Carry the One Radio: The Science Podcast: Recent Episodes
Carry the One Radio
Carry the One is a small team of young scientists at UCSF who are passionate about bringing science stories straight to the public's ear in an entertaining, digestible way. Tune in for stories ranging from current research to science history, from medical science to the natural and social sciences.
Visit us at carrytheoneradio.com
Twitter: @CTORadio
Instagram: @carrytheoneradio
To support the show: www.patreon.com/carrytheone
A geneticist makes a DNA-shaped lollipop. Then helix (he licks) it. The iconic structure of DNA was first discovered by Rosaland Franklin using X-ray crystallography. Dr. Arun Richard Chandrasekaran, a researcher at the RNA institute in Albany, takes it a step further and folds these DNA molecules into complex structures using a technique called DNA origami. His DNA contraptions come in all shapes and sizes, and they can do a lot more than just make proteins and pass down genes.
Tune in to learn more about what these in-gene-ious (ingenious) DNA contraptions can do!
This episode is produced by Isaac Chang. Background music is from Blue dot sessions. Episode art is by Ben Mansky. You can follow Arun on Twitter @arunrichardc
Eva Danielson has loved science since she was a kid, and now she is instilling a passion for science in the next generation of young learners. In this Young Scientist Spotlight, we sit down with this graduate student and children’s book author(not to mention former pastry chef!) to talk about her tuberculosis research and her path from business major to nanny to scientist. Learn how vaccines annotate genes in immune cells and how two rambunctious girls and a new puppy inspired one of Eva’s books.
You can find Eva on Twitter @EvaKDanielson or on her website thenerdynanny.com. This episode was produced by Maggie Colton. Music used in this episode is by pod.co and Maggie Colton.
Australia’s battle against the invasion of cane toads goes all the way back to 1935 when they were initially introduced to fight cane beetle infestation. In a few decades’ time, cane toads have become a big bully and taken over the top spot in the local ecosystem.
In this episode, Dr. Roshmi Sarma, an ecologist from UNSW, shares her research on these invasive cane toads. She talks about how these cane toads are able to use a neat little trick to speed up their course of evolution and how the native reptilian and snake populations also developed their own strategies to fight against cane toads. Tune in to learn more about Roshmi’s “ribbeting” research on cane toads!
What happens when offshore oil and gas structures stop operating? PhD candidate Amy MacIntosh tells us about the impacts and risks of operating and closing these structures to marine life, the environment, and to humans, and teaches us why radioactivity isn’t as scary as you think it is.
What happens when you bring together a marine mammal veterinarian and a stem cell researcher? You save a life! More specifically, Cronutt’s - a sea lion diagnosed with epilepsy, but who just happened to be at the right place at the right time.
Epilepsy is a chronic brain disorder characterized by excessive and abnormal seizures, and while there are existing medications that can help manage these seizures, there is no cure to this day…but perhaps there’s hope thanks to a novel cell-based therapy?
To learn more about this promising therapy, we spoke with Drs. Claire Simeone (a marine mammal veterinarian) and Scott Baraban (a stem cell researcher), and how their teams worked together to stop Cronutt’s seizures. Listen and learn!
This episode was written and produced by Rebecca Fang, Deanna Necula, and Devika Nair. The music used in this episode is from www.freemusicarchive.org, and the cover art is by Deanna. For more information, please visit www.carrytheoneradio.com.
You might know that it takes a very, very, very long time to develop new drugs, but it seems like there are new treatments for COVID-19 all the time…how is that possible? It’s all thanks to the exciting field of drug repurposing! What is that, you ask? Well, it might sound self-explanatory, but, like most things in life, there’s more to it. Listen to our latest episode and learn from the experts, Dr Marina Sirota (@SirotaLab) and Dr Brian Shoicet (@BShoicet)!
This episode was written and produced by Maggie Colton and Cindy Liu. Music in this episode was produced by Maggie Colton. Episode art by Cindy Liu, with vector art from vecteezy.com. You can learn more about Marina’s and Brian’s research below here: Sirota lab and Shoicet lab.
Fossils of ancient viruses are living inside us, and they may reveal important clues about how we became who we are today. In this Young Scientist Spotlight, PhD candidate Emma Harding tells us about her research studying viral fossils in marsupials, and why she suspects these chunks of ancient DNA are sticking around for a reason. She also talks about what it’s like working in a brand-new field, and why Australia is an awesome place to study weird genomes. We can’t wait for you to meet this rising microbiology star!
This episode was produced by Celia Ford. Music used in this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions on Free Music Archive. To learn more about Emma’s work, follow her on Twitter @emma__harding and check out her website, https://emmavirologist.wixsite.com/my-site.
We, like many animals, live in groups. We need these groups to survive -- but why? What are the benefits of group living? What do we gain from each other? What quirks of evolution drove us to band together, form collectives, and solve problems together?
In this episode, we’re joined by collective behavior researchers Iain Couzin and Naomi Leonard, who study networks, teamwork, and interactions between groups of everything from fish to robots to humans on social media. They discuss how we can get the most out of each other, what we can learn from creatures across all scales of life, and the beauty of our interconnected world.
You can read more about our guests’ research on their lab websites. Iain Couzin work is on https://collectivebehaviour.com/research/ (and on Twitter @icouzin) and Naomi Leonard is https://naomi.princeton.edu/.
This episode was written and produced by Celia Ford and Deanna Necula. Music from this episode was produced by Blue Dot Sessions. Episode art by Celia Ford, with vector art from The Noun Project. A full transcript of the episode is available in the show notes at carrytheoneradio.com.
When you think about the future of medicine, do you picture cure-all pills? Instant diagnostics from a drop of blood? What about going back to the basics with plant-based treatments with a side of spiritual healing?
In this episode, we sat down with scientist and social entrepreneur Dr. Victoria Hale, co-founder of an ayahuasca tea company called Sacred Medicines. Listen to our conversation about how psychedelics are making a comeback (especially in the mental health space), what it takes to get FDA approval for new treatments, and the ethical and cultural debate surrounding the increased Western attention on traditional ayahuasca tea ceremonies.
Check out the episode page at carrytheoneradio.com for links to Sacred Medicines and more reading!
This episode was produced by Stella Belonwu, Cindy Liu, and Seesha Takagishi. Episode art by Stella Belonwu and Seesha Takagishi. All music by Blue Dot Sessions.
What do cancer cells and t-shirts have in common? You might be surprised! In this Young Scientist Spotlight, Dr Danielle Twum explains how she uses her communication skills and expertise to help doctors and researchers improve the way they treat cancer. In addition to working in industry, Dr Twum also works with AAAS IF/THEN to teach young students about being a scientist.
We talk about her transition from studying corals to cancer, how the hungriest cells in our body can be a tumor’s best friend and the importance of telling a story with your science. By the end, you may never look at a shirt tag the same way again!
This episode was produced by Maggie Colton with help from the team at CTOR. Music by Valentin Sosnitskiy. You can follow Dr Twum @forgedonyx on Twitter and Instagram.
The earth can’t wait, and it’s imperative that we are climate aware and are moved to action to maintain it. In this episode covering sustainability and climate change, we talk to Dr. Sheri Weiser, a physician-scientist at UCSF with a long history of researching food insecurity and climate justice. Dr. Weiser has been a Principal Investigator on over 25 research grants and has published over 165 manuscripts in this area.
In our conversation with Dr. Weiser, we learn about how her work exposed her to the harsh climate realities faced by the food insecure on a daily basis. Additionally, Dr. Weiser shares her path to sustainability activism and some initiatives she has led in the UC system to tackle climate change with a key focus on environmental justice and equity. These include, but are not limited to, integrating sustainability across the UC curriculum, directing the Global Food Initiative at UCSF, co-leading the launch of UCSF’s EaRTH Center this Earth Day (April 22nd), and creating a myriad of opportunities for student involvement.
To learn more about the Global Food Initiative, the UCSF Climate Change and Mental Health Task Force, the UCSF EaRTH Center, and the UCSF Human Health and Climate Change student group, see the links below!
Global Food Initiative: https://www.ucop.edu/global-food-initiative/
Climate Change and Mental Health Task Force: https://psychiatry.ucsf.edu/climatechange
EaRTH Center: https://earth.ucsf.edu/
Human Health and Climate Change Student Group: https://ucsf.campusgroups.com/club_signup?group_type=27712&category_tags=
For free tickets to the Center for Climate Justice launch event, https://www.eventbrite.com/e/uc-center-for-climate-justice-launch-event-tickets-148653952975?aff=erelexpmlt
This episode was written and produced by Rachel Rock and Stella Belonwu with editing help from the rest of the CTOR team. Music used in this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions and Niklas Schreiber.
Before this episode, if someone asked me what could be done to improve maternal and newborn health outcomes, one of the last things on my mind would have been “kindness” because that part should be obvious, right? Wrong. In this episode, we speak with Dr. Afulani and Dr.Walker, two faculty members in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and affiliates with the Institute of Global Health Sciences at UCSF. They share information about the disparities in women’s health and the importance of patient-centered care across the globe, particularly in these pandemic times, where navigating patient interactions with physicians can be varied and complex.
Contact tracing is a term that almost all of us are familiar with, but what exactly does it entail? As part of a collaboration with the Institute of Global Health Sciences (IGHS) at UCSF, we spoke to three contact tracing experts in San Francisco.
From our conversations with librarian and manager at the Excelsior Branch Public Library Ramses Escobado, deputy director of the Center for Global Health Delivery, Diplomacy and Economics Jess Celentano, and Infectious disease doctor Mike Reid, we discuss contact tracing from epidemiological and health equity lens.
We discuss their newly found roles in the sector of contact tracing, how contact tracing goes beyond facilitating infected parties to quarantine, the barriers to contact tracing, how to measure the success of contact tracing efforts, what characteristics make a good contact tracer, and how we envision a future post COVID-19.
This interview was conducted via zoom in September 2020. If you’d like to learn more about current contact tracing efforts and the resources that are available for people impacted by the pandemic, be sure to check out the following links:
https://oewd.org/employees-impacted-covid-19#Paid%20Sick%20Leave
https://globalhealthsciences.ucsf.edu/
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/php/principles-contact-tracing.html
https://globalhealthsciences.ucsf.edu/covid-19/contact-tracing
This episode was written and produced by Stella Belonwu, Maggie Colton, and Ben Mansky. Music from this episode was produced by Blue Dot Sessions and 4barrelcarb
Let’s be real -- life can be stressful. For those facing early life stress, the consequences can even affect their very biology. Fortunately, Rebekah Rashford is a young Ph.D. candidate at Princeton University who is uncovering just how these stressors affect people.
In this Young Scientist Spotlight (our 16th!), Rebekah Rashford shares how she began her journey in science, her sources of inspiration, and how she balances her hobbies with her academic pursuits. You’ll discover that her joy for scientific discoveries is exceptionally infectious!
This episode was produced by Kanchi Mehta. Music used in this episode is Town Market by the Blue Dot Sessions. This interview was completed via Zoom in October 2020.
Roughly 4% of the world’s population is affected by a rare disease, and while we are learning every day how to better diagnose and treat these conditions, there is still much to uncover. Rare Disease Day, which lands on the last day of February every year, seeks to raise awareness and improve access to care for patients and families living with rare diseases. For both scientific and clinical perspectives, we speak with Dr. William Gahl from the NIH, as well as Linda Manwaring, a genetic counselor from Washington University in St. Louis. In addition, we hear directly from a young patient named Aiden and his caregiver, Shaun, about their experiences living with a rare disease.
This episode was written and produced by Iris Chin, Marilyn Steyert, and Devika Nair with editing help from the rest of the CTOR team. Music used in this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions.
For more information on Rare Disease Day, visit https://www.rarediseaseday.org/, and to learn more about the Undiagnosed Disease Network, visit https://undiagnosed.hms.harvard.edu/.
We don’t usually hear the words science and art together, but we’ve been misled -- science and art exist together on multiple planes, constantly informing each other in beautiful and unexpected ways.
This is the second episode in our two-part mini-series on science and art. Here, we’re joined by visual artists and science communicators Kelly Montgomery and Sophie Wang. They both discuss how they’ve used art to communicate big ideas, and how scientists can approach making knowledge more accessible.
We’d like to share some comic excerpts from JKX’s latest project "Gaining STEAM!". They are done by each of the co-founders. The excerpt titled "Squirrel Comic..." is by Jaye Gardiner. The design titled "Khoa" is by Khoa Tran. Lastly, the work titled "Kelly" is by Kelly. To see more of their work, check out jkxcomics.com, or @JKXcomics on Instagram or Twitter.
Sophie’s activist collective, Free Radicals, posts on freerads.org, and are on Instagram and Twitter @freeradsorg.
This episode was written and produced by Stella Belonwu, Celia Ford, and Devika Nair. Music from this episode was produced by Blue Dot Sessions. Episode art by Stella Belonwu.
Did you know you could scuba dive for science? Well, that’s exactly what Gaby Keeler-May does in the waters of New Zealand! In our latest Young Scientist Spotlight episode (#15!), learn about how Gaby’s scuba diving class in Santa Cruz, California, led her to investigating invasive seaweeds in New Zealand!
We discuss how she conducts each dive (safety first!) and what they do with the tons of seaweed they pull from the waters (spoiler alert: it may become your next meal!). Gaby also shares her experience applying to graduate school internationally and being a PhD student who has had over 5 years of work experience. By the end of this episode, you’ll want to be swimming with the seaweeds of New Zealand, too!
You feeling stressed? Well, take a break from work and listen to our latest Young Scientist Spotlight with Sero Parel. Sero is a Neuroscience graduate student at Princeton University, who is interested in studying stress and how stressful moments can change the course of our developing brain. For Sero, their research goes way beyond any old science experiment. Their work asks fundamental questions about what is actually happening to the brains of those whose lives are impacted by certain levels of stress. In this conversation you will get a glimpse into how an activist and a graduate student in neuroscience can be one and the same person.
This episode was produced by Hasan Alkhairo. To learn more about Sero, you can follow them on Twitter at @mx_sero.
We don’t usually hear the words science and art together, but we’ve been misled -- science and art exist together on multiple planes, constantly informing each other in beautiful and unexpected ways.
This is the first episode in our two-part mini-series on science and art. Here, we’re joined by choreographer-slash-educator Suba Subramaniam and computational-biologist-slash-generative-artist Dr. Alex Naka. They describe how they each blended science and art through their own career journeys, how the methodology of science can be used as an artistic tool, and how the creative process drives scientific curiosity.
To see more of Suba’s work, you can follow her South Asian dance organization on Instagram @akademidance and on Twitter @akademi. You can find photos and videos of Alex’s artwork (along with his thoughts on science) on Instagram @bb_bygones and on Twitter @gottapatchemall
This episode was written and produced by Stella Belonwu, Celia Ford, and Devika Nair. Music from this episode was produced by EminYILDIRIM, Orangefreesounds, ajaysm, Mvrasseli, florianreichelt, kjartan_abel, Humus3000, and Uzerx, and acquired from www.freesound.org. Episode art by Stella Belonwu, featuring original plotter art by Alex Naka.
New Year, new you, new …. ant? Dr. Balint Kacsoh, a postdoc at the University of Pennsylvania, discusses his work on the genetics of social interactions in ants in our latest Young Scientist Spotlight. Listening to this conversation, you’ll learn a ton of interesting ant facts, like how ants bites are used to staple together wounds in the jungle. You'll also learn some amazing ways that ant research can help us understand how loneliness affects disease progression. From 3D printed ant models to the intricacies of garbage disposal, Balint’s research and scientific outreach has something for everyone.
Stephanie Renee is a non-traditional undergraduate student. After working in non-scientific fields, she decided to go back to school a few years ago to pursue a bachelor's in neuroscience with the goal of becoming a clinical neuropsychologist. In this spotlight interview, she shares her experiences working in a metastatic breast cancer lab, her thoughts on science education and research training as an undergrad, as well as her love for weird medical history facts, which she talks about in her own podcast, "Charlatan"!
This episode was produced by Devika Nair with editing help from the rest of the CTOR team. Music used in this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions.
Follow Stephanie on Twitter @OsmosisReads and subscribe to her podcast "Charlatan" on Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/58Lc3MyOFSEgdxxx1olOU4
“All day strong, all day long”, “the painkiller hospitals use most”, “the extra strength pain reliever”. We see pain reducing drugs like Advil and Aleve advertised all the time. But how do these drugs actually work? Can they relieve all types of pain? What about prescription drugs? Why are opioids the best we have, and awful at the same time? How are new medicines evaluated? And is anyone trying to find a way to make all the pain go away?
This is the second episode in our two-part mini-series on pain. We’ll be joined again by the two esteemed experts that helped us learn about this invisible disease in the first episode: Dr. Allan Basbaum, Professor and Chair of the Department of Anatomy at UCSF, and Dr. Ishmail Abdus-Saboor, Assistant Professor of Biology at the University of Pennsylvania.
In this episode, they will describe the current types of treatments available for various pain conditions, and also highlight exciting new treatments for painful maladies that may be available soon. They explain how optimism from the placebo effect can act as a painkiller, and how this phenomenon complicates the development of new drugs. In addition, we’ll talk about some amazing experiments going on in their labs right now; our experts are trying to identify and understand parts of the pain system that have previously alluded researchers. They explain how their research results could inform development of more precise pain drugs, so you can get that all day long relief, without the nasty side effects.
This episode was written and produced by Nancy Cai, Cindy Liu, Ryan Morrie, and Marilyn Steyert. Music in this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions. Episode art by Ryan Morrie.
For this eleventh installment of “The Spotlight” we interviewed Oluwasegun Akiniyi, a bioengineering masters student at Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile Ife, Osun State, Nigeria. We talked about his education journey and current research endeavors using a robotic device to rehabilitate the hand of stroke patients. We discussed how his identity influences his research, and the intricacies of pursuing a research career in Nigeria. Additionally, we discussed his newfound love for traveling and gardening, and his future academic pursuits.
This episode was written and produced by Stella Belonwu.
Music from this episode was produced by Tictac9, Joe_anderson22, Josefpres, Uzerx, and Monkeyman535, and acquired from www.freesound.org.
A brain is very computationally efficient – you can look at a group of objects and your brain will instantly calculate the average features (size, orientation, etc). But how fast is this process – can it even be done with images that flash by so quickly you aren’t sure if you even saw them? To learn more, we interviewed Maria Servetnik, a Master’s student at the University of Leuven in Belgium who is currently testing this hypothesis. In our conversation, we also discussed the importance of mentorship, her journey from journalism to science, the challenges of communicating science to people who don’t trust the scientific process, and how to stay sane amidst the combined struggles of grad school and 2020.
This episode was produced by Katie Cabral.
Music featured in this episode: Perspiration, Color Country, and Yarrow and Root, all by Blue Dot Sessions.
What do bumblebees and octopuses have in common? They’re both invertebrates - or as Dr. Yan Wang says, “the shiny and squishy things.” And what makes them different? Well, beyond the obvious, octopuses are extremely anti-social, while bumblebees depend on their societies to survive. In this episode, you’ll hear about Dr. Wang’s research on bees and how they get their roles in bee society plus a little about octopus cannibals. In the second half of the episode, Dr. Wang shares her perspective on the complex ways race and white supremacy interact in the university setting and beyond.
This episode was produced by Ben Mansky, with help from the rest of the CTOR team.
Ever stepped on a Lego? Taken a fall during a sports match? Had an awful headache? Yeah, we have, too. Why are they all such awful experiences? Well, simply put, they all cause pain. But… what exactly is pain?
In the first episode of our two-part mini-series on pain, we will hear from experts in the field of pain research: Dr. Allan Basbaum, Professor and Chair of the Department of Anatomy at UCSF, as well as Dr. Ishmail Abdus-Saboor, Assistant Professor of Biology at the University of Pennsylvania.
They will help us to define pain, figure out what factors contribute to how we feel pain, and classify it in various ways. We will also hear personal stories from a friend who has been dealing with chronic pain for many years now. As we’ll learn, pain can really affect the way a person lives their life, and can be a disease in and of itself. Once we understand pain a little better, we can start to treat it! So, stay tuned for the second episode in the mini-series where we’ll learn what our experts are doing to further understand and combat pain.
This episode was written and produced by Nancy Cai, Cindy Liu, Ryan Morrie, and Marilyn Steyert. Music in this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions. Episode art by Ryan Morrie.
How do our brains control reproduction (and eating, and sleeping, and drinking, and everything)? How do you submit your dissertation, get a PhD, move across the country, and join a new lab in the midst of a global pandemic without totally losing it? In this Young Scientist Spotlight, we talked with Dr. Katherine Hatcher to find out!
This episode was produced by Celia Ford. Music used in this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions on Free Music Archive. Dr. Hatcher also produces her own podcast! Check out Endocrine Disruptors to hear interviews with the scientists behind all your favorite hormones: https://endocrinepod.com
Science doesn't happen in a vacuum, and racism both in science and society contributes to disparities in the health outcomes of Black Americans. In this episode of The Spotlight, we talked to Dr. Debora Kamin Mukaz about her work studying how social factors and biology converge to affect risk of developing cardiovascular disease. Hear about her journey into epidemiology, and what doing this research means to her.
For more info about the two examples of mistreatment of Black people by the scientific establishment referenced in this episode, visit carrytheoneradio.com/episodes/yss-7
Are you tossing and turning all night? Well, what’s the secret to a good night’s sleep, anyway? And what really is the answer to Billie Eilish’s album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?
In this episode, we talk to Dr. Ying-Hui Fu, a professor in the Department of Neurology at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Fu has been researching sleep for decades, and her book Sleep to Thrive is available now. Our conversation with her revealed why it’s important to prioritize sleep in our busy schedules and that there’s so much we can discover from people who can sleep fewer hours and still lead high-functioning, productive lives. She also let us in on the answer to whether dolphins really sleep with one hemisphere of their brain “awake.” Tune in to learn more!
This episode was written and produced by Katie Cabral, Kanchi Mehta, Cindy Liu, and Li Wang. Music in this episode is from the Blue Dot Sessions and Baby Relax Channel on YouTube. Cover art courtesy of Cindy Liu and Kanchi Mehta.
More Resources:
Transcript of episode here.
UC Berkeley researchers identified a unique EEG signature that occurs during REM sleep: Brain noise contains unique signature of dream sleep.
How do our brains know who’s boss? In this Young Scientist Spotlight, neuroscientist Dr. Nancy Padilla tells us how she studies social dominance in mice. In the process, she walks us through her journey from college in Puerto Rico to postdoctoral research in California, sharing lessons learned along the way. We can’t wait for you to meet this rising neuroscience star!
This episode was produced by Celia Ford. Music used in this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions on Free Music Archive. Episode art by Ben Mansky. A full transcript is available at tinyurl.com/nancy-padilla-ep.
Dr. Padilla also produces her own podcast! Check out Stories of Women in Neuroscience (www.storiesofwin.org) to hear more interviews with brilliant women doing outstanding science.
Image Description: An Erlenmeyer flask filled with red liquid sits in a pool of light in front of an orange background.
These days, homeopathy and some forms of alternative medicine fall soundly in the realm of pseudoscience. Not only that, but the wellness industry has capitalized on the popularity of these practices in predatory ways, selling promises of improved health with no evidence to back them up. In the United States, the marketing of these alternative ‘wellness’ products primarily targets women – evidenced by yoni eggs, vaginal steamers, and more. If we turn back the clock about 150 years, however, homeopathic medicine didn’t look so different from the techniques being practiced in the medical mainstream. There was one important distinction, though – homeopathic medical colleges were more welcoming to women. Join us as we trace the complicated relationship between feminism, healing, and alternative medicine from its origins to the present day.
This episode was written and produced by Deanna Necula and Ben Mansky. The poem was read by Stella Belonwu. Music and sound effects used in this episode include Old Ralley by Lobo Loco, I Feel Sad by Scanglobe, and Discovery Harbor by Blue Dot Sessions on Free Music Archive and Chopping Vegetables from ancorapazzo on Freesound. For more information on sources referenced in this episode, visit carrytheoneradio.com/episodes/homeopathy.
If you live in an earthquake-prone area, there's probably one question on your mind a lot of the time: when is the next big one going to hit?
In this episode, we talk earthquake prediction with Dr. Barbara Romanowicz, a geophysicist at UC Berkeley and the former director of the Berkeley Seismology Lab. And while earthquake prediction is definitely important, our conversation revealed to us that there's so much more we can learn from earthquakes. Earthquakes (and their sister natural phenomena volcanoes) can teach us about the history of the geography that surrounds us and the make-up of the Earth beneath our feet. And just like any good science, earthquakes can reveal even deeper questions than we knew to ask before.
Strap in and join us for a wild ride through the center of the Earth, with stopovers in California, Japan, and on the newest Hawaiian volcano.
This episode was written and produced by Anna Lipkin, Cindy Liu, and Kanchi Mehta. Music in this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions, Kai Engel, Ketsa, and Six Umbrellas from the FreeMusicArchive. Episode art from Public Domain Vectors.
“You just do things differently and that's fine!”
In the fifth Spotlight, UC Berkeley's Jen Pearlstein talks about her research on how stress affects decision making, how she's making mental health care more accessible, and being a disabled scientist. Find her on Twitter @JenPearlstein and check out her blog, Voicing Vulnerability at http://voicingvulnerability.blogspot.com/. For more of Jen's writing about being a disabled trainee, read her paper linked below:
Pearlstein & Soyster (2019). Supervisory Experiences of Trainees With Disabilities: The Good, the Bad, and the Realistic
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Peter_Soyster/publication/335074084_Supervisory_experiences_of_trainees_with_disabilities_The_good_the_bad_and_the_realistic/links/5e161d6f92851c8364bbba7a/Supervisory-experiences-of-trainees-with-disabilities-The-good-the-bad-and-the-realistic.pdf
Music by Broke for Free, Blue Dot Sessions, and Ketsa - from FreeMusicArchive.
Episode art by Ben Mansky.
Artificial intelligence guides nearly every aspect of our lives: what TV shows we’re recommended, whose opinions we see on social media, what we buy, how we invest our money...the list is endless. But what does “artificial intelligence” mean? What do these algorithms know? If we could look inside a robot’s mind, would we see a reflection of ourselves? Dr. Dan Yamins, Dr. Kim Stachenfeld, and Dr. Grace Lindsay helped us explore what it means to be intelligent, and what separates humans from machines.
This episode was written and produced by Celia Ford, Devika Nair, and Li Wang with editing help from the rest of the CTOR team. Music used in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions and sound effects from FreeMusicArchive. Cover image courtesy of Ben Mansky.
Global Health in the Time of COVID is a miniseries from the Institute for Global Health Sciences at UCSF produced by Carry the One Radio. Each week, we speak to health experts at UCSF to learn more about them, their work, and how the COVID-19 pandemic has changed their practice and research.
In this week's episode, we talk to Dr. Madhavi Dandu, a clinician and professor of medicine at UCSF who directs the Master’s Program in Global Health, and Dr. Elizabeth Fair, an infectious disease epidemiologist who directs UCSF’s PhD Program in Global Health. We discuss how the COVID-19 pandemic has altered the course of Global Health education, why the US’s pandemic response has fallen short, and what we can learn from looking abroad.
This interview took place on May 28th, 2020 and reflects the state of the news and scientific literature at that time.
This episode was produced by Ben Mansky and Nancy Cai. Music used in this episode: Slow Lane Lover, Dance of Felt, San Diego Sunday, and Hundred Mile by Blue Dot Sessions. News clips used in the introduction are courtesy of Cleveland Clinic via the CDC.
Global Health in the Time of COVID is a miniseries from the Institute for Global Health Sciences at UCSF produced by Carry the One Radio. Each week, we speak to health experts at UCSF to learn more about them, their work, and how the COVID-19 pandemic has changed their practice and research.
In this week's episode, we talk to Alexandra Keir, Jane Fieldhouse, Dr. Lucia Abascal, and Maeve Forster, who are students and staff in the UCSF Global Health Sciences program. Since March, they have been working as part of the team behind Research Watch, a project to rapidly summarize new COVID-19 research and communicate it to healthcare workers, scientists, and policy makers. In our interview, we discuss the project, the challenges associated with staying up to date in an ever-changing field, the differences between responses to COVID-19 across the globe, and the major takeaways of the research that's been done so far.
To learn more about Research Watch and sign up for their newsletter, head to https://globalhealthsciences.ucsf.edu/covid-19/ucsf-ighs-covid-19-research-watch
This interview took place on May 20th, 2020 and reflects the state of the news and scientific literature at that time.
This episode was produced by Katie Cabral and Ben Mansky. Music used in this episode: Slow Lane Lover and Hundred Mile by Blue Dot Sessions. News clips used in the introduction are courtesy of Cleveland Clinic via the CDC.
Global Health in the Time of COVID is a miniseries from the Institute for Global Health Sciences at UCSF produced by Carry the One Radio. Each week, we speak to health experts at UCSF to learn more about them, their work, and how the COVID-19 pandemic has changed their practice and research.
Our first episode features Dr. Kim Baltzell, a professor of nursing at UCSF and director of Global Action in Nursing (GAIN), a project that promotes clinical training in sub-saharan Africa.
This episode was written and produced by Kanchi Mehta and Devika Nair with editing help from the rest of the CTOR team. Music used in this episode includes: Slow Lane Lover, San Diego Sunday, Dance of Felt, Dusting, and Hundred Mile by Blue Dot Sessions. News clips used in the introduction are courtesy of Cleveland Clinic via the CDC.
For this fourth installment of “The Spotlight” we interviewed Jhia Jackson, who is a sociology PhD candidate at UCSF. We discussed her educational journey, current research on pediatric palliative and hospice care, her career as a professional dancer, being black at UCSF, cats, and ways to stay sane in grad school.
This episode was written and produced by Stella Belonwu. Music from this episode was acquired from www.freesound.org.
Music included in this episode: Dinglebells by evanjones4, Game background Music loop short by yummie, Invisible world - electronic music loop by frankum, more Jazz guitar.wav by Sub-d, and "Chorus music - Techno loop" by frankum.
We pretty much all accept the idea that dinosaurs once roamed the earth, but this wasn’t always the case. A few centuries ago, nobody believed animals could even go extinct. It would take huge societal upheaval and a few very determined oddballs to change people’s minds. In this episode, we follow the eccentric geologists and fossil-hunters who uncovered the first dinosaur, with author Ian Lendler as our guide.
This episode was written and produced by Arja Ray, Ben Mansky, and Nancy Cai. Ian’s book, The First Dinosaur: How Science Solved the Greatest Mystery on Earth, is available wherever books are sold.
In this episode, we’re getting into the weeds of cannabis research. Cannabis is the most widely used illegal drug in the world, but there is still so much we do not know about it.. To learn more, we spoke to two cannabis researchers: Dr. Steven Laviolette, a neurobiologist at The University of Western Ontario in London, Canada, and Dr. Salomeh Keyhani, a general internist and a health services researcher at UCSF’s Veteran Affairs Medical Center.
From our conversation with Steven, we got insight into his lab’s findings on THC and CBD as they relate to a number of neuropsychiatric disorders, his approaches to use these cannabis constituents to combat these disorders, the funding landscape of cannabis research, the Canadian cannabis industry, and his thoughts on the future of cannabis research. In our interview with Salomeh, we learned about her motivation to study cannabis, as well as her approaches to understand things ranging from its public perception to cardiovascular health effects.
This episode was written and produced by Stella Belonwu, and Seesha Takagishi. Music and sound effects from this episode were acquired from www.freesound.org.
Music and sound effects included in this episode:
Samba Game Theme Loop by Daniel Noronha
Bostwana Dream & Slow Down by Goran Andrić
Harp by Pryght One
Ba Dum Tish Comedy Punchline Drums by djlprojects
Intro 1L72 by Sentuniman
Plucked Synth Loop by Stereo Surgeon
130 bpm by LS
Slip the e to g by Aceinet
ReDub by Kkz
Custom Groovy Beat by Monkeyman535
It’s a tale (or tail?) as old as time. Sharks have been around for at least 400 million years - proof of their resilience, but there’s still so much to learn about these majestic creatures. From their social dynamics to the different kinds of shark-tracking devices currently in use, we spoke to Michelle Jewell, the Chief Science Communicator in the Department of Applied Ecology at NC State University. In this episode, she shared personal stories from her graduate school days as a white shark researcher in South Africa to what she does today as a science communicator for a university.
This episode was written and produced by Devika Nair and Li Wang with editing help from the rest of the CTOR team. Music used in this episode: Tiny Putty, Game Hens, Hundred Mile, Bundt, Borough, Slow Lane Lover, Front Runner, Calm and Collected, Beignet, and Tar and Spackle by Blue Dot Sessions. Sound effects from FreeMusicArchive.
Cover Image courtesy of Michelle Jewell.
For more information on Michelle’s work, please visit https://michelleajewell.com/.
Welcome to Women in Science, a special series in honor of Women’s History Month. Join us each Monday in March as we hear from women making great strides in their fields, from reproductive health justice to animal evolution. We’ll learn about the challenges they’ve faced in their journeys, explore the importance of representation, and see how women on the forefront of science and medicine lift up others and build toward a better tomorrow.
In the fifth and final episode of this series, we’re featuring Dr. Marina Sirota, an assistant professor at the Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute at UCSF. We talk about how one can use troves of data to make important medical discoveries– but also about the challenges of leveraging so much information. Among other things, we also discuss the rewards of introducing young girls to the beauty of data science, and what it’s like to transition between industry and academia.
Welcome to Women in Science, a special series in honor of Women’s History Month. Join us each Monday in March (and April - thanks, COVID-19!) as we hear from women making great strides in their fields, from reproductive health justice to animal evolution. We’ll learn about the challenges they’ve faced in their journeys, explore the importance of representation, and see how women on the forefront of science and medicine lift up others and build toward a better tomorrow. In the fourth episode of this series, we’re featuring Dr. Flora Rutaganira, a postdoctoral researcher in Dr. Nicole King’s lab at UC Berkeley. In our conversation, we talk about the beauty (and cuteness!) of choanoflagellates, finding community and direction as an early-career researcher, and how universities can support marginalized scientists.
Welcome to Women in Science, a special series in honor of Women’s History Month. Join us each Monday in March as we hear from women making great strides in their fields, from reproductive health justice to animal evolution. We’ll learn about the challenges they’ve faced in their journeys, explore the importance of representation, and see how women on the forefront of science and medicine lift up others and build toward a better tomorrow. In the third episode of this series, we’re featuring Dr. Meryl Horn, a former president of Carry the One Radio and a current producer of the podcast Science Vs. We discuss her journey as a scientist, her passion for researching the scientific issues that really matter to the public, and her search for answers when the scientific topic is under-researched and unclear.
Welcome to Women in Science, a special series in honor of Women's History Month. Join us each Monday in March as we hear from women making great strides in their fields, from reproductive health justice to animal evolution. We’ll learn about the challenges they’ve faced in their journeys, explore the importance of representation, and see how women on the forefront of science and medicine lift up others and build toward a better tomorrow.
In the second episode of this series, we're featuring Dr. Ramona Tascoe, a physician and activist whose work has left impacts in the Bay Area and internationally. In our conversation, we talked about the strengths of Dr. Tascoe’s unconventional academic background, her experiences with racism and sexual harassment in medical school and residency, and how cultural competency can heal communities and improve health outcomes.
Welcome to Women in Science, a special series in honor of Women's History Month. Join us each Monday in March as we hear from women making great strides in their fields, from reproductive health justice to animal evolution. We’ll learn about the challenges they’ve faced in their journeys, explore the importance of representation, and see how women on the forefront of science and medicine lift up others and build toward a better tomorrow.
In the first episode of this series, we're featuring Dr. Monica McLemore, a professor at UCSF who researches reproductive health and rights. We discuss her journey through nursing and public health, the power of social media, and the ethical need to get the community involved in the research process.
Welcome to our third installment of “The Spotlight”! In this episode, we interviewed Dr. Armen Moughamiam, who is a neurology fellow at UCSF and an ambassador to both science and medicine. We discuss the educational journey of an MD/PhD, experiencing “unknown unknowns”, and staying motivated in this long (but rewarding!) path.
Music in this episode:
Borough by Blue Dot Sessions
Special thanks to Veronica Oberholzer and Kanchi Mehta for your first listens.
Music: Borough by Blue Dot Sessions
A cell constantly interacts and adapts to its environment, making seemingly smart choices. But how can a single cell, without a centralized control center, solve such complex problems? Is there simple physics behind the complex measurement and feedback that goes on inside cells? In this episode, we speak to Dr. Wallace Marshall, Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics at UCSF, about his work to determine how cells measure and regulate optimal size. In the process, we discuss diffusion, molecular motors, the cell’s ever-changing skeletons, and the idea of a software to engineer cells in the future.
This episode was written and produced by Arja Ray, Devika Nair, and Katie Cabral with editing help from the rest of the Carry the One Radio team. Music used in this episode includes Partly Sage, Denzel Sprak, Hundred Mile, Tiny Putty, Highway 94, Guild Rat, Game Hens, The Zeppelin, Beignet, Balti, Loopy, Dorica, and Dance of Felt by Blue Dot Sessions.
Cover Image by Yuri Korchmar.
Check out this animation of a molecular motor carrying cargo on a microtubule: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlPDEpimzB8
For more information on Dr. Marshall’s work: https://cellgeometry.ucsf.edu/
In this episode, we’re turning back the clock to our earliest days - just after birth. What happens to our brains in this sensitive time of life? More than we ever thought, it turns out. We spoke with Dr. Mercedes Paredes, assistant professor of neurology at UCSF, to learn more about how humans’ brain cells are still moving and changing even after we’re born. As we learn more about the brain’s initial stages, we can better understand its vulnerabilities. Not only that, but we can also figure out how to intervene early on to stave off neurological problems like psychiatric illness or epilepsy.
This episode was written and produced by Stella Belonwu, Rebecca Fang, Deanna Necula, and Ben Mansky. Music in this episode includes “A Day at the Park,” “Fomalhaut,” and “Convergence” by Pictures of the Floating World and “Autowaschanlage Instrumental” by Lobo Loco.
For more on recent developments with the HHS Fetal Tissue Ethics Review Board, see www.washingtonpost.com/health/trump-…aa_story.html.
For this second installment of “The Spotlight” we spoke to Dr. Rachel Care, a newly minted PhD who studies how the retina adapts to losing vision. We talked about her path to research, the changing landscape of graduate education, and night vision goggles.
Music in this episode:
Thought Bubbles, Thinking It Over, Bigger Questions, Decompress, and Where Was I by Lee Rosevere
Dr. David Gordon studies HIV. In Life/Science, a mini-series produced in collaboration with the UCSF Quantitative Biosciences Institute, we're giving you a peek behind the curtain. This isn't just a series about science, it's also about the process, about what it actually means to do this kind of research - including the confusion, failures, and triumphs David has faced along the way.
In the final episode of Life/Science, we reveal what David found in his gigantic experiment, and how his findings might lead to new avenues for HIV treatment. We also break down the process of how a scientific finding makes it from the lab to the world at large.
If you like what you hear, give us a like or leave a comment! We'd love to hear from you. Music featured in this episode comes from Podington Bear and Blue Dot Sessions. Other contributors to David's research include Ariane Watson, Assen Roguev, and Nevan Krogan. This episode was written and produced by Ben Mansky and Elina Kostyanovskaya, with help from Katie Cabral. Support for Life/Science comes from the Quantitative Biosciences Institute at UCSF.
Dr. David Gordon studies HIV. In Life/Science, a mini-series produced in collaboration with the UCSF Quantitative Biosciences Institute, we're giving you a peek behind the curtain. This isn't just a series about science, it's also about the process, about what it actually means to do this kind of research - including the confusion, failures, and triumphs David has faced along the way.
Life/Science will be updated bi-weekly, so make sure to tune in on December 2nd for Episode 3: Results! Next time, we’ll hear what David’s experiment revealed, and its implications for the world at large.
If you like what you hear, give us a like or leave a comment! We'd love to hear from you. Music featured in this episode comes from Podington Bear and Blue Dot Sessions. Other contributors to David's research include Ariane Watson, Stefanie Jager, and Assen Roguev. This episode was written and produced by Katie Cabral, Ben Mansky, and Elina Kostyanovskaya. Support for Life/Science comes from the Quantitative Biosciences Institute at UCSF.
When you close your eyes and imagine the universe, what do you see? Maybe you picture billions of swirling galaxies made of dust, gas, stars, and planets. But, what if we told you that the major source of mass in the universe is made out of something we cannot see? Not only can we not see it, we aren’t even entirely sure what it is. This mysterious cosmic substance is called dark matter, and it is the subject of this episode.
To learn about dark matter, we spoke to Dr. Neta Bahcall, the Eugene Higgins Professor of Astrophysics at Princeton University. We discuss how it was discovered, as well as how astrophysicists are certain it exists, but are still frustrated by the elusive nature of the particles that make up dark matter. We also discuss some of the work currently being done to better understand what dark matter is, how it’s distributed in the universe, and what effect it has on the structure and evolution of the universe.
This episode was written & produced by Stella Belonwu, Anna Lipkin, Cindy Liu and Liron Noiman.
For more information on dark matter, check out Modelling the Invisible (https://www.modellinginvisible.org/dark-matter/) and The Illustris Simulation (https://www.illustris-project.org/about/). Additionally, to understand some of the concepts that we touched on, check out The Physics Hypertextbook (https://physics.info/standard/).
The cover art for this episode is an image of the Abell 2218 galaxy cluster and beautifully demonstrates the effect of gravitational lensing, which we discuss in the episode [30:46]. The image was pulled from https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic0814a/, with credits to NASA, ESA, and Johan Richard from Caltech, with acknowledgements to Davide de Martin & James Long (ESA/Hubble).
Music and sound effects were acquired from the YouTube Audio Library, www.freesound.org, and Free Music Archive.
Music included in this episode:
Algorithms and Moonrise by Chad Crouch
Saturn V by Lee Rosevere
Cute Avalanche by RKVC
English Country Garden by Aaron Kenny
Orbital Romance by Sir Cubworth
Alive Evil by Hainbach
Ether Oar by The Whole Other
Da Jazz Blues by Doug Maxwell
Dr. David Gordon studies HIV. In Life/Science, a new mini-series produced in collaboration with the UCSF Quantitative Biosciences Institute, we're giving you a peek behind the curtain. This isn't just a series about science, it's also about the process, about what it actually means to do this kind of research - including the confusion, failures, and triumphs David has faced along the way.
Life/Science will be updated bi-weekly, so make sure to tune in on the 18th for Episode 2: Methods! We'll take a deep dive into the experiments David used to figure out how HIV hijacks human cells for its own nefarious purposes.
If you like what you hear, give us a like or leave a comment! We'd love to hear from you. Music featured in this episode comes from Podington Bear. Other contributors to David's research include Ariane Watson, Stefanie Jager, and Assen Roguev.
We’re proud to present the first episode in our brand new Young Scientist Spotlight Series, or “The Spotlight” for short. Each month, we’ll feature an informal, lightly-edited interview with a graduate student, postdoc, staff researcher, or other early-career scientist. Through these conversations, we’ll be bringing you a fun, down-to-earth look at not only even more of the awesome science content you love, but also the people behind the science. In our first Spotlight, we spoke with Witney Chen, a graduate student studying Parkinson’s Disease at the University of California, San Francisco. We chatted about her research on brain stimulation in human patients, life in graduate school, how she became a scientist, and… dog poop.
This episode was produced by Ben Mansky. Music is “Borough,” from Blue Dot Sessions.
How does a potential drug discovered in the lab ultimately end up in people? We tackle this question in the context of exciting gene-modifying therapies called antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs). In this episode, we speak with Dr. Tim Miller to break down the science behind ASOs and learn more about his work in finding a cure for a genetic form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
This episode was written and produced by Nancy Cai, Devika Nair, and Arja Ray.
Music used in this episode: “Thannoid”, “Bundt”, “Lupi”, “Partly Sage”, “Beignet”, “Trailrunner”, “Game Hens”, “Lord Weasel”, “The Zeppelin”, “Dorica”, “Our Fingers Cold”, “Gaena” by Blue Dot Sessions
For more information about spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), check out the spinal muscular dystrophy association website: https://www.mda.org/disease/spinal-muscular-atrophy.
There is also this great animation that shows how the Spinraza (nusinersen) ASO works in the body: https://www.spinraza.com/en_us/home/taking/how-spinraza-works.html.
To read the results from the first ASO for Huntington’s disease, check out the New England Journal of Medicine article here: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1900907?url_ver=Z39.88-2003𝔯_id=ori%3Arid%3Acrossref.org𝔯_dat=cr_pub%3Dpubmed.
Did you know that mosquitoes kill over 700,000 people a year? They are the most dangerous animal in the world. How can they be stopped?!
In this episode, we spoke with a variety of experts that are working on mosquito vector control in the Caribbean and Latin America. The common theme is that it is essential to educate community members about the risks of mosquitoes and actions that they can take to reduce mosquito breeding. An educated community is much more engaged to take actions to prevent mosquito borne diseases like Zika and dengue. We also spoke to the World Mosquito Program about their research on infecting mosquitoes with a harmless bacteria called Wolbachia that prevents the mosquitoes from being able to spread disease. Although progress is being made, it will take a lot of money, resources, and new technology to eliminate the spread of mosquito-borne diseases.
You can check out the USAID Zika photo exhibit, which featured clips from some of the interviews in this episode, at https://spark.adobe.com/page/PdfTwBPiuCH3F/
You probably haven’t heard much about the Zika epidemic in the last few years – whatever happened with Zika? In this episode, we follow the history of Zika – from its origins, to the widespread epidemic of 2015-2016, to the personal impact it had on those who were affected, to its disappearance, and to the possibility of preventing a future Zika epidemic through a vaccine. We spoke with Dalma Contina Soto, a mother of a child born with congenital Zika syndrome; Dr. Josefina Coloma, an epidemiologist who studies the Zika virus and works to prevent mosquito-borne diseases in Nicaragua; and Dr. Anna Durbin, an infectious disease specialist who tests potential vaccines for Zika and Dengue.
To listen to the original Spanish audio of Dalma’s interview, head to soundcloud.com/carrytheoneradio and look for the playlist “Zika miniseries – Spanish audio”.
Some of this content was originally featured as an audio companion to a USAID photo exhibit detailing efforts to combat Zika in Latin America and the Caribbean. To check out the photos, go to https://spark.adobe.com/page/PdfTwBPiuCH3F/.
This episode is part of a 2-part miniseries – the next episode, all about prevention of mosquito-borne diseases like Zika, releases on September 16th. Stay tuned!
The genome is like the encyclopedia to our body. With all that information, how does each cell know what part of the genome to read out at the right place and right time? That’s where transcription factors come to play. In this episode, we’ll learn how transcription factors prevent eyeballs from growing in our bellies! We will also hear from Dr. Aseem Ansari as he speaks about his work on creating synthetic transcription factors, SynGRs, and how these molecules could be used in future therapies.
This episode was written and produced by Devika Nair, Nancy Cai, and Arja Ray. Music used in this episode: “Picnic March”, “Filing Away”, “Tiny Putty”, “Borough”, “Beignet”, “Trailrunner”, “Lovers Hollow”, “Highway 94”, “Dangerous Swing”, “Curio” by Blue Dot Sessions.
Hey! Sorry we didn't have an episode out in July, but we have been hard at work creating our next season of episodes. We'll be talking about the Zika virus, how to stop mosquitoes from spreading disease, how to use molecules to turn genes on and off, black holes, brain development, and more! Plus, we'll be starting our Young Scientists Spotlight series to highlight the work done by graduate students and postdocs towards scientific advancement. Episodes will be dropping on the first Monday of each month, plus occasional bonus episodes mid-month. See you soon, and stay curious!
This month, we discuss one of the biggest buzzwords in science today: CRISPR. This gene-editing tool has gotten a lot of attention for some ...ethically dubious uses, but before we humans got our hands on it, CRISPR was actually one of nature’s inventions. Since its discovery, CRISPR has been widely adapted as an incredibly effective research tool, but we’re still working to understand its biology -- and its limitations. In this episode, you’ll hear from Dr. Joseph Bondy-Denomy, who researches the evolutionary arms race that led to CRISPR, and Dr. Martin Kampmann, who uses CRISPR as a tool to study disease.
In the early 80s, a new disease appeared in San Francisco, baffling scientists and alarming the public. Since then, our understanding of HIV/AIDS has made enormous strides, with treatments and prevention making leaps and bounds too. However, these advances haven't reached everyone quite yet. In a live recording, we speak to five people who have been instrumental in shaping HIV/AIDS treatment, policy, and care in San Francisco and abroad, and ask them about the barriers that still remain today.
Recorded during a live event at UCSF Alumni Weekend.
Hosted by Ben Mansky and Anna Lipkin
Written and produced by Ben Mansky, Anna Lipkin, Katie Cabral, Stephanie Wankowicz, Liron Noiman, and Yiqi Cao
Music in this episode:
Thought Bubbles by Lee Rosevere
String in a Box
Hundred Mile by Blue Dot Sessions
Episode Art courtesy of UCSF Archives AIDS History Project
Pseudoscience: we know it when we see it, right? Or do we? On this episode of Carry the One Radio, we tackle the dirtiest word in science with the help of science historian Dr. Michael Gordin. Hear a few of our favorite pseudoscience stories, and see how pseudoscience can help us define the sometimes fuzzy borders of science. Plus, we discuss what to do about all that pesky pseudoscience floating around. Buckle up, it’s the Pseudoscience Episode.
Hosted and Produced by Anna Lipkin, Devika Nair, and Liron Noiman
Music used in this episode:
"Filaments", "Curious Process" and "The Ascent" by Podington Bear
"Transitioning" by Lee Rosevere
"Bastien und Bastienne", "Adagio for Glass Armonica in C Major" and "Laudate Dominum" by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
"Lupi" and "Chicken Steak" by Blue Dot Sessions
From Google Maps to John Snow’s map of cholera cases in the 1800s, maps have the power to change the way we understand information. What if we could use maps of cellular function to discover the mechanisms of psychiatric disorders? We sit down with Dr. Jeremy Willsey, a researcher in the Psychiatric Cell Map Initiative, who’s trying to do just that—understand the neural basis of Tourette Disorder by placing disorder-related mutations on a map of the cell.
Hosted by Carlos Johnson-Cruz and Li Wang
Produced by Anna Lipkin, Stephanie Wankowicz, Li Wang, and Carlos Johnson-Cruz
Editing Help from the CTOR team
Music used in this episode:
“Scenery” and “Ode to the World” by Kai Engel
“Bathed in Light” and “Unanswered Questions” by Kevin MacLeod
“Frogs in Tuxes” and “Sweet and Clean” by Podington Bear
“Ragtime Dance” by Scott Joplin
If you stop to think about it, the amount of data we generate every day is truly mind-blowing - so much so that it's changing the way we live. In fact, our ability to quantify and measure large biological datasets has revolutionized the way we study and treat human diseases. In this episode, we speak to Dr. Atul Butte, who exploits these massive, publicly-available datasets to create novel and effective therapies for those in need.
Music in this episode includes:
Blue Dot Sessions: Borough, Beignet, Game Hens, The Zeppelin, Hundred Mile, Lord Weasel, Dorica
Podington Bear: Cascades, Window Shopping, Daydreamer
Musick's Recreation, Milena Cord-to-Krax: Gavotte (BWV 995)
The heart is an extremely complicated organ, and believe it or not, everyone has one! But how does this vital organ come to be? By studying how a stem cell makes the decision to become a heart cell, Dr. Daniel Hart is trying to figure that out, and he’s using fish to do it. Check out this episode for some pretty terrible puns, fascinating facts about zebrafish, and an extended metaphor about gene regulation that will make you want to reach for the liquor cabinet.
Music from Podington Bear on the Free Music Archive, and sound effects from users agonda and philberts on Freesound.com.
Dr. Liz Wayne got her start as a cancer hunter, searching for rogue cells running loose through the bloodstream. But she started to notice something strange – everywhere she found cancer cells, she found immune cells, too. Today, a big issue with cancer therapy is that some cancer sites are really hard to reach, but immune cells have no problem getting there. Dr. Wayne thought, why not hitchhike cancer-fighting drugs onto immune cells to get them straight to the places they’re needed most? Listen to this month’s episode to find out how her research may pave the way for a cheaper, more accessible kind of cancer immunotherapy. Plus, stick around after the credits to hear the origin story of Dr. Wayne’s podcast, PhDivas.
Sharing is caring - so what if you could transmit your HIV therapy to someone else? In this episode, we talked to Dr. Leor Weinberger, whose team has invented TIPs, or Therapeutic Interfering Particles, that are mutant, shortened forms of HIV that cannot replicate on their own and cannot cause disease. In cells that contain HIV, these TIPs outcompete HIV, preventing it from replicating. These TIPs could then be spread from person to person through the same ways that HIV is transmitted. This therapy could go a long way towards fighting the barriers against disease control - adherence, access, and resistance.
We thought this was a really unique idea that has the potential of reducing the population level of HIV, and we wanted to share this early-stage research with you.
To date, cochlear implants are the most successful electronic device for restoring sensation in individuals with sensorineural hearing loss. Yet these devices are not without flaws. For instance, pitch perception is extremely poor in these devices, and that can affect an implant user's ability to distinguish sounds in a noisy room. In this episode, we speak to Dr. Charles Limb, a UCSF ear surgeon who specializes in hearing loss and performs these cochlear implant surgeries. By incorporating complex elements of music, Dr. Limb and his team hope to improve the current cochlear implant model so those with hearing loss have a wider range and more sensitive ability to hear.
Dr. David Gordon studies HIV. In Life/Science, a new mini-series produced in collaboration with the UCSF Quantitative Biosciences Institute, we're giving you a peek behind the curtain. This isn't just a series about science, it's also about the process, about what it actually means to do this kind of research - including the confusion, failures, and triumphs David has faced along the way.
Life/Science will be updated monthly, so make sure to tune in next month for Episode 2: Methods! We'll take a deep dive into the experiments David used to figure out how HIV hijacks human cells for its own nefarious purposes.
If you like what you hear, leave us a comment or review! We'd love to hear from you. Music featured in this episode comes from Podington Bear.
Pharmaceutical drugs for cognitive disorders are poorly targeted and can have adverse side effects. Could playing video games be an alternative therapy? We speak with Dr. Adam Gazzaley about his work on training the brains of patients using video games, and the effects on this training on their lives outside the game.
Let's talk about sex, baby. Wait, minus the baby. This month, we interviewed a science historian and a current provider, as well as our friends and family, to learn about the scientific and cultural factors that shape contraceptive use in the US.
Forming strong social relationships with others is critical to our mental health and well-being. But what happens when our ability to form these vital connections is impaired? In this episode, Dr. Josh Woolley explores the social deficits in patients with Schizophrenia, and how oxytocin may hold the key to developing a better treatment.
If you could swallow a pill that would give you twenty extra years of healthy life, would you do it? In this episode of CTOR, we talk to Dr. Dena Dubal, a neurologist and neuroscientist at UCSF. Her research on a protein discovered completely by accident may hold the key to living longer, healthier lives more resilient to heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and dementia.
How is that possible? Listen to this month’s CTOR episode to find out!
Have you ever wondered what’s going on in a musician’s head while they improvise? In our latest episode, Dr. Charles Limb gives us a window to peer into the process of creativity as it happens: scanning the brains of jazz musicians and rappers as they improvise. Tune in to learn what brain processes allow creative thought, why creativity matters, and whether or not you might compose the next great rock ballad.
The world’s data are stored on millions of computers, or servers, that take up buildings’ worth of space and consume about as much electricity as France. How do we keep up with the increasing amount of data that we are generating? In this episode, we talk to bioinformatician Dina Zielinski about her unexpected solution: storing digital data on DNA.
Carry The One Radio goes live, at the California Academy of Sciences. We talk sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll with Dr. Indre Viskontas, a Neuroscientist and Opera singer, at Nightlife: Brain and Body. Hear why the music industry is obsessed with your brain, why drug addicts often die in hotel rooms, and why "The Wheels on the Bus" becomes intensely annoying as you grow up.
How does a three pound ball of flesh inside your skull lead to your thoughts, your hopes, your feelings...and your sweet dance moves? There are more cells in your brain than there are people on Earth. Billions of neurons making trillions of connections. Trying to figure out how your brain works would be like trying to understand every conversation that’s going on in the world, all at one time…ten times over! So how can we tackle this monumental task? Most scientists simplify the problem by focusing on a single part of the brain, but what if we took a different path? What if we could understand everything that’s going on in a brain, all at the same time? In this episode, Saul Kato explains how he’s doing just that.
From the basic biology to public policy: in this episode we tackle sugar. Find out what happens in our bodies when we eat sugar, as well as the disturbing tactics corporations use to get people hooked on products like soda and junk food. We then talk about soda taxes and other strategies Dr. Laura Schmidt and her colleagues are using to battle against the sugar industry.
In this episode, we chat with Dr. Joe DeRisi, UCSF’s resident Sherlock Holmes of infectious diseases. You’ll hear about a surprising discovery that could have enormous implications for controlling - or even preventing - future Ebola outbreaks. One of the big mysteries surrounding Ebola has been where it hides between outbreaks. Here, Dr. DeRisi uncovers an unexpected culprit that could be harboring this deadly virus.
In this episode, a team of researchers disprove a decades-old dogma. The result? The first ever FDA-approved drug for primary-progressive multiple sclerosis. In this inspiring story spanning decades of research, you’ll hear all the science, and all the dramatic twists, behind this radical new treatment.
For more information and links to the music used in this episode, please visit ctoradio.org
Scientists usually study biology in animals such as lab rats, but their discoveries do not always translate between species. What if we could study human biology specifically? In this episode, we talk to Dr. Jurgen Knoblich and Dr. Zev Gartner about their efforts to create organoids, which are miniature, simplified versions of organs created from human cells. Using these organoids, Drs. Knoblich and Gartner can study how human organs develop and how they are affected by disease. How do they make these organoids, and what will organoids mean for our future health?
Have you ever spaced out while traveling somewhere but still made it to your desintation effortlessly? Our brain is amazing at calculating exactly where we are relative to things around us, but this is a skill we often take for granted. In this episode, Producer Sama Ahmed talks with Dr. Michael Yartsev about how we know where we are in the world, how we make memories, and how we make decisions. Dr. Yartsev is uncovering all of this utilizing a rather unconventional and totally awesome animal: the bat! This episode is a re-release of an episode from 2013.
In this episode we’ll explore humanity’s, and the entire animal kingdom’s, fraught relationship with its closest biological cousins, fungi. We will hear about how we can’t live without them, how they’re trying to wipe us off the face of the planet, and how at least one company thinks they’re the key to changing how we view our own mortality.
This one of our largest single episodes, comprised of four parts!
First, Dr. Dennis Desjardin of San Francisco State University will tell us about his lifelong relationship with fungi and some of the bizarre organisms he has discovered. Next, we’ll talk to Dr. Margo Daub of North Carolina State University about a deadly pathogen that threatens our food security. Third, we will hear from Dr. Anita Sil of UCSF about a deadly fungus that uses our own immune system against us, and finally, Claire McNamara from the startup Coeio will explain how their product can leverage the power of fungi to create a radical shift in our view on death.
In this episode we bring back Professor Terrence Deacon, a biological anthropologist at the University of California, Berkeley, to talk about language. He tells us one possible story of how language first evolved, and why he believes language is a uniquely human capability. Listen to find out how language is about a lot more than just speech.
Started in 2009, Carry The One Radio is a series of short interviews with scientists. The show is run entirely by a small group of dedicated young scientists, mostly graduate students at UCSF, who want to bridge the gap between the scientific community and the general public. We value science education and we encourage teachers and students alike to share our freely available episodes with as many people as possible.
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