 Welcome everybody. We are back for another Wednesday of the live twist podcast broadcast We have a guest host tonight who's going to be helping out and Sarah Treadwell. Yeah, she's I'm gonna tell you all about her in just a moment But you know as we as we do the usual I want you all to know that this is a live broadcast So any technical difficulties or you know mistakes or anything that we have to kind of go You know back up those will get edited out edited out of the podcast for later like this stuff that I'm saying right now It's not gonna be on the podcast And if you want to subscribe to the podcast that's out there on all the podcast places But for those of you watching live, hello, I see you in the chat rooms and I see you in our discord Welcome and we are ready to start the show. Y'all ready. Are you ready Sarah? I'm ready Okay. All right everybody out there. It is time to begin the begin starting the show in three two this is Twist this week in science episode number 958 recorded on Wednesday, January 31st 2024 why is the ocean venting? It's not like Justin really. I'm dr. Kiki and tonight on the show We will fill your heads with muscle bots mouse squeaks and lost city vents but first Disclaimer disclaimer disclaimer I Disclaim before I proclaim this show is not the same even by name as we try to explain in Another frame and may go against the grain not seeking fame never in shame food for your brain So let's all exclaim It's this week in science coming up next Hello happy day of science everyone Welcome to another episode of this week in science tonight. We do not have a Justin We do not have a Blair, but we do have a guest who I will introduce to you in just one moment Thank you so much for joining us. I see you out there. I'm so glad you're here for another week of science I have a bunch of science news stories involving genomes and muscle bots and mouse squeaks and I would love to introduce you to our guest tonight Sarah Treadwell Science communicator who focuses on astrobiology, but as well first and many other things Sarah. Thank you so much for joining us tonight Thank you for having me. This is so exciting Honestly, I have to I have to say big thanks to Graham Lau from ask An astrobiologist the podcast because I reached out today realizing that I had no other Co-hosts for the show and it was a scary moment going who's where do I go? And I reached out and Graham was unavailable, but he was able to connect me to Sarah. So and Thank you. This is last minute and amazing. So thank you for being here. Yes. Thank you Graham Thank you, Sarah So we'll get into a lot more discussion with Sarah into the show What makes her a space case? What what got her interested in astrobiology, but first as always We're gonna dive into a few news stories and talk about what is this week in science And as we jump into the show right now I want to remind all of you that if you have not yet subscribed to this week in science you can find us Broadcasting live streaming weekly Wednesdays 8 p.m. Pacific time on YouTube twitch and Facebook all those videos are there So if you are subscribed and hit the little notification you can catch us live or watch us whenever you want We're also a podcast all over the podcast Overse and just for this week in science If you are curious about other aspects of the show or just can't remember all of this information head to twist Org, and that's where you can find all these links and all this stuff But that's the spiel now it's time for the science Okay diving in My first story for the evening tonight has to do with mapping genomes and we've been talking about mapping genomes for a very long time on this program a Long time ago the human genome project about 13 years To map the entire human genome and that wasn't even the most accurate Map of the human genome because of the methodologies that they used and we've been mapping other organisms over the decades since this technology of sequencing and splitting up the genome into little tiny puzzle pieces that then have to be Fit together in just the right way Could be done the most efficiently It's kind of like going from like the little two-year-old puzzles where it's big blocks to like the really complex Thousand-piece puzzles that have tiny little pieces and a lot of just one color this is where we are now and researchers who just published in Nature Biotechnology they published their Genomes which are the big news is More accurate and they were more efficient So instead of years or months to be able to get these genomes They were able to get the genomes in days. I Hear a puppy dog This name is Hubble by the way, I need to refrain from going Now if you if you just have to you know bring Hubble in you know for a little love You won't complain so the exciting part of this This assembly is this new pipeline that they've developed and so they published just this last week in Nature Biotechnology And the paper is scalable accessible reproducible reference genome assembly and evaluation evaluation in galaxy What's galaxy galaxy is an open access open source? software that is available to researchers and people in the public online It's part of the vertebrate genomes project, which has been running for a good long time and they are trying to map 70,000 genomes Like that's the goal is to map 70,000 species genomes For the vertebrate species on the planet They're using the galaxy infrastructure and the public instances to allow the collaboration They allowed this allowed them to compare the genomes that this new publication was developing Against what had already been assembled. They started with the superfinch, which is my favorite little tiny bird You know, I spent a lot of time with taniapigia guttata in my graduate years and It's it's one of the many vertebrate species that have been previously sequenced but With this assembly and this new This new research the researchers involved in this are able to actually make available the software the new algorithms and The new databases that are hopefully going to enable What will one day be an understanding of the the multitude of genomes vertebrate species specifically that are present on earth and Be able to actually compare all of them in a much more accurate way and The big issue with this study is that it needed to be scalable With the time it takes to sequence or it has taken to sequence vertebrate genomes historically the idea of getting to 70,000 would take Decades Yeah, I was gonna say this is this is definitely the kind of the way that things are moving with data repositories and being open source and having this accessibility for researchers to be able to compare and Replicate I just was in Santa Barbara doing some training on our coding for arctic data repositories This is so in line with that that same sort of thing. I Mean the the microbial life and the the other I mean This is Stuff that we know is there and we can see look. It's a burden of tree. Let's you know take a feather Let's take a skin cell sample and see what's in it But like so much of the arctic stuff and the stuff in the water and the sequencing of the unknown That's like what is there? Yeah, you know, it's it's real investigative digging But this is exciting because it hopefully will actually allow this Kind of sequencing to scale and move forward in in a way that will actually get us to lots more genome sequence sequences in less time and more accurately. They're using also the What is the name of the group that I just blanked on the company that is I'm forgetting the name of the company, but it is a very It's one that is very well known in the space of Chopping up genome sequences and being able to put them back together and And I can't know. I don't know why I'm not remembering that right now Anyway, little tiny puzzle pieces and that's what they're using Do we move forward into robots I'm I'm all for robots To my lack of memory How do you feel Sarah about Robots in general the idea of robotics and how they work. This is this is a you're Asking the right person. I actually own a small robot her name is And it's a it's a following robot that uses some AI technology to Track the person that it's programmed to follow in that moment and it maintains a certain distance and it can carry up to 20 pounds And it's on two wheels and you um Yeah, just did you steal this robot from NASA? No, I did not No, I I you know Admittedly saw an ad for it. I want to talk and I was like, oh Do I need a robot? No, but do I want this robot? Yes? Yes It's it's it's called a a Gita bot. Um, so yes, I'm a big fan. I'm a big fan of robots Well in space exploration, we know robots are going to do the work for a while For a while in other places where humans cannot be they're going to collect samples. They're already on the surface of Mars We've got robots going out all over the place But one of the questions is you know, how do we make robots more efficient and how do we Right now it takes big batteries. A lot of them have to be plugged in Those stuff that we're looking at at the really fancy robot companies where they show their robots doing dances and backflips and stuff They're pro they're programmed and they are only working for a short periods of time These are not bots that are just like hey, I can hang out for a whole day and then you know go to sleep But what if robots had a Skeletal muscle, what if they were able to function based off of the same biology that fernbrits mammals humans use Yeah, I mean, I mean are you This one, I guess I didn't read farther along in this paper because I've read all these ones that you sent So like are we talking like 3d printing? You know human kind of parts and putting it into a robot is that kind of the proposal that's moving here No, this is not 3d printing right now. It is culturing skeletal muscles and creating a Actual muscle cells that work in the same way that Say a group of muscles working together in a you know Myosite working with other muscles in a muscle bundle to be part of a larger muscle organ To move a limb and these researchers have it's this is not this is not taking over the world yet Everybody I'm just I just learn, you know Right now. They've got these little teeny tiny robot legs made out of plastic pieces that were probably 3d printed and with muscle cells connecting the tops and the bottoms and they have been able to energize those muscle cells with electrodes and Alternate the on off on off on off and create a structure Which is like walking and this is like Frankenstein, but real life Yeah, but only if these little little robot legs are in a Cellular nutrient bath like they can't water because the muscles dry out and then they shrink because the cells are dying Yeah, interesting. Yeah, so so you're wondering how do I feel about that like what like? Yeah, where would where this will go eventually is Definitely further than where it is now. Oh for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know that it's it's a I think this is gonna be At least from a science communicator perspective. This might be a hard sell for a while. I'm not gonna lie Like I think this might freak some people out And by some I mean a lot of people out Yeah, I don't know Yeah, if I you know, it's a it's a very simple design and You know, it's right now. They're sticking electrodes into the water to enable the movement I'm gonna Share this this from the journal matter where that where it's published You know, we've got these little electrodes in a Nutrient water bath and when they turn on or off the different legs move. It's not beautiful movement. It's not It's not a ballet dancer But it is the beginning of Possibly leading to lighter weight robots that are made of Me more efficient Materials we know biology works very well. So You know, can this turn into Something more will they ever be able to get past this need? to have the robot muscles In water or a nutrient bath. Where is it gonna go from here? But it's an interesting start 3d cultured muscles for robots Dun-dun-dun I'm a I'm a fan. I think I think robots Always deserve the benefit of the doubt. It's the the programmers You need more problematic. Yes, I would agree That's an interesting twist though. So and I have a whole frame of thought going on that but there are some other stories, so We do have more stories. Yes Eric Knapp in the chat is saying wasn't there a documentary on this kind of thing called Blade Runner? Yeah, we saw how that worked out. Hopefully science fiction will help us move into the future better All right, everybody We've been out at night after the sun goes down The lights come on outside and you've probably seen clouds of insects moths gnats Other other nighttime insects come and gather and seem kind of chaotic Flying around those lights and everybody says oh, it's just moth to a flame, right? It's just they're just tracked by light But why are they attracted by the light and why do they fly in the way that they do around those lights? Some researchers just publishing in nature communications They have published their work this last week, which I find fascinating a researcher was like, okay How does what why do they fly around the lights the way that they do? Why doesn't it seem like normal flight? This is a weird behavior and they put a moth to a light in the laboratory and realized That the moth was reorient reorienting so its back was to the light It they're not coming up and facing the light like as if they're You know worshiping it there They come to the light, but then reorient and their back goes to the light And so they started doing a lot of really high resolution Three-dimensional space models they had the researcher says I had let a large yellow underwing moth take off From my hand and fly directly over a uv bulb and immediately it flipped upside down They didn't know if they would be able to see this in the wild or not. And so they went to Costa Rica and Did a whole bunch of experiments with lights and saw what the insects did and were able to determine that This is normal behavior that the flipping around is what the insects the night insects do because They think the lights are the brightest thing in the sky which would be the moon or the stars Normally, but because we have artificial lights suddenly we have created this new bright Source But then they also are trained by gravity So the gravity of the earth tells them how to orient And instead of orienting to the moon or the stars with their back to that They are now orienting and trying to orient to this artificial light source and in looking at the these The light source and the the data that they got from it. They were able to actually model Why and how and be able to predict the movement of the moths and that this It's not normal flight. It is specifically within this controlled environment It's chaotic and it only occurs as a result Of the artificial light and the combination of the gravity Then they did this really neat addition to it because of reflected light, right? So they were like, oh, what if we have a light shining at the ground and What's going to happen to the insect then? Where is it going to go? And they found That they crash on the ground When the light is shining at the ground the ground becomes the reflective source and the insects Get confused and they crash on the ground. But if the light is facing up, they are more likely to Fly upward right side up and normally So depending of the cat Like the memes with the piece of bread on the back and then it doesn't know which way to Thanks, right if you put buttered bread on the back of a cat It's just going to hover forever Yeah, never falling Yeah, no, that's interesting though that that the gravity is You know something that they orient themselves with because um, you know, we know that You know a lot of species use the magnetic You know properties of the earth to know how to migrate and stuff like that Um, so I guess that completely makes sense to me Uh, and as an astronomer, I would definitely say it's very frustrating. Oh my god, I'm gonna have to take care of this dog in a second. Um, to have To have, uh These light sources because it does, you know, it not only messes up with your astronomy But it does it messes up with these animals and and these, you know Different the migrations and the bugs and and that that kind of stuff. So yeah, uh, interesting study Yeah, and I what I what I wonder as they move forward with this research, you know How will this help us with our urban environments? How can it help us do new lighting designs so that we aren't interfering as much? So right now we have street lights that Come down to help us see our sidewalks. But what if the lights were shining from the ground up instead? How would that how would that uh change the way that things worked? Yeah I don't know. I don't know either Yeah, it's interesting and I don't know pretty uh, I mean couldn't complain like studying a bunch of moths in Costa Rica. It sounds like a pretty fun job Sounds like a fantastic job But who knew that these nighttime insects decide to fly up to the light and then turn their backs on it Then flip on it. Yeah And then that makes them act all act stranger than normal Speaking of uh, no not stranger than normal mice. I like mice. Anyway, terrible segue mice Communicate in many different ways. We've talked over the years about not just alarm calls or squeaks related to pain But mice also have ultra sonic Sounds that are very very high pitched that allow them to communicate for mating and for other social communications There are even some mice that we know Sing and there are rats that we know to laugh. So there are all sorts of vocalizations that Take place in the mouse world researchers wanted to know if All of the same neurons in the brain were responsible For all of these vocalizations. So basically Across many species. We know that there's an area of mammals called the midbrain periaqueductal gray region and it regulates vocal production and if you artificially Stimulate it then it causes a squeak in a mouse or it causes a person to go. Ah, or it makes vocalizations in many different species But how they're organized and all the different types of neurons that come through that periaqueductal gray region Isn't very well known and the researchers were like, oh, I wonder so they looked at a bunch of mice and they blocked neurons in this periaqueductal gray region the PAG region and they determined that if they blocked these very specific When they when they blocked these neurons It blocked the high ultrasonic calls, but it did not block the Squeaks of pain or the alarm calls So it's the real communication between the mice that gets blocked when those neurons are turned off As opposed to like the Kind of alarm or pain responses And there is this amazing video that I'm going to try and share it with sound. So I hope it I hope it works out And in it the researchers, oh did I share it with sound I have to wait stop sharing hold on I have to make sure I've got all of the All of the things also share tab audio. Yes. Good. Okay. Good. These are those technical difficulties The technical things that we want to make sure that we're working through. Yes. So in this Video, the researchers have a male interacting with a female before and then after these neurons have been turned off and In the beginning Can you hear the high pitch squeaking? Yeah. So in the beginning these ultrasonic Calls are the male calling to the female and then The male and the female keep interacting But after the neurons are turned off The male is no longer making any sounds that can be detected Huh, yeah But they do still make the ouch. Ah noises right because from an evolutionary perspective that kind of makes sense Right, that's probably coming from a more survival part of your brain. That's you know um Yeah, that reflect reflexive kind of response, but interesting and like also the fact that we're like Yeah, and we turn off this part of the neurons like what? What that's just so wild that's yeah, it's it's amazing that they're able to specifically affect just certain groups of neurons but This was able they were able to also extend this to females and so there's Activities the behavior still happens, but they're just silent when that area of the brain is turned off and now it's You know, what does this mean for how brains are set up in social animals the communication that takes place and How the brain works to allow vocalizations at certain, you know specific times or not Yeah Yeah, but eventually, you know, I like the we're just trying to figure it out for how it works in the mice But of course there's always the well, maybe if we understand this in mice We can look at how this affects and it might apply to humans as well. Yeah, sure. Yeah down the line um and moving on from mice, um, let's talk about uh enzymes and plastics There's a lot of them Yeah, the uh the single use plastics are the ones that are Really problematic right now bioplastic polylactic acid PLA. It's very often from a natural source like soybeans or corn or potatoes even and very often It's like great. It's good plastic Well, it still doesn't break down easily like Paul it's a polymer that's what it is. They took a natural source and turned it into the polymers that make up plastics So researchers public publishing and cell reports physical science From kings college london. They were looking at this issue of Okay, you go to the coffee shop You get a cup of coffee the inside of it is lined with the PLA so that the You know the coffee doesn't go through the paper of the cup and you can enjoy your your coffee Then you go throw it away. It goes in a landfill. It takes a long time to break down We know that there are microbes and there are enzymes that could possibly help with this but what if we could develop processes to use enzymes that are already in use in our uh industrial Processing or in our manufacturing system And in this particular study They have described a general route to retooling hydrolytic enzymes toward plastic degradation And they used one specific enzyme that is uh lipase b and it's From a candida antartica species Yes, but it's used in laundry detergent. So you have this enzyme being used on large scale Very regularly and in this study and this process what they show is success in being able to get the enzyme very easily to a state where it will grab onto that PLA and Tear tear the polymer apart, right? It'll take the plastic pieces and rip them into The organic bases that they come from And they show full degradation in 24 hours and conversion to monomers instead of the polymers Which are long chains within 40 hours at just 90 degrees Celsius. So this is something that is within reason for industry for our recycling for the potential To be able to grab these things before they end up in a landfill or even as they go through a landfill and use these enzymes to To to make plastic recycling better more efficient. Yeah more. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, and so we put less in the ocean And your laundry is really clean Now that was one of my favorite things learning in biology was about how um How you know microbes and enzymes break down Things and that's why now, you know, think of even just when I was a kid You had these washing machines and you put your hot water in there and you know And now it's like Minimal water and cool water and you get clean laundry and it's enzymes Enzymes are just they are they are really They're what allow cells to function. They are Really helping us move forward and I mean, I'm excited about how artificial intelligence You know these learning algorithms are going to enable us to identify More and better enzymes that will potentially or even enzymes that we already have In in use that we can use to even you know better living through chemistry Make our lives better Yeah, I I don't know I I really do hope that we can figure out the The plastic issue because that is one of the big ones moving forward Yeah, I mean that's a layered problem too because when you're thinking about these biodegradable plastics, right that Come from corn or soybeans or stuff like that There's also a problem in that too that These huge scale productions of these crops to make these products and those monocultures are not super great for the earth Either so it's you know It's it's to me. Whatever I look at an issue. It's never it's never simple. It's never black and white. There's no like Here's the problem and I'm just gonna pull that problem out. It's always very nuanced and there's it's a scale so yeah Yeah, and I think that's one of the The big problems and needs when it comes to science communication is getting past you know a history of teaching students that science is right or wrong answers and actually educating it edging educating people as to the nuances and the complexity of all of these issues and the systems that are at work On our planet within our society that make things work the way that they do Yeah It's never black or white I mean, I'm watching for all mankind now. So yeah I haven't I really haven't actually gotten into that that much. So yeah, I mean, I know I should but There's no shoulds just if you do or not Do or do not do or do not It's a very yoda type saying but anyway, okay We have hit the first half of this show and I just want you all to know that this is this week in science We are running through Stories and I'm so glad that you are here with us right now If you enjoy twist, please share with a friend today Help somebody else to subscribe. Let them know where we are on all of the different platforms where we Stream live and where we podcast Also, if you really love the show and want to help us continue Head over to twist.org and click on the patreon link where you can join the patreon Community of supporters for twists and you can choose your level of support per month $10 and more and we will thank you by name at the end of the show There's also our zazzle store. So you can hit the zazzle link and take a look at some of our twist merchandise many items have been created By hand art created by Blair. So if you like science art and her Blair's animal corner segment There's a calendar available. I mean, I know we're at the end of january But there's still 11 more months to go. You have time and there are many other things out there, but really We thank you for your support. Thank you for being here. We really can't do it without you So we're coming on back with more this week in science and it's time to reintroduce our guest for the evening Sarah Treadwell is a science communicator who currently is developing a book and a planetarium show about the lost city hydrothermal field What is this? We need to know more about this She's also working with the blue marble space institute of science and the ask an astrobiologist podcast And pursuing a phd in communications right now. Sarah. Thank you so much for joining us this evening Thank you for having me and actually I've really talked to many people about the book thing Not that it's a secret, but I just haven't it's been a little like kind of low-key. So you heard it here first I saw it on a naso bio. So It must be my scope project. I think probably yeah Yeah, it's not a secret. It's just I don't I don't I haven't really like blasted it out there yet because it's still in the works But yeah, no, thank you for having me So, uh, the planetarium show you mentioned the scope and that is funded by a nasa scope grant. Is that What's going on there? What is that project? So the the nasa scope grants are c grants for connecting subject matter experts to the sci-af teams, which is an initiative by nasa to Kind of brought in Science communication, I guess in the best way to explain it There's a lot of initiatives within the sci-af teams But the sci-af teams are different projects that nasa funds and so I am partnering with open space Which is an open source Uh kind of data repository and what they do is they are basically building the universe and And they're doing it through scale. So It's it's like a software that you can zip around the universe and everything is to scale And so when I tell people you can easily get lost in open space This is not an understatement because if you know anything about space, it is really really big. Um, and so Understatement. Yes. Yeah And so what they do to try to help people because it's very easy to get lost is they build these guides And so say you're like, I really want to learn about all of the research and the missions We've ever done to venus. There's probably a guide written for that and so it will like guide you through the open space program so it it's not You trying to figure out how to fly there on your own and that's what they call it when you're moving around it It's it's flying. Um, and so, uh, I was sitting in a meeting And open space was presenting and they were talking about a program guide that they had developed for astrobiology And then they went on to say, yeah, but the only thing we don't have is Going to hydrothermal fields under the water on earth And I was like, oh darn because I just sailed on a ship for two months that went over a hydrothermal field And that would be really kind of useful for me as a science communicator And so then I had someone in my comments going, oh, this is what a scope grant is for and so that's kind of how That all came about and so it's super exciting. Um, not only are we going to put the vent field in this software But we're also going to build the ship in there as well to really connect the concept that it's While it is, you know, a lot of nasa missions built in there There's still so many scientific organizations that make the magic happen. It's not isolated in a vacuum And so you often find these big kind of things have a lot of funding from different countries from different Scientific organizations. So I really wanted to bring that to my guide that I'm writing that, you know, it's not an isolated thing to, um You know have astrobiology research it it it takes everybody and that's what I like about astrobiology is that it's not just Biologists actually there's even a joke within it that it's very few biology people. It's a lot of like Geologists and chemists and planetary Scientists and you know, uh, lots lots of people make that happen. Yeah, there's a lot of there's a lot of Chemistry and physics before you actually get to life and yeah, there's a lot of stuff that underlies all of it So, yeah, how do you get to the the understanding of what could make life possible before that? The chaos of ecosystems starts to evolve Yeah, which leads me to you asked me what is the lost city and and that's where You know, I'm really excited to work on this project because I didn't set out to be the uh kind of expert if you will on the lost city by any means But it has started to consume my life and now I I know this place very very intimately And uh, to your point basically the lost city is a place where Many scientists think chemistry might have turned to biology back in in history Not this vent field, but this might be an analog to a system that perhaps this is where Life may have gotten started because there are chemical reactions happening in this area that produce Hydrogen and hydrocarbons and so it's very feasible that this could be the place where Maybe life got its foothold on earth And so that connection to space is that also many scientists think that therefore If this could be happening on earth, it could be happening on icements of like Jupiter and Saturn So this hydrothermal field, we've talked about hydrothermal vents on the show before the black smokers Which are known to be very hot and these upwellings of like volcanic activity that have a lot of Gases and the hot water that allowed nutrients for microbes to be able To live and have these small Yeah food chain habitat everything How is this hydrothermal field different from Just the black smoker from all of them. Yeah, so all of them. Yeah, is it all of them? Yeah, you just gave a really great introduction into how I I have to explain this because I always have to first explain A black smoker and what that is and then why this is different. So this menfield was accidentally discovered in 2000 It was actually the second to last day of their crews that they Were just kind of scanning this actually this is a great picture to show right now too They were they were scanning this transform fault wall and kind of going up and down and moving a camera And then it was spotted out of a side camera these like ghostly white kind of greenish towers And um and the arrow you see in the top corner there It's pointing to where this is located in the uh, Atlantic ocean So this is basically a plate where the plates are splitting apart the plates In that spot are pulling apart very very very slowly And so it's allowing the mantle to rise up so that that map showing all those red spots That's you know, like a mountain under the water, but that's mantle rock coming up So hotter it's it's the the the plates are pulling apart and so you have the Uh, the rising of of the mantle the mantle up and pushing the crust upwards. It is yes And this is ultra ultra slow spreading. I mean, I think it's like one centimeter a year Like it's super ultra slow spreading and um, so it's slower than like san adreus fault movement Exactly and so um what is happening is not heat from the the bottom of the earth the magma the You know the volcanic activity, which is what the black smokers are are getting their energy from This is actually the uh mineral olivine is in the mantle and that has an exothermic reaction with the salt water So it is when the salt water gets into that mantle rock when it gets down into the cracks It is having a a chemical reaction And it is creating like serpentinite Serpentinite. Yes. So serpentinite is a I tell people it's think of like the crusty build-up of calcium on your faucet It's not a great analogy, but it's the best way people can think about it. Um, Basically these big ghostly spires are the serpentinite. It's the it's the leftover From this chemical reaction happening, but they're they're actually producing heat From the exothermic reaction. So there's heat coming off of these big spires and you can see it And that was one of the things that really jumped out at the researchers They saw this like shimmery water coming off of these spires And they were like they it's so funny to read the original nsf blog post to it too. Yeah This is this video you'll see in the second shot. You'll see that water Shimmering off of it. So that's awful. That's all the heat coming off of it. It's not Cool But it's not as hot as a black smoker. So it actually allows microbial life to really thrive because Most not extremophiles. Yes. Well, yeah, no exactly. And so it's you know, even at the black smoker sites If anything gets too close to those vent fields, they're gonna die. It's way way way too hot. Um But this is like much cozier for microbial life. So there's sort of like almost Like a snotty film On these white vents and people call them white smokers, which is a misnomer because they're not really smoking but um Yeah, the the idea is that this is a cozy place That has all the right chemical soup if you will that perhaps Life got its foothold here And because it is driven by a chemical process It could very likely happen on these icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn because This kind of reaction doesn't need a molten core For it to produce this heat and energy. It's doing it from a chemical reaction not from the the core of something. So um the uh A lot of the nasa missions now are specifically looking for This kind of potential of these vent fields being out there. So like the clipper mission Which is set to launch this year. Um Is going to try to fly Through the plumes of Europa that's like spitting water out into space and it's going to try to fly through Some of this water to try to catch water samples as it passes through and so hopefully on my expedition We took water samples. Hopefully we can use that as an analysis to you know compare and see what we might Be able to find. So yeah, I shared it with her. I shared a bunch of my videos Um, this is the moon pool of the ship. Um So I sailed on a ship for two months called the joides resolution. It's an ocean core drilling research ship that goes all around the world and it um it is uh Each expedition is very specific to whatever You know, whatever mission The ship Is going on. So that was a bad way of explaining it. So like previously beforehand it went to like the caldera in uh, Santorini and that was very like volcano research, right? So my expedition was very astrobiology Looking at this part of the world and taking core sampling How many times did they uh head out or have researchers, do you know, have they been out to the lost city? Is this since was the early thousands when it when it was discovered? Yeah, the the first cruise accidentally discovered it in 2000 then the nsf funded a huge follow-up to that um in See they're 2005 or 2008. I can't remember off the top of my head But so the nsf then funded a very big expedition to go back out um Since then I know that you know, some universities have funded to have some work done there And the jointies resolution has been back there twice to my knowledge including my Expedition the trick about going there is that it's very remote It is smack dab in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean You are also pretty far away from any shipping lines. I mean when I was out there We saw one ship passed by maybe two So, you know, you have to be able to have something that can sustain itself For at least a couple of weeks because it takes a while to get out there And so that video you saw of the moon cool that hole in the bottom of our ship is always open um, and that Makes it possible to do what we do, but it also makes the ship move really slow So I don't know like what this what the speed is to get there for a normal ship But it took us like almost four days because we have to go very slow because of that hole um But anyway my point being you know, you have to it takes you a few days to get out there And then you want to be able to do At least two weeks of work, right? You know, it would be a complete waste to travel all that way and have to turn right around. So um, I don't know how many times visited but yeah, I just saw that it's been uh They're not refunding it and the joities resolution missions aren't happening anymore I'm sure there will be other missions to this area and the the joities will probably be replaced by other research vessels and research missions But what was it? What was it like? I mean the moon pole image with your your commentary about This hole that's in the Vessel that you're on um, it's it's a large hole and you watch the waves coming in and going out and it I like sailing I That was watching it. It's it's either mesmerizing or uh, it could really cause some seasickness You're not you're in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. This is Not near anything. So yeah, what was it like to be on the ship and to be exploring in that way? Yeah, no, I you know, I get well the first thing before I even left everyone asked me do you get seasick? Do you get seasick? I'm like, well, I don't I scoop a dive a lot and I go on boats And I never get sick on those boats. So I don't know I do get seasick. So uh for the record I do get slightly seasick not very bad but a little bit. Um, so that was you know, kind of the first big experience was that movement heading out. It was just really weird like I don't know just that that that movement and then you kind of realized like, uh, oh like, what did I get myself into? You know, because you're heading out for two months And um, I better get used to this get my sea legs. Yeah, but the nice thing about a ship like that is to be able to send this pipe Miles down into the ocean floor the ship has to be very very stable So once you get where you're drilling there are 12 giant thrusters on the bottom of the ship And it will hold the ship in place and then the captain will turn the ship to face the wind and the waves So once you get where you need to go, it's not too bad. Um Some people are also very very freaked out by the like not being able to see land For two months, uh, that didn't bother me But I know that I've heard stories from other people that it has like I've heard even stories of other expeditions where people had to they had to take the ship back to port because people were freaking out so much Wow, and luckily we nobody we never had any issues to that magnitude on my expedition. Um It's it's amazing ultimately it's really amazing because The ship runs 24 7 And then they have a paid staff that Cooks all your meals. You can have your laundry done every single day. There's a gym Um, I mean, it's kind of like cruising for seconds It does not sound like a terrible a terrible experience. No, not at all. I miss that so much Um, but I also I miss it, but I don't because there are so many moments where like On that expedition it could not have gotten done sooner. You know, you just are just ready to be done You're just ready to get off. You're ready to be done and then once you're back. Yeah, but then you can't exactly Um, so they make it as comfortable for us possible for sure, which I really really appreciated but uh, it it's not for the faint of heart and I've done an analog astronaut mission before this where you get isolated for a couple of weeks And I would say that was harder than the ship In many ways, but it's still it's not easy to be completely separated You know, you can still call home, but it there's definitely some mental strength You need to to have to be able to go out for two months So you've scuba dived you you do scuba dive. Uh, you've been on this two months long Journey and you you also you let me know in the notes that you have climbed up to The base camp on mount everest. Yeah, so it sounds like you are not a verse to stressful or risky experiences I wouldn't say that I've always done everything with grace Yes, um, I have stuck myself in some positions where I am like, hmm. I don't know if this was the best choice But here we are so Yeah, I definitely Am okay with very extreme environments In the sense of being okay with the level of danger that can sometimes come with those things I um, I'm actually working on a project now with my phd That does research up in the arctic and I just got back from training for that very recently and listening to Everybody else's stories about work in the field. I'm like this might actually be the most intense thing that I'm going to be getting myself into if I do get to go out to the field because um Even the equipment that they'll leave for just short to some amount of time Uh, the bears will get to them. And so there's actually a very like it's a very dangerous bear area to go up there and It's very dangerous. Yes. Yeah, so it's fun. Yeah Yeah, so that's my p.i. Um, dr. Pash and uh, yeah, we're working on Basically mapping and we're using a.i. Actually to help Understand how the thawing of permafrost in that area is affecting the infrastructure and the roads and And then hopefully using a.i. To predict if things continue on the track that it's going how the roads will continue to break down Um, and how what would you do about it? Yeah, are they going to remain or not? What's going to happen where the sinkhole is going to form? How are they going to break down? Yeah Yeah Yeah, and there's also like some biological risks to all the permafrost Going away so quickly up there too because there were a lot of mass graves that were dug from like flu, you know, flu Epidemics and stuff and those suddenly are getting exposed very quickly And so there's even some looking into like what what are the implications to health? For that happening. So it's a it's a really cool project to be on just a Uh, a completely different world than kind of what I was doing on the ship in some ways because it's arctic But I mean Mount Everest we know, you know, it can get extreme very cold the further up an altitude you go they're all all also are um, you know The deglaciation that's occurring as our atmosphere is warming is unearthing corpses And excrement Yeah, people, you know old food stores old campsites all sorts of things. Um On mountains all around the world not just not just Mount Everest, but um, I hadn't I had concerned considered The permafrost defrosting in terms of just natural microbes that are just in the soil or Just are old and maybe Get refreshed and come back to life because why not? There's just a bunch of dna or RNA and they're fine Yeah, I just get to sleep for a while. It's great. It's meli too. I got to I got the chance to like I know it sounds very weird, but like thawed permafrost liquid Um, they they're doing lots of studies on it and it's it's actually quite odiferous because it's very old and uh, so uh, I was at the crel lab in, um, New Hampshire, which is the cold regions research lab and they have a bunch of, you know, different samples and stuff like that and, um Really cool really cool science happening there. So Anyway, yeah, it's like the uh, the equivalent of geologists slicking rocks. It's um, yeah permafrost scientists sniffing the The fraud permafrost. Yeah, or you know paleontologists I don't know if you know this but you know if you can tell something's a fossil if you stick it to your tongue And it and it sticks to your tongue just slightly because the little porous holes of the fossilistic. So, right? This is not looking this way. You don't want to tell people to go out and lick things in nature without knowing what you're doing Don't do this in the chemistry labs, but you know, maybe in nature. I don't know Take your chances Lick a rock lick a fossil. Lick a rock. I don't know. He's sniffing permafrost. It's great. We'll see if you can How does that work out for you? But yeah, no, it's been it's been an amazing ride and and so that's my my current kind of thing But my my big thing from the ship is this lost city field and yes like you mentioned the book and the planetarium show And working on that, um is kind of ongoing on top of all this Sounds like yeah, you're doing a lot of communicating But I really would like to know uh the the graduate work. So this arctic work that you're doing It's the research and understanding what's happening there, but you are really engaged in communications. So is Is your role in this going to be helping to communicate what the findings are or? What are you what is your goal? What is my role right now? And that and I have an interesting um And fun part for my job is There's two sides to that coin one side is I do need to understand what's happening So I can communicate it properly But then I also need to be a good communicator To a general audience because a lot of these projects that I work on have public funding and it is the responsibility of these projects to communicate to the public what is happening because it is your dollars that are being spent on whatever they're doing and um, there's a huge challenge in that because I could go up to you and say like oh I was at the lost city hydrothermal field where Serpentinization is happening and that's causing hydrocarbons to form and blah blah blah and someone would be like What not that does that matter? Yeah, you know, and it doesn't matter then either that and that's the big challenge is Um, and I challenge the the people that I work with because sometimes I have to interview people and ask them to explain Their jobs to me and I'm like, okay, but you need to tell me now. Why does that matter to sarah? in northern illinois You know the arctic is so far away and most people here don't care They don't know and they don't care and doesn't affect their life How does it affect their lives and that pushes them to think about it more and then it helps me do my job um, but that's you but it's it's a great role to be the person who's pushing the scientists to really Get at like the nut of yeah, it's important not just i'm a scientist and i'm curious about this But like why is it going to matter to other people exactly? Why does it why is it going to matter and then it also brings them out of their I call it the curse of knowledge bubble because they're so ingrained in what they're doing They kind of forget that like other people have absolutely no idea what you're talking about and so uh, you know, I try to always find equivalents that Most people can understand so like in my current project We're develop we're developing this platform that I would call kind of like a super sciency google earth Like that is sort of the the the format when you launch into the platform You can see the globe you can see You know alaska and then you can click on the map and you can go see lidar data And so again, these are things that like lidar. I don't assume most people would know what lidar means versus radar um And so I like that I like that part of my job But someone who works in lidar would be like well, it's lidar Like you should just know that you know, so I like breaking it down And that's what I love doing as a science communicator is communicating science and then getting people really excited about it like There's a vent field in the middle of the atlantic ocean and it's the only one We have ever found on earth so far that works this way And it was found on accident and it was found on accident because of a broken instrument too That's right. Yeah, and I think that it's just so cool and nobody knows of this thing and So if I can get somebody excited Then I've done my job like that's that's literally I've done my job if you walk away and you're like I like this weird vent field in the atlantic ocean. I'm like you I mean the lost city that that name is It's reminiscent of something out of you know, either indiana jones or something that's lost in the amazon, you know, some culture like Atlantis or you know something. Yeah The best part no one no one remembers who came up with the name too It's so funny. You're like who came up with this and they're like, I don't know But I mean that would be like that in itself is Right. It's a great story and that and that's what we're doing with this book project We're trying to um share the the original stories and share the importance of the of the research of that area But put the human story into it because that is what people resonate with and what makes these places important and what matters um, and so that's what we're doing with that and then what I'm hoping with this planetarium show then is to Have a very visual high impact way of sharing this kind of science because what person Doesn't just have their mindblowns in a planetarium I mean, I I love planetarium shows and to be able to go and experience a planetarium show That's going underwater and then potentially connects you to Europa and in selenus, you know, like Right, I know You know the visualizations that can fly you from you know these miles under the ocean to Thousands millions of miles away from our planet. This is great. Yeah I'm looking forward to the day that I can like go to omsi here in portland and say I know Well, I'm super excited about that project and i'm really excited to bring it to my community because my community Definitely needs all the the help it can get with like supplemental stem education initiative So that is a huge part of what I I do as as you can see my name is space case sara So that's who I I am as a science communicator in my in my community, but um, I uh Yeah, I try to do as much outreach within my own community as possible And it actually started with sidewalk astronomy and so again going back to If I can just wow someone just a tiny little bit right show them the moon and they're like wow I've never seen it like that. Yeah, I've done my job. I wish I could do that every day. Um Just wowing people with that and kids especially if I can just give them that little bite And hook them because it's so unfortunate to me that so many children Um, especially in in our community the the reading levels are Shockingly low and so the teachers are just trying to get kids to read They're just trying to get them up to par so stem falls pretty far down in in the pile of education And so then their first exposure are like textbooks which are so bland And so they have to cram as much as they can into these textbooks. Um, it's it's It's almost criminal to me. So if I can I can give me yeah comic comic books or you know, uh Adventure books that are you know Something yeah something that Sparks the kids into it. Yeah, exactly Then I've done my job. And so yeah, it's been it's it's it's it's a it's a wild journey But the whole thread the thread of it all has been communicating sites Do you think that you will continue in the the space based direction or um, you know, kind of as that through line of Biology chemistry here on earth and where that leads into the universe. Yeah, I definitely want to Um, continue the thread and I I look I actively look for ways to see how what I'm doing even if it might not seem like it's super linked, um Connect it to astrobiology because again to me astrobiology is just it's all the sciences And I like to always tell people Earth is a part of space like we are on spaceship earth and it is it is no different here than it is out there And so we're not we're not as separated as we kind of feel that we are that it's earth and space like we're All apart we're part of it big thing, right? And um So like my my work in the Arctic I can already see sort of connecting points to This extreme cold weather because that's a huge part of what we're also looking at is It's very hard to keep drones and batteries going in extreme cold And those are challenges that nasa is going to face sending things to these icy moons. Um, it's the same issues If you can keep an electric vehicle running in sub zero temperatures, then maybe you can keep a robot drone on right Right and then even then kind of linking back to some of the science stories that we were talking about earlier But right there are microbes that have evolved to live in these extreme cold environments And so there are there are scientists looking at the biology of how that works And how can we implement that biology into our technology to keep these things from Basically malfunctioning because they freeze over right Yeah, how do we keep that how do we keep that chemical energy? producing either enough heat or Just enough momentum chemically to maintain reactions. So, right exactly. So that our our technology works that our Investigations work. So all of it works. Yeah, it's all connected to me. I see it Some of the scientists still have a very like I'm a geologist. I don't do space stuff, you know And I'm I you know, we're all on the same team team earth. Okay Yeah Team waiting right now team earth team life. Let's keep keep it going here on our planet and figure out how to live here better while we figure out how Others how it all works around us, right? Where exactly in the giant screen of things. Yes. Well, that's getting very philosophical, but yeah Yes, I was gonna go there with the muscles thing too, you know if a robot showed up on earth from another planet and it had muscles That had like cells would we consider that life? Visiting earth I would would you but it's a robot but at the same Yes, I mean, right. I'm just throwing it out there. Would that be this is a really great question. I love this I'm gonna let I'm gonna go ask my son about this later and get him Yeah, I mean there's a whole concept of if an if a robot in general visited would it be considered life Because right when is Artificial intelligence general artificial intelligence considered intelligent enough to be conscious To have enough Awareness sentience sapience, etc versus I don't know. Yeah Life has to be heritable according to our definitions. There have to be mechanisms for heritability and For uh reproducibility, right and for sustainability. Um, you know I don't know. I don't know That's what also astrobiology deals with too. There's definitely a whole philosophical policymaking side of it too where Say we go to Europa and we find life What does that mean and how what does you know, how do we how do we handle that? It means we sent a craft there that probably has microbes from earth on it and we just We just contaminated it Right, but you know, there's a whole a whole slew of ethics That's why nasa has a category rating of different planets and like how at risk it is to yes pollute it with our own Upsies and so uh, like the moon is a zero because we know nothing could live on the moon So even though certain was so close and maybe we're like, we just kind of want to go Well that too, but you know, I don't remember it was a few years back some some Space craft crashed and there were a bunch of tardy grades on it and you know, that is like oops But it's not gonna probably mess anything up because it's not really, you know People would love to think that those tardy grades are just having a party on the moon, but I think they are but It's a tardy party I Someone needs to make that into a shirt now I think that would be great I don't know anybody out there and who is in our audience take it and run with it Sarah, I don't want to keep you too late because I know it is a late night for you where you are and Really enjoying talking with you about your work and the things that you've been involved in Is there anything else that you want to just? touch on Before we head out for the night. I don't think so, but thank you so much for for having me and I I know I feel like they're They're so much that I like I feel like I just skim the surface of every little Topic and then I'm like, but wait, there's so much more, but you can uh You can definitely find my work and and me online as spacecase there.com And I'm on all the as people would say time wasting platforms Um, so I'm sure you're not wasting any time there all the time. It's all the work But um, you know, I like to to share pictures and Share Memories still of especially the ship because I I haven't even it hasn't even been a year since I was on it So it's still pretty fresh You know, like even some of the people I sailed with they work full time you're round on the ship But they go two months on two months off So like that crew is back on the ship. So it's still like very like like I'll have these moments where I'm like I just need to share a video because I miss it so much Um But uh, I need to go back to the seasickness. Yeah, no I think I I figured out kind of my trick for the seasickness. Uh, it's definitely You know, that's all an inner ear thing So if you're working on a laptop and your world is moving around you, but you're looking at something stable Your brain is like, uh, like I do not understand why I feel like we are moving So it basically was like I cannot work today. I just I can't you know, I would just have to go outside and I figured it out. But find the horizon. Yes get your brain and your inner ear Definitely Yes, the yes That was a huge thing. Um, I think it all worked together It's like our sickness That's why you have people sit in the front seat of the car or be the driver So that they have like the proprioception and the vision that works with the inner ear stuff to make it all work together Yeah Car sickness. Yeah, some people were really bad and we also had a hospital on board with a doctor that could give you some Mild drugs and then really really heavy duty drugs if you really struggled. So There's only so much that drumming can do after a while. Yeah Yeah, uh, uh, billy who is um, one of my co-author On the book that i'm working on he was he basically was like, yep, you're not gonna see me for 48 hours I am going to clean down and he's and I'm like He's like, I don't know how I ended up in this line of work Because he specializes in studying velocity. So he's always going out in the ocean. It's like, oh You put the bad thing to focus your research. Yeah, just give me a minute 48 hours or so, but then I'll be okay for a while. I might have to go back down again, but we're good And now I'm used to it. It's all it's just just the way it is. All right Um, Eric nap does live in alaska. He's saying the most important thing in going to the arctic Eric, where do you live in in alaska? But anyway, yeah, no, uh, clean dry socks. I would agree. Um, just about anywhere I've been reading a book called the comfort crisis and it's um, the author he goes up In alaska and does like a month-long hunting expedition kind of thing like that and um Yes, he gives lots of suggestions of like boots and gear and stuff and I'm like taking notes like, okay You should probably remember that I am such a wimp for the cold too. I would much rather be somewhere warm And diving but here we are so and you I wouldn't be diving. I just like warm places I don't know Snorkeled I was about as much as I could do Aw I like videos. I like the looking at what other people do. Okay Sarah, thank you so much for joining us tonight. Um, as you said your website is spacecase sarah.com Sarah Treadwell I expect that we are going to be seeing some Really incredible stuff from you in the future and I can't wait and I hope that we stay in touch and are able to Find out more about your adventures and your communications work because Good stuff. Yeah, it is it's pretty exciting stuff Sometimes I'm not even like sure that this is my own life. I'm like, who like you what me Yeah, it's adventure. Sarah. There we are. Yes Yeah Um, so everyone out there, uh, I mean sarah once again Short notice and I appreciate you being here tonight so much and it's just been a wonderful conversation and um, I hope everyone Else who listened in and was here during the show appreciates it I hope everyone who catches it as a podcast also enjoys the show. Thank you for being here Thank you for listening everyone and I do have some shout outs for people who help the show on a weekly basis Fata, thank you for your work on show notes and the social media Gord are in law others. Thank you for helping out in the chat rooms and keeping everything happy Our discords our youtube twitch and facebook chat rooms. Thank you everybody who was here live and chatting in the chat room Uh identity 4. Thank you for recording the show and rachel. 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Did you pray? Barely, yeah I'm trying to be like the old school. What is it the little Matchbox machines anyway micro machines the little cars Oh If anyone else is interested in supporting us on patreon Please head over to twist.org where you can find a link to our patreon page Next week on the show. Justin should be back with us. I think I don't know. Don't miss it You don't know what's gonna happen. I don't either. We'll be back I will for sure be back broadcasting wednesday 8 p.m Pacific time on twitch youtube and facebook and if you want to listen to us as a podcast Of course, just look for this week in science all places that podcasts are found If you enjoyed the show get your friends to subscribe to And if you have any need for more information or links or any things that any of the things that sarah and I talked about tonight Again, our show notes are on twist.org and there is also You can put your email in and subscribe to our newsletter if you want to that's all there at our website You can email us as well. My email is kirsten at kirsten at thisweekinscience.com Justin is twist minion at gmail.com and blair is blair baz at twist.org Don't forget to put twist in the subject line. So your email doesn't get spam filtered into the lost city Hydrothermal vents where you know, it's lost. I think I kind of found it. I will find it I know that place now. I have all the maps. So you tell me I'll find it Oh my goodness, you can find us on social media. We're still out there at twist science is the the main account My account is at dr. Kiki Justin is at jackson fly blairs blairs blairs menagerie and sarah. What is your usual socials? Oh, I'm space k sarah everywhere every single time wasting platform you type space k sarah You shall find me as wonderful If anyone also wants to request a topic or an interview that we might do someone like sarah to Guest on the show. Let us know we love your feedback and we will be back Twists will be back here next week and we hope that you will join us again for more great science news and of course If you did learn anything on the show tonight remember It's all in your head This week in science This week in science This week in science. It's the end of the world. So i'm setting up shop got my banner unfurled It says the scientist is in i'm gonna sell my advice Show them how to stop the robots with a simple device I'll reverse global warming with a wave of my hand and all this is coming your way So everybody listen to what I say. I use the scientific method and I'll broadcast my opinion This week in science this week in science This week in science Oh my goodness. We are now in the after show sarah. I haven't ended the stream yet So we're still live, but I do want to you know, give you the opportunity to you know, say good night again or whatever and just Thank you to everyone who listened and i'm you know, I always feel very like man I probably was ping-ponging all over the place, but that's because like I have so Much I could share that I have a hard time landing on like okay. This is the right thing because then it's You know, just no, but you're doing you're doing really interesting work and the you know, even though Uh, you know your current research work is in one area and you've done something in the past And you've got these long-term projects that are ongoing. You know, you definitely got this passion for Understanding stuff and helping to share it and it was just Yeah, yeah, great to have your company tonight in here. I'm so glad I was able to help you out tonight too And yeah, no, I uh, you know would love to come back, especially You know the love it project was kind of like I said not not known But that is going to be a more formally announced probably as we get a little bit closer to maybe pitch into a publisher But then I also have like no other things that like I'm always kind of brewing things and I'm always waiting for Yay's nays the right time to share things and so Um, I'm not not saying that I kind of threw out something for the Antarctic, but I maybe So, you know, anyway, I have like You're like, let me go to all the extreme places Next thing you're gonna be is the arctic Antarctic and then you'll be on the moon I You know, like if you were to ask me two years ago, too Do you want to go to space? I would have been like, oh no way like that just it didn't seem very feasible and now I'm like Oh, I feel like a sub orbital hop kind of thing could be in my in my path at some point someday um And yeah, I mean, I mean if I can convince you also to you know, scuba dive and just kidding But I'll be in Fiji in May diving So that is also just a really cool part of the story is just it's all you know Seeing the whole world. It's so cool. The world is so cool. It's so amazing It's so beautiful and it's so Epic to get to just explore all these parts of it. So anyway I'm done gushing. I love that you are out there exploring and Yeah image of being able to do that and you know Going places that maybe some people cannot go so that you can come back And share that joy share the awe and the wonder and the understanding that's being gained You know, it's You know, it is a privilege to be able to go and do all these things But then it's like the fact that you are also You know, you want to share it with others as well as you know, that's And you want to be good at sharing it with others I want I want to share also because I want people to I think that and we didn't even touch base on this at all but um one of the reasons I got into science communication was because I was in a very scary car accident very kind of Holy crap that could have been it moment and that was a huge wake-up call for me to be like man like I Have this as far as I understand one precious life And I want to take full advantage of it and as also being a mom I want to show my children that This is how One way you can live a very full big purposeful life and um, you know, how do we Encourage our children any better than doing it by leading it by example. So I don't know who this person is, but they said I've never left the closet. Well You know what your backyard is a good start It's great. And um You do whatever makes you comfortable little steps. Exactly. Maybe steps Depending on where you live, you could probably even like in my area, you couldn't even find fossils in your backyard You can find, you know, little Ammonite kind of fossils and stuff Here in Oregon, we can uh, you can go out and they What are they? It's not dragon eggs. It's um, but it's the it's the geodes. So you can go out and you can Because it's so much volcanic uh There's so many manic geological areas you can go out and Thunder eggs. Is that what I think that might be a common? No I don't know them as geodes Geodes but you find you can find the rocks and they're kind of the all these round Ugly things and you can crack them open and then I know there's no fun. But yeah Beautiful geodes inside all thanks to chemistry Yes, it's it. You know what I have I'm gonna ask you really quick a question biology or chemistry Like what maybe not even those two? I always argue that chemistry is like that's the base, right? You need to but then people will push back on me and really know it's physics or something. What do you think? I think it's physics because physics at the uh Subatomic scale is what allows us to have the chemistry that then builds life like your and so it's like the electrons and Even be it, you know quarks and gluons and you know And and the physics of it comes down to you know, I'm not even gonna go on to the quantum space But even just you know the the interactions between Electrons and Other you know you have hydrogen ions and you have calcium ions, you know How do these different things come together and how do you know organic chemistry? Whatever. Okay, we're great at organic chemistry That's what is building life, but it doesn't happen Unless you have the underlying interactions at the electromagnetic scale That's my answer. Yeah. No, I agree. Yeah, so I have thought about this many times, but I you know No one is more important than any other. They're too interconnected. I would Yeah, you can't quite separate them when you're like, which one's the most important that you need to know And it's kind of hard And that's when like when people who are physicists, they're like, oh, you know I'm gonna come up with a theory of everything and it's gonna explain biology and ecosystems and how that all works And I'm like, no, you're not I'm sorry And I love that's what I love and this is certainly really dedicated after after show people here That we also didn't get into but I was raised a young earth creationist and in those environments You have the answers. It's just you know And if it's too complicated, then it can get easily explained away as like, oh, it's a mystery It was just made that way and um, I find so much liberation in not having answers I think it's fantastic. And that's why Uh, yeah, like sub subatomic particle physics kind of stuff is so weird right like how do electrons disappear for a hot Whatever and then come back like where do they go? I love that. We don't know and then you talk about no, we know and they're flipping into different kinds of neutrinos And they're like, I'm gonna be this one and that one and like right I love it. And then like the the double slit experiment is like my favorite one purely for the like Why does it do that? We don't know really. Yeah, we don't really know and I find it. I think it's so great to just be like We don't know because it's so Opposite of what I was taught and raised in where it was like, we have all the answers. We know what we're doing We're right and now it's like We don't know and that's really cool, right? Yeah, one of the uh, so not Uh young earth but flat earth, which was a conspiracy theory. There was a false flag movement on social media by Propagandists and anyway, I'm not going to go into the politics of where it all came from initially But it's an interesting history if you ever want to dig into where the flat earth ideas came from really, um but there many often you'll run into people who Maybe think about that and they they believe in the flat earth and I read an article in wired that someone shared recently written by a professor and he's a science writer Also, he writes about physics stuff, but he was like, oh here are two Like foolproof experiments and ways to convince your flat earth friends that they that the earth is round or spherical or oblique sphere, whatever It was just It was like here's this is it was Here's the knowledge. Here's the information. Here's an experiment now You have to believe me kind of attitude as opposed to approaching a person and trying to figure out why They they agree or they believe in the flat earth idea in the first place. Where are they coming from right? as opposed to addressing it with inquiry inquiry and Then leading to conversation. It was basically like how to win an argument with your flat earth or friends Yeah, that that really is yeah, I even struggle with that a lot too because it does feel like you want to win an argument, but um A science communicator friend of mine that I very much look up to actually i'm wearing her sweatshirt tonight. It says it's ad Astro for astro. Emily calandrelli. Yeah, she's great. Yeah, and she's originally from west virginia and so she always Talks about how you can't blaze into that state and tell these people that you know burning coal is bad Because that just that's not going to work Um, and that's people's livelihoods. They're generational right, so That's a huge thing. I people are you know, I'm kind of feeling the pressure of like what's your dissertation gonna be? I'm like But one of the things I am juggling a lot about is that that exactly what we're talking about is how do we have better conversations? In these spaces where people have very very different backgrounds and different ideas um And I think that what's really unfortunate is that you see these people also becoming our politicians and our leaders and so when we have these flip-flops of parties then suddenly NASA missions are completely cut and Or if if a politician actually follows the science and the scientific information changes, suddenly they're a flip-flopper Right. Yeah, stand, you know Right, exactly. So like how do we have better? How do we have better conversations at these decision-making levels too because we you know, it's just so unfortunate to see things Being built up for years and then suddenly it's like never mind. We're cutting that and you're like There goes like someone's worked down the train. So anyway, I will stop rambling and let you go as well But I mean there's so much to dig dig into right there, but um, I think you're on the right track I think you have the right background for it. I think, you know, your experience is working with scientists right now trying to help them get to the heart of why it matters is important and um, and then also That understanding, you know, where is it for different people in different places and why do different things matter to different groups and How do you tell someone in west virginia or in elinoy to care about a Hydrothermal plane, you know this area in the middle of the atlantic ocean, you know, why there or even Europa It has no relevancy to them and and some people they just won't it won't and I'm totally fine with that Um, but you know, I I have to think about this as a communicator. So yeah, yep And I don't know where you're coming from cannot wait to see uh, what you do next and to find out more about You know the work that you're doing I look forward I look forward. Yeah, I want to know more about the lost city Yeah, yeah, oh you'll yeah, that's it's gonna be my life for like the next year. So yeah Awesome. Well, thank you and thank you to anyone still lingering. It's weird not to be able to I usually I'm when I In the control. Yeah, I can't see like is anyone even there anymore? But yes, thank you Thank you, Sarah. I'm just amazing to get to talk to you once again and for everyone out there one more reminder Sarah Treadwell, you can look for her space case Sarah online all the things spacecase sarah.com or the uh, socials or whatever This has been this week in science. We'll be back again next week Appreciate your time and I do hope that you all don't forget to ask questions But stay safe. Don't lick too many rocks I think it's good. Just go for it. Stay healthy. Stay dangerously. Make a weird rock And this is where uh, stay lucky. There we go. We'll see you next week. Good night