 Welcome to another episode of a likeable science here on Think Tech Hawaii. I'm your host Ethan Allen. Thanks for joining us today. As you know, likeable science is all about how science is a vital and interesting part of everyone's life. How scientists are really interesting people and doing interesting fun things that really relate to everyone's lives and have meaning in people's lives. Science is not some isolated endeavor that takes place in ivory towers. And today, I have with me here, Mohamed Yaqub. Welcome Mohamed. Thank you for having me at the shop. You see, Mohamed got his PhD from the University of Minnesota a few years ago, and he currently works at a group called SILINE, who's really fascinating stuff. SILINE is this non-profit organization in Washington, DC that connects journalists with scientists and to get accurate science portrayed well out to the public, right? Exactly. Yeah. No, this is critical. It's in a lot of way parallel to what we do here on likeable science, right? It is. Yeah. So this is, I'm real pleased to have Mohamed here. And he's actually visiting Hawaii and decided to take some time out from his vacation to come and help out here. So it's great. So maybe let's just start with a little bit of background about you, sort of what got you into science? How did you, why did you like science, what drove you into science or drew you into science, I should say? Yeah, that's great. That was so long ago. So I grew up in a traditional Indian family. So I'm an immigrant to the United States, been here for like 25 years now. But coming from a traditional Indian family, my parents had various, had expectations of us as most parents do, but I was going to be, I was expected to be the medical doctor. My younger brother was expected to be the lawyer and then the youngest was expected to be the professor. So that was like always in the back of my mind, I was like, this is what I have to do. Spoiler alert, none of us are doing those things. But I did realize that in the process that I really do enjoy science. And that really happened when I was at community college. I was taking my intro biology class and trying to finish my general education requirements. And the professor taught that class with such passion. And that's when I was like, science is not just a done deal. It's a process, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. It's a vital and dynamic field. Yeah. Not so much names. We all remember like dissecting that mouse and it's like, it's always terrifying. But like standing there and being like, okay, this is how all these organs work. That's what I remember of science. Right. Exactly. And I'm sorry that you got that understanding and that helped draw you on into the field. And then you ended up pursuing advanced degree of PhD and that must have been a little bit of a challenge for you. So that was, I finished my master's and got a job as a researcher in a plant biology lab. It was great. But at that point I realized that I cannot really lead any project. I would always have to work on other projects so I couldn't contribute to like the leadership. And while I enjoyed doing the research, I wanted to start doing my own projects. And that's why for that, in order to write grants to really support the kind of work, I needed a PhD. Also the look on my parents face when I told them I was going back to get a PhD, not only did I not get a medical degree, but now I was going back to school and going to study weeds as they call them. Price less. This was it. They weren't super happy with it. They, you know, like me, they too learned what a PhD is all about. Yeah. It was a long process for sure. And then you, I got there, you did have a brief stilt where you worked in an emergency room or something? Yeah. So going back actually, so before grad school, so when I was an undergrad, I did, I was like, okay, my parents expect me to be a medical doctor. I'm going to do all the things. And I liked biology. I was like, I'll job shadow in the different venues, right, in the hospitals. It was great. I did pediatrics. It was great. I did, I don't remember something other than anything else. Finally, junior year, I was allowed to job shadow in the ER and this was spring break. Super excited. I was like, this is going to be it. So I went in that Monday morning, Monday, the day passed by, it was really quick. I don't remember much of it. Tuesday morning, I went in and we had two cases. So one was an accident and they brought the patient in and she was unconscious. And I remember the doctor trying to find a vein and so they kept, like, trying to put IV in. At one point, the nurse just pushed me to the side. She was helping the doctor, obviously. And I was just standing there horrified and, like, before we could take a moment, like, once they've stabilized the patient, there was another attempted suicide case that came in. And so that was with, like, cops and they were an overdose of drugs. They were pumping the stomach. And I remember leaving for lunch and just never going back. Like, I was like, this is it. I'm done. I mean, I'm very amazed that people do that. That's clearly not me. Yeah, yeah. You know, it isn't interesting how a brief pivotal experience can really shape your life. Right? You know, it drove you away from medicine. It did. What was interesting was, like, now I'm a junior, and I'm back to the drawing board. Now what do I do? Right? Like, I was like, OK, so science is medical, doctors, because that's what I'd always learned. And so I was like, OK, I don't know what to do. So I was like, OK, I'm going to finish a biology degree and do something. I don't know. And you got into plants. I did, yeah. So I took a genetics class. And the professor was, again, she was a plant geneticist. And I was like, genetics makes sense, right? There's like the general genetic concepts. And the professor, super nice faculty member. And she explained to me, she was like, OK, if you want to do research, you can do research and contribute. It doesn't have to be medicine. Right. Right. So I know. And that's a great field. And God, genetics is moving on so fast now in genomics and understanding how our own genes and the genes of all the little microbes who live within us are all playing games together. I'm amazed at where we've come and where we're going. Yeah. Yeah. Isn't it, isn't it? And it's nice what you point out there that you have these key figures, these key teachers who really help shape your direction of your life and career. Absolutely. Yeah. So then you were studying plant evolution. Now, most people would think you're studying plant evolution. You're going to go out into savannas or fields or deserts or forests or someplace where there's some plants. But you chose to study plants in an urban environment. Eyes are very strange. Well, it's a lot less strange, right? Because we walk around and there are plants all around us. There are plants on the side of roads in alleys. And cities, especially in the northern kind of United States, cities tend to be warmer. They tend to be drier. So as we see this image, there's plants on the side of roads, right? So the ones on the left are experiencing a drastically different environment than the ones on the right. Absolutely right. And so if we just go with sampling, cities are warmer, they're drier, they're more polluted. How does that affect plant growth and development? So that's what I got interested in. I see. It's interesting that they're actually now doing studies on animals, too, that live in cities. And they're finding, for instance, the birds' hearing is being affected by all the background noise. Some of their behaviors are being affected by all this constant interaction. It's crazy, right? They found that birds have shorter wingspans. Mice in Central Park are distinctly different from those around. That was just amazing to read. I was like, oh, evolution did not happen on thousands. It was rapid evolution. It happens very quickly. And animals and plants are incredibly adaptable. Exactly. The population of coyotes within the city limits of Chicago is estimated around 2,000. Really? 2,000 coyotes live within the city of Chicago. Well, next time I visit my brother when he's there, that's what we'll have to go do. Cut some coyotes. Yeah, all right. There you go. That's great. And so specifically, what was your day in your life as an urban pledge? So essentially, I was really interested in cities that are really just warmer environment. And whereas around them, if we think of it geographically, it was a cooler environment. So it's just that distinct difference. How does that affect our plants then becoming different? And if we think about it as one city, fine, that might not make a difference. But there are many cities on the landscape. And all of a sudden, how can these start affecting other populations? And is there migration with pollen and with seeds, so with plants moving? And so that's what got me interested a lot in that. So I went and sampled collected seeds in the cities of these weeds or annuals, short little perennials, and then went outside about 50 or so miles outside the heat island effect. So that's where the heat island effect. The heat of the city extends to. And I sampled seeds from there as well. And so those are the ones that I planted in the common environment and then measured various aspects. And the differences we see at that point are due to genetics because the environment is constant. Okay, you grew them all in common. I did, yeah. Interesting, interesting. And you found that the plants did indeed grow differently. The plants did indeed grow differently. And then the urban ones, I guess, were maybe a little more drought tolerant. They were drought tolerant, but they were also bigger and they grew faster. And they didn't seem to have any, most plants, when they grow faster, they tend to produce fewer seeds, right? There's some trade-off. In this case, it wasn't. The ones that grew bigger, they grew faster, and they had more seeds. So it was this whole like, what is driving that? Well, it sort of makes sense in an urban environment, right? I mean, pay used to grow quickly because you never know what you're gonna stand on. That's right. You got like lawn mowed and it's done. Right, and you better produce a lot of seeds because a whole bunch of urban environment is concrete, which is very inhospitable seeds, right? Statistically, one of those will have to make it. Some of you got to find one that's a little crack between the concrete blocks, basically, yeah. Oh, that's fascinating. That was great. What was interesting is the same pattern. So I also got, fortunately, this was grad school, right? The joys of grad school. I had the opportunity to sample also in Detroit and Chicago and New York and in Baltimore and we found the same patterns in all those cities. So we're seeing that that is a consistent pattern. Interesting, that's very neat. Of course, it's very valuable to do that in multiple sites. Yes. See, it's not just a fluke. It's not just Minneapolis and St. Paul, yes. Excellent, excellent. Has this kind of work been replicated in other continents? I mean, in St. Petersburg and Los Angeles. So I don't know about other continents. There is a group out in Toronto and that's truly trying to bring all this urban ecology. So urban ecology as a field has really started picking up in the late, in the mid 90s and then since then it's picked up. So there's been a lot of work done in Arizona but that's on the flip side because cities tend to have a lot more water in the summer because people are watering. And so it's the exact opposite of what the northern cities are. So there's that kind of dynamic that's happened. Yeah. Interesting. We're interested in equatorial cities versus... Exactly, yeah. Versus cities like Toronto or... And then if we think about islands that is like that's a whole other aspect, right? Right, so. Yeah, and intriguing. And so during this time, as you did this, I mean, it sounds like you could have gone on forever and ever, you know, studying more and more things, different aspects of this, looking at soil conditions as well or water instead of heat. But you obviously, your interests expanded or took somewhat different direction. You talk a little bit about what drove that. Yes, absolutely. So I love science. I love the process of science. It's great. I get to do science. But it was nice to get to go share that science. Too often science as you mentioned earlier is gets done in an ivory tower but that's changing. And I didn't want to be in a lab just doing research and then publishing. And again, not that those aren't any bad things. It was just not for me. And so I had the opportunity to actually set up my field sets at three high schools and one community college. Right, so it was like one of those things where I was like, this will be great. Let me get students to think about science with me. What I will say is, students are amazing. They came up with ideas that I had not even thought of. I remember this one group, they were like, they were very concerned about animals coming into the field site. So they measured the field site, they built a fence around the field site. And it was great. Another group wanted to measure how much sunlight will hit each plant at any given time. And when we calculated there were 3,000 plants times four field sites, it became a little less feasible. And that's what we discussed, like what we measure and why we measure. It's like we might measure plant height and that'll tell us something. But do we measure that every day? Does that tell us something? So our quantification methods are also changing. Right, yeah, do you measure plant weight? How do you measure the weight? Exactly, all these factors. Including roots, non-aclutidine. They're all, but the students were always amazed. They're like, oh, let's do this, let's do this. And I was like, you know what, let's try it. And the great thing is, of course, then you also have all this extra, these extra hands. So you can do experiments you could not do by yourself, right? Exactly, right. And you don't have to pay them. I mean, they were engaged. Yes, no, it was great. Wonderful, that sounds like a real enriching and expanding experience. You can see where that would then lead you to want to do even more of that kind of thing. Because getting people excited about science and having people who don't care about science suddenly begin to see the beauty of science, the power of science, the value of science. Right, so science, again, as I mentioned, is so often thought of as lab codes, right, in the lab. So I have an image, I want to say this image too. And I think it was put earlier. So that is science. So those are what my field sites look like. The one on the right is adjacent to a school, so that building is actually the school. And those kids were involved in helping plant. And at each site, we measure temperature, we collected soil. This is science. Excellent. And we're going to talk more science when we come back. We have to go to a break right now. Mohamed Shakoub is with me. I'm Ethan Allen, your host in Likeable Science, and we'll be back in one minute. Hello, I'm Mufi Hadamid. I want to tell you about a great show that appears on Think Tech Hawaii. It's all about tourism. In fact, we call it Tourism 101, where we talk about the issues and challenges that faces our number one industry throughout the state. We'll have some interesting guests, very informative dialogue, and allow you an opportunity to maybe learn a little bit more about why this industry is so important for our state. It's been great for us in the past. We need it today, and especially going forward. That's Tourism 101 on Think Tech Hawaii. Mahalo. Hi, I am Yukari Kunisue, host of Konnichiwa Hawaii, Think Tech Hawaii's Japanese program, broadcasting every Monday from 2 PM. I usually invite a guest in Japanese language community who does interesting things. And I'd like to share stories with you guys. Please tune in and listen to Konnichiwa Hawaii. Welcome back to Likeable Science here on Think Tech Hawaii. I'm your host, Ethan Allen. With me today in the Likeable Science, of the Think Tech studios, is Mohamed Jakub. And we were talking about his training as an urban plant evolution scientist, and all the fun work he did. But looking now at that more of that transition where he began sharing your science a little more broadly, rather than working so much in the lab, getting other people excited about science, and you over time got involved in more and more programs. And you mentioned a program earlier called Market Science, which sounds sort of interesting. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Market Science, it's a really fun program. So you see an image there, so that's what Market Science looks like. And I'll just briefly talk about that. When I was in grad school, like many other grad students, I too procrastinated writing my dissertation. And so one of my friends and I and my colleagues, Jessica Beaver and I, we decided that we wanted to go share our science with people out in the community. And we decided to start hosting hands-on science with at a local farmer's market, right? So it would like people come to the farmer's market, they are there listening and chatting and it's more for community. And we wanted to do this in a very informal way. So we started hosting this booth, it was great. It was just the two of us, we would be there occasionally hanging out. Over time we got more and more friends, we started doing activities, so we would bring up different plants in the foods that we eat that are sold as a market and what parts of plants are there, right? So celery is the stock, ginger is the root, broccoli and cauliflower are the flowers. And we would bring up microscopes. Everyone loves microscopes. And so it was great to be like, we're here, this is what science is. It need not be just, again, as we've mentioned, just in the lab. Over time we kept great, right? Like so we got bigger, we had more friends join us, it was basically us friends hanging out. And then at one point we got matching shirts, we got a logo, that's when everything got real, because that's when you know things are real. You got a logo, yeah. Yeah, so if you have to look at the first stems, I want this to slide to number four, right? So that's what our market sense setup looks like and so you can see all the, the dissecting scopes, all the dissecting scopes with exactly what I said, like the... Right hand-matching of wires, those are the clamps and the food's down. Great stuff, great stuff. And so that really got you more involved in doing that, some people call outreach, I find that term a little weird, but communicating with the public and sharing science with the public and hearing their questions and being able to answer those questions. It did, yeah. And in fact, I'll share this one story. I remember very distinctly is at one point I was there at the market with my friend Beth Fallon and we had a table set up, our event was looking at tree cookies, so we're like the cross sections of trees, which tell you how old the tree is. But also based on the thickness, we'll tell you whether it was a wet or wet or dry season for the tree. And we had this Somali mom and her son, he was maybe eight, maybe 10, and they came up and he was very excited and the mom comes up to us and she's like, oh, what do you guys do? And we're like, oh, we're both scientists, you know, like that studied how plants, how water moves in oaks and how that's something like that. I don't remember. I don't want to miss speak what her work is. And I was studying urban ecology. And so we told her that, and she looks at it and she's like, well, I'm glad you guys have hobbies, but what do you do? Like, what's your job? Right? And so I'm like, oh, right, this is what I get paid to do. And she was super excited because to her, again, that whole idea of like scientists are always in lab coats, we are not that. She said her son really loved climbing trees and she was like, she wanted to foster that interest, but in a way that would also then help him. You may have helped shape the career of another plant scientist there, wonderful. And so at some point you decided to make this jump into this group called SILINE, right? I did. And because SILINE, I mean, it's great. They do that same thing except on a big scale because they get journalists who are sort of the key translators between science on the one hand and the public on the other, right? Exactly. And science journalists, unfortunately, were at least sort of a dying breed. I guess maybe SILINE is trying to prevent them from going extinct as it were. I don't want to comment. I mean, as you mentioned, like in the last decade or two, newsrooms have been shrinking significantly. And that's where SILINE actually, the idea of SILINE came up is there are a lot of newsrooms that now have general reporters. Again, these are good reporters, but they no longer have newsrooms that have science or health or environmental reporters. But those are issues that affect us, how your health, right? And so these general reporters are doing these stories, but they don't have the technical terminology or the background. And they don't have the rolodex of scientists. And so this is where SILINE came through and were essentially trying to create that condensed connection. Right, and so one of the ways you do this, I gather, is you bring groups of journalists together and sort of immerse them for a period of time in some sense or another, right? Yes, so we have a variety of services that we do. We do the direct connections, we do media briefings. But we've started doing these, we call them boot camps, and they are two-day immersive workshops. So we did one, early this, we've done three so far. The first one really was genomics for journalists. So we did this at the University of Illinois, we brought 30 reporters, and they not only got to learn about the concepts of genetics and genomics, as we mentioned, that's changing, but they also got to be in lab doing lab work. So in that, they're using CRISPR, the CRISPR technology, to really manipulate microbial genomes. Cool, cool. And so then they can really understand what that is. This next camp is actually the science essentials for political reporters. We brought about 30 political reporters to Iowa right ahead of, right, stay there. And we talked to them about issues that may come up. So yes, we know there's science, research and climate and energy, but there is science, there's a lot of science research in immigration and trade, and we talked about those as well. Yeah, yeah, and it's great because at the same time, you're putting the scientists much more in touch with questions that the broader public might have about their work, right? Which they probably don't often learn into. Just bringing scientists and journalists in the same room, it's great because they're both like, no, you don't understand this, you don't understand this. And after a while they're like, oh, I see why that's how you respond, right? Yeah, it's fascinating because if you have their valuable specialties, but they sort of sometimes have their own blinders, right? Yes. And it's wonderful to bring them together. And as a scientist, I can say, right, like I don't want to say anything that's not quite confirmed with evidence, so it might take me a while. But journalists have to report the story, like it's happening now. Like if there's some environmental issue, you don't want to report on it six months later, right? So it's understandable on both ends. Yeah, well, that's what I like about your tagline on your sidelines, expertise and context on the deadline. On deadlines. Right, I mean, those are all, you want that context? You want that context? And yes, the deadline is important to the journalist. It's great. So that's really valuable. And it's funny, it's just journalists will reach out to us and they'll be like, oh, I'm writing a story on whatever topic, can I get a scientist? And sometimes it's on the order of hours, right? And within a few hours, we have, okay, there's a scientist. So that's our main thing that we do is we really connect them directly. Oh, so they can, okay, my story's ready to go, I just need a good quote. Yeah, and it's more like, I want to understand this. Right. And so I'll share one story. So this is where I've learned that two things I've learned is, scientists, there's any kind of research being done, right, we've had stories from like the group behavior of clapping, right? Like there's psychology behind that, there's group behavior to like online memes, how those spread. So there's topics being done on, there's research being done on everything. And science has been done everywhere. We've referred scientists from all 50 states, yes, including Hawaii, and it was great, right? To be like, I had one of your scientists on earlier. Yes, well, that too. Was here several months ago, yeah. Yeah, so no, and that's really, that's really incredibly valuable. And I suspect you try to encourage the journalists to get in touch a little bit earlier than two hours ahead of them. The longer they can give us, the better it is, right? Like if you get a day or two would be great, but we will work with whatever deadline there is. Because scientists aren't always ready or able that they're off at a conference or finishing up their own deadlines or get a paper out or a grant proposal out. Yes. You know, they have their own deadlines too. It is funny when we get like the topics and we're like, and we reach out to scientists and they're like, oh, this week is grant week. And I'm like, okay, it's gonna be a little harder. But well, it's been great. We've referred over 1200 scientists and we've supported over 700 stories and those are the direct connections and not counting the stories that may have come out of there. Right, so these are for newspapers, magazines, online, radio, all the different media. Everything. That's great because so much these days, there seems to be an almost blatant disregard for evidence-based thinking and reporting. And it's wonderful that you guys are doing this with the context. I think what's amazing is scientists want to share their work. So scientists got federal and state money. Like, our tax dollars go to support science research and science is meant to support us all. Right. Many scientists are not trained particularly to communicate very effectively with science. So they are, yes. And I appreciate platforms like this where I get to share what I'm doing and I know you've had other scientists here. That's great. So we are moving a little bit. We'll try to work on the whole training scientists. And because we are fully philanthropically funded, like everything we do is completely free to the reporters. So we are here to help them. So we've had half a dozen philanthropists come through and be like, we really care about science or journalism or both. Right, so you probably then also archive all these stories you do so there's somebody else comes up asking for the same kind of topic. You can't go to the website and see them. Well, here's what so-and-so did a while ago. We have that, yes. That's great. The other thing that internally we're all, so we're a small team of eight and we're always really excited about everything new that we learn so every morning. We're like, oh, did you know about so-and-so? And it's great to learn the things that we learn. Yeah, all the obscure stuff that I had to study and figure out that's so bizarre. Yeah. So it's really that this is fascinating stuff. And so where is the pipeline going to go? How is it going to grow? What are the leaders of the pipeline want to see in five years? You know, so like I said, there's only eight of us. And my boss is amazing in the sense that every year we have a summit and ours this year happened to be last Friday right before I left. So I've had a chance to really think about what we talked about. At the end of the day, we really, all eight of us really came up with like where do you want to go? And so we're going to start doing a little more trainings for scientists to be able to communicate, to really be like, how can you not just talk about the technical work, but what are the effects for and what that looks like. We want to continue really bringing scientists and reporters together because we've learned that bringing them in the same space, even however level of formal and formal, it's great, they really get those conversations going. Yeah, yeah, that's absolutely critical work. I think it's important to not be over-emphasized in these days when we sometimes, I feel like it's being sort of downgraded and pushed aside, it's subverted to, it's an interesting time occasionally when I look at that. So it's great. So if you had to, having done your interesting career transitions, if you had to give advice to an aspiring student who looks at that interface of science and journalism or science and communication, what advice would you give to that student? Funny, I should reach out to our interns. We had two interns this summer, they're both at that interface, both amazing people, like I was like, I don't know how we, now it feels weird not working with them. But I think the key thing is both science and journalism are changing so much, but having the science, learning the science is great. You absolutely should. Learning how to communicate it is also equally important. And those skills will help you no matter what direction your research goes. Even if you end up being in a lab all day, that's great, but as long as you know how to talk about it. Yeah, you absolutely have to communicate yourself. Yeah, one of the things that my boss always says is go out and ask, how do you know that? So like whatever you read, whatever story, how do they know that? So we see stories like, how much coffee is good for you? How much coffee is bad for you? Well, how do they know that? What do they do the research on? So it's always, how do you know that? Yeah, exactly, exactly. And my wife sort of jokingly sort of says, you scientists are always changing your mind. One year you're telling us this is good for you, next year it's saying it's bad for you. But let's look at how do they do that, right? Did they just do it? So I think the whole, how do you know that? Like that sticks with me a lot more now. Yeah, that's evidence-based thinking. Exactly. Which is so critical when all of them. Hey, so this is great. Folks can access SILINE online. SILINE.org Yes, SILINE.org S-C-I-L-I-N-E Yes. .org And that's a great organization. I'm sure your website has all kinds of good stuff on it. If people want to learn about it or connect local journalists with scientists or connect local scientists with journalists. Absolutely. Yeah. And everything we do, again, like I said, is fully philanthropic funded. So everything is also on our website. Access for anyone who is interested. Yeah, fascinating stuff, fascinating stuff. Mohammed, I want to thank you so much for taking time out of your vacation. Usually, I say, SILINE is taking time out of your busy schedule for your vacation. But it's great that you've been able to come here and talk about this. And I get to sort of meet, in a sense, a peer who's doing the same kind of stuff that I'm doing here in lifeable science, but through a different channel. Thank you both for having me. And for having this kind of channel, this is great. No, I hope we'll be able to continue collaborating. And if there's ways that I can help SILINE by helping train scientists as a word. We'll definitely continue this conversation. And we'll vice versa. Please don't hesitate to let me know. OK, Mohammed Gakkub from SILINE has been my guest today. Thank you very much. Thank you. Aloha.