5Qs : Recent Episodes
Uzziel Perez
A short-lived podcast of science friends asking 5 questions about topics like love, friendship, learning, mental health, and climate change.
This is the 4th of 5 episodes of our pandemic project. Here we talk about "Utopia", working towards an ideal society and working on becoming the best versions of ourselves. We summarize here some of the things we've learned from some books and podcasts, and we listen to some clips from our two hour zoom chat with some friends who I think are social game changers back home.
Our guests:
1.) Maria Isabel Garcia, is the curator of the Mind Museum, the chair of the World Wildlife Fund Philippines and the Executive director of The Asia Pacific Network of Science & Technology Centres (ASPAC). ASPAC is an association of science centres, museums and related organisations, with a regional focus on the Asia Pacific region. She also writes a weekly column at Rappler and recently wrote about The gifts of quarantine.
2.) Marvin Lagonera, is a graduate student taking Sustainable Urban Development at Oxford University. He is the founder and executive director of Behaviorale. It is a "mission-driven think-and-do-tank that harnesses breakthroughs in behavioural economics to serve communities in the global south improve people's lives and protect the planet". You can read more about him in this article and watch his chat with Pecier on Nudging for Science Communication.
3.) Reinabelle Reyes, is a rock star scientist, science communicator, a data scientist and currently now an Associate Professor at the National Institute of Physics at UP Diliman. She is also the host of Science Says which is a TV show showing on the Knowledge Channel. Reina graduated with a degree in astrophysics from Princeton University and made some waves after she published a paper in Nature where she proved Einstein right on a cosmic scale. Her work together with colleagues from Princeton confirmed that Einstein's theory of general relativity holds true even beyond our solar system.
References:
Books
1.) Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
2.) Stumbling on Happiness by Dan Gilbert
3.) Why Buddhism is True by Robert Wright
4.) Utopia for Realists by Rutger Bregman
Podcasts and Talks
1.) Burn Out and How to Complete the Stress Cycle - Brené Brown with Emily and Amelia Nagoski
2.) Designing our lives - Ted Radio Hour with Debbie Millman
Two physicists, a mathematician, an ecologist, and a book artist, walked into a zoom room to try understand what creativity means.
As a physicist, I tend to think of looking at complex phenomena and try to find some underlying framework or model that allows us to understand nature. But in understanding a more nuanced concept like creativity, I found my positions challenged by other minds whose processes and experience aren't entirely identical to mine.
In this episode, we touched upon the following ideas:
- What kind of environment makes one's own creativity thrive?
- The intangible qualities of great works of art, a sophisticated mathematical proof or equation and a well-designed experiment.
- On the ideas of alienation, the "efficiency" goal and producing at the pace of the "market"
- On originality, open-source software/hardware, copyrights and patents
- What would we choose to do if we had infinite resources?
These are the only things that we had time to talk about, but I wish I was able to ask more questions. Take part in the conversation! If you feel like you've got some thoughts on what we've discussed and want to try out the rest of the questions click on this link for more!
The people:
- Jillian Sico - Paper maker and Book Artist. Recently graduated with a MFA in Book Arts University of Alabama (UA) working. You can see more of her cool work in her website!
- Anton Hilado - PhD in Mathematics at the University of Vermont. Writes a fascinating blog about his musings on Math and Physics.
- Roel Ruzol - PhD Biological Sciences at UA. Studies plants and their elaborate scheme for world domination. You can read an overview of his work in the Starr Lab Website.
- Pecier Decierdo - Physicist, Science Communicator at the Mind Museum. He is also the Resident Astronomer and recently talked for Science Center Observatory in Singapore.
- Uzziel Perez - Physics PhD candidate from UA and is now based at CERN working on detector online software and Standard Model stuff.
On our last two episodes:Our last two episodes are on "Comedy and Improv" and "Utopia and on our desire to contribute to society". We'll be talking to people from the Large Improve Collider and leaders who've deviated from their original career paths to contribute something back home. Coming in June and July. (Update: Due to unavailability of guests and timing constraints these will be released before the year ends! Surprise!)
Inspired by readings like "On Living on a More Light-hearted Way", "7 ways to practice emotional first aid", and "Beyond Passion: The Science of Loving what you do", we discuss our own “untested and non-generalizable theories” on various mental health topics. We pondered on the ideas of healthy vulnerability, dark human emotions, becoming our better selves, and what it means to have a happy and fulfilled life. We talk about our self-dialogues in dealing with certain emotions, believing that love is not a zero-sum game, how we deal with our own and specially other people's crises in a non-intrusive and non-enabling way, and why we have given up our search for a grand theory of happiness.
In this episode, the real first episode, I ask 5 major questions to my friends Pecier and Roel about Climate Change policy, activism, and science communication. Pecier and Roel are both in the "thick of things" when it comes to directly working on Climate Change. Pecier and her girlfriend started "Climate Stories Philippines" and is also part of an organization that organizes rallies/movements in this field. He also works as a science communicator at the Mind Museum, has written several opinion pieces in the Manila Standard and has been interviewed by big news organizations like CNN Philippines and Rappler. Actually, was also interviewed by CBS News Denver when he was in the US to talk about the eclipse in 2017! His degree in Physics - the liberal arts of science, makes him, for me, the "Carl Sagan" of the country. He is an incredible physicist and overall communicator! Here you will hear why if you don't already know. Roel, is a hardcore biosciences guy who has a degree in Forestry from the University of the Philippines and is now getting his PhD from the University of Alabama. His work "on the ground" both with indigenous people and actual data-taking and analysis with his toys gives us incredible insights that hits us closer to home. Combined with his knowledge in economics and anthropology, there are just too many "aha" moments. Listen to these two guys and learn a thing or two on what we can do to join the fight against climate change.
This is an unedited interview on Linguistic Identity for an English class for foreign students at UA. I didn't expect that the interview would be quite interesting. So I thought of sharing the interview and it inspired me to start a short-lived podcast called 5Qs.
5Qs, meaning 5 Questions, is a podcast I thought of starting as a part of my desire to intentionally document quarantine life during the COVID-19 pandemic. I want to pick my friends' brains, learn from them, and have fun along the way just like what I felt in this interview. Let's see where this experiment takes us!