in the next two years. Speaking of degree new deal, Do you think progressives They're going to be against things that fall short of the terrific expansion of the economy and and the kind of things they want to see happen in the green New deal. So I am a little worried about the perfect becoming the enemy of the good here within sort of some enclaves in.
KQED Radio
"ira flatow" Discussed on KQED Radio
"Experiments. We saw nerves regrow when they were injured. We saw that glaucoma. Which is I think many people know his pressure induced damage to the retina. On just old age, We took those three systems in mice. And our three gene. Combination actually improved the function of the eye. In all three cases. In the case of glaucoma and old age, we looked at vision. And it was improved on the case of the old mice. It was actually restored to young mice. I came home after getting that result with the lab in and said We wake your blindness, a twist in mice, and I think my wife told me to go empty the dishwasher, but It was a really interesting fight. But to your question, we think that we can We want to try to attempt to reverse blindness or vision loss in people and we're going to start with patients who have glaucoma. And when would that start? Well, there's AH local company here in Boston Life Biosciences that's working towards that. It's probably a couple of years at least before we start to Put the gene therapy as it is right now into patients, but we're working as hard as we can to safely make that possible. You know, people are going to hear this interview and they're gonna want to get In on this treatment, or perhaps even the tests themselves. Is there any way to do that? No, not not yet. It Z Not at the stage where I would say we know enough about it. It is a very powerful Potential medicine. That's doing things that we thought were impossible just a few years ago, But it will not the point where we can treat anybody you know, this is for most Medicines, but particularly when it comes to gene therapy. This is Truly rewinding the clock and we don't know some fundamental things such as. How long does the effect last? How many times can you repeat the process? So we've engineered our gene therapy to be induced herbal. What That means is we can give a mouse and hopefully patient on antibiotic that turns the jeans on for, say, three weeks. And then you turn it off. And then perhaps you could turn it on a few years later, if you needed to with your doctor's permission. That's where we're heading. But no, Please don't contact me asking for any treatments just yet. Well, this sounds amazing doctors and clear We wish you all the best of luck here. Thanks Ira really appreciate the chance to be on. David Sinclair is a professor in the Department of Genetics and co director of the Paul in Brooklyn Center. The biology of aging at Harvard Med School. That's about all the time we have for this hour. Charles Burnquist is our director. Our producers are Alexa Limb. Kristie Taylor, Katie Feather, Kathleen Davis. BJ Liederman composed our theme music. Of course, If you missed any part of this program, or you would like to share it with other folks, you can ask them to play science Friday. We'll play it right there on your smart speaker. And on the science Friday box Popat What questions do you have about the cove in 19 vaccines? How they work? How they're being distributed. Tell us your questions about Corona virus vaccines. I'm going to be doing a whole special hour on this. So please download our science Friday Box pop up and tell us what questions do you have about the covert 19 vaccines, And you could do that? Wherever you get your perhaps. Have a great weekend. We'll see you next week. I'm Ira Flatow.
KPCC
"ira flatow" Discussed on KPCC
"Air back in the area, I know our American red start from a murder warbler or something like that, Jeff. Well, yes, I work for autobahn. But Autobahn has a free burning app, which has an amazing variety of bird vocalizations in with the species. So that's one really easy place to go. And you can do that through the autobahn website as well. In addition to the laboratory of Ornithology is website, which is absolutely wonderful if you're really interested in All the different kinds of vocalizations that a given bird can make. There's a website called Xeno Canto. It's xcn. Oh hyphen C a N. T o, And it's probably the largest library of bird sounds that I know that's another good resource. If you You know, you think you're hurt Iran or a cardinal? Um, you know, to go and listen to all the different kinds of noises that they can make Just a reminder. I'm Ira Flatow and this is science Friday. Talking to Bird nerd's Jeff LeBaron, Dudley Edmondson, Joanna Woo about winter birding and what community science can tell us about how birds are doing in a changing world. You and I want to talk about the downside because I know you're specifically researching how climate change may be affecting how bird ranges change. Can you fill us in on a bit about what you're learning? Yeah, A lot of my workout upon has been looking at climate projections and we're saying hey, like we know from the big three billion birds paper that was published earlier that birds are declining. Looking forward looking. We predict about where birds might be in the future, So some of our work has been relating where birds are currently and we use a ton of community signs called the data for that purpose. And then we take variables such as precipitation, minimum and maximum temperature. We even looked at land use change projections, and we made predictions about where these birds might range of the future. So, for example, the dark eyed Junco is projected to move northward if it is to track its current climate conditions. The California coil our state bird is also protected to move northward and largely out of California. Unfortunately, though, a lot of birds will have to adapt to new conditions and if they can adapt, they may be a little stay in place and kind of go against some of our predictions. But thanks has found that birds doing mixed of things, some of them do. Traveler Climatic nish. And some are able to exploit new dishes and kind of stay in place, particularly their urban adapted species of the general list. So That's the kind of work we've been looking at. You know, we've been hearing that the Arctic regions are the fast this changing regions in the world are their Arctic birds that are being affected by this Yeah. Unfortunately, the Arctic species are the ones we found to be the hardest hit by climate change all 100% of our 16 arctic species that we modeled. Are expected to have high vulnerability to future climate change, for example, that Emperor Boobs which has nowhere to go, you can't move northward is projected to lose all of its range unless it can adapt very fast which Roberds can do. Many birds can't So, yeah, the Arctic in the boreal zones are are definitely areas to watch for and try to conserve as much as we can Dudley as a season birdwatcher. Can you tell? Anecdotally you know how the birds are changing in your region over time. No doubt. I mean, I've been keeping records data, my own little citizen science thing going on here my property for 30 years and I can tell you Didn't have cardinals in my yard any time of the year. 25 years ago. I have cardinals in my yard and they're all winter now and I'm 180 miles south of the Canadian border. It just doesn't make sense to me. I've got red belly woodpeckers all the winner. None of that makes sense. What I should have is evening and pine grow, speaks common Read polls, Juncos. Things like that. And those birds are few and far between. When winter really sets in, and so I used to have hordes of red polls. I mean, hundreds of common read. Polls have come to my feeders, and they don't anymore. It's very sad. We have to take a short break, and when we come back more on both the joys and usefulness of bird watching and your questions. Myra Plato. This is science Friday.
KQED Radio
"ira flatow" Discussed on KQED Radio
"They might be Giants. The new album Here comes science. John Flansburgh and John Linnell here in the studio with us said, Rocking Away and also on on the drums. Marty Bella back there. Not saying very much is now part of any other folks who play with it. And people in the bank. Yeah, yeah, way. Actually, we're just about to go out on tour. We're doing this, Um, family shows as well as ah Flood show where we're playing our 1990 breakthrough album Flood in sequence. Um, that's kind of a once in a lifetime deal for us, and then we're doing this whole new show for adults. But joining us onstage is this fellow then Ralph Kearney, who's famous. Among musicians for being the guy who plays on all the Tom Waits, sort of the classic Tom Waits, middle period circus music albums. He's a multi instrumentalist. You placed a lot different kinds of horns, and he's going to be joining us and it Z. I'll be very interesting working with somebody who's got such a clear voice as a as a musician. It's It's very like being like the rest of us. Yeah, we're just We're just hacking along, but we also have a dent. Dan Miller plays guitar and anyone caught plays bass. So it's it'll be a six piece where you gonna be. Where can people see you everywhere where they lost and got a schedule? Little I could tell you next time I would say good good. Our website. Maybe Johnson. Go to Facebook. Facebook has got all that information. We're we've got all these and also they're all these videos. If you want to see videos of these songs with the entire album here comes sciences been made into a DVD on there. So they're all these animated videos accompanying The music and there, really some of them are really quite remarkable. We might see you in an MTV video. I don't think MTV is planned video say more, but but if if they were, they certainly know. I mean, it's It's shocking to everywhere, especially especially musicians. I have two daughters and I went down that that lifestyle music is more of a lifestyle expression these days, But I don't think I don't know if they really warm up to science, The hutch I'm Ira Flatow and this is science Friday from W. N. Y C studios. Well, the radio guys, I'm Ira Plato. If you've ever been on the radio before the no nonsense fighting. This is a big deal. Wow. I'm very flattering, You know, because because we all wish we could do something else. I wish I could play a musical instrument. Yeah. I mean, I think you just like I was just hoping that we'd be on science. Right? One of us got. I wish you all right on. Is there a topic you'd like to take on that? You haven't done yet. A subject, man. We're thinking we were tossing out ideas for the next, uh, Disney produced Giants record instructional music for young people were thinking Maybe there goes your civil rights could be the next one. I was was one idea. I think plans plans. Birkhead. Yeah way Have we have come to sindical ist? We could do like a history like sort of. Ah, People's History of America. Val's history of America. Well, we've got about 2.5 minutes left. We got a quick song. You could sing. You could think. Oh, sure. What should we do? We could do you wanna hear a non science so I'm sure whatever. We only had a couple of minutes, but I don't have anything in it. We'll play us out to the end of the show. And why don't we do a song that's factually incorrect..
KQED Radio
"ira flatow" Discussed on KQED Radio
"Is science Friday. I'm Ira Flatow were dipping into the site Fry archives this hour for the new year. And now a piece that dates back to march of 2020. It turns out that was only nine months ago, right? Doesn't it feel longer? And unbeknownst to us, it was a good time to unveil a resource to help people travel the natural world via computer way. No, you can't pass up a good charismatic creatures story. But how good are you at identifying the sound of your favorite animal To test your knowledge? We put together an interactive animal sound quiz that you can play. It's up on our website at science Friday dot com slash animal quiz SciFi Digital producer Daniel Pity Schmidt and Quiz Creator is here and talk about our Google Earth Animal sound quiz. He's going to test my recall skills. Sorry, he's joining us by Skype. Hi, Daniel. Hey, I heard how's it going? Okay, let's let's let's talk about why animal says How did you come up with this idea? Yes. So the idea came from our events. Producer Dina Montana Kameda version of this far last psych right? Trivia night. Which you you co hosted. You were there. Yeah, it was Graham. Yeah. Esso animals have an incredible diversity and how they look, but they also have an incredible diversity. How they sound and how they look might not match up with their calls. So we made a quiz to see if you can match that animal sound with an animal and you built. This is part of Google Earth's voyage of platform. Can you describe how you built it? And what's the quiz Life? Yeah. So Voyager's this editorial platform and Google Earth and they work with different publishers to make these cool science see interactive stories using their three D imagery in street view, and we have another cool project we did with them where we made a tour of NASA's launch pads at Cape Canaveral. But with this animal sounds quiz, we We we picked animals from all over the world. So you'll be hopping around the globe a lot in this and it takes you when you when you guess it correctly or incorrectly takes you to their habitat. We tried to find these animals and street views. So I was just like Googling bald Eagle and street meal. And I only found a few of the bald eagle that we ended up going with was from a zoo in Germany. I found out Hey, you know, but it was kind of off in the distance, but it is there. Stuff like the Katie did, Which is this small green insect was basically it's kind of hard to find those things. They're so small, but we did our best. All right. I am ready for the short version. Let's play a little short version of the quiz right now. Go for it, okay. Yes. So this first animals sounds like a synthesizer or a game, boy. It does not sound organic at all. Um, I know I'm joining by Skype, but I promised this isn't those like Blue be sounds of plays when you're coming in someone s so I'll play it and give you a multiple choice. Guest after a place. All right, Let's play clip number one..